US public wants climate change dealt with, but doesn’t like the options | Hacker News Reader

US public wants climate change dealt with, but doesn’t like the options

arstechnica.com

18 pointsPaulHoule12 comments

I’d love to go carbon neutral personally, but the price tag - new solar, battery, 2 electric cars, re-wire of the house, electric water heater, electric stove, electric heat pump - is probably minimum $100k. And I’m being generous with that figure because that doesnt include possibly needing a new roof before panel install, and possibly needing an electric panel upgrade for those two 220v charging ports you’re gonna need for those cars. Then you probably want your gas line capped/meter removed.

The only way you slice this move is Americans accept a certain decrease in quality of life for a time, or the government makes more debt for itself subsidizing these moves than what it did trying to float businesses during Covid.

Right now it is Republicans who are complaining on principle but look at all the leftists who “think the rent is too high” and think another 50 cents here or there are going to break them. (Sorry, if your landlord installs a heat pump your rent goes up, it’s not the perversity of landlords or capitalism, it is that heat pumps cost money and the people who benefit from it will pay for it. Sure the government can subsidize it but that raises taxes which somebody pays.)

Pretty soon Bipoc people will be saying they can’t afford it and rhey’ve suffered too much already, other people will say that it gets in the way of their lifestyle (sure, cis people can afford it, but don’t you know what I’ve been through…) and soon they are wearing yellow shirts too and crossing the barricade.

Not to mention people in the global South who will be resistant to making land use changes for problems they attribute to the North.

The perpetual "energy jobs" rallying cry used to justify subsidizing the carbon industries is perplexing to me. If we were on-shoring the manufacturing of heat pumps, water heaters, stoves, solar panels, high efficiency windows, etc. and subsidizing the installation of the same, we'd be swimming in the respectable blue-collar work that Boomers enjoyed.

This is a major point of contention between myself and my kith. We are all in agreement over climate change, broadly on social issues, economic issues, etc. The moment we start talking about specifics, the conversations get contentious:

- Encouraging higher density via elimination of single-family-only zoning (think minisota)

- Replacing gas with electrical

- Adopting a more vegetarian and vegan lifestyle

- reduction in general consumption.

Whenever personal action, or things that affect the public at large are indicated, there is a strong reaction. Its like the dog that wants you to throw the ball, but then does not give it back for you to throw.

I am sympathetic toward the response. I am one person among billions; any action I take will pale in comparison to the actions of corporations, governments, and populaces as a whole. Society at large seems to want to put the entire fate of the world on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. If I accept my personal responsibility, it can lead to despondency as I see others shirking their responsibility at best, and actively working against it at worst. Thus, I give up and focus only on abstract concepts that affect corporations, governments, and peoples at large.

And this is my experience with fairly liberal people. My experience with my conservative parents is disgusting. There is, somehow, an acknowledgement that climate change is real (thank god) and anthropogenic (thank god), but ANY (and I do mean any) suggestion on how to curb it is meant with resistance since essentially any solution would require a changing of society. Mind you, this is even with the most uncontroversial policies (such as more renewable energy)

I used to think thousands would have to have their homes destroyed in order to invite political action. COVID has convinced me that a million dead is truly just a statistic. I do not have high hopes for anything but the worst case scenario of the climate response.

Solar seems to be a good option that people like. Make it easier and cheaper to deploy and you’ll get massive uptake. “Would you like energy independence and lower energy costs for the next 20+yrs?” “Yea please”

Replacing our trips to the gas and service stations with an electric car seems like an easy pill to swallow. standardizing chargers is a great first step. Now make them first class citizens and people will be happier with them. There has been phenomenal demand for electric fords and Tesla seems to be on a roll selling the things.

Reducing methane emissions from cattle by using a dietary supplement is an easy option too. Make the technology available and incentivize it’s use and everyone will do it.

It seems a combination of policy and technological innovations could really move climate change mitigation efforts forward. Use policy to make the best thing the cheapest thing and you win. And by win I mean “win our planet back so our grandkids to inherit a world that’s not a steaming pile of crap”.

Energy security is going to be a prime concern, not only for nations but individual persons too. Fossil fuels are either going to run out, or carbon emissions are going to be heavily taxed, or both. Nuclear power does not seem to be a favourite or a viable option. Renewables are not getting enough support to make them viable for consumers or industries at scale.

In a decade or 2 an average Jack&Jill family won’t be able to afford living on gas. People would be happy to buy a smaller house [those who can afford a house] with independent solar power. A solar setup is easily capable of generating surplus electricity for a consumption by a family, right from heating to charging their EVs.

Popular support for nuclear energy is higher than you’d think after the Fukushima accident, people are aware there is a climate crisis going on.

The light water reactor has two problems: (1) Russia is the only country that is really building them on a N-th of a kind basis, everybody else is building them so sporadically each is practically first of a kind. France was approaching where Russia is 30 years ago but they gave up, Korea wishes they were where Russia is but they are not, China wants to be where Russia is in ten years and maybe they will be. (This is the possibility of Russia endangering Zaphorisia NPP would be such an own goal.)

(2) is that the economics are not great even if people could build NPPs without screwing up and it is not just the nuclear island but the heat exchangers, steam turbine and balance of systems. There is the hope that the parts of an LWR can be put together in some way at some scale that deletes some expensive systems, there is the most enthusiasm now for GE’s BWRX300, but you have to not only do that but push through the growing pains to get N-of-a-kind economics.

Now it is not impossible that some other reactor type that runs at higher temperatures could lower the cost of heat handling but that’s not an easy route either since all kinds of practical problems involving materials and such need to be solved. On the other hand, the impact for the future of humanity could be priceless. It’s quite the problem that the U.S. gave up on the fast flux test facility and that we’ve lost 30+ years of progress we could have made on next generation reactors, there is serious talk of building all kinds of test reactor today that we should have been having 20 years ago.

One way or other we would be moving away from gas. In your opinion which odd these scenarios is most likely:

1. Commercial and consumer market for solar 2. Commissioned NPPs 3. Something else

We need all of the above in large amounts.

Solar and wind are promising but I think experiencing irrational exuberance. It takes about as long to build power lines as it does to build NPPs and it takes plenty of power lines to move energy from the richest areas to where the demand is. 20 years ago people assumed we’d need weeks worth of power storage to smooth demand, today the estimates are dramatically less and I’m not sure I believe them. There is going to be pushback against mega solar farms displacing wildlife but rooftop solar and other land-conserving options don’t promise headline low prices.

Remember Africa is going to add another billion people and they all want to raise their standard of living, India wants to follow in the footsteps of China, etc.

Unless the global economy doesn't rebase itself on something other than petrochemicals, what are individuals going to do?

As long as oil and emissions is what runs our society what are individuals going to be able to do about it?

Despite the headline, those poll results are still more positive than you would expect from US Politics.

Exactly, 70% in favor of a carbon tax.

That's drastically more than the percentage of US Senators or Congresspeople who would support that.

If anything, this shows that Americans want harsher action on climate change than we are getting.

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