Comment by iso1337 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iso1337 | Hacker News Reader

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Are you referring to the one that hit Puerto Rico? Cynically I think that's because many people don't consider that truly part of America. (Note that's not my personal views, but just trying to make sense of why there was such a lackluster response).

My original comment was really trying to get at the human factors involved as to why we don't care. We just seem to be bad at responding to trends but better at responding to single events. Just like how the US generally don't care about the 40k+ USians killed every year in traffic accidents, but the US responded strongly to the singular event that was 9/11.

Edit: care about on an emotional, popular media level. Deaths per vehicle mile traveled have been going down over time in the US, due to increased safety regulations imposed on the manufacturers.

As far as human factor go, do you think political groups would do well to take more 'extremist' positions like outlawing gas burning cars and outlaw kerosene-based air travel, etc? It seems extreme, but isn't that what we are going to need to do anyway?

The environmental political base would stomach it, the opposition would think you're crazy, but they weren't going to help anyway. The tuned-out folks might take notice, "You want to do what?"

Talking about an abstract fossil fuel tax is not visceral enough. Threaten to take away something tangible and you might have their attention. Once you have their attention, explain why you're (we're) in this bind, then ask them to help. Ask them what they want to do if not your plan? Don't settle for anything less than serious fossil fuel withdrawal.

It feels heavy handed, but not too far off the mark from what's needed.

Yes, I was referring to hurricane Maria that impacted Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

>We just seem to be bad at responding to trends but better at responding to single events.

That is the problem since climate change is only visible when looking at trends. 100 year floods were very much a thing before climate change so you can't point to a single 100 year flood as a sign of a problem. You instead have to point to X number of 100 year floods in Y number of years.

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