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Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

And this is why doing anything about climate change is such an uphill battle.

Correct, if we are serious about solving climate change, we need to come to grips with the fact that people will not lower their quality of life, and so we need to find impactful changes that either maintain the QoL status quo or improves it. For example, a Tesla or the new Ford Lightening pickup is something people can live with. Extremely good public transportation that saves people time and money is something people can live with. A bike is not something most people will live with.

Yes, as the saying goes, when you find yourself in a hole keep digging until you find a better shovel.

Another popular saying: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Tell us again about all the awful things that will happen in the future and all the huge sacrifices we need to make today to prevent them so that people can shrug yet again and go back to ignoring you. We can either live in a fantasy or accept reality / human nature for what it is and actually start being productive.

>we need to come to grips with the fact that people will not lower their quality of life

No problem, climate change will do it for them.

I don't know what the actual answer is, but I think tax does a pretty good job of influencing behavior. Maybe there needs to be more of it.

You get a tax credit for buying EV's. Maybe there needs to be a bigger credit, or a bigger tax on fossil fueled cars. Don't ban stuff, just increase taxes on stuff and influence people's direction. The money raised can be used for making things better.

> A bike is not something most people will live with.

Observations from cities that have actually made tangible improvements to their cycling infrastructure and seen a significant increase in cycling mode share suggest otherwise.

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