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0 pointsnerdponx7y ago0 comments

I don't buy this analysis. Surely you also remember how quickly people ditched their SUV infatuations as gas prices rose after Hurricane Katrina. And you must also remember strongly politicized and partisan climate change discussions were until about a year ago.

That said, my understanding of the fossil fuel industry is that consumer automobiles only make up some small fraction of carbon emissions. I don't have a source (and I would love to see one), but I was under the impression that the majority of carbon in missions were due to commercial shipping and electricity generation. Nobody was out in the streets demanding cheaper electricity and cheaper products on Walmart shelves. Industry simply provided those things. You basically can't blame consumers for shifting consumption towards cheaper goods, that is why externalities are externalities.

Also consider this erratum from my previous post: how much ExxonMobil shareholder equity and executive compensation over the last 20 years can be attributed to lack of political will to action on carbon emissions and climate change? Surely that number is big enough to at least make a dent in the relocation task at hand.

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rayiner7y ago· 1 in thread

There was no particular dip in SUV sales after hurricane katrina (2005): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/SU.... The dip came in 2008, with the recession. Note that SUV sales skyrocketed starting in 2000, a year in which 80% of Democrats and more than 50% of Republicans believed anthropogenic climate change was real: https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro....

Personal vehicles make up 20% of CO2 emissions--a significant amount. More importantly, peoples' intense opposition to policies that would increase the price of gas are a reasonable indicator of how they'd vote on anything that would force internalization of the costs of CO2 emissions. Right now, even Democrats in California are bailing on a modest 12 cent per gallon hike on gas taxes: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/24/california-democr.... How do you think those same voters would react to policies that significantly raised the price of their electricity, their milk and eggs, etc.?

People are unwilling to make lifestyle changes in response to climate change. It's not because they don't know. The majority of people polled stated they were concerned about global warming back in 1990 (about the same as today): https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro.... They're just not willing to do anything about it. Which is why even Democrats won't propose a carbon tax.

pcwalton7y ago

Note that Prop 6 (the gas tax repeal) is not looking so good in the most recent poll, from August: https://www.probolskyresearch.com/2018/08/17/prop-6-results/

This follows the usual trends expected from California ballot propositions. The rule of thumb is that, once campaigning starts, ballot proposition support drops by about 10 points. So a proposition needs about 60% support to survive to election day. Prop 6 never had that support. (It could of course still pass: that rule is only a rule of thumb.)