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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't this increase US exposure to foreign intervention in the future? Although China is the worst offender, since a while now they are getting their stuff together. They suffered and later fixed some gross air pollutions in their cities.

The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air, so if this sticks at some point the only logical next step would be to compel US to stop polluting the world.

If I understand correctly, this also removes EPA ability to regulate car emissions, arguing that it will allow for cheaper cars. Why would US public really wants newly made clunkers on their cities? Polluting cars are horrible city life quality downgrade that even the rich can't escape.

Also, will this allow to put the banned due to the dieselgate VW vehicles back on the roads?

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China was an offender at the time yes. But even so, since 1980, when effects of climate change were first known, US has emitted 250Gt and China only 263 Gt, which in per capita terms places US at 690t/p and China at 185 t/p. This is despite China having one child policy since 1979 (which by the way has been heavily criticized by the US).

In all, the case for US being the real villain here keeps getting stronger and stronger.

I enjoyed the 2009 book Ultimatum about this scenario -- what could you do to make a global polluter to stop if they were endangering the world? https://www.amazon.com/Ultimatum-Matthew-Glass-ebook/dp/B002...

I don’t know by what means foreign countries would intervene in the US. They’d just ignore whatever is requested of them.

But it will increase US dependency on foreign countries in the long term. EVs are the future and if US manufacturers aren’t working on them then they’ll continue to lose market share to foreign companies.

US is 350M people, let's say everyone is climate change sceptic and together with Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia it totals to about 550M people.

In the rest of the world the idea that you can just just pump as much as smoke you like and it will magically disappear isn't popular. Maybe because they all had some polluting industry around that made them miserable or maybe because they live in dirty overcrowded cities and noticed that smog isn't pleasant or maybe because they don't have much fossil energy sources, they are generally not skeptical of the idea that "not polluting is good". Just as with vaccines or abortion, climate change or simply the desire to live in a clean environment isn't a divisive topic in most of the world.

So its going to be 8B people trying to compel 0.5B people to live in clean environments and take care of the output of their industries. I think the 8B will be able to do that one way or another.

The means would initially be similar to those used against other mildly-rogue regimes such those of Serbia and Mali: withdrawal of cooperation, fines, and limited sanctions.

If we get to the late 2040s and the rest of the world is within touching distance of net zero but the US remains as an extreme outlier in its refusal to decarbonise, then we could well see harsher measures such as those applied to the likes of Russia and Venezuela.

Or to move your polluting industry there

That ship sailed with the destruction of the global world order. The polluting industries probably don't have to be polluting when you take care of the pollutants.

The rest of the world is not on board. Western Europe, United States, and Australia take “breathing considered harmful“ seriously. No other country does, and nobody else is deliberately suppressing their growth. There are plenty of countries taking western money to pretend that they do.

Believe it or not, most of the people on earth don't worship growth. No one cares about growth just as no one cares about climate change, people want improvement on their lives and a future that can be good. Some policies like paper straws downgrade it and other policies like clean air upgrade it.

When you start thinking in more abstract terms, growth v.s. climate change associated risks is a false dichotomy.

Of course people at first all they care is to get out of a bad situation like poverty but once they are out of poverty they start caring for other things like the future of their children. Apart of fossil energy producing countries like USA/Russia/Australia, people don't pretend that pollution is no biggie.

Generally these things follow a Kuznets Curve where you get rich from polluting and then are eventually rich enough to care about poisoning your children.

China's bad air around the time of their Olympics is pointed to as being a turning point that could have toppled the government if not dealt with.

Slightly uniquely they seem to have discovered a way to become even richer by cleaning up their pollution, the timing for EV and renewables working out well, and presumably many other nations will try to follow that pattern going forward.

Even just buying these things from China will make both sides of the trade richer compared with dirtier alternatives.

Despite this, since 1980, US, EU and Australia have been the biggest polluters since 1980 when climate change was first known to be man made. (Read my other comment)

I’m pretty sure that’s not remotely true. Look at the state of the Ganges River or the visibility in any major Chinese Metropolitan area. Many countries just ignore these patently obvious ecological disasters. The notion that climate was in a pleasant homeostasis until European people arrived is absurd on its face and contrary to geological record.

You are being scammed. Billionaires just want an excuse to assert control over all human activity. Climate Doom is an eschatological religion for atheists. Conserve forests, control industrial waste, substitute toxic products, of course. But your breath is an existential threat to all life on Earth? It’s ridiculous and it has completely derailed productive environmental efforts with carbon-trade scams and a regulatory priesthood demanding sacrifice. Meanwhile serious people can barely get a hearing on aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, overfishing, food quality, or source water protection.

Exhalation accounts for maybe 10% of co2 activities. But our carbon comes from what we eat which is in a loop with photosynthesis. It does not accumulate in the same way emissions do.

Meanwhile we add 10x of that every in a system that does not have a drain for it.

> The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air

Are you sure about that? Or you mistaking the world's opinion for that of the out-of-touch elites living in their lofty ivory towers? Because in the world, outside the media controlled by these elites, I see the exact opposite: it turns out THE WORLD generally like electricity at 2 cents per kwh (not 50 cents how elites like it), no matter how much carbon dioxide it emits.

AFAICT the only 2c/kwh electricity is solar or hydro.

In fact, wind and solar often bid negative amounts to sell power.

For those confused by this, the way a utility buys power is they take bids from powerplants, and then "fill their bucket" with the cheapest options, the most expensive, cheapest option is what everyone gets paid. So if you can compete in a market with coal and coal is 8 cents/kwh, and you have zero operational costs, you can bid negative values to always be in the bucket and be compensated 8 cents/kwh.

I'm pretty sure. Once I sniffed air as a non-elite and I like it clean.

It's ironic how you're (unknowingly) doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding while ranting about an ominous elite that doesn't care about regular people.

This is so out of touch. Coal is the most expensive electricity source in the US and it's not even close. We have an administration pushing coal.

That means you get worse air, worse water, AND you pay more for it. Some of y'all are so delusional that you're not only fine with getting fucked up the ass, you're actually willing to pay more for it!

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