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Comment by Reason077 | Hacker News Reader

Is there even a "war" against climate change? If there is, it's barely gotten started.

For the most part, politicians are at best apathetic and at worst, actively hostile to the idea of "fighting" such a war.

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Not in the US. The majority of the country isn't to the point of believing that climate change poses a serious threat, and among non-Democrats attitudes towards climate change are actually regressing: https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-s...

Weather or not the majority believes in climate change is irrelevant. The simple fact is: while the US reduced its total carbon footprint by ~0,4% in 2017, it increased in the EU and China. No reason to point fingers at the US.

Are you suggesting the link is causal?

Classic tragedy of the commons. No one wants to do their part because others aren't trying hard enough to fix the problem.

It is quite a lot easier to reduce when you are using > 2.5 times as much as the ones you are comparing to (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...)

The EU is reducing its carbon footprint if you zoom out from that one year[0]. China also has half of the carbon footprint per person[0]. The US appears the have the highest carbon footprint per capita of the major nations, beaten only by small countries[1].

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/01/climate/us-bi...

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...

Except that EU has been doing it's job since the 90s and China has been doing it as well in recent years. They both slipped the last 12 months and a lot of it, at least in Europe is combination of side-effects of the post-Fukushima nuclear scare and increase in greeny renewables (like solar and wind) that actually cause more methane and coal to burn because they cannot work as reliable base supply.

Those who haven't experienced it directly might underestimate how effective the right has been at tying anti-environment beliefs to political identity, even among people who are highly educated in the sciences and should know better.

From the activism I follow in my country in last decade, I learned that politicians are apathetic, and a good activism is needed to make them move. That's how lazy governments work. So I think until we fix governments performance we need to engage in efficient activism. What is efficient activism? This question interests me.

Workplace organizing. It's a lot easier to get people to fight for something when they know they'll benefit from it directly (via higher wages, better working conditions, etc). A unified working class is the most effective tool we have for fighting countering the power of bug business, who would rather let the world burn than stop building pipelines.

Most people don't like what's happening to the world -- they just feel powerless to stop it. So let's change that.

The politicians largely reflect the people they govern. I don't think we can expect much better from them as compared to the general population...not to mention of course the vested interests and lobbying capability of corporations. And again corporations have shareholders, employees, etc...

>The politicians largely reflect the people they govern.

Yet, people expect the politicians not to simply reflect them. Who or what is at fault then?

I think it is naive to expect someone to be better simply because they hold public office. Politicians are as fallible as anybody else...but I don't think that's a big problem in the long run. In the long run they will reflect the choices of large swathes of people. I think politics/policies are lagging indicators. For examples I give rulings on slavery, voting for women, voting for people of colour, legalisation of same-sex marriage, (bans on smoking in certain places), etc

> The politicians largely reflect the people they govern

Is that really true though? The statement is so vague.

In this regard it's absolutely true - the vast majority of people clearly are not willing to undertake meaningful lifestyle sacrifices to fight against climate change.

I think a more precise statement is that politicians reflect the people who got them in office.

In theory that means the voters. In practice in the US, because election spending is so huge and effective, it means the wealthy.

> The politicians largely reflect the people they govern.

Someday I'd like to visit the universe you live in. It sounds nice.

IDK, in my universe (at least for this topic) politicians reflecting the people they govern means that any nontrivial short-term sacrifice to even start fighting a war against climate change is an impossibility, the voters will throw them down the moment they'd propose devoting a meaningful amount of resources (with the associated cuts to other areas needing funding) or forcing major lifestyle changes on everyone, not just those who volunteer to live in a more eco-friendly manner.

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