A good government is a boring government. I don't want SLAMS in a congressional meeting. I want boring questions about tiny little details on spreadsheets nobody reads except for interns and wonks.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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People are scared of saying good things about Biden because it makes them a target for tankies and republicans.
You don't see any irony in re-using Nixon's "silent majority" like trump did in 2016?
For that to be true, you have to disregard all polling, which is sadly something I've seen people doing.
Because you don't just have to explain his lack of support on social media and real life, you have to explain away his lack.of support in anonymous polling and why "he's not trump" is consistently the most popular reason for voting Biden.
He just doesn't have support, people just want to stop trump.
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I see you’re new - welcome to Lemmy! If you see any tankies or republiQans you don’t want to see, block them. It’s pretty easy.
All that does is make them more powerful because there are fewer voices pushing back against them.
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I genuinely feel like the climate is just a no win situation from a political perspective. Any real solution has pretty serious tradeoffs so either you take small low impact steps which are panned as being too little too late, or you take bold steps that hurt some significant group economically.
If the group you hurt is millionaire oil executives, I wouldn't be too concerned.
I mean same, but inevitably it will also hurt everyone who buys oil which is pretty much everyone in America. Still it has to happen
They can get onboard with renewables themselves. Anyone who bemoans change instead of adapting doesn't deserve our sympathy.
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Then build more trains and bike paths!
YEt so far, climate efforts in Biden years has been all give, to everyone. While there’s been some efficiency standards increased, that always takes years to phase in and even that is a push to new technologies, which is a great opportunity should someone take it.
Consider efforts in intercity rail. This is fantastic to finally see this investment after all these years,but is only the beginning. It needs sustained investment over a couple decades. Even if it didn’t, it needs a couple decades to build out. That’s great for investment in business, great for our jobs now to build our future, and will be an excellent Biden legacy, but we’re not going to see real benefits during Biden’s term. This is all give, all investment, all jobs, but there is not yet the corresponding”take”, to encourage Americans to step out of their cars (maybe if congestion pricing takes off but the President should get neither credit nor blame for that)
Because the Democratic tent is filled with lazy cynics who actively sabotage outreach efforts, because mindlessly parroting propaganda is way easier than actual civic engagement.
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The Biden admin's main selling point on climate is bragging about how much funding they've gotten from Congress. That's a legislative achievement, but the execution part -- which is the point of their branch of government -- has been incredibly rocky. You got $7.5B in funding for EV charging yielding 8 EV chargers nationwide. And Biden has slapped big tariffs on Chinese solar panels and EVs, so that renewables will get more expensive and American carmakers who are skeptical about the EV transition will get to drag their feet even more.
My next car purchase will at the very least be a PHEV, if not a full EV. But my current gas car is fine, so I have no immediate need to purchase one. I don't consider that as dragging my feet. I'll buy it when I need it.
I'm with you. A car is an expensive purchase, so it's difficult to justify rushing into a new one. But I'll definitely be going either PHEV or EV on my next vehicle.
By my calculations, my car will have paid for itself in savings from not buying gas alone, after about 10 years, and I've had it for 6. And it's a PHEV with a range of only 40 miles on battery. I might have already broke even on a Leaf.
That's comparing to a gas car with 35mpg efficiency. My old car that I drove into the ground got about 17mpg so by that metric it's already paid for itself.
And I'm not taking about the difference in price between a PHEV and a pure gasoline car, I'm taking about the total price of the car. I will have saved that much money by using electric instead of gas.
If you drive a lot, especially if you drive for work, electric is a no brainer. Assuming you have somewhere to charge it.
If you have your own home with off-street parking, installing a level 2 charger is similar cost to a new stove circuit. Charging at home is so much easier and nicer than going to gas stations all the time
While I do agree lack of charging infrastructure is a big issue we need to address asap, the reality is I rarely need it. Charging at home just works, cheaply, reliably, and I don’t need to go anywhere. While road trips need trip charging, it’s been everywhere I looked so far, and a small percentage of my time
You don't even necessarily need a level 2 charger. I rent and I charge overnight from a regular old 120v outlet (level one charging).
Similarly, I’m electrifying my home (especially if rebates and incentives continue), but I’m not going to replace functional major appliances. I’ll buy it when I need it and don’t consider that dragging my feet.
On the one hand it will take years, because I can’t afford otherwise, but on the other hand everything is coming up on replacement time, so not that many years.
So far, the EV is working great, as is induction stove
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Biden's 2030 projections are not aggressive enough and are at-odds with trade relations with the largest green energy manufacturer on the planet and with the multiple large-scale military conflicts we are actively fanning. I'm assuming their 2030 projections do not account for the millions of pounds of explosives being set off in the ME and in Ukraine.
It's like a pack-a-day smoker whining about their doctor not praising them for loosing weight from dieting, even though their diet is one of those cayenne pepper and lemon juice cleanses. Like, good job with loosing 50 pounds, but if you don't stop smoking like a chimney you're still gonna die of a heart attack.
I get that we want to feel good about our political outlook but holy fuck now is not the time to be celebrating.
It is complicated, because the largest green energy manufacturer on the planet also has the largest CO2 emissions on the planet by far, three times that of the US - one could bring up the fact that they also have a lot of people, but how much of China's emissions are driven by export vs domestic consumption?
Also, the shenanigans Russia pulled with Germany has the collective West wary of becoming dependent on a hostile authoritarian country for any staple import.
I'm not saying Biden's perfect, far from it, but a strategy of "let's go chummy with this big authoritarian country, they can't attack us if our economies become codependent" has been tried here in the EU, and the results so far are hundreds of thousands dead and a nearly crashed economy.
I'd say because Dems have been spending so much time telling everyone how horrible Trump is, that they forgot to mention why anyone might also consider Biden good
Because, like a lot of Biden policies, they are wins on paper but have little to no impact on voters daily lives.
Example:
"The Biden administration is the first to embrace the goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury in order to stabilize global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.* That means that the Biden administration’s interim target—cutting U.S. carbon pollution to half of peak levels by 2030—requires reducing annual carbon pollution nearly four times faster than the Obama administration’s interim target did.** Ambitious policy goals drive ambitious policy change."
Sounds great, right? But all he did was set a goal. Are we making progress to that goal? 🤷♂️ Is that goal even achievable? 🤷♂️ 2030 is only 6 years away, how are we doing right now? 🤷♂️
It's meaningless babble to claim this as an achievement if you can't point to a tangible change in the numbers.
No matter who wins in 2024, they aren't going to be President in 2030. If Trump wins in '24, or another Republican wins in '28, this goal is out the window.
Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit, created a 13 million acre federal petroleum reserve for Alaskan wildlife, greatly increased oil site lease cost, signed $7B in solar subsidies, enacted the Inflation Reduction act to support clean energy…
Yes, but you see, if you ignore all of that... Then Biden hasn't done anything and it's all just "meaningless babble!"
Exactly. How dare he set goals and then take incremental steps to achieve them? The nerve!
I demand that Biden solve the climate crisis by personally eating ten babies every day.
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Increased efficiency standards on cars, home appliances, industry. Created new permitting rules to streamline new transmission lines. Huge investment in rail
Great points. Thank you! I’ll add them to my list.
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That’s how these efforts work - they start as a goal. It gets announced after enough support signs on, and they get the policies and money together, then they start spinning up the agencies and addressing the problems and . . . it’s how big things work.
If you want to declare something and have it immediately be so, you have to do it in a videogame.
If you’re worried that we won’t get far before idiot christofascist qultists fuck it up, well. Welcome to the party pal.jpg. Don’t boo - vote!
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Sounds great, right? But all he did was set a goal. Are we making progress to that goal? 🤷♂️ Is that goal even achievable? 🤷♂️ 2030 is only 6 years away, how are we doing right now? 🤷♂️
These are all questions that have quantifiable answers yet you chose not to find those answers. Perfectly encapsulating the point of OP.
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