(09-20-2019 12:36 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/glob...index.html
Thankfully our kids are smarter than us. They're marching throughout the world demanding we make a change. I saw one kids' sign which read 'You will die of old age, I will die of climate change.'
I don't know how anyone can dispute that if they're in Houston dealing with what, our 6th maybe 7th, 1000-year flood in the last 4 or 5 years?
Anyone of the Democratic candidates have plans I can get behind. They all have plans. Instead of asking me what to do for the hundredth time, why don't any of you link to one plan that Donald Trump has? Just one idea - that's all I ask.

Donald Trump has no plan.

None of the democrats has a plan that will work. All of them pus significant economic pain for minimal climate change gain. It actually requires more energy to make a solar panel than most solar panels will produce in their lives. And I have solar panels on my house and drive a 43 mpg vehicle.

And here's where that becomes a huge problem. Environmentalism is a rich person's issue. When you don't have food or clothing or shelter, the temperature of the planet 100 years from now is the least of your concerns. If you want widespread acceptance, you have to make the economic effects positive. Germany's experiment with green energy is a disaster because the sun doesn't shine in Germany. The wind blows a lot in west Texas, so Texas get more electricity from wind than any other state, up to 1/3 of total demand on windy days, and DFW will be the first metro area to go 100% renewable electricity. Economics work better than command and control.

Why is that a problem? Because unless we get China and India and the third world onboard, there's nothing we can do that will have a material impact. I know, I know, the mantra is that if we lead, they will follow. But if they see us paying an economic price, they're not going to follow. There's no way they are going to make do with less food or clothing or shelter to follow us. For example, the Brazilians are not going to stop deforesting the Amazon basin as long as there is hunger there.

So we need plans that will improve the economic well-being of the people at the same time as they improve the environmental well-being of the planet. That is a big hairy ambitious goal (BHAG), but we need BHAGs, not little things that make us feel good but don't address the problem.