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Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

79 points by bko 5y ago

Lammy 5y ago
What a shitty post. I guess I don't believe in climate change after all unless I also believe in public losses for privatized gains. Corporations raked in billions while wrecking the environment and I'm sure they all love framing this as an individual responsibility that we're all "failing" to do.
- bko 5y ago
  > In February 2019, the center-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade [0] Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $5 trillion per year. > The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data last updated Oct. 19, 2020 So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 years of something that no one claims will actually solve climate change. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal [1] https://windfalldata.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top-1-of-every-state/ https://windfalldata.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top...
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
    > Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $500 billion per year. Over a decade, that would be $5 Trillion per year since a decade has 10 years.
    - bko 5y ago
      Thanks for pointing that out. edited
  - falcolas 5y ago
    > seize all the wealth How do you propose doing that legally? Or how should the US government survive the wealthy citizen's legal assault if they were to find a loophole?
    - bko 5y ago
      I'm not. I'm just pointing out that a massive effort requires a broad tax base. I understand everyone wants the wealthy to pay for everything, but there is quite literally not enough wealthy people in the world to begin to tackle a large problem. Everyone has to contribute
      - falcolas 5y ago
        You should clarify such; it's not even remotely clear from the original post.
  - Lammy 5y ago
    Personally I tend to be skeptical of anything that discusses nationality at all when it comes to climate change, unless we can somehow move all of the pollution outside the environment (into another environment)
  - jdgoesmarching 5y ago
    The American Action Forum is nowhere close to “center-right”, only they call themselves that. It is a conservative think tank that almost exclusively works for Republicans. Their figures aren’t even in “let’s debate” realm. They cite $36 trillion just for universal healthcare when even the CBO admits that Medicare for All would save $300-600 billion per year. This is nowhere close to good faith accounting, it’s intentionally misleading
    - bko 5y ago
      This was the google snippet for green new deal cost. Please provide a better source of the actual cost.
      - handrous 5y ago
        I quick search yields that the best answer is "no-one knows because the proposal remains too vague and too much in-flux to provide an answer". The CBO has not yet weighed in. That's usually a good starting point for any legislation that's getting seriously close to consideration.
    - LorenPechtel 5y ago
      The $36T figure isn't unreasonable, just cherry-picked. It's counting up the costs without counting the money that is no longer spent elsewhere. It's like saying that if I decide to patronize the Chevron station it's going to cost $800/year to buy gas, without considering that I'm currently spending $800/year at the Shell station.
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    > $51–$93 trillion over the next decade About right when you spend $1280 on a coffee cup: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-spent-1280-on-coffee-cup-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-spent-1280-on-c...
  - qqqwerty 5y ago
    The GND included universal healthcare and jobs programs, both of which are the biggest line items in the AAF estimates. They estimated the cost of dealing with carbon emissions at around $7 trillion. And that money is largely for capital expenditures, which anyone who has half a brain would finance over 20-30 year period. And a large chunk of that $7 trillion can be passed off to utility rate payers over that time period with barely a noticeable increase in rates based on how cheap renewables are getting. Also, AAF can hardly be trusted to fairly evaluate the cost/benefits. A slight increase in utility bills pales in comparison to having to abandon your house due to increased flooding due to climate change. It is funny how when they are doing analysis of tax cuts, they turn over every stone looking to squeeze out questionable "economic productivity" increases to add to their models, and yet when it comes to climate change, they just throw out a bunch of big numbers and call it a day.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 years of something that no one claims will actually solve climate change. Maybe we could buy some healthcare or bike paths or something. The important thing is seizing the wealth of the 1%.
    - walkedaway 5y ago
      Why do you think you're entitled to 100% of my wealth?
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        I doubt I'll get it. I don't even get a discount on healthcare.gov. Mostly I'd like to see USA governed by its citizens rather than the rich. If they weren't rich anymore that might happen. Of course the point is that the rich won't allow this. The system will not fix the harms it was designed to create. If something like this went through it would probably take from the (5-1)% and give to the 0.1%.
        walkedaway 5y ago
        Got it. Make everyone poor and suffer. Great plan.
        jessaustin 5y ago
        The cutoff I've seen for the 1% is $11M net worth. Is everyone poorer than that, "suffering"? What kind of world do you live in?
        walkedaway 5y ago
        By definition there's a new 1% when you take the top 1% and make it 0. Then you take the new 1%. And so on. Simple math. Everyone ends up with zero.
        5y ago
- darth_avocado 5y ago
  Well at the end of the day, corporations are feeding individual demands to make profits. If individuals demand more sustainable alternatives, I am sure the corporations will pivot. People refuse to peel garlic themselves, and you see shelves full of pods of garlic, peeled and packed in plastic that ends up in the oceans eventually. If everyone decided tomorrow to just buy whole garlic that doesn't need packaging, corporations will supply you with that. It's easy to blame corporations, and no doubt with their shady lobbying practices over decades should be accounted for. But individual responsibility also needs to be acknowledged.
okareaman 5y ago
Of course if you frame it like that they don't want to pay. Americans want billionaires to pay for climate programs since many made a fortune not caring about climate, kept getting richer during a global pandemic, and show no interest in addressing the grotesque wealth inequality in America.
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  I'll start paying when the people start paying who believe the very same charlatans who fly around in private planes, have several cars and houses, and yachts while traveling to places they could have just as easily teleconferenced to, while also supporting the movement of people from low to high climate change impact countries. What we need is a voluntary tax to pay for climate change. You want it, sign up for the 10% increase in taxes, it will just be linked to your name and whenever there is a tax, you simply pay an additional 10% more that will all go to fighting climate change. Everything else is really about authoritarianism and subjugation of people one wants to dominate and punish. We could have had people paying 10% voluntary climate change tax for 30+ years now.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    The idea the Greta Thunberg has to travel to New York by sailboat is ludicrous, but because of people with your attitude, she did it. You have to work from inside the system to change it. Paying for climate change is not a luxury elective item. Sometimes a society has to collectively act to protect itself, even over the protestations of people who believe as you do.
    - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
      > she did it Heh, at the same time 2 people had to fly to the US to bring the boat back... if she was so concerned, she could have come back on that boat.
fallingknife 5y ago
Hard to control for how many of the "no" responses are due to lack of trust that the government will actually spend the money fighting global warming vs people just not willing to part with money.
- aksss 5y ago
  The 'government' at all level has enormous unfunded liabilities and a consistent record of siphoning revenue raised through special taxes into completely unrelated expenditures.
trboyden 5y ago
Americans pay many fees and taxes that go to environmental concerns. They also see the government does not use that revenue to address those environmental concerns, because instead it goes to state and federal pensions. Therefore, the real issue is, what do Americans have to do to get the government to spend the money on the things they say it is supposed to go to? Until the government is willing to change their spending habits, yes, Americans will be unwilling to contribute more to the national credit card with no limit.
- chickenpotpie 5y ago
  “Americans pay many fees and taxes that go to environmental concerns” Doubt. Environmentalism is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of US governmental spending. Edit: it’s .2% of the budget. Defense is a whopping 14%. We spend 70 times less on environmentalism than military and we’re not even at war. Source: http://saveepaalums.info/EPA+costs+to+taxpayers http://saveepaalums.info/EPA+costs+to+taxpayers
  - trboyden 5y ago
    And your point is what? You just provided the exact evidence to what I already stated. Parts of the gas tax, excise taxes, vehicle sales tax, recycling fees, etc... are all fees that Americans pay that are supposed to go to addressing impact on the environment. But the government only spends 0.2% on it. Where did the money go? That is exactly my point. Most of it went to pay pensions that the government over promises on and doesn't budget enough for. Any business that did that would be out of business or switching to 401ks, which most have done.
    - chickenpotpie 5y ago
      1) most of those taxes aren’t specifically for environmental policies. For example, vehicle taxes go to fund roads 2) no, most of government spending does not go to funding pensions and there’s absolutely no evidence to support that. That claim is absolutely ludicrous.
h8liu 5y ago
This is like asking if one would pay more taxes, where it is unclear how the tax will be used to improve common good. I bet if you ask people if they are willing to pay $1000 dollars (financed as $40/m in 25 months) to secure a spaceship ticket to escape the failing earth climate (assuming the spaceship already exists), many people will happily pay it.
- h8liu 5y ago
  and the spaceship tech owner can just use that money to build and implement clean energy solutions to revert climate change, and never really need to build the actual spaceships..
jmann99999 5y ago
The problem with this post is that it cites a survey of how much Americans are willing to pay to "stop climate change." According to the article 57% are willing to pay $1 a month to "stop climate change" and 23% would pay $40 a month. As an American, in a well paying IT job, I'd pay $100 IF IT WOULD STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. However, I don't believe the $1, or $40, or $100 is going to do anything. It's far more complex than that. It reaffirms one of my maxims... beware the worthless survey.
- hairofadog 5y ago
  I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm very worried about climate change, and I would be willing to make any number of sacrifices to _effectively_ combat climate change. However, the question is this: > _Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. Would you vote in favor of this monthly fee to combat climate change, or would you vote against this monthly fee?_ My utility company can barely run their billing website. Paying them $40 a month to "combat climate change" sounds like throwing money into a hole. So no, I wouldn't do that. Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? Yes! Would I vote for legislation that would place limitations on the production of plastics, even if it meant raising the price of consumer goods? Probably! I know, I know, there's complexity in these issues, but my point is that I'd be willing to pay more to combat climate change. I'm just picky about who I'm paying it to, whether the costs will be distributed justly, and what they plan to do with that money.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    > Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? FWIW, there are actually fewer "subsidies" to fossil fuels that could actually be redirected than most people here think. When you read HN articles and comments on the "fossil fuel subsidies", in my experience the bulk of these is "fossil fuel has this and that externality, and users of fossil fuels don't have to pay for it, so we count it as a subsidy". Whether you agree that this actually counts as subsidy or not, it's not like you can redirect it.
tdfx 5y ago
This poll doesn't say much about whether Americans are willing to pay to stop climate change, it just says a lot about whether Americans trust their government with a blank check to fight climate change. I wouldn't support "giving them money and letting them figure out the best way to use it", either. Let's hear a specific policy proposal.
- iguanayou 5y ago
  1. Carbon tax 2. Cap and trade The problem is NOT that there have been no good proposed policy solutions. The problem is that voters don't want them. This is why I'm pessimistic on the environment.
  - ItsMonkk 5y ago
    You can trivially set up a carbon tax that a majority of voters would vote for, simply give the money that you taxed back out equally among the population as a form of UBI. We don't see these proposals because they are not proposals that the wealthy and powerful would benefit from.
    - iguanayou 5y ago
      Exactly. Making the whole "I don't trust the government to do something smart with my money" argument moot. It has been proposed, voters have seen the proposal, and it has been voted down.
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        Well this presumes two things, one, that there are no valid arguments against cap and trade, and two, that propaganda against cap and trade is not effective. But both are true. Plenty of people do oppose cap and trade simply because those influencing their political stripe loudly oppose it, and plenty of people have valid concerns about what the effects of such a scheme would be and potential downsides to it. One particular argument would be that there would probably be all sorts of exemptions and subsidies so as to make it ineffective against the largest producers of CO2, which is a version of "I don't trust the government to do something smart with my money," making it not a moot point after all.
gentleman11 5y ago
Just last night a BC. Village was destroyed by fire after breaking heat records at 49C. I posted the story to hn just now, not sure if I should link to it or not, but there are lots of news outlets covering it if you are curious (Eg, CBC)
ineiti 5y ago
In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the youngest part of the population, the ones who will be the most impacted by the climate crisis, voted the strongest against it. Switzerland being one of the richest countries, I cannot understand how an increase of 10% on luxury items (plane tickets) can have this impact. Funny story: now that the law has been refused, the oil companies announced a 15% increase of the gas price... Nobody is protesting so far.
- dukoid 5y ago
  I wish there had been three polls instead: One for gas, one for heating and one for flights... O:)
  - loonster 5y ago
    I would expect all 3 would have passed then. Each of the proposals likely has slightly different demographics of people that are opposed to it. 1 % margin isnt much to overcome.
- jlawson 5y ago
  >improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. What does "improve heating" mean? How does "direct pay to poor citizens" help climate change? Perhaps the law wasn't really about climate change, but was another one of those times where policy someone wanted anyway was being pushed with climate change as an excuse. In any case I can't form an opinion on this vote result without knowing what was actually being voted on.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > What does "improve heating" mean? Not Swiss, so this is mostly conjecture, but what is usually included in those types of proposals is to improve housing insulation and the heating network ( in the case of central heating, either per building or more central) making them more efficient, thus requiring less energy to achieve the same effect ( people aren't cold in their homes).
davesque 5y ago
I think "people" aren't given enough credit. They're actually pretty smart. They know that, when they're questioned by a surveyor, they can feel better about themselves by claiming that they'd be willing pay to address climate change. They know they can get that psychological benefit completely for free without having to do anything other than just answering the question in a certain way. So that makes surveys about the issue seem pretty meaningless; their outcomes have very little to do with the actual issue being surveyed. Also, people are actually pretty smart because they know that every other individual in the economic arena will act in their own best interest. So they make the correct decision of saving money for themselves. That's exactly why any sort of individual brow beating always strikes me as totally misguided and counterproductive. People are not likely to spontaneously move to solve such a large problem when doing so puts them at an individual loss. It doesn't matter if you think that sort of behavior is immoral or unethical. On the other hand, it seems to me that large organizations such as corporations and governments have many more incentives to mitigate large scale issues like this for a couple of reasons: 1) They can more easily coordinate since there are fewer organizations of that size that have to cooperate; 2) They are in a better position to quantify the risk of failing to act. There are probably plenty of corporate strategists that are starting to raise the alarm about a possible future world in which it's impossible to make any money as a result of a climate catastrophe. I've never really been able to get on board with ways of arguing about climate change that fit the mold of this article. Individuals simply are not going to act to solve this problem. Get over it and move on.
- tixocloud 5y ago
  I agree that large organizations and governments have more incentives and more resources to tackle a large issue like this.
TiberiusC 5y ago
This is why economic growth is key to climate change. As disposable income grows for the median household, adoption for socially acceptable goods will increase. When you increase taxes and regulations everywhere, you decrease the ability to adopt pro-climate consumerism.
- anoncake 5y ago
  No, that just increases people's desire for material goods even more. There is no fixed level of material wealth people expect.
zepto 5y ago
Utterly incompetent article, basing all its conclusions on this poll question: “Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month.” It then assumes that voting against the proposal indicates an unwillingness to pay for climate change. This completely misses the obvious - which is that a $10 monthly fee will not solve climate change and so people are right to vote against the proposal. Indeed it would be ridiculous for people to vote for such a proposal.
- Glench 5y ago
  Actually if we electrified our homes, most households in the US would save money: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/bringing-infrastructure-home https://www.rewiringamerica.org/bringing-infrastructure-home & https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report
einarfd 5y ago
For these numbers to say anything about lack of interest in combating climate change. We would also need to know what people would answer if you switched out climate change with some other worthwhile cause. How many would want to pay 40$ for better firefighters, solve structural racism, water security in western states, or military veterans? Without something to compare it with, there is no context to say if the numbers are good or not. I wonder if what this actually shows is that people don't like to pay taxes? Or that they think climate change should be possible to solve with the current tax rate with a reprioritizing of tax money?
- Aperocky 5y ago
  There. The federal government has been blowing billions in Afghanistan, I'm sure they can try to use it on something else instead of levying more taxes from me and my coworkers.
  - aksss 5y ago
    I always say, if you're going to invest in fixing a foreign country, start with Mexico.
debacle 5y ago
> the group most likely to be willing to pay $40 a month are those making less than $10,000 (5.6% of population, 55.32% oppose). This points more to the weakness of the study than anything else.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Not necessarily, poor people are actually known to be surprisingly generous.
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briantakita 5y ago
The world should pay me trillions to solve climate change. I'll do whatever it takes to make climate change a thing of the past. What's that? You don't want to pay me Trillions to solve your problem that I say you have? Well, that makes you a climate change denier and worse of all, a Science denier. You are literally dooming humanity because you are selfish & greedy & don't want to pay me Trillions. How dare you! You should feel shame.
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twobitshifter 5y ago
When you see companies asking everyone to commute back to the office does it seem like climate change crossed their minds?
pohl 5y ago
We'll definitely pay, though. We will pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ We're gonna pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ We will pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ Save me, save me from tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Throwing money at climate change doesn't fix it. Telling entities that already ravage the planet does. But which one do you think is easier for everyone universally to say "I'm helping!" without actually doing anything?
steveBK123 5y ago
This is pretty obvious. My most outspoken Green New Deal supporting friends & family who were reposting social media of Greta & AOC are also 0-1 child households with SUVs. It's hashtag activism. No one wants to make sacrifices. The only solutions are going to be finding ways to grow our way out of it and incentivize good things (fuel economy, EVs, rail, solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal heat pumps, etc). Neither Degrowth nor expecting people to vote their conscience with their wallet are going to work. Even today - look at how tax incentivized solar is, and how fast the break-even is.. and yet how few people take advantage of it?
- post_break 5y ago
  Speaking of solar do you have it installed on your house? Even with tax credits do you know how much they cost, they are not cheap. And financing it isn't like a car. Sure it's 1% finance but add like 10K finance charge which kills the rebate. All on top of that you actually have to own a home, which is becoming impossible in america.
  - steveBK123 5y ago
    Not yet because you only want to install on a newer roof otherwise you pay a lot to uninstall/reinstall on roof replacement. Relative to price of a home, they are cheap, under $10k without storage. People spend 2-5x more on a kitchen or bathroom cosmetic remodel. If you need financing, you can use a HELOC. The break even is like 4 years. Your statements are fairly hyperbolic considering something like 60% of Americans own their home, so it can't be impossible.
    - trboyden 5y ago
      Try $20k plus a re-roof at $10k. And that is for a small 1200sqft 3 bed/1 bath house that has full south-southwest exposure.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  > Even today - look at how tax incentivized solar is, and how fast the break-even is.. and yet how few people take advantage of it? In most areas? Not fast at all, and very close to the expected life of the panels for consumer-grade house panels considering the up-front investment.
neltnerb 5y ago
I clicked through to the actual poll, and just for some context the actual poll is from 2018. Not that I think attitudes are likely to have changed substantially, but after the power grid collapses in both Texas and California it is possible that there has been movement towards recognizing that there are costs we will pay one way or another and that paying them while also having reasonable climate is much more comfortable in the long term. It's a good point though, asking whether someone believes climate change is real is a very low bar. It's like literacy rates, the rate depends on what grade level you define as literate. Once literacy gets high enough for a given definition you have to make the criteria more stringent to see differences. So step 1 is "is this real" and step 2 is "what would you sacrifice to stop it". We're still barely past step 1...
rhacker 5y ago
The government isn't willing to stop climate change either. I REALLY want to do a large solar panel setup at my house, but it looks like there's no way around paying through the anus for the ground mount "system" instead of buying 2" pipe with concrete set in the ground every 8 feet. Because then I would be inventing it myself. Yet if I want PG&E there is NO FUCKING PERMIT and you just do it. Explosive results.
jbluepolarbear 5y ago
One of example: my electric company offers green energy at about $0.15 more per unit than non green energy. If that was it I and many people would go green, but if you read the fine print that is a variable rate and could be much higher in high demand. That green power isn’t worth the real potential of a thousand dollar electric bill.
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post_break 5y ago
I'm looking at dropping 25k on solar panels soon to have a zero electric bill, so I'm doing my part I guess.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  As someone interested in doing this, does this include installation cost or are you doing it yourself? What percentage of the cost is installation? Also what capacity does it provide for air conditioning? I don't use air conditioning all that much but I would like the option and I know you have to plan your install for peak usage and not general usage, and you can mitigate that with batteries but that cost has diminishing returns.
  - post_break 5y ago
    Turn key. 9.5kw system. Averages out to about a $0 electric bill for the year, this is in texas so AC is a must. This is grid tie system so during summer months I will pull more than I make, but will make up for it in winter months, averaging it out to 0.
lastofthemojito 5y ago
> The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. --John Steinbeck in Cannery Row (published 1945)
- handrous 5y ago
  It's worth noting that there's a lot more being said when that is placed in context, and in the mouth and circumstances of the character speaking those words, than when it's presented, bare, as an aphorism due the author. (it's on archive.org, for the curious)
m1117 5y ago
I can see some aliens look at earth and say "There're some smart individuals, but as a group humans are so dumb."
deregulateMed 5y ago
My opposition comes from my lack of faith in the US government and my state government. If we pay $10, what percentage actually goes to fighting climate change, and what percentage goes to pensions and interest payments on debt. We had our sales tax raised "for the children" to make our schools better. Money goes into the general fund. I'm not sure the solution, but I have doubts the US government can handle money.
unchocked 5y ago
People aren't wired to protect against future threats. Adaptation is going to be a whopper.
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
I read in WaPo that the residents of the Florida condos that collapsed had refused to pay for the necessary repairs in 2019 [1]. Now many of them who made that decision are dead. If we can't make rational decisions in this situation, how can we make rational decisions about climate change. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/majority-of-florida-condo-board-quit-in-2019-as-squabbling-residents-dragged-out-plans-for-repairs/2021/06/30/43592282-d98e-11eb-ae62-2d07d7df83bd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/majority-of-fl...
nverno 5y ago
Translation: people are skeptical of paying money to the government to fix something when they don't even bother to specify a plan of action
elipsey 5y ago
Climate change is a collective action problem; the fact that people don't want to solve it with voluntary donations doesn't imply that they think the problem is unimportant. It would be equally reasonable to propose that roads or police or militaries should be funded solely with voluntary donations, and then use support for that proposal as a measure of public sentiment towards the necessity of those functions. Of course, these functions are used as canonical justifications for the existence of the state in the first place.
juancn 5y ago
It should say: "are not willing to pay extra". My guess is that most people already pay an awful lot in taxes, so they would be more willing for some of those taxes they already pay be shifted to climate change initiatives.
betwixthewires 5y ago
The methodology of arriving st the conclusion in the title is flawed. Polling people "would you want to pay the government extra money to fight climate change" tells you a more nuanced story than "people won't put their money where their mouth is." Americans in particular, and people in general, don't trust their government to mediate solutions to problems. If you gave a more concrete solution rather than just "we are gonna effectively raise your taxes and do what we say with the money, efficiently and effectively, promise" I'm sure you'd get a lot more support. But people that pay into social security and then watch that fund get plundered and be on the verge of bankruptcy, asking those people if they'd give the government money so they can manage a fund directed solely at solving a problem and then being surprised when the answer is "no," to attribute that to not actually caring and only paying lip service to the problem is quite a leap.
blooalien 5y ago
And then there's those of us Americans who've already been sacrificing nearly our entire lives to try to protect the environment because we were taught young that we only have the one planet, and if we trash it, it's pretty much over. Those of us who remember when climatologists first warned about climate change and took it seriously. Those of us who've tolerated insults and ridicule over our "paranoia", and still to this day get ridiculed by those who still don't believe climate change is a thing, or that it's affected by human activity. But hey, Americans aren't willing to do anything about climate change... Yeah, whatever... It's our politicians and their corporate owners that don't want to do anything about anything. And like most governments in the world today, "we the people" no longer have any control over our "public servants". They pretty much just do as they want whether we like it or not. Doesn't really matter who we vote in to office if all the candidates we're offered are already corrupt corporate puppets from the get-go.
lamontcg 5y ago
Given the way that housing, health care and education costs are spiraling out of control it makes sense that the average American wouldn't want to pay anything to mitigate climate change. And they shouldn't be asked to, and its not really necessary.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  (not necessary for them to pay in order to mitigate climate change. mitigating climate change should be done, but it doesn't need to be expensive)
RickJWagner 5y ago
I saw some of this first hand not long ago. I tend to vote conservative, yet my frugal (ok, cheap) nature makes me a natural energy-saver. As an example, I tend to buy cars like a Prius or something with modest fuel needs. I look for ways to save electricity around the house. etc. I was conversing on social media with a colleague from my hometown. We were (regrettably) talking politics, she made what she considered a 'drop the mic' point by stating "I vote this way because I believe in the science of climate change!" The irony: her family hobby (with husband) is drag racing. They take great pride in their fuel-sucking Camaro, complete with truck rig to pull it. I guess we're both turned around.
mikewarot 5y ago
If I had any confidence in my government, I might be willing to consider supporting government action, but I don't. They've burned all of their reputation points.
tim333 5y ago
>Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. The article says people say no so they aren't will to stop climate change but $10 on the electricity bill is no way going to stop climate change! I wish people would get real with this and say "We figure a global carbon price of $200 a ton would fix climate change. Would you be up for that?" Which might actually work. I mean you'd have to get global buy in but it would be a real solution rather than the dumb, ineffective, CO2 keeps going up anyway stuff they do now.

79 points by bko 5y ago

What a shitty post. I guess I don't believe in climate change after all unless I also believe in public losses for privatized gains. Corporations raked in billions while wrecking the environment and I'm sure they all love framing this as an individual responsibility that we're all "failing" to do.

bko 5y ago
> In February 2019, the center-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade [0] Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $5 trillion per year. > The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data last updated Oct. 19, 2020 So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 years of something that no one claims will actually solve climate change. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal [1] https://windfalldata.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top-1-of-every-state/ https://windfalldata.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  > Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $500 billion per year. Over a decade, that would be $5 Trillion per year since a decade has 10 years.
  - bko 5y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out. edited
- falcolas 5y ago
  > seize all the wealth How do you propose doing that legally? Or how should the US government survive the wealthy citizen's legal assault if they were to find a loophole?
  - bko 5y ago
    I'm not. I'm just pointing out that a massive effort requires a broad tax base. I understand everyone wants the wealthy to pay for everything, but there is quite literally not enough wealthy people in the world to begin to tackle a large problem. Everyone has to contribute
    - falcolas 5y ago
      You should clarify such; it's not even remotely clear from the original post.
- Lammy 5y ago
  Personally I tend to be skeptical of anything that discusses nationality at all when it comes to climate change, unless we can somehow move all of the pollution outside the environment (into another environment)
- jdgoesmarching 5y ago
  The American Action Forum is nowhere close to “center-right”, only they call themselves that. It is a conservative think tank that almost exclusively works for Republicans. Their figures aren’t even in “let’s debate” realm. They cite $36 trillion just for universal healthcare when even the CBO admits that Medicare for All would save $300-600 billion per year. This is nowhere close to good faith accounting, it’s intentionally misleading
  - bko 5y ago
    This was the google snippet for green new deal cost. Please provide a better source of the actual cost.
    - handrous 5y ago
      I quick search yields that the best answer is "no-one knows because the proposal remains too vague and too much in-flux to provide an answer". The CBO has not yet weighed in. That's usually a good starting point for any legislation that's getting seriously close to consideration.
  - LorenPechtel 5y ago
    The $36T figure isn't unreasonable, just cherry-picked. It's counting up the costs without counting the money that is no longer spent elsewhere. It's like saying that if I decide to patronize the Chevron station it's going to cost $800/year to buy gas, without considering that I'm currently spending $800/year at the Shell station.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  > $51–$93 trillion over the next decade About right when you spend $1280 on a coffee cup: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-spent-1280-on-coffee-cup-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-spent-1280-on-c...
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  The GND included universal healthcare and jobs programs, both of which are the biggest line items in the AAF estimates. They estimated the cost of dealing with carbon emissions at around $7 trillion. And that money is largely for capital expenditures, which anyone who has half a brain would finance over 20-30 year period. And a large chunk of that $7 trillion can be passed off to utility rate payers over that time period with barely a noticeable increase in rates based on how cheap renewables are getting. Also, AAF can hardly be trusted to fairly evaluate the cost/benefits. A slight increase in utility bills pales in comparison to having to abandon your house due to increased flooding due to climate change. It is funny how when they are doing analysis of tax cuts, they turn over every stone looking to squeeze out questionable "economic productivity" increases to add to their models, and yet when it comes to climate change, they just throw out a bunch of big numbers and call it a day.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 years of something that no one claims will actually solve climate change. Maybe we could buy some healthcare or bike paths or something. The important thing is seizing the wealth of the 1%.
  - walkedaway 5y ago
    Why do you think you're entitled to 100% of my wealth?
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      I doubt I'll get it. I don't even get a discount on healthcare.gov. Mostly I'd like to see USA governed by its citizens rather than the rich. If they weren't rich anymore that might happen. Of course the point is that the rich won't allow this. The system will not fix the harms it was designed to create. If something like this went through it would probably take from the (5-1)% and give to the 0.1%.
      - walkedaway 5y ago
        Got it. Make everyone poor and suffer. Great plan.
        jessaustin 5y ago
        The cutoff I've seen for the 1% is $11M net worth. Is everyone poorer than that, "suffering"? What kind of world do you live in?
        walkedaway 5y ago
        By definition there's a new 1% when you take the top 1% and make it 0. Then you take the new 1%. And so on. Simple math. Everyone ends up with zero.
        5y ago
darth_avocado 5y ago
Well at the end of the day, corporations are feeding individual demands to make profits. If individuals demand more sustainable alternatives, I am sure the corporations will pivot. People refuse to peel garlic themselves, and you see shelves full of pods of garlic, peeled and packed in plastic that ends up in the oceans eventually. If everyone decided tomorrow to just buy whole garlic that doesn't need packaging, corporations will supply you with that. It's easy to blame corporations, and no doubt with their shady lobbying practices over decades should be accounted for. But individual responsibility also needs to be acknowledged.

okareaman 5y ago

Of course if you frame it like that they don't want to pay. Americans want billionaires to pay for climate programs since many made a fortune not caring about climate, kept getting richer during a global pandemic, and show no interest in addressing the grotesque wealth inequality in America.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago
I'll start paying when the people start paying who believe the very same charlatans who fly around in private planes, have several cars and houses, and yachts while traveling to places they could have just as easily teleconferenced to, while also supporting the movement of people from low to high climate change impact countries. What we need is a voluntary tax to pay for climate change. You want it, sign up for the 10% increase in taxes, it will just be linked to your name and whenever there is a tax, you simply pay an additional 10% more that will all go to fighting climate change. Everything else is really about authoritarianism and subjugation of people one wants to dominate and punish. We could have had people paying 10% voluntary climate change tax for 30+ years now.
- okareaman 5y ago
  The idea the Greta Thunberg has to travel to New York by sailboat is ludicrous, but because of people with your attitude, she did it. You have to work from inside the system to change it. Paying for climate change is not a luxury elective item. Sometimes a society has to collectively act to protect itself, even over the protestations of people who believe as you do.
  - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
    > she did it Heh, at the same time 2 people had to fly to the US to bring the boat back... if she was so concerned, she could have come back on that boat.

fallingknife 5y ago

Hard to control for how many of the "no" responses are due to lack of trust that the government will actually spend the money fighting global warming vs people just not willing to part with money.

aksss 5y ago
The 'government' at all level has enormous unfunded liabilities and a consistent record of siphoning revenue raised through special taxes into completely unrelated expenditures.

trboyden 5y ago

Americans pay many fees and taxes that go to environmental concerns. They also see the government does not use that revenue to address those environmental concerns, because instead it goes to state and federal pensions. Therefore, the real issue is, what do Americans have to do to get the government to spend the money on the things they say it is supposed to go to? Until the government is willing to change their spending habits, yes, Americans will be unwilling to contribute more to the national credit card with no limit.

chickenpotpie 5y ago
“Americans pay many fees and taxes that go to environmental concerns” Doubt. Environmentalism is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of US governmental spending. Edit: it’s .2% of the budget. Defense is a whopping 14%. We spend 70 times less on environmentalism than military and we’re not even at war. Source: http://saveepaalums.info/EPA+costs+to+taxpayers http://saveepaalums.info/EPA+costs+to+taxpayers
- trboyden 5y ago
  And your point is what? You just provided the exact evidence to what I already stated. Parts of the gas tax, excise taxes, vehicle sales tax, recycling fees, etc... are all fees that Americans pay that are supposed to go to addressing impact on the environment. But the government only spends 0.2% on it. Where did the money go? That is exactly my point. Most of it went to pay pensions that the government over promises on and doesn't budget enough for. Any business that did that would be out of business or switching to 401ks, which most have done.
  - chickenpotpie 5y ago
    1) most of those taxes aren’t specifically for environmental policies. For example, vehicle taxes go to fund roads 2) no, most of government spending does not go to funding pensions and there’s absolutely no evidence to support that. That claim is absolutely ludicrous.

h8liu 5y ago

This is like asking if one would pay more taxes, where it is unclear how the tax will be used to improve common good. I bet if you ask people if they are willing to pay $1000 dollars (financed as $40/m in 25 months) to secure a spaceship ticket to escape the failing earth climate (assuming the spaceship already exists), many people will happily pay it.

h8liu 5y ago
and the spaceship tech owner can just use that money to build and implement clean energy solutions to revert climate change, and never really need to build the actual spaceships..

jmann99999 5y ago

The problem with this post is that it cites a survey of how much Americans are willing to pay to "stop climate change." According to the article 57% are willing to pay $1 a month to "stop climate change" and 23% would pay $40 a month. As an American, in a well paying IT job, I'd pay $100 IF IT WOULD STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. However, I don't believe the $1, or $40, or $100 is going to do anything. It's far more complex than that. It reaffirms one of my maxims... beware the worthless survey.

hairofadog 5y ago
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm very worried about climate change, and I would be willing to make any number of sacrifices to _effectively_ combat climate change. However, the question is this: > _Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. Would you vote in favor of this monthly fee to combat climate change, or would you vote against this monthly fee?_ My utility company can barely run their billing website. Paying them $40 a month to "combat climate change" sounds like throwing money into a hole. So no, I wouldn't do that. Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? Yes! Would I vote for legislation that would place limitations on the production of plastics, even if it meant raising the price of consumer goods? Probably! I know, I know, there's complexity in these issues, but my point is that I'd be willing to pay more to combat climate change. I'm just picky about who I'm paying it to, whether the costs will be distributed justly, and what they plan to do with that money.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? FWIW, there are actually fewer "subsidies" to fossil fuels that could actually be redirected than most people here think. When you read HN articles and comments on the "fossil fuel subsidies", in my experience the bulk of these is "fossil fuel has this and that externality, and users of fossil fuels don't have to pay for it, so we count it as a subsidy". Whether you agree that this actually counts as subsidy or not, it's not like you can redirect it.

tdfx 5y ago

This poll doesn't say much about whether Americans are willing to pay to stop climate change, it just says a lot about whether Americans trust their government with a blank check to fight climate change. I wouldn't support "giving them money and letting them figure out the best way to use it", either. Let's hear a specific policy proposal.

iguanayou 5y ago
1. Carbon tax 2. Cap and trade The problem is NOT that there have been no good proposed policy solutions. The problem is that voters don't want them. This is why I'm pessimistic on the environment.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  You can trivially set up a carbon tax that a majority of voters would vote for, simply give the money that you taxed back out equally among the population as a form of UBI. We don't see these proposals because they are not proposals that the wealthy and powerful would benefit from.
  - iguanayou 5y ago
    Exactly. Making the whole "I don't trust the government to do something smart with my money" argument moot. It has been proposed, voters have seen the proposal, and it has been voted down.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Well this presumes two things, one, that there are no valid arguments against cap and trade, and two, that propaganda against cap and trade is not effective. But both are true. Plenty of people do oppose cap and trade simply because those influencing their political stripe loudly oppose it, and plenty of people have valid concerns about what the effects of such a scheme would be and potential downsides to it. One particular argument would be that there would probably be all sorts of exemptions and subsidies so as to make it ineffective against the largest producers of CO2, which is a version of "I don't trust the government to do something smart with my money," making it not a moot point after all.

gentleman11 5y ago

Just last night a BC. Village was destroyed by fire after breaking heat records at 49C. I posted the story to hn just now, not sure if I should link to it or not, but there are lots of news outlets covering it if you are curious (Eg, CBC)

ineiti 5y ago

In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the youngest part of the population, the ones who will be the most impacted by the climate crisis, voted the strongest against it. Switzerland being one of the richest countries, I cannot understand how an increase of 10% on luxury items (plane tickets) can have this impact. Funny story: now that the law has been refused, the oil companies announced a 15% increase of the gas price... Nobody is protesting so far.

dukoid 5y ago
I wish there had been three polls instead: One for gas, one for heating and one for flights... O:)
- loonster 5y ago
  I would expect all 3 would have passed then. Each of the proposals likely has slightly different demographics of people that are opposed to it. 1 % margin isnt much to overcome.
jlawson 5y ago
>improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. What does "improve heating" mean? How does "direct pay to poor citizens" help climate change? Perhaps the law wasn't really about climate change, but was another one of those times where policy someone wanted anyway was being pushed with climate change as an excuse. In any case I can't form an opinion on this vote result without knowing what was actually being voted on.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > What does "improve heating" mean? Not Swiss, so this is mostly conjecture, but what is usually included in those types of proposals is to improve housing insulation and the heating network ( in the case of central heating, either per building or more central) making them more efficient, thus requiring less energy to achieve the same effect ( people aren't cold in their homes).

davesque 5y ago

I think "people" aren't given enough credit. They're actually pretty smart. They know that, when they're questioned by a surveyor, they can feel better about themselves by claiming that they'd be willing pay to address climate change. They know they can get that psychological benefit completely for free without having to do anything other than just answering the question in a certain way. So that makes surveys about the issue seem pretty meaningless; their outcomes have very little to do with the actual issue being surveyed. Also, people are actually pretty smart because they know that every other individual in the economic arena will act in their own best interest. So they make the correct decision of saving money for themselves. That's exactly why any sort of individual brow beating always strikes me as totally misguided and counterproductive. People are not likely to spontaneously move to solve such a large problem when doing so puts them at an individual loss. It doesn't matter if you think that sort of behavior is immoral or unethical. On the other hand, it seems to me that large organizations such as corporations and governments have many more incentives to mitigate large scale issues like this for a couple of reasons: 1) They can more easily coordinate since there are fewer organizations of that size that have to cooperate; 2) They are in a better position to quantify the risk of failing to act. There are probably plenty of corporate strategists that are starting to raise the alarm about a possible future world in which it's impossible to make any money as a result of a climate catastrophe. I've never really been able to get on board with ways of arguing about climate change that fit the mold of this article. Individuals simply are not going to act to solve this problem. Get over it and move on.

tixocloud 5y ago
I agree that large organizations and governments have more incentives and more resources to tackle a large issue like this.

TiberiusC 5y ago

This is why economic growth is key to climate change. As disposable income grows for the median household, adoption for socially acceptable goods will increase. When you increase taxes and regulations everywhere, you decrease the ability to adopt pro-climate consumerism.

anoncake 5y ago
No, that just increases people's desire for material goods even more. There is no fixed level of material wealth people expect.

zepto 5y ago

Utterly incompetent article, basing all its conclusions on this poll question: “Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month.” It then assumes that voting against the proposal indicates an unwillingness to pay for climate change. This completely misses the obvious - which is that a $10 monthly fee will not solve climate change and so people are right to vote against the proposal. Indeed it would be ridiculous for people to vote for such a proposal.

Glench 5y ago
Actually if we electrified our homes, most households in the US would save money: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/bringing-infrastructure-home https://www.rewiringamerica.org/bringing-infrastructure-home & https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report

einarfd 5y ago

For these numbers to say anything about lack of interest in combating climate change. We would also need to know what people would answer if you switched out climate change with some other worthwhile cause. How many would want to pay 40$ for better firefighters, solve structural racism, water security in western states, or military veterans? Without something to compare it with, there is no context to say if the numbers are good or not. I wonder if what this actually shows is that people don't like to pay taxes? Or that they think climate change should be possible to solve with the current tax rate with a reprioritizing of tax money?

Aperocky 5y ago
There. The federal government has been blowing billions in Afghanistan, I'm sure they can try to use it on something else instead of levying more taxes from me and my coworkers.
- aksss 5y ago
  I always say, if you're going to invest in fixing a foreign country, start with Mexico.

debacle 5y ago

> the group most likely to be willing to pay $40 a month are those making less than $10,000 (5.6% of population, 55.32% oppose). This points more to the weakness of the study than anything else.

anoncake 5y ago
Not necessarily, poor people are actually known to be surprisingly generous.

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briantakita 5y ago

The world should pay me trillions to solve climate change. I'll do whatever it takes to make climate change a thing of the past. What's that? You don't want to pay me Trillions to solve your problem that I say you have? Well, that makes you a climate change denier and worse of all, a Science denier. You are literally dooming humanity because you are selfish & greedy & don't want to pay me Trillions. How dare you! You should feel shame.

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twobitshifter 5y ago

When you see companies asking everyone to commute back to the office does it seem like climate change crossed their minds?

pohl 5y ago

We'll definitely pay, though. We will pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ We're gonna pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ We will pay tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬ Save me, save me from tomorrow ♪ ♫ ♬

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Throwing money at climate change doesn't fix it. Telling entities that already ravage the planet does. But which one do you think is easier for everyone universally to say "I'm helping!" without actually doing anything?

steveBK123 5y ago

This is pretty obvious. My most outspoken Green New Deal supporting friends & family who were reposting social media of Greta & AOC are also 0-1 child households with SUVs. It's hashtag activism. No one wants to make sacrifices. The only solutions are going to be finding ways to grow our way out of it and incentivize good things (fuel economy, EVs, rail, solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal heat pumps, etc). Neither Degrowth nor expecting people to vote their conscience with their wallet are going to work. Even today - look at how tax incentivized solar is, and how fast the break-even is.. and yet how few people take advantage of it?

post_break 5y ago
Speaking of solar do you have it installed on your house? Even with tax credits do you know how much they cost, they are not cheap. And financing it isn't like a car. Sure it's 1% finance but add like 10K finance charge which kills the rebate. All on top of that you actually have to own a home, which is becoming impossible in america.
- steveBK123 5y ago
  Not yet because you only want to install on a newer roof otherwise you pay a lot to uninstall/reinstall on roof replacement. Relative to price of a home, they are cheap, under $10k without storage. People spend 2-5x more on a kitchen or bathroom cosmetic remodel. If you need financing, you can use a HELOC. The break even is like 4 years. Your statements are fairly hyperbolic considering something like 60% of Americans own their home, so it can't be impossible.
  - trboyden 5y ago
    Try $20k plus a re-roof at $10k. And that is for a small 1200sqft 3 bed/1 bath house that has full south-southwest exposure.
xboxnolifes 5y ago
> Even today - look at how tax incentivized solar is, and how fast the break-even is.. and yet how few people take advantage of it? In most areas? Not fast at all, and very close to the expected life of the panels for consumer-grade house panels considering the up-front investment.

neltnerb 5y ago

I clicked through to the actual poll, and just for some context the actual poll is from 2018. Not that I think attitudes are likely to have changed substantially, but after the power grid collapses in both Texas and California it is possible that there has been movement towards recognizing that there are costs we will pay one way or another and that paying them while also having reasonable climate is much more comfortable in the long term. It's a good point though, asking whether someone believes climate change is real is a very low bar. It's like literacy rates, the rate depends on what grade level you define as literate. Once literacy gets high enough for a given definition you have to make the criteria more stringent to see differences. So step 1 is "is this real" and step 2 is "what would you sacrifice to stop it". We're still barely past step 1...

rhacker 5y ago

The government isn't willing to stop climate change either. I REALLY want to do a large solar panel setup at my house, but it looks like there's no way around paying through the anus for the ground mount "system" instead of buying 2" pipe with concrete set in the ground every 8 feet. Because then I would be inventing it myself. Yet if I want PG&E there is NO FUCKING PERMIT and you just do it. Explosive results.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

One of example: my electric company offers green energy at about $0.15 more per unit than non green energy. If that was it I and many people would go green, but if you read the fine print that is a variable rate and could be much higher in high demand. That green power isn’t worth the real potential of a thousand dollar electric bill.

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post_break 5y ago

I'm looking at dropping 25k on solar panels soon to have a zero electric bill, so I'm doing my part I guess.

betwixthewires 5y ago
As someone interested in doing this, does this include installation cost or are you doing it yourself? What percentage of the cost is installation? Also what capacity does it provide for air conditioning? I don't use air conditioning all that much but I would like the option and I know you have to plan your install for peak usage and not general usage, and you can mitigate that with batteries but that cost has diminishing returns.
- post_break 5y ago
  Turn key. 9.5kw system. Averages out to about a $0 electric bill for the year, this is in texas so AC is a must. This is grid tie system so during summer months I will pull more than I make, but will make up for it in winter months, averaging it out to 0.

lastofthemojito 5y ago

> The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. --John Steinbeck in Cannery Row (published 1945)

handrous 5y ago
It's worth noting that there's a lot more being said when that is placed in context, and in the mouth and circumstances of the character speaking those words, than when it's presented, bare, as an aphorism due the author. (it's on archive.org, for the curious)

m1117 5y ago

I can see some aliens look at earth and say "There're some smart individuals, but as a group humans are so dumb."

deregulateMed 5y ago

My opposition comes from my lack of faith in the US government and my state government. If we pay $10, what percentage actually goes to fighting climate change, and what percentage goes to pensions and interest payments on debt. We had our sales tax raised "for the children" to make our schools better. Money goes into the general fund. I'm not sure the solution, but I have doubts the US government can handle money.

unchocked 5y ago

People aren't wired to protect against future threats. Adaptation is going to be a whopper.

lowbloodsugar 5y ago

I read in WaPo that the residents of the Florida condos that collapsed had refused to pay for the necessary repairs in 2019 [1]. Now many of them who made that decision are dead. If we can't make rational decisions in this situation, how can we make rational decisions about climate change. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/majority-of-florida-condo-board-quit-in-2019-as-squabbling-residents-dragged-out-plans-for-repairs/2021/06/30/43592282-d98e-11eb-ae62-2d07d7df83bd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/majority-of-fl...

nverno 5y ago

Translation: people are skeptical of paying money to the government to fix something when they don't even bother to specify a plan of action

elipsey 5y ago

Climate change is a collective action problem; the fact that people don't want to solve it with voluntary donations doesn't imply that they think the problem is unimportant. It would be equally reasonable to propose that roads or police or militaries should be funded solely with voluntary donations, and then use support for that proposal as a measure of public sentiment towards the necessity of those functions. Of course, these functions are used as canonical justifications for the existence of the state in the first place.

juancn 5y ago

It should say: "are not willing to pay extra". My guess is that most people already pay an awful lot in taxes, so they would be more willing for some of those taxes they already pay be shifted to climate change initiatives.

betwixthewires 5y ago

The methodology of arriving st the conclusion in the title is flawed. Polling people "would you want to pay the government extra money to fight climate change" tells you a more nuanced story than "people won't put their money where their mouth is." Americans in particular, and people in general, don't trust their government to mediate solutions to problems. If you gave a more concrete solution rather than just "we are gonna effectively raise your taxes and do what we say with the money, efficiently and effectively, promise" I'm sure you'd get a lot more support. But people that pay into social security and then watch that fund get plundered and be on the verge of bankruptcy, asking those people if they'd give the government money so they can manage a fund directed solely at solving a problem and then being surprised when the answer is "no," to attribute that to not actually caring and only paying lip service to the problem is quite a leap.

blooalien 5y ago

And then there's those of us Americans who've already been sacrificing nearly our entire lives to try to protect the environment because we were taught young that we only have the one planet, and if we trash it, it's pretty much over. Those of us who remember when climatologists first warned about climate change and took it seriously. Those of us who've tolerated insults and ridicule over our "paranoia", and still to this day get ridiculed by those who still don't believe climate change is a thing, or that it's affected by human activity. But hey, Americans aren't willing to do anything about climate change... Yeah, whatever... It's our politicians and their corporate owners that don't want to do anything about anything. And like most governments in the world today, "we the people" no longer have any control over our "public servants". They pretty much just do as they want whether we like it or not. Doesn't really matter who we vote in to office if all the candidates we're offered are already corrupt corporate puppets from the get-go.

lamontcg 5y ago

Given the way that housing, health care and education costs are spiraling out of control it makes sense that the average American wouldn't want to pay anything to mitigate climate change. And they shouldn't be asked to, and its not really necessary.

lamontcg 5y ago
(not necessary for them to pay in order to mitigate climate change. mitigating climate change should be done, but it doesn't need to be expensive)

RickJWagner 5y ago

I saw some of this first hand not long ago. I tend to vote conservative, yet my frugal (ok, cheap) nature makes me a natural energy-saver. As an example, I tend to buy cars like a Prius or something with modest fuel needs. I look for ways to save electricity around the house. etc. I was conversing on social media with a colleague from my hometown. We were (regrettably) talking politics, she made what she considered a 'drop the mic' point by stating "I vote this way because I believe in the science of climate change!" The irony: her family hobby (with husband) is drag racing. They take great pride in their fuel-sucking Camaro, complete with truck rig to pull it. I guess we're both turned around.

mikewarot 5y ago

If I had any confidence in my government, I might be willing to consider supporting government action, but I don't. They've burned all of their reputation points.

tim333 5y ago

>Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. The article says people say no so they aren't will to stop climate change but $10 on the electricity bill is no way going to stop climate change! I wish people would get real with this and say "We figure a global carbon price of $200 a ton would fix climate change. Would you be up for that?" Which might actually work. I mean you'd have to get global buy in but it would be a real solution rather than the dumb, ineffective, CO2 keeps going up anyway stuff they do now.