EPA to Stop Collecting Emissions Data from Polluters

> How I wish people could believe in America, in liberty and the project of civilization and democracy. It just feels like that has slipped so much, that people want (have been incited into wanting) something narrow and different.

I really don't understand how hopelessness, hate, fear, and selfishness are more attractive, but I worry that as attacks on America, liberty, and democracy continue and the worse things get it'll only increase the amount of hopelessness, hate, fear, and selfishness around us. I'm not sure what it would take to break people out of that cycle. Those things are hard enough to fight when times are good and people feel secure.

> There is no indication that we will, no matter the administration, as a society/civilization/species will do a single thing to avert the worst case climate scenarios.

I don't think that's fair. Other countries have made considerable progress at getting to their climate goals, although there's an argument that those goals weren't set high enough or near enough. As much as China is still an environmental trainwreck they've made impressive progress on air pollution.

Because the US is such a huge polluter, I think a US administration that was seriously interested in dealing with climate change and willing to say no to billionaires would make a meaningful difference. We've seen investment in "green" do well for other countries, and even here to a lesser extent.

I suspect that climate change will do tremendous damage to our civilization, and that any global conflict which takes place as that damage progresses will only exacerbate things. The damage caused by climate change will certainly bring about new conflicts as well. Billions of climate refugees will be forced from their homes and need to go somewhere, and even the places they try to flee to will be hit with natural disasters and feel increasing pressure as once heavily populated areas will become less habitable due to heat, desertification, fire, flooding, storms, a lack of drinking water, etc.

I think that however dark the times ahead are, our actions right now will matter, and that's especially true if we just admit defeat and accept powerful people making the situation much worse by plundering and hording as much as they possibly can.

A bunch of us in the rest of the world are making great strides in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions without it tanking our economies. Australia is, per-capita, one of the worst offenders and we're on track to reach net zero by 2050.

I think your position is based on very cynical premises. There is no reason to assume with high confidence that humans will obliterate each other in that next 50 years (especially if we do something about one of the major stressors causing conflict)

There is also no reason to believe that reducing greenhouse gas emissions over 15-20 years will cause "more" damage than the worst impacts of climate change? Can you cite sources on this claim?

It is still possible to mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change.

> There is no indication that we will, no matter the administration, as a society/civilization/species will do a single thing to avert the worst case climate scenarios.

This is untrue. For instance, earlier this year Poland generated less than half its energy from coal for the first time. [1]

[1]: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/05/13/polands-monthly-coal-...

That'll go away quickly I bet.

The Republican party's victory in elections is predicated on having a vast lie spreading apparatus via massive disinformation campaigns. Uninformed and uneducated voters believe what they want to hear with no shred of logical thinking. The voters most certainly do not realize existential risks such as climate change and their existential significance. The root cause looks to be the failure of a competitive education system. To fix it, the lowest 10% performing schools as per SAT scores should be defunded every year, with their funding can be redistributed to the surviving schools until the nation's average score rises to be in the very top of global standards.