American Climate Corps
whitehouse.gov
whitehouse.gov
Or could've put Corps of Engineers to work. The US Army Corps of Engineers built lots of infrastructure. I'm sure they can deploy solar and wind faster and cheaper than anyone else. They've done lots of projects for water, why isn't energy thought of in the same way?
Germany is putting up solar panels along autobanh[3]. No reason Army Corps of Engineers can't do the same on US Highways. Federal Govt owns this land, land is all clear and ready to go, no pesky issues of working with landowners.
[1]"The US Department of Defense is also the single largest institutional fossil fuel user in the world. Since 2001, the military has been responsible for 77 to 80 percent of federal energy consumption": https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-cli...
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Corps_of_En...
[3]https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/11/german-highway-pv-cou...
I was expecting to hear the zeitgeist of Gen-Z climate doomerism that it doesn't matter what everyday people do (recycle, drive less) and pollution is entirely the fault of billionaires and corporations.
Not to dismiss the hard work of billionaires and corporations in destroying the planet but I do get annoyed with thinking everyone else is off the hook for a solution or the consequences of their actions.
We could regulate the emissions of the billionaires and corporations who have the resources to go carbon-neutral, and reach the 1.5C target just with that. Or yeah, the whole rest of the world could recycle, cycle instead of using a car, go with rail instead of air travel, reuse, buy ethical premium products, heat less in the Winter, AC less in the Summer, and I'm sure we'll get part of the way to 1.5C. If only everyone would do their part, we could save the rich the trouble!
Being climate-conscious is important, but it's a very weak climate change lever to pull for the 90% of us. Let's not pretend it isn't, in light of all the evidence to the contrary.
[0] https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte...
[0] https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=...
These are the actual facts so yes, I will get annoyed with a false excuse that we're all off the hook for our own actions "because of the rich".
Carbon recapture businesses are already available and the costs are already down to the point where someone earning $50k or so can comfortably buy some offsets, just not their complete offset. That will come, I believe.
I’d be happy with an outcome where we are more regulated, and I think climate change needs to be solved, and the top 10% is most capable.
There’s no class warfare here. Just facts. The top 10%, myself and many readers of HN inclusive, can move the needle more than most.
Soil exhaustion, salination and erosion, fossil aquifer depletion, rainforest (biodiversity) destruction, and general forest destruction, hunting pachyderms and large cats to extinction, followed by most other large wild animals and birds, extermination of ocean fish via overfishing, pollution with microplastics, pesticides, etc., etc., death of coral reefs via Nobel fishing (dynamite),mountain-top removal mining, mine tailing pollution, and on and on... climate change is just the cherry on the top, really. The mint wafer at the end of Mr. Creosote's dinner.