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Comment by sien | Hacker News Reader

68% of Americans say they wouldn't pay $10 a month in higher electricity bills to combat Climate Change:

https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-...

What politicians say they want to do about global warming is very, very different to what people say they will pay for.

IMHO politicians are quite well aware of that, so they say that what they want to about global warming is to express concern, make plans and perhaps subsidize some local industries which they might have subsidized just purely as an economic stimulus - because if they would actually require significant transfer of wealth for these issues or significant mandates (either direct or as hefty tax incentives) to change lifestyles, then the voters would simply vote them out.

France has ~1/3 the per capita greenhouse gas emissions of the US and is a rich country so it's certainly possible.

France uses nuclear for 70% of their electricity generation and petrol is ~$7 / gallon ( $1.9/litre ).

Politicians just need to be honest about the costs and people just have to want it.

Well, you don't get to say what people "have to want", they have their own free will, and for the majority USA to transition to e.g. transportation habits of France would be a major lifestyle change, which they could make if they were forced to, but which they quite explicitly do not want - so if politicians are honest about the costs, that makes it certain that the policies won't be adopted, because there is not a willingness to pay them.

I mean, $7/gallon is approximately double the current price, and if we made a poll across the USA asking "Would you be willing to double the gas prices in order to ...." then the vast majority would not even read past the beginning, they are certain that nothing that they have ever thought about climate change would justify that amount of change right now.

To add a little perspective, before Covid some 40%ish number of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.

Yeah, some people are very much struggling to survive. They don't have it to spare.

Half or more of the above figure have an iPhone / Samsung smartphone with an unlimited data plan. It’s complicated and not as simple as nothing to spare. Plenty that could spare, including software devs making 100k+ a year, don’t care.

I used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some people making nominally large salaries don't have a lot of discretionary funds available.

I believe a lot of our societal gridlock is currently rooted in the deficiencies of our built environment. I am trying to focus on how we make progress on that.

A lot of people are currently in a situation where they need a high paying job to cover "basic expenses" and it's killing them. We need to find a way out of that if we really want to solve the climate stuff.

That's what's so damn infuriating. Taxpayers are paying that now in subsidies/lack of taxes for non-renewables because of lobbying and corruption. Make it a fair playing field and renewables will get the investment instead without any noticeable rise in user fees.

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