Comment by flakeoil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by flakeoil | Hacker News Reader

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Well, everyone did, or at least the US congress.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NOdTEIihFU

It's easy to blame the oil companies, but in fact, the governments around the world did not care or do anything about it. Car manufacturers did nothing to decrease size of their cars or fuel efficiency (certainly not the last 20 years). And consumers did not bother to buy smaller and more fuel efficient cars.

Everyone has known about global warming for 40 years. Everyone blames oil companies and not themselves.

If we completely stopped to use or at least massively reduced the usage of oil then there would be no rich oil companies.

It's easy to blame someone else.

[1] Carl Sagan testifying before congress in 1985.

I blame government AND fossil fuel companies. Harder to blame individuals when they're just trying to survive in a system they didn't build and have little power to change and they happen to be targets of PR campaigns to make them doubt reality. Funded by fossil fuel money.

At the end it's all humans.

Government does what the voters want so the get elected/re-elected. Unfortunately voters don't seem to want to pay more tax for fuel and electricity. They don't seem to want to pay additional taxes for their flights etc.

Politicians are slowly phasing in these kind of policies, but it is not fast and drastic enough.

Maybe soon with a bit more forest fires and heat waves and water scarcity the population will ask and show in the polls that they want more and more drastic measures.

Once the majority of the population decides we cannot continue as we have done, then things will happen, but it goes to slow unfortunately.

Just look at everyone who without blinking takes a long flight for their holiday. In one swoop they spend as much energy as they use in one year on commuting with car, cooking, heating house, warming water, household machines etc.

Even Margaret Thatcher made a speech about global warming. George HW Bush also believed in it.

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