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Comment by yostrovs | Hacker News Reader

It would be one thing if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars, but if anything it is only marginally better than the US. Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America, while restricting themselves from using air conditioning as some kind of virtue signaling. That's the problem as I see it.

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There's a lot to criticise of every country, but we're trying. The US is not trying (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#/media/File:Pa...

* Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA.

> The US is not trying

https://usclimatealliance.org/

I don't expect people outside of the U.S. to keep up on state level politics but it is worth noting that many in the U.S. are trying and given our form of government state level action isn't anything to sneeze at.

Go stand in your local Walmart parking lot and ask ten people if they know what the climate alliance is or if their state is in it. I'll wire you ten fresh bucks if you find one person who has an idea what that is,

There is no such thing as a binding 'agreement' like this in the USA system of government. We have treaties. That have to be ratified by the Senate. The governments of the world understood this, and understood that the Paris climate agreement was an attempt by the US executive branch at the time to bluff to a hollow 'deal' (instead of creating a true binding treaty) hoping future politicians would be too embarrassed to go against it. It was incredibly disingenuous/misleading of the United States Executive branch at the time to do play politics this way outside of the actual US system of treaties. It was part of the breaking of American laws/norms by the executive that led us to where we are today (with chaos, tribalism instead of a legal system, and a breakdown of our government).

Hmm... If only there were a tangible reason why a treaty would have been impossible to get through the US Congress as currently constituted.

'we couldn't follow the law because the law's hard, instead we started the gateway for Trump by bending the rules, destroying norms, pretending the meaningless has meaning and creating pretext Conservatives could use for ignoring (first) these fake rules, but later under Trump huge amounts of the the real rules.'.

It was a bullshit agreement, and everyone knew it was, and were knowing in that what they were doing would weaken/damage politics in the USA and adherence to the rules. And they did it anyways. To no productive end but lots and lots and lots of damage.

If you think not having done this (or really anything else except somehow preventing him and the Republican party from gaining power in the first place) would have prevented any of Trump's actions, I have a lovely bridge that just came on the market that I think you would be the perfect buyer for.

Even if the US isn't part of any climate agreements, it has still made substantial progress toward achieving climate goals – yes, even under the Trump admin and much to his chagrin. You need only compare the country's emissions and green energy output from 2016 to 2026 to see it.

> There's a lot to criticise of every country, but we're trying. The US is not trying (*)

I'd argue that it's a bit misleading to treat the US as a single entity for this topic.

The population is deeply divided on issues like this one.

>The population is deeply divided on issues like this one.

The politicians they population elect are not deeply divided, and thus can be considered a single entity that refuses to even try to do something.

Its basically the wealth divide, mapped to a politics divide. It easy being green- when you are rich or some rich persons descendant. Its a matter of being starved out and deprecated socially if you are poor.

The inability to perceive that ones politics is destroying ones societies poorer members and thus in retaliation they destroy the societies structure is monstrous

Hence why I said "Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA." I know it's not a Europe vs USA divide, just that it pisses me off that the American news and social media is talking about air conditioners instead of climate change.

>* Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA.

I am sure both of them appreciate the exception

> if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars

we (the EU, not Europe) are indeed phasing out coal (most countries are already done) and EVs are at 24% of the market (June 26) which is about 4x the US EV marketshare and rising fast.

> Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America

There is a carbon tariff (CBAM) for some imports, will be gradually expanded in the next few years.

That' not marginally better, that's way way better.

We literally destroyed our car industry to try to steer the incoming catastrophe a bit, what the fuck do you want more. Germany tried to be the leader of solar but that was stolen err migrated to China, whole world profits now.

While US, China and rest of the world did nothing similar, just stood and let shit hit the fan hard. Gotta milk those petrodollars till the last cent because thats all that counts, fuck our children right. Yeah we are not going to burn ourselves further to the cinder to prove some anonymous yostrovs something he anyway refuses to see.

Agreed, but then there's also Norway, the absolute champ of hypocrisy.

You destroyed your auto industry by ceding it to countries with higher emission intensity of production. USA, China, Japan have higher intensity than even Germany which is on the upper end of Western European countries. That's not steering anywhere except more sharply into the wall!

You've been lied to by your own ruling class. What else have they been lying to you about, I wonder?

You also turned off nuclear power and stayed with lignite, the dirtiest of coals. Soon you'll stop using coal since you won't have much industry left to power. Germany seems confused.

This. Add to the list: consuming huge amounts of meat while depriving themselves of AC "for the planet".

In terms of greenhouse it also depends on type of meat. Very acidental but europeans eat much less beef and eat pork/chicken instead. Chicken protein for example is in many cases better than cheese emission wise.

Also i don't think europeans don't use AC to save the planet. It's just expensive and it didn't use to be a problem.

I wonder if pork is better than beef for the environment.

Pork, by a bunch. Lower land use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, less water use.

Not ethically better, though. At least in the US, 99% of all pork is factory-farmed, and in much of that the pigs live their whole lives in a stall too small to turn around in.

Pigs are as smart as dogs, and have personalities and emotions. I am absolutely a carnivore, but I still balk at eating meat raised through a system that just about tortures intelligent animals.

Anyways: I eat a lot more chicken and plant protein these days.

Paris didn’t have air-conditioning because they sit at a latitude of 49 where in the past you might have a week maybe two of sustained high temperatures above 90°, since Paris sits at a latitude of 49 which is north of the United States-Canadian border all the way from Vancouver to the lake of the woods Minnesota.

Which is hardly air-conditioning country above latitude 49 although obviously climate change may change that, but there was no point having air-conditioning that far north in the past for two weeks of possible hot weather, a resident living in the American southwest who will never have a white Christmas ever and air conditioning was always a must.

As mentioned in other comments, what you call the past has been known for at least 30-40 years to be soon obsolete. They had enough time to prepare to this.

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