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Comment by sdevonoes | Hacker News Reader

In a world where we have people like Trump, Musk, Thiel, et al, with extreme power and resources, why would we hope for something like climate change to be addressed?

What can scientists do? Even if they are 100% right and can prove it, they have no power to do anything. Governments of the top countries are puppets of the US, so there’s not much to do. Other governments are dealing with more mundane problems. And the “A fucked up planet affects everyone equally” is just not true. Billionaires can live in a fucked up planet just fine. They don’t even need people (as demonstrated by AI and its goal of replacing workers). They truly don’t care about us. And if the worst forecast for the planet is to come, they also won’t care (they would just live to their fullest while they can)

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I won't comment on the others you mentioned, but Musk has probably done more for reducing CO2 emissions than any other human on the planet by popularizing electric vehicles and making them 'cool'.

These are the types of solutions we should be cheering, because people voluntarily chose the less-CO2 product due to its appeal. No heavy handed laws required.

Note that anyone who suggested actions that would be both implementable by an individual and extremely effective would be rapidly banned from HN.

We could build out private solar farms though.

I can think of a nonfiction book whose title would get you rapidly banned from HN. A movie was made with the same subject and title, but because it was a drama and not a documentary, it's not really fair to say the movie is an adaptation of a book. In the movie, a small group does the thing that is extremely effective.

/The Ministy for the Future/ also contains a grassroots group that does something implementable by individuals and extremely effective.

US Greenhouse gas emissions are down 18% from 2007 levels. CO2 emissions and electricity generation are no longer linked. You might not like them, but Trump, Musk, Thiel, et al (whoever the et al are) are doing a good job pushing nuclear power as well, which promises a more energy-rich future without greenhouse emissions.

The people who truly don't care are not in the US; they're China and India, whose per capita CO2 emissions are exploding to the upside. China alone makes up like a third of the world's emissions. They don't talk about cutting emissions but about slowing their growth, and yet people are upset at US politicians as the US is busy meeting climate goals it doesn't even profess (and which don't bind China). When you look at actual data, the people you're blaming aren't the ones you should be blaming.

Your post is the typical "it's not us, it's them".

- Per capita: US has the highest emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

- Cumulative, US has the highest emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?c...

As a European, we have the same thing going on, except we're usually saying "let the US and China do it first", but our cumulative baggage is also pretty big.

In some way, the US and EU are even MORE responsible for reducing emissions and cleaning up their mess, because they reaped all the benefits of a high GDP because of massive burning of fossil fuels without investing heavily into renewable infrastructure.

An American and a European sit at a bar drinking. Their Chinese friend, who had been detained by business, comes and joins them. After he's started his drink, the bartender warns them all that it's dangerous to drink and drive. The American and European stop drinking and sit around chatting, hoping to pass enough time to sober up before heading home. The Chinese man, however, reasons that the American and European have cumulatively consumed more distilled pleasure than he has, and so it is his right to keep indulging, despite having been warned about the danger that drunk driving poses to himself and others.

In the face of what is advertised as an existential global threat, the argument that the Chinese should be excused for failing to curb their emissions, on the grounds that others in the past also emitted, contradicts the idea that emissions pose an existential global threat.

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