How to fight climate change... for reals.

[woodgeek]

I am one of the 'techno-optimists' around here about the climate (and other things). I used to be a 'doomer' about Peak Oil from 2005-2010, and then I got better.

I am a fan of blogger (and former tech VC rich dude) Noah Smith. He is also a techno-optimist and understands economics and thinks economics generally trumps politics. Since its the slow season, I thought I'd post his latest for your consideration:

How we will fight climate change

And how we will not fight climate change

noahpinion.substack.com

He generally likes the idea of a big, politically popular movement to do something urgently about climate change, but admits reality... efforts to rally the troops to that cause have failed.

While my politics are probably a bit left of Noah's I am ok admitting when things aren't working, and pragmatic that we need to get everyone on board.

One of my bugaboos is 'alarmism' which shades into 'conventional journalism' which shades into 'clickbait'. I think there are actually very few things in the world that should make the average American (in good health) PANIC, or even feel queasy. And I think the various climate movements HAVE been more alarmist that necessary or ideal. And that has lead to more 'doomerism' among young people than positive change. And I'd guess that that doomerism is MORE harmful to our society (in the long term) than any positive change caused by that alarmism.

Anyhoo, the post: he says that we all just need to do the things that we can, for our particular situation, that can reduce carbon emissions. He is not asking us to do without, turn down the stat and put on a sweater, or sell the truck. He is asking all of us to figure out how to live the life we want WITH the best climate friendly tech we can find and afford. Whether that is attic insulation, installing a heat pump or induction stove, putting panels on the old roof, or buying a F150 Lightning EV.

And if enough of us do that, learning curves in tech and clean energy, and its virtuous cycle will in the end 'save us'. Or at least, that's the best we can do, and it's been working so far.

And I thought that would resonate around here.

Your thoughts?

 

[vinny11950]

I want to be positive about the situation but I don't see much hope in avoiding the some pretty bad outcomes. On the practical side, being prepared is also being green. For me that means keeping my house all electric, installing a electric hybrid water heater, a heat pump, new windows and insulation, and hopefully (one day) solar panels. Also driving my very fuel efficient 2007 Corolla. I am lucky enough to be able to do most of these things myself. However, the next few decades are going to be rough, with a lot of outcomes out of my control. You can already see the effects of climate change working their way up the wealth ladder, with the poorer countries not having enough wheat and fuel for their basic needs. You can think this will not happen to me (you), but big shifts like this happen all the time in history.

 

[woodgeek]

Regarding bad outcomes.

As disasters get worse, fewer people die: https://www.vox.com/23150467/natural-disaster-climate-change-early-warning-hurricane-wildfire

Not to be Pollyanna, but housing codes and building practices matter. My quite sturdy PA house would be a deadtrap for a Hurricane in Florida, would cave in with the snowloads in Vermont, or fall over from the Earthquakes in CA.

Climate change is a problem for the built environment. Case in point: Folks in the western EU and UK have domestic AC installation (central OR window units) rates in the mid single digits... 3-5% !! And very wide use of (and attachment to) hydronic systems for heat, so no ducting for AC.

Kinda like the cooler parts of New England 10-20 years ago.

The global poor are sitting ducks, but the solution is to make them less poor asap, I think. Then they can tackle their own building stock.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I don't think we are as ready to move to green energy as quickly as the present administration is trying, but I certainly think we need to keep moving in that direction and do everything we can as individuals, local communities and a nation, in addition to improving emissions from the fossil fuels we do use. What I find particularly disturbing are countries like China and India that are building coal plants head over heels, and not really caring about the emissions. It has to be a global effort, not just an effort of a few.

 

[woodgeek]

I want to be positive about the situation but I don't see much hope in avoiding the some pretty bad outcomes. On the practical side, being prepared is also being green. For me that means keeping my house all electric, installing a electric hybrid water heater, a heat pump, new windows and insulation, and hopefully (one day) solar panels. Also driving my very fuel efficient 2007 Corolla. I am lucky enough to be able to do most of these things myself. However, the next few decades are going to be rough, with a lot of outcomes out of my control. You can already see the effects of climate change working their way up the wealth ladder, with the poorer countries not having enough wheat and fuel for their basic needs. You can think this will not happen to me (you), but big shifts like this happen all the time in history.

I am actually worried about the outcomes not being bad enough to motivate people. I was hiking on the NJ shore with my kid yesterday, and we saw a toad, and she was enchanted. When I was kid, we had toads like that all over our suburban yard... I could've gone and found one in 5 minutes. She has to go to a park to see one.

The creeping degradation of our natural environment is horrifying. We elders can see the change in the climate AND the huge decrease in animals, plants and insects since our childhood. But the young people growing up now don't know what they are missing, until it disappears further when they are 50 to 60 years old.

I am not Pollyanna about extinction and habitat loss. But most folks are clueless about how it is happening, bc it is happening too slowly.

I guess I think the future climate 'curve' will be shaped by innovation and tech adoption and capitalism, with small tweaks due to politics. And the Sunrise movement will do little to change things. I give money to the Nature Conservancy instead for preserving habitats, despite its flaws.

 

[woodgeek]

I don't think we are as ready to move to green energy as quickly as the present administration is trying, but I certainly think we need to keep moving in that direction and do everything we can as individuals, local communities and a nation, in addition to improving emissions from the fossil fuels we do use. What I find particularly disturbing are countries like China and India that are building coal plants head over heels, and not really caring about the emissions. It has to be a global effort, not just an effort of a few.

China and India are interesting and different cases.

The point of the article is that the author expects people to go green only when they can afford it and/or it gets cheaper/better than fossils. In China, their growth happened BEFORE green tech got cheap. In India, their growth is still in the future.

People in both countries poll as having much higher rates of climate change belief and concern than in the US. Which is near the bottom with Yemen, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

China is (IMO) is currently in a recession (and cooking the numbers) and an epic housing/financial crisis that it will struggle with for the next few years, and then their collapsing demographics will keep them economically about where they are today at best. The surge in CO2 2000-2010 is largely an effect of China's rapid development during that period. When they were growing and rich, their pledges to be greener seemed possible... with their economic issues and poor governance, I am skeptical they will do the best thing for the climate.

India will shortly be more populous in China, with a younger population, and the possibility of blowing its own China-sized Carbon Bubble. But they haven't super-sized their energy infrastructure yet (still having very low per capita energy use and CO2 emissions). In the end, this is race between making green tech cheap enough for Indians to adopt it BEFORE they get rich enough to demand more energy. Our tech choices TODAY might have more effect in reducing future emissions in India than direct emission reductions in the US.

 

[EbS-P]

So I committed to heat with wood 4 years ago, keep the r this stat at 80 whenever it’s over 90 out, committed to hanging laundry out more than a year ago. And was fortunate to get an EV this year. Been air sealing and plan to add 500-1000$ of insulation to my attic soon.

These actions I’m guessing put me in top 98% of the population in terms of taking actions that I could. Here is my rub. The only thing that has saved my money todate is the hanging laundry. I’m pessimistic and reading the article didn’t help. I agree political movement is unlikely. My Father in law, for the first time in 15 years just told me burin oil is American. Followed by it’s going to cost me a 3-4000$ This winter. Followed by blaming the current administration. I’m pretty certain there are more people like him in the US than are like me.

It’s not a problem for those that will leave this world in the next10- 20 years. If enough people did the right thing we wouldn’t need speed limits I think Americans are generally selfish. It’s baked into the American dream of doing better than your parents.

I’ve made the commitments do as many things as I can but so far I’m not seeing many other people make similar commitments. The conversation I had yesterday ended in Heatpumps are to expensive and power is going up and our HOA does not allow clothes lines. So I am going to take the position that organized action is still necessary. Maybe we need to refocus at the local/hyper local level but if we keep what we do to ourselves and don’t see much improvement I’m afraid that even the most committed like my self will become discouraged and just throw the laundry in the dryer

Evan

 

[EbS-P]

Final thought I really feel like we have place most moral authority in the hands of large corporations and we are relying on them to make the best decisions for us

 

[peakbagger]

Pretty simple, if you are in US vote for the politicians that believes that global warming exists rather than the ones who are in denial or outright opposition. I am not normally a political person but its real obvious that US climate change is being held hostage by political action or lack thereof. Sure as individuals we can be clean and green but recent supreme court decisions have shown that its going to tough to even keep the greenhouse gas improvements we have let alone set and meet new goals.

 

[woodgeek]

Huh, maybe I read that article a little differently. New technology follows an adoption curve.

--It starts out expensive and not so reliable, and only a few 'weird' early adopters (or hobbyists) try it. Often wealthy people.

--As more people adopt the new tech, more units get sold, and those units get better engineered and much cheaper.

The 'learning curve' usually dictates that the cost falls like a power-law of the cumulative production volume, falling some %-age in cost for every doubling of cumulative production. This continues usually until it bottoms out at some small multiple of the cost of raw materials and embodied energy in the tech. Think solar falling from $100/W, to $10W to $1/W over the last few decades.

--Falling prices lead to exponential growth of sales the new tech (before adoption reaches 20-30%). And the math of the learning curve means exponentially increasing adoption leads to exponentially falling prices for the new tech.

This process has been demonstrated in dozens of different technologies, including washing machines and cars a century ago.

What is the point? You don't NEED to convince EVERYONE to adopt a new tech. You just need to convince enough of the population to drive down the cost of the technology to the rock bottom. Then the 'late adopters' will still get it due to the obvious utility, the lack of other choices in the marketplace, or govt regulation. That is, everyone has a cheap HDTV, even though they used to be much more expensive. Now it is almost impossible to buy a SD TV. For hidden appliance like water heaters... govt regulations re minimum efficiency or bans of obsolete systems are helpful... and get passed so long as the 'new tech' has lower total cost of ownership than the tech being phased out.

So, we are in the awkward growth stage in green tech. Consider EVs. All the eco-warrior early adopeters (raises hand) got their battery EVs like 5-10 years ago. And now we have just passed 5% of new vehicle sales being EV/BEVs in the US. So NOW is when 20-30% of people being willing to take a chance on EVs due to wanting to do something for the climate (or bc of high gas prices) will get us over the hump. If 50% of the people out there are EV haters and claim they will never buy an EV... doesn't matter at all, LOL. In 10 years when EV sales are approaching 50% of new vehicles they will look like oddballs and cranks, and rethink their position.

So this is why polling about climate change DOES mean something, bc it indicates a base of (non-early) adopters that will help make green tech cheap, effective and ubiquitous. And in many ways the US is bringing up the rear... with lower adoption of renewable energy and EVs than other advanced countries... just like its polls showing lower concern for climate change.

But other countries can still pay down the learning curve and we will still go green eventually. The German solar energy revolution was a bust technically and politically, but helped make solar cheap for Green Room members here. Danker!

Example: in bad old China, EV adoption is about 2 years ahead of the US. It passed 5% in mid 2020, and is now close to 20% of new vehicles sold. This is good news, since turning over a fleet of vehicles takes 10-20 years. Many chinese people are still buying their first cars, and their EV adoption (driven with govt incentives) may prevent them from building a huge fleet like the US's 250 Million legacy ICE cars, that will be burning gasoline until 2040.

And before you worry about all those chinese EVs rolling on coal power... I looked up CO2/kWh numbers for China. And got 550 g/kWh and falling. As expected due to the coal plants, this is about 50% higher than the US current number of about 360 g/kWh (which is also falling).

Since 1 gallon of gasoline produces about 25 lbs of CO2, that would correspond to 20 kWh of chinese electricity or 31 kWh of US electricity. Assuming one gets 3 miles/kWh, this corresponds to a chinese EV being at least 60 mpg today and a US EV being 93 mpg equivalent in terms of CO2. And both figures are conservative and getting better rapidly with time due to more green power penetration.

So there you go. Regarding CO2, electrical power and light vehicles have similar total emissions. China build its grid before clean tech, and has been lagging making it green, but is ahead of the curve on EV adoption. The US built its car fleet AND grid before clean tech, and is now greening its grid fast (due to, ahem, cheap fracked nat gas), and bringing up the rear on EV adoption.

Score: China, 1 point out of 2. US, 1 point out of 2. Western Europe: 2 points out of 2.

 

[woodgeek]

Final thought I really feel like we have place most moral authority in the hands of large corporations and we are relying on them to make the best decisions for us

I agree with this sentiment. I tell my kids is that capitalism is not a political system, it is simply a procedure for determining the best prices for things. It doesn't really say what we SHOULD be doing with our money, re morality and equality and fairness. It just assigns a fair price to Good A relative to Good B.

You could have the most moral govt system of deploying and redistributing resources, but if its prices were badly wrong, it would fail.

Conversely, you could have the bestest prices for all good and services, and if your system for deploying and redistributing that stuff were immoral, the result would again be human tragedy.

I happen to think that pretty much everyone agrees that the extremes—completely unregulated capitalism, and complete central planning (and pricing) of resources—are bad. And most of the systems in place globally are using some version of capitalism to set prices and some version of govt planning and taxation to deploy and redistribute resources morally.

Regarding this thread: The original post IS saying that the 'automatic' processes of innovation and engineering and deployment inherent in corporatized capitalism will achieve a great MORAL end: rapidly rolling out green tech at the scale required to prevent total climate catastrophe. With a little help from well intentioned consumers.

Think about that for a minute. The collective greed of a bunch of capital owners may just 'save the planet.' (scare quotes bc I don't think the situation warrants such hyperbole). This will be sequel to corporate capitalism's other great achievements: modernity, wealth, medicines, etc.

Ofc, I am still a liberal and think that someone needs to keep an eye on those guys, build a legal system to protect us (and them) from cheating/corruption, some science informed public policy to point these capital owners in the right direction, and some reasonable regulations to prevent natural monopolies and 'tragedy of the commons'.

That is, the govt need to be the moral decision maker, while the corporations do all the heavy lifting. Duh.

 

[EbS-P]

I agree with this sentiment. I tell my kids is that capitalism is not a political system, it is simply a procedure for determining the best prices for things. It doesn't really say what we SHOULD be doing with our money, re morality and equality and fairness. It just assigns a fair price to Good A relative to Good B.

You could have the most moral govt system of deploying and redistributing resources, but if its prices were badly wrong, it would fail.

Conversely, you could have the bestest prices for all good and services, and if your system for deploying and redistributing that stuff were immoral, the result would again be human tragedy.

I happen to think that pretty much everyone agrees that the extremes—completely unregulated capitalism, and complete central planning (and pricing) of resources—are bad. And most of the systems in place globally are using some version of capitalism to set prices and some version of govt planning and taxation to deploy and redistribute resources morally.

Regarding this thread: The original post IS saying that the 'automatic' processes of innovation and engineering and deployment inherent in corporatized capitalism will achieve a great MORAL end: rapidly rolling out green tech at the scale required to prevent total climate catastrophe. With a little help from well intentioned consumers.

Think about that for a minute. The collective greed of a bunch of capital owners may just 'save the planet.' (scare quotes bc I don't think the situation warrants such hyperbole). This will be sequel to corporate capitalism's other great achievements: modernity, wealth, medicines, etc.

Ofc, I am still a liberal and think that someone needs to keep an eye on those guys, build a legal system to protect us (and them) from cheating/corruption, some science informed public policy to point these capital owners in the right direction, and some reasonable regulations to prevent natural monopolies and 'tragedy of the commons'.

That is, the govt need to be the moral decision maker, while the corporations do all the heavy lifting. Duh.

At the end of the day it’s the same system that allowed companies dumped tons of PFAS compound in to rivers that are the sources a drinking water for millions. Without regulations enforcement and punishment, greed can and often does run unchecked.

Am I get the ideas that we should all do what we can. BUT I want to buy all my electricity from renewables. Can’t we have a monopoly power company in NC. They are going to court to make rate payers pay for coal ash cleanup. My hands are tied. They only think can do is hang out laundry I’ll keep on keeping on but it would be nice to see the the renewable powered light at the end of the tunnel.

I really think environmental activism could be focused at a local level with great effect. Economies of scale are sized to more favorable and at the individual level.

Just Doing what I can do and calling it a day still leaves a lot on the table. I’m Not doom and gloom capitalism has spoken and it sees the writing on the wall hence no new refining capacity and very limited new production capacity as of late.

The green new deal was not branded well. It never had a shot.

The more I think about the article the more I think it presents a dangerous path. If you don’t lobby at all levels of Government you will be left behind. We must keep playing the game. Loosing still affects change. Not playing gives power to others.

At the end of the day there are not enough people doing their part. Or are there? How do we persuade them? Carbon tax?

 

[Poindexter]

I do agree we are on the cusp of green energy becoming so affordable it is economically competitive.

When I went away to college (1980s) I had a 200 watt receiver and two speakers with 15" woofers. Then I saw the floor plan and measurements of my dorm room. I sold the entire audio system and bought one Sony Walkman - that was a battery hog. Now portable audio is cheap as chips, but good luck shaking the rafters with it.

In my own case, if I stay in this house I am putting in AC and I intend to run it on solar. Or offset its consumption with solar panels.

I did read most of the article but my eyes glazed over a couple times. One thing I notice, in general, is westerners are self centered -what is best for me- but there a few cultures still around where the focus within the individual is -what is best for my family now and in the future?
Making green energy affordable is key to adoption in the west, I agree with the author on that point.

I did start an ethanol fuel business in 2006. I had a part time job and got busy. I never made or sold a drop of ethanol, but it was sure fun blowing through $20k cash in about six months. At the end of the day, Americans consume too much. Too much food, too much liquor, too much energy. There is no good reason to drive a 4000# vehicle 3 miles one way to buy a pepsi hoping that cute girl will be behind the register again. You should have asked for her phone number the first time.

I was looking at building an alcohol powered moped with some boxes on the side to bring home three bags of groceries, and working back through the BTUs and my process to figure out how many acres of corn, and it just isn't a thing.

Refined oil has a crap ton of BTUs in it, and all you got to do is pump it out of the ground and get it to a refinery. With solar you don't even have to work that hard once it is installed.

 

[begreen]

Agreed. The green energy boom is not without issues and dodges the primary issue of consumption by wealthy nations. A major shift in tech also means a lot of building and resource extraction. The cheapest solution is to consume less, but that rubs the extractive capitalist model the wrong way so we sit at a stalemate. A major issue for western culture is that when things cost less, they consume more. It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories. And so, cement consumption, a major CO2 emitter, has doubled in the past several years. This is in spite of most nations signing a pledge in 2015 that they were going to reduce emissions. Instead, they steadily go up. So now we have made our bed and are baking in it.

 

[Poindexter]

It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories.

Exactly. I want AC, but I don't want the electric bill to go with it. I am going to at least look into solar seriously as a thing I can buy and keep rather than just have a higher electric bill.

 

[begreen]

Exactly. I want AC, but I don't want the electric bill to go with it. I am going to at least look into solar seriously as a thing I can buy and keep rather than just have a higher electric bill.

I made these decisions as I could afford them. Heatpump replaced the propane FA furnace in 2006 along with new windows, sealing, and insulating the crawlspace, big stove in 2009, solar added in 2011 and 2015.

 

[begreen]

 

[Highbeam]

It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories.

Or, eating 50% less standard oreos and the oreo factory having to charge twice as much per oreo to pay the bills.

 

[begreen]

Or, eating 50% less standard oreos and the oreo factory having to charge twice as much per oreo to pay the bills.

That's the opposite problem, like when PSE hustled everyone to conserve energy and tried off-peak billing. Instead of rewarding the customers, they billed them. After that they just say, give me more money. Right now they want to raise their rates again just to continue on without real investments in renewable infrastructure. Oh, and to "increase PSE's authorized return on equity from 9.4% to 9.9%."

 

[begreen]

A good analogy for where we are at, and the difficulty of reversing course, might be big ship crashes. They often occur due to errors in judgment that set up a situation that becomes too late to correct due to the momentum of a ship traveling at 10 or 20 knots. They don't slow down quickly.

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One of the reasons why we have arrived at our current state is disinformation. The effects of which have gained their own momentum and now are extraordinarily hard to correct in spite of years of evidence.
"Just last month, even with record heat in London, raging wildfires in Alaska, and historic flooding in Australia, Yellowstone, and now Kentucky, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a pro-fossil fuel think tank, said all the scientists had it wrong."

Climate disinformation leaves lasting mark as world heats

Wildfires, floods and soaring temperatures have made climate change real to many Americans. Yet a sizeable number continue to dismiss the scientific consensus that human activity is to blame.

apnews.com

So here we are, we have set the ship called climate on a course that is extraordinarily hard to correct due to the enormous momentum of the planet's systems. The odds of a technology fix or fixes slowing down or stopping this momentum are slim to none due to the scale of what has been set in place over the past 200 yrs. and dramatically accelerated in the past decades.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

One of the easiest things we can do is work on insulation. Itll keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, using less energy. Its not as sexy as a heat pump, but $2000 will only buy a small DIY system. Itll pay for a shirt load of cellulose blown into a house. Thatll lower energy consumption, help with fireproofing a structure, air sealing, probably improve health of occupants, etc.

 

[woodgeek]

Welp, that didn't take long. LOL.

Noah has a post on the Inflation Reduction Act:

The Inflation Reduction Act: Bidenomics 2.0

The new economic paradigm gets a rapid reboot

noahpinion.substack.com

Short version: he likes it. He thinks it is the 'abundance-progress' policy focus he wants.

At the end of the day there are not enough people doing their part. Or are there? How do we persuade them? Carbon tax?

Evan, they are going to offer folks (and companies) tax rebates. And they will rebates on cheaper green tech.

Agreed. The green energy boom is not without issues and dodges the primary issue of consumption by wealthy nations. A major shift in tech also means a lot of building and resource extraction. The cheapest solution is to consume less, but that rubs the extractive capitalist model the wrong way so we sit at a stalemate. A major issue for western culture is that when things cost less, they consume more. It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories. And so, cement consumption, a major CO2 emitter, has doubled in the past several years. This is in spite of most nations signing a pledge in 2015 that they were going to reduce emissions. Instead, they steadily go up. So now we have made our bed and are baking in it.

Begreen, the point of the OP article is that no one is willing to reduce consumption (certainly to the pre-industrial required to solve a climate problem). Instead, the engineers will roll up their sleeves and try to get us an infrastructure system that is dramatically more efficient, lower emission and sustainable than the one we have now. I am lucky to teach a bunch of excellent young engineers, and they KNOW that this is their cause. They are ready to get out there.

Also global CO2 emission numbers (from all sources) have been revised... and are flat for the last decade, not increasing.

I will note that my spasm of home electrification, insulation and energy improvements happened during the first Obama admin, and I got plenty of money back on my Fed taxes. And my state put in matching for the same projects. More important, there were a LOT of contractors and companies that popped up to do that sort of work, and they got skilled at it.

I think one of the best things about this money is that the contractors will figure out how to tap into it. They will train folks to do the work (including Matt and Evan's insulation and airsealing) cheaply and effectively. When energy gets cheap, those guys all switch to doing high-end kitchen remodels. This money over the next decade will move the needle on the quality of the tech, the cost of the tech, and build out a bunch of installers familiar with the tech.

I am just hoping that I can get a cheap drop in replacement ASHP with HSPF = 12 (rather than my current 8) when my current unit quits. The units exist today (Carrier Infinity) but are super spendy. That guy would drop my current winter heating bills >40% and nearly eliminate calls from backup strips.

 

[EbS-P]

I have a feeling we won’t see any state incentives in NC any time soon. The federal ones will help. Our university is probably 2 decades behind the early adopters of green infrastructure improvements but coming around.

I’m with you on the HSPF of 12. Last research I did on package units it was 8 and had been there for a decade. I decided yesterday that I want to take my single zone to 3 zones. And replace all the duct work.
No cheap way! I could get 2 zones with a single mini split. Two minis or a dual head unit I could get three but probably would be really oversized on my original heatpump for summer as it would effectively be cooling 1100 sq ft. I’ll finish air sealing and get some insulation up soon.

Happy to see the bill’s passage. It definitely surprised me.

 

[Ashful]

One of the reasons why we have arrived at our current state is disinformation.

Agreed, but even more than disinformation, I think there are very high population densities in areas that have not yet been strongly affected by climate change. Droughts, wildfires, infrastructure-collapsing heat and cold waves... these are all things that we in the northeast see on the news, but haven't experienced in any way similar to those in California, Texas, or even midwest. It's very easy from here to say, "sucks to be them", and then forget about it.

The effects of the sinking mid-Atlantic shore coastline may be the first that the folks in our adjacent states see, on any scale similar to the effects that have already awakened some sense of urgency in other parts of the world. Stronger hurricanes don't help, but with their most frequent and expensive damage happening south of the largest population densities, again most have the luxury of only feeling them thru empathy.

Among the many smart things woodgeek said at the top of this thread, the link between personal (or company) finance and climate change will be the driver of any real change. This country has always, and always will, voted with their wallet.

 

[stoveliker]

I'm not sure I agree that the high-population density areas don't feel the consequences of climate change. In fact, it is the coastal parts of the country that are generally most densely populated, and they suffer most from the (rain of) hurricanes. Even if the wind weakens 100 miles inland, the moisture deposition there is increasing as far as I understood (consistent with the larger moisture content of warmer air and the resulting larger hurricanes).
See also the very wet summer in MA last year. NYC flooding last year (due to thunderstorms). Of course these examples are instances, and instances don't make climate, but are examples of climate.

In any case, I agree that the wallet is what matters. The problem I see is that the most densely populated areas are also the most expensive ones. I.e. folks living there already did not vote with their wallet (and legs), which (speculation that would need research to back it up) suggests that those suffering consequences may be more amenable to pressure to pay more rather than walking away, and the wallet incentive is a bit broken there.