Montana’s New Anti-Climate Law May Be the Most Aggressive in the Nation | Hacker News Reader

Montana’s New Anti-Climate Law May Be the Most Aggressive in the Nation

insideclimatenews.org

31 pointsWarOnPrivacy13 comments

> A 2022 poll conducted by Colorado College found that nearly 60 percent of Montanans believe in climate change and want to address it, including by transitioning to renewable energy. Of the more than 1,000 comments submitted by local residents on House Bill 971, a whopping 95 percent opposed it.

Bold to ignore the will of your constituents with such fervor.

Those types of surveys are meaningless. Attach a number to the belief and you get vastly different results. The number doesn't even have to be big.

> To combat climate change, 57 percent of Americans are willing to pay a $1 monthly fee; 23 percent are willing to pay a monthly fee of $40.

https://apnorc.org/projects/is-the-public-willing-to-pay-to-...

That's not how most collective decision making goes though. You just make the rule and lets the costs be what they'll be. If you could omnipotently know the individual costs of laws people would oppose all of them -- real purchasing power is horrible right now, taking anyone's discretionary income for anything will be wildly unpopular.

Luckily even $1 per American per month totals 4 Billion dollars per year.

> The President's Budget invests a total of $44.9 billion in discretionary budget authority to tackle the climate crisis,

Billion here, billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/03/28/pres...

I think $44.9 billion/year is about the current cost to build enough solar and wind electricity generation to cover 100% of US peak consumption in only 10 years (construction costs for both today are about $1/watt). That's a pretty big amount all things considered.

All this while inhaling the burning Alberta forests.

Game theory says that considering climate change when China doesn’t is their wrong move. Dispite the fact that it produces a worse outcome compared to cooperation.

Nothing really terrible about this. It’s not really anti climate it’s about not using things with no defined value in project proposal considerations.

Saying there's no defined value is just plain willful ignorance.

> Game theory says that considering climate change when China doesn’t is their wrong move.

because?

> when China doesn’t

this sounds wrong. source?

> no defined value

are you familiar with the concept of an expected value?

There's a game-theory solution to this, which is to impose a tax on imports from countries in order to make up for their lack of aggressiveness in addressing climate change, aka, a border-adjustment mechanism. It's not perfect, but it provides a way to encourage every country to work together by punishing ones that don't. It also discourages industries from outsourcing in order to skirt environmental regulations.

Climate change isn't a game. It shouldn't be viewed in terms of win/lose.

If we actually start doing something about the problem and China doesn't, there will be a lot of pressure on them to do so as well. Or risk exclusion from global markets.

I don’t think the USA could put any more pressure on China then it already has without hurting themselves

Reply on news.ycombinator.com