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Comment by jay_kyburz | Hacker News Reader

Americans (and Australians) will never accept any changes that negatively impact their lives or wallets. Especially when the consequences of climate change are not clear and present. As democracies, we will simply vote out any government that asks us to change our ways.

I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change, and that they are not willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Nearly 700,000 Americans have died as a direct result of Covid, can you imagine how many people will have to die before people give up air travel or eating beef.

Covid has made me realize that no solution that asks people to wind back energy use will work, we need to push forward and develop carbon sequestration and other terrafoming technologies.

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Except that Americans and Australians have proven over and over again that they will accept changes that negatively impact their lives and wallets, most recently the voluntary and involuntary changes that negatively affected their lives and wallets due to COVID-19.

I realize it was a little disrespectful of me to dismiss the many people who have made huge sacrifices to help prevent the virus both here in Australia and the US. The lockdowns have been very tough, and many businesses ruined. I'm in a two week quarantine after a close contact in a supermarket right now.

I should have suggested that "some" people will not change, and they will be very vocal. Many politicians will want their vote, and its not clear to me who will have the majority in our democracies.

Australia and America definitely differed in the case of COVID-19.

There was huge support for lockdown and restrictions here for a long time, and only just in the last few weeks is compliance becoming an issue in Melbourne (but not so much elsewhere). Turns out a year of social restrictions causes fatigue.

If anything the respective COVID responses show that Australia and the US are quite different, despite the frequent parallels drawn.

I think you're just frustrated at what you believe is the inability of other people to see a danger you do. I suppose I'm one of those people. I didn't find your comparison to covid disrespectful, it just seemed to undermine your belief that carbon sequestration was the only way to go.

A sizable fraction - haven't- accepted these changes, hence why the disease persists at massive levels in the US.

Whether or not it's fair to blame this minority for the persistence of the disease and its variants is irrelevant to the argument he was making.

> Americans (and Australians) will never accept any changes that negatively impact their lives or wallets.

Luckily, a lot of the electrification parts of the climate bill will save Americans (and Australians) money without changing lifestyles — same size homes, cars, etc — just electrified. Electric machinery is just that much more efficient.

Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia have the actual numbers: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ and https://www.rewiringaustralia.org/

It's going to be hard to convince folks to replace their gas water heaters with electric heat pump models that cost ~3x more and save little to no cost annually.

I'm not sure drilling for a heat pump would work in town here, and then the operating cost would still likely be more than gas (heating is at least 75% of my annual consumption).

Figuring out how to eliminate those emissions is important, but it sure as hell isn't going to save me money, especially now and in the short term.

Heat pump is how air conditioners work, a heat pump that heats works in reverse. There's no drilling needed, that would be geothermal.

Heat pump water heaters do save about half the cost in electricity over a conventional resistive-only water heater, and are optimal for places with basements, as they also dehumidify; or in warm climates, as they cool the air. So it's also useful for long term perishable storage like a root cellar would be, or in a laundry room. They do cost 3x as much, though.

Residential heat pumps for heating and cooling in the US is relatively new, and I've had nothing but problems with mine - so much so that I just received a full refund on the purchase price of my unit because of manufacturing "defects".

Ground source heat pump is a better term than geothermal, because it is harder to confuse with other types of system.

What kinds of issues did you have with your heat pump? Was it the unit itself, installation? And where do you live?

It's unfortunate that the heat pump ecosystem isn't as developed as it should be. Feels kind of like installing Linux vs buying a Mac — not so seamless.

I'm glad you laid out all the misconceptions about heat pumps!

> It's going to be hard to convince folks to replace their gas water heaters with electric heat pump models that cost ~3x more and save little to no cost annually.

Heat pumps are not "3x" as expensive and the price is coming down. Heat pumps are also a lot more efficient than any other heat source! Most households in the US would save ~$500/year on the energy bill if they switched to air-source heat pumps. Source: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... This doesn't account for business use.

So it works like solar panels and electric cars — higher up front cost that saves you money over the long term. And if the government gave up-front rebates to make the costs the same or lower than furnaces then it's a no-brainer to use heat pumps.

>I'm not sure drilling for a heat pump would work in town here, and then the operating cost would still likely be more than gas (heating is at least 75% of my annual consumption).

Air source heat pumps are where it's at — waaay easier install than using ground-source or water-source. Air-source heat pumps used to not work in colder climates but now they do and have gotten a lot more efficient. These things are really awesome, a pretty good way to slash emissions while saving money over the long term.

Heat pump water heaters are not the same thing as heat pumps used for home heating. Please edit your comment to make it clear you misunderstood what I was talking about.

My expectation is that an air source heat pump would not work well here, at considerably higher cost than the gas furnace when installing is included in the comparison. Air source probably not working well is why I talked about drilling (each paragraph is a topic; water heating in the first and home heating in the second...).

Only if you believe the phony math.

One of the most famous speeches in American history:

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - Kennedy

I believe that fighting climate change is a problem of similiar magnitude to going to the moon in 1969, and smaller than winning WWII. We did both of those things, we can do this. But we have to want to.

Which is exactly the problem, the generations of Americans who actually wanted to and were capable of doing great things is long gone. We have since been trained by sociopaths to believe only in sociopathy, to only look out for our own interests and eat our fellow man if it betters our lot, and that this is righteous and good. We have systematically dismantled their great works.

If we bank on the will of the American people we are surely doomed.

This is nostalgia; for every American in the past that dreamed of great things, there is a Snopes, Salem, McCarthy

FWIW the government and media were full of communists, McCarthy wasn’t wrong, he just had bad tactics.

Come on. The US did not go to the moon because millions of Americans banded together and sacrificed around a single goal. The US went to the moon because the government felt capitalism was losing the PR battle to communism (Soviets) and so decided to pour money into it because they didn’t want to look bad. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race

A majority of Americans opposed the Apollo program. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/a-maj...

A majority of Americans support action on climate change.

"Action on climate change" very vague... mostly that is "get more electricity from renewable, maybe get an electric car". It is nothing that reduces the quality of life, that is supported from very few people, almost none. There is reasons the answer to how to fund is always "make the rich pay", Americans do not like paying for stuff.

That speech is just fluff, feel-good PR written by a professional speech writer.

US wished to flex its muscles since it was losing the space race to the Soviet Union. If the pure-Communists can beat you in an advanced tech area, then there is something wrong with pure capitalism.

When the Chinese start leading the pack in green initiatives and propagandising their efforts, the US will hard-press the accelerator.

Competition is the essence and core of the human spirit.

> Americans (and Australians) will never accept any changes that negatively impact their lives or wallets. Especially when the consequences of climate change are not clear and present. As democracies, we will simply vote out any government that asks us to change our ways

I'm at a loss for words here. The most lauded Australian prime minister of the last 30 years is the one that banned firearms, dragged Australia into the Middle East, started offshore detention and introduced a value-added tax on everything from drinks to tampons. People have literally been elected on promises of destroying internet infrastructure.

The problem Australia has is exclusively to do with every single political group (including the Greens) being anti-environmental and peddling conspiracy theories about things like nuclear and hydroelectric. It has nothing to do with what Australians will or won't accept -- Australia has arguably the world's most docile, suggestible population. It has everything to do with political incompetence and an extreme, unhinged focus on being electable.

> I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change, and that they are not willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Australians have endured some of the longest, strictest lockdowns, and are on track to have one of the world's highest vaccination rates.

I'm really not sure why you seem to be pinning this on the population.

>I'm really not sure why you seem to be pinning this on the population.

I think both major parties are dragging their feet on climate because any sacrifices they ask people to make will lose them the election. Covid is different because it has not been an election issue.

I'm pinning it on us, because who else is there.

I often feel like democracy has failed us. We have elected trash leaders.

My perspective of democracy was that it was to protect us against both unjust rulers and ineffective rulers. The end result was instead of potential kings/rulers fighting each other directly as they did in ancient times, they fight each other indirectly by trying to get votes. They are not much different then previous era's....

Is it really this hard to get a wise ruler who both cares about the well being of humans and can take the long term view? Someone who can tell fact from fiction.

> Is it really this hard to get a wise ruler who both cares about the well being of humans and can take the long term view? Someone who can tell fact from fiction.

Most of them "can", but the ones who "will" get weeded out early or are made out to be lepers (Ralph Nader comes to mind).

We would all need to basically live an Amish lifestyle. Not many will do it willingly. We really need some breakthrough like fusion.

Not interested in living like a serf because your religion tells you we need to sacrifice our lifestyles.

we need some breakthroughs but don’t need to live like amish. Heat pumps, nuclear, solar panels, electric cars, urbanization that promotes walkability, all exist and go a long way. We need plenty of breakthroughs, lots of help from policy as well, but already have much of what we need to get pretty far along.

Everything you described requires the production of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Being Amish would not :)

Well that’s not true, they do accept changes that negatively impact their lives, it just has to come from Mother Nature.

And not until years later -- stopping eating beef would be tomorrow

Lifestyle changes are going to be inevitable, one way or the other.

I don't think that's a given for people alive today. Climate change happens on a global scale, not a human scale. People wont "feel" it's change.

I'm happy to make sacrifices, but a lot of vocal people are not.

We need to stop talking about "making sacrifices". We need to get people excited about the amazing opportunities all this work provides us.

It's exciting to me that we need to replant our forests. We have new power plants to build. New desalination plants! New farming technologies!

So much work in so many industries, it can be an exciting time of growth if you ask me!

> People wont "feel" it's change.

Oh, but 'people' feel its change. You feel it.

But it is all secondary, or even further away. Coffee is more expensive. Gas (CNG) prices is already costing many households more in these summer months. Gasoline prices are at record hights. Water is increasing in price. Electricity prices are at record heights (which, is increasing my IT infrastructure bills). In many regions we cannot get certain potatoes doe to crops failing. And so on.

You see the effects, when you look for em. In your wallet. On your table. In your bottom lines and revenues.

So, aside from the opportunities we may see, there are effects having impact on average peoples live this very moment

It is happening – China has been imposing power curb throughout the whole country. Since I work in manufacturing, I can see the cost of everything is rising, i.e. metals, chemicals, and even shipping fee. Now the consumers won't feel these because the whole supply chain is still absorbing the cost. But the effects will eventually it will get to individuals in various forms.

And there lies the difference that made my grandparents generation, albeit on the Allied side of WW2, the greatest generation. Not the willingness to go to war, that was enforced by drafts all over the globe back then. It was rather the total revamping of the economy, industry and society to support the war against the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. The UK went to rationing, and still people carried on in global struggle. The US produced all of three cars between 41 and 45 (I d have to look up sources here...). And don't even think about the hardships the USSR went through.

And here we are, pampered boomers and millenials, in a society so selfish and profit and status oriented that we are not willing to accept the slightest inconveniences, or god forbid tax increase, to tackle one of the biggest challenges we ever faced.

Sometimes I wish climate change was a person, or an idea, that threatened capitalism rather than a scientific phenomenon so that the American propaganda machine would take action to mobilize the American people. Unfortunately, this is not the reality we live in.

It was easier for our grand grand parents to understand the issue. A global war is something that hits you on the head, you and everyone else. Climate change doesn't do that. Second, after the war (and before too) life was harder than it is to day, you had to work together. Then the sixties came in with lots of oil and all the richness. So people were just leaving the hardship of pas decades and entering a world where everything was much easier. We are the product of those years. We were born in an easier world (at least in western europe, where several countries had access to their late colonies on top of that)). So I'm afraid we don't know much about working together. We'll have to learn that again.

Hopefully, we could have a very big energy crisis. Unlike COVID, energy price rise affects everyone directly, it's not like "I know somebody who..." (unfortunately, the poorer are hit harder). This would affect everyone and would lead to some social unrest. Not that I wish social unrest, but that is a signal that can't be ignored, even though it is a very slippy slope.

Interestingly, the current spike in gas prices down here puts a lot of politicians in panic mode. Gas price, unlike covid, is the result of human negotiator; you can't invoke "bad luck" or "nature's revenge" or whatever....

> And there lies the difference that made my grandparents generation, albeit on the Allied side of WW2, the greatest generation.

The US was pushed into the war by Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt was in favor of joining the war effort directly but faced isolationist opposition at home. The best he could do was the lend-lease agreement with the UK, which was a hard bargain in the US’s favor.

After the war was joined it was sustained by a massive domestic propaganda campaign (all those iconic WW2 posters? Propaganda)

WW2 and the cold-war era space program represent the zenith of technocratic government in the west. What we have seen since is in many ways 50+ years of failure: social unrest, Vietnam war, inflation, terrorism, more war, financial crisis, pandemic. The government has seemed to be unprepared for all of those. While it’s not what I believe personally, I can understand if someone thinks that government will fail to meet the complex challenge of climate change.

The legislative branch of the US government is so thoroughly disordered that it can effectively pass one single piece of legislation per year through the budget reconciliation process. We trust this group of people and this process to solve climate change, when it will not even take up the more targeted and effective proposals such as a carbon tax?

The US government has a problem with wasteful spending, not collecting enough money. Higher taxes will just mean more waste.

> Higher taxes will just mean more waste.

Nope. Even if 50% of US taxes are "wasted" on things manigandham doesn't care about, it doesn't follow that increasing taxes would simply all be diverted to things manigandham doesn't care about and thus "wasted".

There are two problem here, you are conflating them:

1. Government spend on stupid shit like welfare and all the stuff in Paul's Festivus report,

2. Government spend inefficiently paying lot of buraucrats between when dollars are taken in and when they leave goernment.

That's not how ratios work. If 50% is wasted then 50% of new funds would still increase the overall amount.

And waste is defined as money spent that doesn't reach any goals, or even make any progress towards them. It's a very common topic on HN about startups spending capital poorly, and likewise profligate spending can be found everywhere in (US) government. $2T in a decades-long war is a recent example, including the hundreds of billions in equipment and resources left behind.

But surely, you knew what I meant. I wonder how much climate change progress could've been made with all that money. Feel free to donate more with your next tax payment if you want.

we went into war only with reluctance after pearl harbor because japs were blowing our shit up... population was otherwise coming off a long period of isolationism and would not have fought, i think. considerably easier to deal with global warming than that: we have a wide range of latitudes where we can grow crops, lots of natural resources, can throw money at the problem. no need to destroy our lifestyle today

I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change

Really? I think Covid-19 showed just how readily people are willing to subject themselves to humiliation and medical experimentation because of a disease whose headline kill rate is low, and whose practical kill rate is abysmal (ie, for the non-nursing home set). Shrug. When the establishment actually decides on the pastoralization of the Western world, they will get it the next day.

Imagine typing this comment and being proud of yourself for saying a good thing.

Kill rate isn't that low, and the Long COVID rate is pretty high.

But these are the same leaders who pushed ACA as a right, and then completely failed to mention that with rights come responsibilities (i.e., personal health). ACA hasn't made us any healthier and even in the middle of a pandemic we continue to blame the healthcare system, even when the data says otherwise.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

It's not just to blame the people for not sacrificing when there are - and rightfully so - trust issues. There's simply not enough historical evidence to support trusting Uncle Sam and his ilk. I'm not advocating that, simply showing empathy for those who - again rightfully so - remain suspect of a political and media system that has its best interests in mind first, and WTP a distant second.

Keep shopping.

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