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This seems like a bit of contradictory logic to me regarding focusing on local policy and then stating that hyper-local decisions aren't enough to solve the pro

by bumby 5y ago

This seems like a bit of contradictory logic to me regarding focusing on local policy and then stating that hyper-local decisions aren't enough to solve the problem. It's hard for me to ascertain from your response where the effective policy threshold is set. From your perspective is it at the personal, local, state, nation-state, or global level where it's sufficient to solve the problem? Policy can be (and is) created globally. I think we can impart global climate policy, but only to the level the individual state actors are willing to hold others accountable. If your local community bans natural gas fired heating, but also doesn't hold people accountable for breaking that standard it's not going to be an effective policy. Global policy is very much the same.

epistasis 5y ago
In the US, local policy is the best we have for changing land use at the moment. I'd love nothing more than for states or the feds to wrest control away from municipalities and counties, since local levels do not have a good understanding of land use. However, acting on the local level does not preclude acting at higher levels. It's just that both changing policy and changing who controls the policy might be a bigger challenge than working within the current separation of powers. And even though local communities only change small parts of a system it's still changing the system, and demonstrating to other cities what is possible. My planning commissioners think that apartments "destroy" neighborhoods. When they see nearby communities adopting apartments without neighborhoods getting destroyed, it makes change more likely. One thing about setting policy at a higher level is that it would still have the same effect that lower levels should enact to optimize their decarbonization path. Even if global policy is the same, different regions have different decarbonization paths.

by bumby 5y ago

epistasis 5y ago

In the US, local policy is the best we have for changing land use at the moment. I'd love nothing more than for states or the feds to wrest control away from municipalities and counties, since local levels do not have a good understanding of land use. However, acting on the local level does not preclude acting at higher levels. It's just that both changing policy and changing who controls the policy might be a bigger challenge than working within the current separation of powers. And even though local communities only change small parts of a system it's still changing the system, and demonstrating to other cities what is possible. My planning commissioners think that apartments "destroy" neighborhoods. When they see nearby communities adopting apartments without neighborhoods getting destroyed, it makes change more likely. One thing about setting policy at a higher level is that it would still have the same effect that lower levels should enact to optimize their decarbonization path. Even if global policy is the same, different regions have different decarbonization paths.