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I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to thin

I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to think climate change is a hoax, and environmental regulations are in the way of earning money. Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good.

jordanb 1y ago
It's not even that they think it's a hoax. They don't care what happens to our world because half of them are dispensationalsts and the rest just think: après moi, le déluge.
goku12 1y ago
> Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good. Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? And if that's about the products of coal burning, is it too hard to imagine breathing in hot air containing soot, fly ash, some obnoxious oxides, some unburnt VOCs and some extra CO2? Where have they seen perfect combustion of coal? Ultimately, what is their motivation to reject their own experiences and endorse such wishful thinking? Why do they choose ideas that harm them? I'm looking for an answer that doesn't assume that they're stupid or insane.
- Herring 1y ago
  Study your history. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America. Climate issues hit the marginalized much harder than whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming
  - throw0101c 1y ago
    > Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America. Some folks would rather literally die than have the 'wrong people' have an improvement in their lives: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness Do not under-estimate the power of spite/hate.
    - Herring 1y ago
      100%. One of the key reasons the US didn't get universal healthcare in the Social Security Act of 1935(!) was because FDR relied on Southern Democrats who thought it was a threat to segregation. So yes they will definitely die for it. If we want to build a better social fabric, we have to deal with racism there's no other way.
    - moron4hire 1y ago
      That's almost the same cover as JD Vance's "Hillbilly Elogy".
    - UncleSlacky 1y ago
      As LBJ famously put it: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
  - spamizbad 1y ago
    While I agree minorities are going to feel the brunt of climate change I’m not sure in modern political contexts the motivation is racial. There’s deep, growing resentment towards the entire so-called “Professional Managerial Class” - things like wind and solar power are a byproduct of their accomplishments. To kill these things off is a way to stick their finger in the eyes of undesirables; the fact that the externalities of this vengeful decision will mostly be felt by minorities is merely a convenient coincidence for the perpetrators
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      You have to remember we live in a nation that poured cement into public pools across the country just so they wouldn’t have to share them with black Americans. I don’t think people realize how many private schools exist purely because of reintegration. People decided they would rather build new schools and pay private tuition on top of the taxes they pay for public education. Again, all of this was just so they wouldn’t have to share those schools with black Americans. This is all recent history. Many of the people who did this are still alive.
      - selimthegrim 1y ago
        I hear the Audubon pool was really nice too.
    - Herring 1y ago
      This is unfortunately easy to disprove. Find your nearest republican and ask them whether they think climate change is "woke". Anything progressive comes up against cultural and racial resentments.
    - intermerda 1y ago
      It doesn't have to be explicitly racist. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa... Lee Atwater would be proud. It started with Reagan and is used with exceptional effectiveness by the current Republican Party.
  - argomo 1y ago
    Energy corporations and wealthy individuals funded the Heartland Institute who then ran public influence campaigns to discredit climate change. Conspiracy theorists and talk radio hosts predictably made a buck amplifying it. Conservative politicians, ever eager to lower taxes and reverse the growth of government, latched onto it as a wedge issue. Rural and blue collar America, angry at being left behind after deindustrialization, bought into the lies. It didn't help that the threat was remote and abstract, that the cost was to be paid by future generations (mostly elsewhere), and that the elites who advocated fighting it were conspicuous in their own consumption. All of these actors were entirely motivated by money and power. No whiteness required.
- gyomu 1y ago
  > I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD They do not, they have not, and they do not care. Those people livre purely in the world of words and rhetoric, where the only thing that matters is whether what you say gets a reaction out of people that will lead to you getting more power. Truth is what sounds good. I know, as a rational educated person it is terrifying to realize that there are human beings who score 0% on the “cares about science and logic and history and truth” scales, but that is the beauty and horror of the human condition - there are many, many people out there whose thinking and mode of operation will be entirely alien to you. > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Après_moi,_le_déluge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Après_moi,_le_déluge
  - e3bc54b2 1y ago
    > Après moi, le déluge That phrase is chilling, and perfectly describes what I've been feeling like where the society at large is heading. Thank you for introducing it to me.
- burkaman 1y ago
  > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? They commonly arise when someone is getting paid by the coal company. Just boring human greed, not stupidity or insanity. > Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? Here's a good overview of the marketing history behind the term: https://www.gem.wiki/Clean_Coal_Marketing_Campaign https://www.gem.wiki/Clean_Coal_Marketing_Campaign
- layer8 1y ago
  It stands in the way of them making money, and making (lots of) money is psychologically fundamental to their identity, to them feeling superior, maybe because they don’t have much else to show for, or more charitably because they haven’t been taught more healthy values as children. Anything that limits their ability to make money is hard for them to reconcile with their self-image. It’s much easier to play down, distort, or outright ignore other parts of reality in their mind.
  - doctor_radium 1y ago
    I've begun wondering recently to what degree the American Psychiatric Association adding "the pursuit of money at all costs" to their book "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" would be both accurate, and a benefit to society: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm
    - tempodox 1y ago
      I’d assume it would just fall under psychopathy.
- thfuran 1y ago
  They’re not beliefs. They’re claims aimed at maximizing profit. Or do you mean why do people believe their propaganda?
- georgemcbay 1y ago
  > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? "Wind power is bad" because Trump doesn't like the way wind turbines looked near his golf course. Yes, the actual reason is that dumb. Trump is the world's biggest baby back bitch and is the greatest proof we will ever have that the idea that we live in anything remotely approximating a meritocracy is one of the greatest fictions ever told. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
- zebomon 1y ago
  It's a combination of never having learned the basics of science and now seeing the falsehoods they've been fed as equivalent to science. Take the Tylenol thing. You can explain to one of them the scientific method, what a survey of studies is, why correlation often appears when there is no causation, etc. I experienced this last week: at the end of my explanation, the person (a 45-year-old) replied that he "simply disagreed." The coal, the climate, etc. are all the same. There is a broad sense that because they've been convinced of the value of expanded oil drilling through lines like "Drill baby drill," their current perspective on it is of the same merit as actual scientific research.
  - LexiMax 1y ago
    I think it's simpler than that. They believe in what they believe specifically because it contradicts the views of people they dislike. I guarantee you that the person you were talking to got a real kick out of you wasting so much of your time trying to explain a position. However, these people do have a weakness. They feel good when they win the attention economy and the emotion economy, and those are actually really easy to subvert with a little out of the box thinking. "I'm glad they've finally figured out the cause of autism." "Chemtrails?" "No, they said it was Tylenol." "I don't think so. Did you know that the number of chemtrails the government has put into the air has increased 7-fold since January?"
    - zebomon 1y ago
      My experience has been very different from the one you're describing. The person I was talking to is someone who cares deeply for me (and whom I care for deeply too), someone I've known for almost my whole life. He wasn't having fun contradicting me. In fact, it was making him visibly uncomfortable to do so. He was engaging in the conversation in good faith. He just doesn't have the foundation to understand what he doesn't understand. I'm optimistic that even though he came away still disagreeing with me irrationally, there is a chance that by exposing him to a fuller explanation, he'll seek out more information for himself at some point in the future.
      - 1y ago
- zzzeek 1y ago
  > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Of course they have? I'm sure you've seen pictures of miners back in the 19th century covered in soot? Why would the wealthy and powerful care about people who aren't them? You can't assume that everyone everywhere thinks "powerless people suffering and dying is wrong", that's quite demonstrably false. It might even be a plurality of people on earth who could not care less about the suffering of those outside of their immediate family and friends. > I'm looking for an answer that doesn't assume that they're stupid or insane. they just dont care! Why assume that people who ran for political office actually care about the welfare of others? if the question is "why do this coal stuff when it's also unnecessary", well that gets into another MAGA value which is "dominance". That is, making people suffer and accept things that are horrible is also a big power play. Just watch any Game of Thrones episode for examples.
- gbin 1y ago
  Anti intellectualism is absolutely not new in the US. There is a kind of group think that is basically self reassuring themselves that "our ignorance is better than your knowledge". There is nothing you can do about this. The more you try to educate people the worse people fall back to it.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? A lot is driven by contrarianism. They see what the other side wants and automatically fight for the opposite. Among those who actually think deeper, they hold beliefs that putting restrictions on coal will make their energy bills explode or make industries in their town go out of business. Some come from states with coal mining operations. They see the initiatives as an attack on their state. There is also a lot of misinformation about clean energy. You can still find people who believe that it’s impossible to build enough solar or wind energy to make a difference so they believe it’s all just a scam to spend their tax dollars on useless ventures. > I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? Modern mines are still somewhat dangerous but they’re not like the Zoolander style pickaxe and black lung operations you might have seen in history books. Modern mining relies heavily on machinery and many coal mines are surface operations. The number of humans involved has decreased every year for a long time while safety improves, much like how farming today doesn’t resemble farming of 100 years ago. It’s not the safest industry, but arguing that we need to eliminate it to avoid black lung is going to be very unpersuasive to anyone in an area with mining operations.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  I legitimately think there is zero psychology. Its just money. They got bought out by coal and petroleum, so now they just lie to support them. I don't think anyone can legitimately believe these things.
- froggy 1y ago
  My theory is consistent repetition of messaging (Cialdini principles). The people aren’t stupid, they’ve been gradually brainwashed over years by propaganda like Fox News and “conservative” talk shows, or they have family/friends that repeat that messaging. It is at the point of groupthink where they all now openly celebrate bigots and extremists. They probably don’t understand or care why tuna and others parts of our food chain are contaminated by mercury. Maybe they just want to join a team and beat up on the other team. The fossil-funded GOP tells them each liberal position is evil, so the MAGAs reflexively go against it all, even if it means mutual destruction. When I was a kid, it was common knowledge (IIRC) that you couldn’t trust lawyers or politicians. It’s crazy to me how people nowadays are putting so much trust in politicians.
GenerocUsername 1y ago
In a way it is? Let me explain. The USA is big, but China bigger. If the USA over optimizes on reducing greenhouse gas today, at the expense of our long term economic and world power, China, who cares for less about preserving the world will continue to destroy the world and claim the most power simultaneously. So while we can reduce OUR footprint by taking ourselves out of the game, the world still loses. So now try to find a less myopic solution where we remain powerful enough to get the whole world to tamper down their impacts. We don't win by removing ourselves from the competition. And the competition has a high chance of killing us all. But rolling over is a guaranteed way to lose everything everywhere. Oh and the prior commitments like the Paris accord were engineered to harm us while allowing China to dominate.
- namdnay 1y ago
  > prior commitments like the Paris accord were engineered to harm us while allowing China to dominate Who engineered them to harm us? You’re saying there’s a powerful pro-China cabal that designed the Paris accords on purpose to harm us and benefit China? Come on..
  - GenerocUsername 1y ago
    Yes
- dylan604 1y ago
  Anyone with a couple of marbles in their noggin can see that depending on a finite resource dug out of the ground for everything is not a good long term plan. Offsetting that dependence with infinitely renewable sources just makes sense. You mention China cares less, yet you fail to acknowledge China by far outpaces the US in its pursuit of renewables. Yes they still use a lot of coal, but they are actively adding more renewables. It’ll just take time. At least they are trying. Also look at their adoption of EVs compared to US.
- Maken 1y ago
  But China is deploying more wind and solar energy than the USA. If anything the refusal to diversity energy sources is leaving USA even more behind the competition in the long term.

jordanb 1y ago

It's not even that they think it's a hoax. They don't care what happens to our world because half of them are dispensationalsts and the rest just think: après moi, le déluge.

goku12 1y ago

> Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good. Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? And if that's about the products of coal burning, is it too hard to imagine breathing in hot air containing soot, fly ash, some obnoxious oxides, some unburnt VOCs and some extra CO2? Where have they seen perfect combustion of coal? Ultimately, what is their motivation to reject their own experiences and endorse such wishful thinking? Why do they choose ideas that harm them? I'm looking for an answer that doesn't assume that they're stupid or insane.

Herring 1y ago
Study your history. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America. Climate issues hit the marginalized much harder than whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming
- throw0101c 1y ago
  > Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America. Some folks would rather literally die than have the 'wrong people' have an improvement in their lives: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness Do not under-estimate the power of spite/hate.
  - Herring 1y ago
    100%. One of the key reasons the US didn't get universal healthcare in the Social Security Act of 1935(!) was because FDR relied on Southern Democrats who thought it was a threat to segregation. So yes they will definitely die for it. If we want to build a better social fabric, we have to deal with racism there's no other way.
  - moron4hire 1y ago
    That's almost the same cover as JD Vance's "Hillbilly Elogy".
  - UncleSlacky 1y ago
    As LBJ famously put it: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
- spamizbad 1y ago
  While I agree minorities are going to feel the brunt of climate change I’m not sure in modern political contexts the motivation is racial. There’s deep, growing resentment towards the entire so-called “Professional Managerial Class” - things like wind and solar power are a byproduct of their accomplishments. To kill these things off is a way to stick their finger in the eyes of undesirables; the fact that the externalities of this vengeful decision will mostly be felt by minorities is merely a convenient coincidence for the perpetrators
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    You have to remember we live in a nation that poured cement into public pools across the country just so they wouldn’t have to share them with black Americans. I don’t think people realize how many private schools exist purely because of reintegration. People decided they would rather build new schools and pay private tuition on top of the taxes they pay for public education. Again, all of this was just so they wouldn’t have to share those schools with black Americans. This is all recent history. Many of the people who did this are still alive.
    - selimthegrim 1y ago
      I hear the Audubon pool was really nice too.
  - Herring 1y ago
    This is unfortunately easy to disprove. Find your nearest republican and ask them whether they think climate change is "woke". Anything progressive comes up against cultural and racial resentments.
  - intermerda 1y ago
    It doesn't have to be explicitly racist. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa... Lee Atwater would be proud. It started with Reagan and is used with exceptional effectiveness by the current Republican Party.
- argomo 1y ago
  Energy corporations and wealthy individuals funded the Heartland Institute who then ran public influence campaigns to discredit climate change. Conspiracy theorists and talk radio hosts predictably made a buck amplifying it. Conservative politicians, ever eager to lower taxes and reverse the growth of government, latched onto it as a wedge issue. Rural and blue collar America, angry at being left behind after deindustrialization, bought into the lies. It didn't help that the threat was remote and abstract, that the cost was to be paid by future generations (mostly elsewhere), and that the elites who advocated fighting it were conspicuous in their own consumption. All of these actors were entirely motivated by money and power. No whiteness required.
gyomu 1y ago
> I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD They do not, they have not, and they do not care. Those people livre purely in the world of words and rhetoric, where the only thing that matters is whether what you say gets a reaction out of people that will lead to you getting more power. Truth is what sounds good. I know, as a rational educated person it is terrifying to realize that there are human beings who score 0% on the “cares about science and logic and history and truth” scales, but that is the beauty and horror of the human condition - there are many, many people out there whose thinking and mode of operation will be entirely alien to you. > Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Après_moi,_le_déluge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Après_moi,_le_déluge
- e3bc54b2 1y ago
  > Après moi, le déluge That phrase is chilling, and perfectly describes what I've been feeling like where the society at large is heading. Thank you for introducing it to me.
burkaman 1y ago
> Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? They commonly arise when someone is getting paid by the coal company. Just boring human greed, not stupidity or insanity. > Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? Here's a good overview of the marketing history behind the term: https://www.gem.wiki/Clean_Coal_Marketing_Campaign https://www.gem.wiki/Clean_Coal_Marketing_Campaign
layer8 1y ago
It stands in the way of them making money, and making (lots of) money is psychologically fundamental to their identity, to them feeling superior, maybe because they don’t have much else to show for, or more charitably because they haven’t been taught more healthy values as children. Anything that limits their ability to make money is hard for them to reconcile with their self-image. It’s much easier to play down, distort, or outright ignore other parts of reality in their mind.
- doctor_radium 1y ago
  I've begun wondering recently to what degree the American Psychiatric Association adding "the pursuit of money at all costs" to their book "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" would be both accurate, and a benefit to society: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm
  - tempodox 1y ago
    I’d assume it would just fall under psychopathy.
thfuran 1y ago
They’re not beliefs. They’re claims aimed at maximizing profit. Or do you mean why do people believe their propaganda?
georgemcbay 1y ago
> Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? "Wind power is bad" because Trump doesn't like the way wind turbines looked near his golf course. Yes, the actual reason is that dumb. Trump is the world's biggest baby back bitch and is the greatest proof we will ever have that the idea that we live in anything remotely approximating a meritocracy is one of the greatest fictions ever told. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
zebomon 1y ago
It's a combination of never having learned the basics of science and now seeing the falsehoods they've been fed as equivalent to science. Take the Tylenol thing. You can explain to one of them the scientific method, what a survey of studies is, why correlation often appears when there is no causation, etc. I experienced this last week: at the end of my explanation, the person (a 45-year-old) replied that he "simply disagreed." The coal, the climate, etc. are all the same. There is a broad sense that because they've been convinced of the value of expanded oil drilling through lines like "Drill baby drill," their current perspective on it is of the same merit as actual scientific research.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  I think it's simpler than that. They believe in what they believe specifically because it contradicts the views of people they dislike. I guarantee you that the person you were talking to got a real kick out of you wasting so much of your time trying to explain a position. However, these people do have a weakness. They feel good when they win the attention economy and the emotion economy, and those are actually really easy to subvert with a little out of the box thinking. "I'm glad they've finally figured out the cause of autism." "Chemtrails?" "No, they said it was Tylenol." "I don't think so. Did you know that the number of chemtrails the government has put into the air has increased 7-fold since January?"
  - zebomon 1y ago
    My experience has been very different from the one you're describing. The person I was talking to is someone who cares deeply for me (and whom I care for deeply too), someone I've known for almost my whole life. He wasn't having fun contradicting me. In fact, it was making him visibly uncomfortable to do so. He was engaging in the conversation in good faith. He just doesn't have the foundation to understand what he doesn't understand. I'm optimistic that even though he came away still disagreeing with me irrationally, there is a chance that by exposing him to a fuller explanation, he'll seek out more information for himself at some point in the future.
    - 1y ago
zzzeek 1y ago
> Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Of course they have? I'm sure you've seen pictures of miners back in the 19th century covered in soot? Why would the wealthy and powerful care about people who aren't them? You can't assume that everyone everywhere thinks "powerless people suffering and dying is wrong", that's quite demonstrably false. It might even be a plurality of people on earth who could not care less about the suffering of those outside of their immediate family and friends. > I'm looking for an answer that doesn't assume that they're stupid or insane. they just dont care! Why assume that people who ran for political office actually care about the welfare of others? if the question is "why do this coal stuff when it's also unnecessary", well that gets into another MAGA value which is "dominance". That is, making people suffer and accept things that are horrible is also a big power play. Just watch any Game of Thrones episode for examples.
gbin 1y ago
Anti intellectualism is absolutely not new in the US. There is a kind of group think that is basically self reassuring themselves that "our ignorance is better than your knowledge". There is nothing you can do about this. The more you try to educate people the worse people fall back to it.
Aurornis 1y ago
> Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? A lot is driven by contrarianism. They see what the other side wants and automatically fight for the opposite. Among those who actually think deeper, they hold beliefs that putting restrictions on coal will make their energy bills explode or make industries in their town go out of business. Some come from states with coal mining operations. They see the initiatives as an attack on their state. There is also a lot of misinformation about clean energy. You can still find people who believe that it’s impossible to build enough solar or wind energy to make a difference so they believe it’s all just a scam to spend their tax dollars on useless ventures. > I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? Modern mines are still somewhat dangerous but they’re not like the Zoolander style pickaxe and black lung operations you might have seen in history books. Modern mining relies heavily on machinery and many coal mines are surface operations. The number of humans involved has decreased every year for a long time while safety improves, much like how farming today doesn’t resemble farming of 100 years ago. It’s not the safest industry, but arguing that we need to eliminate it to avoid black lung is going to be very unpersuasive to anyone in an area with mining operations.
array_key_first 1y ago
I legitimately think there is zero psychology. Its just money. They got bought out by coal and petroleum, so now they just lie to support them. I don't think anyone can legitimately believe these things.
froggy 1y ago
My theory is consistent repetition of messaging (Cialdini principles). The people aren’t stupid, they’ve been gradually brainwashed over years by propaganda like Fox News and “conservative” talk shows, or they have family/friends that repeat that messaging. It is at the point of groupthink where they all now openly celebrate bigots and extremists. They probably don’t understand or care why tuna and others parts of our food chain are contaminated by mercury. Maybe they just want to join a team and beat up on the other team. The fossil-funded GOP tells them each liberal position is evil, so the MAGAs reflexively go against it all, even if it means mutual destruction. When I was a kid, it was common knowledge (IIRC) that you couldn’t trust lawyers or politicians. It’s crazy to me how people nowadays are putting so much trust in politicians.

GenerocUsername 1y ago

In a way it is? Let me explain. The USA is big, but China bigger. If the USA over optimizes on reducing greenhouse gas today, at the expense of our long term economic and world power, China, who cares for less about preserving the world will continue to destroy the world and claim the most power simultaneously. So while we can reduce OUR footprint by taking ourselves out of the game, the world still loses. So now try to find a less myopic solution where we remain powerful enough to get the whole world to tamper down their impacts. We don't win by removing ourselves from the competition. And the competition has a high chance of killing us all. But rolling over is a guaranteed way to lose everything everywhere. Oh and the prior commitments like the Paris accord were engineered to harm us while allowing China to dominate.

namdnay 1y ago
> prior commitments like the Paris accord were engineered to harm us while allowing China to dominate Who engineered them to harm us? You’re saying there’s a powerful pro-China cabal that designed the Paris accords on purpose to harm us and benefit China? Come on..
- GenerocUsername 1y ago
  Yes
dylan604 1y ago
Anyone with a couple of marbles in their noggin can see that depending on a finite resource dug out of the ground for everything is not a good long term plan. Offsetting that dependence with infinitely renewable sources just makes sense. You mention China cares less, yet you fail to acknowledge China by far outpaces the US in its pursuit of renewables. Yes they still use a lot of coal, but they are actively adding more renewables. It’ll just take time. At least they are trying. Also look at their adoption of EVs compared to US.
Maken 1y ago
But China is deploying more wind and solar energy than the USA. If anything the refusal to diversity energy sources is leaving USA even more behind the competition in the long term.