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Climate Change Actions Are Far More Popular Than People in U.S. Realize

7 points by _Microft 4y ago

sn0w_crash 4y ago
Dutch farmers have entered the chat
Comevius 4y ago
This would matter in a democracy, but the United States is far from it. Between the electors and gerrymandering the vote of someone who would support climate change actions carry much less weight, a third or less in some cases. With elections costing billions of dollars, and lobbying being legal, a few big corporations can't just influence policy, but literally write it. It doesn't matter if it's 66% or 80% if the people are not represented. Might as well throw in the kids too, they aren't represented either. It's only their future. Even when the people are represented, legislation done through executive orders is trivially squashed by a new incumbent or the Supreme Court packed with religious nuts.
legitster 4y ago
Political polling has consistently been skewing inaccurately favorable to liberal positions. To the point that even the most reputable pollsters are having to have their results "de-skewed" to have any predictive power in actual elections. Given that there is likely an industry-wide sampling error when it comes to political topics, I wonder how much to take these even more casual-level surveys.
lordswork 4y ago
After taking the time to educate myself on the topic, I am far more concerned about climate change than any other one issue. At this point, I am pretty much a single issue voter for any political candidate that takes it seriously. In the short term, it will cause incomprehensible amounts of human suffering and economic damage. In the long term, it's an existential threat to humanity.
- proc0 4y ago
  The problem is no politician has real solutions in this area. I think the reason is because climate change is blamed on individual behavior, rather than the fact that in current year our entire civilization is consuming more and more power and that is probably not going to decrease (at least not around the world). Whatever change is made as individuals only shifts the power consumption to a different sector, and of course the push for more EVs will only continue to stress the grid. Until we solve the power consumption of our entire civilization, there are only two potential outcomes: everyone abandons the comforts of modernity, using less power, which means less products, less innovations, less technology, etc... or only part of the world does that, which means the gap between rich and poor will grow to sci-fi dystopian levels. The only solution on the horizon for everyone is nuclear fission or fusion.
  - lordswork 4y ago
    >The problem is no politician has real solutions in this area. I disagree. Policy changes are one necessary piece of puzzle in addition to innovation and investments. Hopefully the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act recently passed in the US are just the start of this. >I think the reason is because climate change is blamed on individual behavior, rather than the fact that in current year our entire civilization is consuming more and more power and that is probably not going to decrease Yes, that is a narrative that is being pushed hard by fossil fuel industry. Indeed, the total energy consumption of the world is going to skyrocket as developing nations improve their infrastructure and quality of life of their citizens. There's no silver bullet. We need to aim to reduce overall energy consumption in developed nations, but also aim to make 100% of that energy consumption carbon-free. > The only solution on the horizon for everyone is nuclear fission or fusion. There is no "one solution" to climate change. It's a complex topic, which makes it difficult to discuss online. Nuclear fission is a great medium-term investment, but investments started today, won't be quick enough to halve emissions by 2030 and level off emissions by 2050. We will need to throw everything we can at the problem, including solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal. Fusion is the closest thing we have to a "one solution to climate change", but it's too far off to have a chance of making meaningful impact before we face catastrophic damage. We should continue to invest in it, of course, but it's a huge gamble to depend solely on it.

7 points by _Microft 4y ago

Dutch farmers have entered the chat

This would matter in a democracy, but the United States is far from it. Between the electors and gerrymandering the vote of someone who would support climate change actions carry much less weight, a third or less in some cases. With elections costing billions of dollars, and lobbying being legal, a few big corporations can't just influence policy, but literally write it. It doesn't matter if it's 66% or 80% if the people are not represented. Might as well throw in the kids too, they aren't represented either. It's only their future. Even when the people are represented, legislation done through executive orders is trivially squashed by a new incumbent or the Supreme Court packed with religious nuts.

legitster 4y ago

Political polling has consistently been skewing inaccurately favorable to liberal positions. To the point that even the most reputable pollsters are having to have their results "de-skewed" to have any predictive power in actual elections. Given that there is likely an industry-wide sampling error when it comes to political topics, I wonder how much to take these even more casual-level surveys.

lordswork 4y ago

After taking the time to educate myself on the topic, I am far more concerned about climate change than any other one issue. At this point, I am pretty much a single issue voter for any political candidate that takes it seriously. In the short term, it will cause incomprehensible amounts of human suffering and economic damage. In the long term, it's an existential threat to humanity.

proc0 4y ago
The problem is no politician has real solutions in this area. I think the reason is because climate change is blamed on individual behavior, rather than the fact that in current year our entire civilization is consuming more and more power and that is probably not going to decrease (at least not around the world). Whatever change is made as individuals only shifts the power consumption to a different sector, and of course the push for more EVs will only continue to stress the grid. Until we solve the power consumption of our entire civilization, there are only two potential outcomes: everyone abandons the comforts of modernity, using less power, which means less products, less innovations, less technology, etc... or only part of the world does that, which means the gap between rich and poor will grow to sci-fi dystopian levels. The only solution on the horizon for everyone is nuclear fission or fusion.
- lordswork 4y ago
  >The problem is no politician has real solutions in this area. I disagree. Policy changes are one necessary piece of puzzle in addition to innovation and investments. Hopefully the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act recently passed in the US are just the start of this. >I think the reason is because climate change is blamed on individual behavior, rather than the fact that in current year our entire civilization is consuming more and more power and that is probably not going to decrease Yes, that is a narrative that is being pushed hard by fossil fuel industry. Indeed, the total energy consumption of the world is going to skyrocket as developing nations improve their infrastructure and quality of life of their citizens. There's no silver bullet. We need to aim to reduce overall energy consumption in developed nations, but also aim to make 100% of that energy consumption carbon-free. > The only solution on the horizon for everyone is nuclear fission or fusion. There is no "one solution" to climate change. It's a complex topic, which makes it difficult to discuss online. Nuclear fission is a great medium-term investment, but investments started today, won't be quick enough to halve emissions by 2030 and level off emissions by 2050. We will need to throw everything we can at the problem, including solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal. Fusion is the closest thing we have to a "one solution to climate change", but it's too far off to have a chance of making meaningful impact before we face catastrophic damage. We should continue to invest in it, of course, but it's a huge gamble to depend solely on it.