8 ms·

the biggest problem is the climate. with trump winning, most/all of the climate policies will be revered irreparably damaging our planet bringing us to the brin

• _heimdall 2y ago
  I also expect Trump to roll back many of those policies and create new, worse ones like opening up more federal land for drilling and mining. That said, you must have a lot more faith in the current policies than I do. The sole focus on limiting carbon in the atmosphere has been woefully misguided in my opinion. We need to focus on reducing our total impact on the planet, not just trying to mitigate it a bit while we continue to consume more resources and use use more energy every year. If human impact on the planet is going to kill us all with Trump in office, it was going to happen either way.
  • reportingsjr 2y ago
    > opening up more federal land for drilling and mining I'm honestly not sure how much a difference Trump will make in this. The US greatly increased oil and gas production under Biden. It seems that policies that supported an energy transition were generally working. If those get rolled back, hopefully things are in a good enough place that more sustainable energy continues dominating.
    • _heimdall 2y ago
      I'm still not actually clear how an energy transition will even work unless its paired with a huge reduction in how much total energy we actually use. Moving from fossil fuels to renewables or even nuclear is all well and good, but it takes a huge amount of natural resources to pull off. Nuclear may be easier, renewables require a lot more resources than we currently have.
      • moogly 2y ago
        > unless its paired with a huge reduction in how much total energy we actually use. This is very unrealistic IMO. That will never happen. It flies against the whole idea of civilization and the development of human history. Energy consumption will rise on larger timescales. Best you can do is to tame the growth by efficiency and using more renewable, greener energy generation. If you want to keep bees on your apartment roof that is fine, but we are not all going back to being subsistence farmers at this point. Defeatist? Perhaps, but I don't think so.
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          While I do agree that its unrealistic to this people collectively will learn what it means to have "enough", I don't see another realistic solution. We're not only increasing total energy consumption every year, we're increasing energy consumption per capita. It may be one thing if the argument is that energy use will rise or fall inline with population, but that's not the case. This is the main crux of why climate change debates have always felt hollow to me. We can argue about plastic straws, diesel engine emissions, or what an acceptable level of parts per million in the atmosphere is but those are all surface level problems. Assuming the science linking human impact to climate issues is accurate, we're screwed no matter what we do on those issues if we continue to demand more power from whatever today's preferred energy source is.
          • moogly 2y ago
            I fully agree that all these things don't _solve_ anything and it never will, it just delays the inevitable a little bit. But it is not completely out of the question we could solve abundant nonpolluting energy. Failure there is not inevitable. > people collectively will learn what it means to have "enough" Maybe I am too cynical, but I think the problem with this is that means, in practice: "OK, everyone. Let's stop accelerated technological progress, and the level of civilization we have today, that's where we're going to stay at from now on, with maybe some smaller bugfixes rolling out once every 50 years or so. The quality of life you have today? That's it. Oh, and all you guys still in poverty [there are still billions of people who use very little energy], you're also going to have to stay there. Sorry." That will in turn cause civil unrest and even more unhappy people than we have today, which means increased totalitarianism, oppression and violence to quash that to keep societies "stable". For all the ills of consumerism and aspirationism, it _is_ serving as an opium to keep people distracted from the harsh realities of the world. We'd go back to the Middle Ages, in terms of the rate of improvement of the quality of life. I don't think many people are OK with that.
    • rdtsc 2y ago
      > The US greatly increased oil and gas production under Biden. And critically, I think, the Harris campaign failed to highlight facts like that, and emphasize how she will be different. Instead she completely bungled the messaging and went for "I'll do nothing different from what Biden did except add a Republican in my cabinet". https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/harris-campaign-went-wrong/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/harris-campaign-... > “What, if anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” co-host of ABC’s “The View” Sunny Hostin asked Harris, looking to give her a set for her to spike over the net. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she said. Talk about a monumental failure.
      • _heimdall 2y ago
        Her campaign, and the democratic party more broadly, made a lot of mistakes. Her failing to distinguish herself from Biden was one of them, but I don't actually think it was the worst. They believed that Biden was going to win and waited way too late to swap in a replacement, it kind of makes sense that they wouldn't try to differentiate if they honestly believed Biden was a good candidate with a viable platform.
        • rdtsc 2y ago
          That's fair, they definitely waited too late. I guess I also wonder, what if they just left Biden as is. They believed he was going to win, heck he got 80M+ popular votes when he ran. Why risk swap him out. But then, I think, once they did swap him, she could have boosted her position by emphasizing how she will do things better. But perhaps she was also honest and didn't want to lie and she didn't really plan on changing anything.
          • _heimdall 2y ago
            The only conclusion I could make from the DNC dropping Biden so late was that he was so clearly slipping that they couldn't hide it, or ignore it, anymore. I have to assume that if they kept him on the ticket we would have seen a few months of campaigning that could look an awful lot like elder abuse.
• AndyJames 2y ago
  For me the biggest problem is Ukraine, the country I live next to. Trump is more than happy to pull out of NATO
  • tekknik 2y ago
    Trump doesn’t want to leave NATO, that would be dumb. He wants those not “paying their fair share” to pay more or the US will leave. It’s a negotiating tactic. So if you don’t want the US to leave NATO and you’re in a NATO country then get them to spend more on NATO.
    • hfsh 2y ago
      And by 'pay more' he means 'buy more US weapons'. NATO is a conveniently captive market for the US arms manufacturers, and no way they're going to want to pull out of that while they still have stock to sell.
      • tekknik 2y ago
        you’re free to make your own weapons, plenty of NATO countries do.
      • codersfocus 2y ago
        Turkey bought Russian weapons and wasn't kicked out. They were barred from buying more US weapons for a while.
    • AndyJames 2y ago
      Before 2020 elections John Bolton said that Trump doesn't see the point for NATO and will consider withdrawing if he wins in 2020. Because of that a NATO Support at was passed in Congress to block the president from single handly withdraw the US from NATO. That was over 4 years ago, hopefully he changed his mind.
      • kyleee 2y ago
        Reminder that Bolton is an insane person, so who knows if what he says publicly about Trump’s intentions are true.
• account42 2y ago
  Emissions in the US are pretty much negligible compared to China and India. It would have to be a radical shift that is going to take way more than four years to make US climate policy even relevant to the planet as a whole.
  • dtquad 2y ago
    In emissions there is just China and then the US as a somewhat distant second. But to be honest the whole world is using China as their factory. Europe and India are the regions that are actually surprisingly negligible. Africa and the rest of the developing world doesn't make a blip.
    • palata 2y ago
      You need to account for indirect emissions. Because all the factories are in China means that China emits more, but those iPads are not being sold and used in China. When you import goods, you import their emissions. It's just super hard to measure (and we like to blame it all on China).
      • belorn 2y ago
        The solution there is to create tariffs based on emissions so that the costs of the emissions get accounted when people import goods.
        • palata 2y ago
          I don't understand the word "tarries", somehow even after looking it up :-). (Not my first language, sorry) I meant that in practice it's very difficult to track, because it involves a lot of actors in a lot of countries.
      • account42 2y ago
        This is irrelevant for looking at the effectiveness of climate policy. Restrictions on emissions in the US and EU are not going to reduce the emissions from factories in China even if the resulting products are sold in the US/EU.
• zb3 2y ago
  [flagged]
• xyst 2y ago
  Climate policies were already getting gutted under this administration due to reversal of Chevron deference by SCOTUS (packed by previous Trump/Pence administration). EPA and other regulatory agencies have been stripped of their regulatory powers. Any “vague” law which was interpreted by agencies can now be challenged in courts.
• Moldoteck 2y ago
  as someone from eu - doesn't us now/under dems extract top amount of fossils from all the time? I mean it's not like it was good now. It looks like it'll get worse but the current path wasn't good either...
  • sebzim4500 2y ago
    The US has been on a strong downward trend for CO2 output per capita for decades now [1]. The IRA is expected to significantly accelerate this trajectory, although it's unclear how much of that will now come to pass. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...
    • tekknik 2y ago
      Im excited too, I also hope they stop with the EV mandates in various states by removing their ability to override the EPA.
  • tasty_freeze 2y ago
    There is the short term reality that we are dependent on gas and oil and, decreasingly, coal. The difference between the two parties is the long term vision. Dems want to have international treaties to address the problem and are willing to spend money to move away from fossil fuels. Republicans downplay the science (or outright deny it) and think international treaties make the US less independent and therefore weaker, and they would much rather cut taxes for Elon Musk than spend money on energy infrastructure.
  • MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
    It does, thank goodness. Otherwise it would come from Saudi and other despots. We should be producing as much as we can in the US to quit funding horrible regimes.
• NotYourLawyer 2y ago
  Maybe Elon can do something about that once he’s on the cabinet.
  • Comfy-Tinwork 2y ago
    Ah great, we can pin our hopes on elon-fucking-musk. It's fair to say that we're "cooked" in ever sense of the word.
    • ninetyninenine 2y ago
      Elon knows his shit. The media sensationalizes his antics but he knows his shit and is very capable. The only thing bad about Elon is business interests he will make policies that promote his own businesses. But trump will likely do the same.
      • l33t7332273 2y ago
        > Elon knows his shit I’ve been saying since the hyperloop in like 2014 that he doesn’t, and he’s done nothing to convince me otherwise.
        • ninetyninenine 2y ago
          he caught a rocket. Bro. He knows his shit.
          • l33t7332273 2y ago
            I believe his engineers know their shit, and I give him props for funding them.
            • ninetyninenine 2y ago
              Elon is knee deep in engineering. He’s not only the person pushing this direction at a high level, he is down in the weeds. You don’t know your shit if you aren’t aware of how close Elon is to engineering and science.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• kzrdude 2y ago
  The biggest problem is gradual deterioration of the rule of law and functioning of the civil government
  • xenospn 2y ago
    *gradual and accelerating
  • ball_of_lint 2y ago
    The biggest problem is the legitimization of bigotry and hate in America. Dang, how many biggest problems is it okay to have? I can still think of a couple more.
• llm_nerd 2y ago
  What could Trump do in that respect? Bring back coal? Coal isn't coming back. The economics aren't there short of literally paying for the burning of coal. And while Trump seems to lean into the AGW deniers, he does seem to at least respect reducing the classic "silent spring" sorts of pollution that obviously dirty air and water. US oil production is the highest in the world, the highest in its history, and is so maxed out that there are loads of drilling rights that aren't even being exercised as oil companies all realized that it was pyrrhic with current low oil prices. On the climate position I don't think things can go back. Wind, solar and evolving nuclear just make it a silly thing to do.
  • thrance 2y ago
    He can, and has basically promised to massively subsidize fracking. Fracking is still not profitable, never has been, probably never will be. It's existence is purely political.
    • ethagnawl 2y ago
      This is intriguing and I've actually never heard this take. (Not disagreeing, to be clear.) My laymen's understanding is that domestic natural gas production has gone way up in this century and I lazily assumed this was why.
      • thrance 2y ago
        Yes, there is strategic value in being able to extract fossil fuels domestically, and fracking allows this, only at great economic (and environmental) cost.
    • causal 2y ago
      Source? Searching on this I'm only finding evidence that fracking has been extremely lucrative
  • echoangle 2y ago
    Wasn’t a large part of his platform „drill baby drill“? If he’s lowering cost of fossil fuels, guess what will happen to consumption.
• mk89 2y ago
  I am not sure that's the case. The main supporter is a guy who produces e-cars with all the interests to sell more of them. The way I see it, he will continue with the transition whenever it benefits him/the country. Which means some programs might be canceled, especially if they go against such interests.
  • lavela 2y ago
    > The main supporter is a guy who produces e-cars with all the interests to sell more of them. Sure Elon might have an impact on CO2 emissions in the transport sector but I don't see him moving things that don't directly benefit him, say, electricity/heat production or agriculture.
    • mk89 2y ago
      Transport is the 2nd sector in terms of CO2 emissions. If we solve that alone, I am happy.
      • FrankyHollywood 2y ago
        Actually it's only 16% https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-global-breakdown-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-global-breakdown-of-green...
        • mk89 2y ago
          I found it here: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector Not sure how reliable all this is... Yet it seems "road" is nearly 10-11% which is big enough to solve and to have already an impact in everyday life. Then it cascades to other sectors too.
        • cdrini 2y ago
          That visual shows that road transport is 11% , making it the second highest category, as the poster said. This is a great graphic though, thanks for sharing! Edit: actually in the graphic it's the largest sector! My bad
• TheRealDunkirk 2y ago
  It would appear that neither party actually does anything to change the rate of CO2 emissions. https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1854161121193714102 https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1854161121193714102
  • bdcp 2y ago
    That's CO2 measurements taken in Hawaii so it's global measurements. Do we have a USA only emissions graph?
  • thanatos519 2y ago
    What a subtle exponential curve!
• lnxg33k1 2y ago
  I feel like they were not only the most useless policies, with decades away targets, but also had the most damage on labour, see car manufacturers all in crisis cutting jobs
• stronglikedan 2y ago
  > most/all of the climate policies will be revered irreparably damaging our planet bringing us to the brink of extinction The valid policies will remain. I've been hearing the rest for decades now.
• brodouevencode 2y ago
  When someone's grocery bill exceeds 40% of their total income, they're not going to worry about the climate.
  • causal 2y ago
    These things are not disconnected
    • brodouevencode 2y ago
      How are they connected?
      • intended 2y ago
        Global energy prices are high because of wars in Europe. The rise of right wing forces globally and anti immigration forces, is a consequence of immigration from regions that are not only crushed by wars, but also by climate instability. Since solutions are too complex and require global cooperation, its easier for governments to not do anything. As this keeps up, and larger areas of the world become uninhabitable, more migration will occur, leading to more power to demagogues and dictators.
        • brodouevencode 2y ago
          That seems sufficiently disconnected. Alternatively, if the fed didn't just print money to pay for unnecessary vote-buying schemes then the inflation rate would have been only minimally (if at all) impacted by the points you made.
          • intended 2y ago
            Sure. If you want a straight line drawn in markers for something like the global economy - I mean, sure? Given the forum though, I hesitate to place you amongst such company. I am guessing you know what the Fed's remit is, and therefore WHY they are printing money.
• camdenreslink 2y ago
  Climate change won’t bring us to the brink of extinction. It will cause huge amounts of human suffering though.
  • pvaldes 2y ago
    We can't be 100% sure about that. We know that agriculture can't survive a constant rise of temperature. At some point the roots are unable to grasp water from the soil, and then everything dies at the same moment.
• arp242 2y ago
  Isn't "bringing us to the brink of extinction" rather hyperbolic? As far as I know there is no indication that climate change will be an extinction-level threat? What it will be is hugely damaging for all sorts of other reasons, both to humans and other life. Beyond that, I agree with you, and it's one of my major concerns as well.
  • this_user 2y ago
    Entire regions of the planet could very well become uninhabitable, which would affects hundreds of millions, potentially billions of people. Migratory flows of that size would almost certainly lead to armed conflicts. It's hard to tell how this would end, but it is certainly not going to be pretty.
    • hedora 2y ago
      It could easily lead to the end of civilization. We’ve been seeing global production disruptions for years now. (Currently, quartz for semiconductors. During the pandemic, climate events knockout out PVC production, which meant a global disruption of construction work.) We’re at the beginning of the exponential ramp on this sort of stuff, where the changes are barely noticeable. For example, until last night (so, assuming best case greenhouse projections), there was roughly a 50% chance that some people reading this will live to see the northern half of Europe turn into a glacier. Anyway, without modern civilization, we probably won’t survive 10,000’s of years of such stuff. The global population bottlenecked at a few thousand the last time this happened.
  • intended 2y ago
    I’m sure you will agree that for most people, the difference between extinction level and civilization ending is academic.
  • palata 2y ago
    > As far as I know there is no indication that climate change will be an extinction-level threat? We are currently living in an era of mass extinction. It's not something that's coming, we are in it, it is measurable. 75% of wild animals, insects and trees have disappeared. That is a fact, and it is not related to climate change at all: "just" to how we humans organize the world (mostly habitat loss). Climate change will bring famines, natural disasters, and global instability (that means wars). This is yet to come. It is fairly likely that at this rate, we will reach 4 degrees of global warming. At 4 degrees, a large part of the Earth (around the Equator) becomes unlivable for humans (it's too humid and hot, we can't regulate our temperature by sweating, we die). Which means that billions of people will need to relocate. This is not just normal wars: think entire countries that decide to leave their territory and go somewhere else, together with their army. I don't know what the definition of "extinction-level" means (maybe you only care about some individuals of the human species surviving), but in my book that's as bad as it gets.
• everdrive 2y ago
  If we had a functioning congress, laws could be set. The president really is not _meant_ to have a lot of power here. Administrations have been trying to do more, as congress really won't pass laws any longer. However, each administration just throws out the policies of the last administration. Actually passing laws in congress does not necessarily have this same problem.
  • ghouse 2y ago
    Though to become a law, the president would need to sign it.
    • ninalanyon 2y ago
      Not necessarily: "The President might not sign the bill, however. If he specifically rejects the bill, called a veto, the bill returns to Congress. There it is voted on again, and if both houses of Congress pass the bill again, but this time by a two-thirds majority, then the bill becomes law without the President’s signature. This is called “overriding a veto,” and is difficult to do because of the two-thirds majority requirement." https://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_law-html/ https://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_law-html/
  • ghastmaster 2y ago
    Precisely. Regardless of your political leaning, Congress has been playing hot potato for a long time. Instead of actually creating rules or regulations, they do nothing and let the administration or courts decide. That way they can go to their constituents and beg for votes or contributions to fight the same branches that they relinquished power to by not doing anything.
    • dfxm12 2y ago
      let the courts decide A large part of the Republicans' strategy is to appoint partisan judges & let them legislate from the bench for the rest of their lives. Talking up thread about "the biggest problem", this is probably it. In the context of climate change, recently we can see SCOTUS shooting down environmental protections. This happens in lower courts too, but those don't make national news.
• colechristensen 2y ago
  We don’t need climate policy any more. Solar is by a wide margin the cheapest electricity and will continue growing at a wild pace.
  • no_wizard 2y ago
    Until the tariffs hit[0] because the reason solar is so cheap is due to cheap Chinese panels. Not to mention, this is a very naive take, at best. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-solar-industry-faces-shakeout-rock-bottom-prices-persist-2024-04-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-solar-industry...
  • oliver-rock 2y ago
    I think solar is only cheapest at point of production. Once you factor in transmission costs, grid congestion, intermittent supply, etc. Solar is still expensive at point of consumption. It's not to argue directly against your point but just that we still have a lot of work to move over to a sustainable electrical grid. And that will be helped by favourable policy
• jjallen 2y ago
  He already pulled the US out of the Paris accord his last presidency and the US is producing all-time high oil. I guess another angle is that he is best buddies with Elon who could potentially do some interesting things there.
  • theGnuMe 2y ago
    Until Elon falls out of favor. In reality we are dealing with Putin having effective control and is now basically unrestrained.
  • palata 2y ago
    > I guess another angle is that he is best buddies with Elon who could potentially do some interesting things there. Elon is comoditizing space. If that's profitable, he will get SpaceX to a point where people go on holiday in a rocket. That's exactly going in the wrong direction in terms of climate.
    • jjallen 2y ago
      Space is a humanitarian issue not an environmental one.
      • palata 2y ago
        Commoditizing space brings a lot of issues, I'll agree on that. But if you don't see how it is an environmental one... well I don't know how I can help. And I mean that honestly. I see a lot of comments about SpaceX where people seem to genuinely think that it is "helping the human species". And I just don't see what to say against that... it's just pure faith to me. To me, regarding SpaceX it sounds like engineers saying "if you keep walking one step after the other for long enough, then you'll reach the Moon" and then focusing really hard on the next steps. And if someone says "well if you keep walking you'll surely stay on Earth", they answer "He has a plan, someday a solution will come".
• antihero 2y ago
  What about the threats to civil liberties, especially for women and LGBT+ people?
  • zeroonetwothree 2y ago
    Trump already was president before. What “civil liberties” did those groups lose?
    • antihero 2y ago
      Well he appointed Supreme Court Judges that overturned Roe vs Wade, and he's promised a rollback on trans rights.
• mypgovroom 2y ago
  The biggest problem is the climate to those who profit off this agenda.
  • pvaldes 2y ago
    And for Floridians also. I doubt that they will be happy with more natural disasters.
    • mypgovroom 2y ago
      Fear mongering doesn't help create change
      • pvaldes 2y ago
        Was Milton an illusion? At this moment it does not matter anymore. In the next decades Mar-a-lago will be hit, either if Trump likes it or if not. He just can make it sooner and worse.
• quotemstr 2y ago
  Climate policies have failed. They're all either empty signaling exercises (carbon offsets, CAFE standards) or economically ruinous proposals to deliberately impoverish people (degrowth). The Paris accords penalize developed economies while giving developing countries a pass on emissions and an unfair advantage in trade. This idea that we can just sit down in a room with all the world's leaders and agree to just reduce emissions is a fantasy. The real climate policy we need, and one we might just get from the incoming administration, is support for startups that explore new geoengineering technology. We've on our way to being Kardashev type I civilization, and as such, we should establish explicit closed-loop control over our climate.
• gibsonf1 2y ago
  World War 3 is clearly a bigger problem than the climate.
• purple_ferret 2y ago
  States like New York and California can become Carbon Negative on their own if they wanted to. The Federal government is not needed for liberals to take the lead on this, but the mediocre center left Democrats who run everything in Blue States refuse to lift a finger.
• dopamean 2y ago
  I was of the impression that US contribution to global emissions was relatively low for our population size and per capita energy usage thus making domestic climate change policy relatively small potatoes. Is that not true? Is there more to it than that?
  • lief79 2y ago
    https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... Per capita energy usage is an interesting choice of metric.
    • dopamean 2y ago
      Thanks for the info!
  • shreve 2y ago
    The United States is ranked 16th highest in the world for emissions per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
  • zeroonetwothree 2y ago
    US is 12% which is second highest. But you’re right that it’s too small a percentage to have enough effect on its own.
• dionian 2y ago
  Really? Are you still buying all your stuff from China where they are standing up new coal plants every day? Just because the pollution doesn't happen here doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
• game_the0ry 2y ago
  Its increasingly difficult for me to believe that climate change is a critical issue when the attendees of World Economic Forum + Al Gore + Bill Gates + Leanardo Dicaprio all fly around in private jets while lecturing me on why i should be not be eating meat.
• sanderjd 2y ago
  I think this is doubtful, and it's a testament to the way the IRA was written. There are now bipartisan constituencies who support different parts of it. And there was no real chance we were going to get anything new on the climate regardless of the outcome. I think this issue will just be status quo for this term.