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How would you propose we actually combat climate change?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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The simple fact is, we buy what's available on the market. If we want to phase out fossil fuels...the government needs to step in and ban using them. Then, car companies will all be forced to switch to cleaner alternatives, and that's what consumers will start buying.
This goes for every single product on the market. Regulate the shit out of it, and the market will shift. But if you leave it up to the market to decide...it will always choose the cheapest, most profitable option.
We, as consumers, have almost no say in the matter. We buy what we need, based on the available options.
Negative, you don't ban things to get them to go away, you just end up with tons of legal fights that last forever. You make the next gen stuff cheaper. You fund solar, electric and nuclear, and anything else that's renewable and cleaner than what we have now to the max. You kill the market for it, not try and ban it.
Fund the hell out of the research and you'll make the old tech obsolete. People will choose via their wallets and kill the industry overnight basically.
Remember when we discovered there was a giant hole in the ozone layer, and scientists determined that it was due to all the chlorofluorocarbons we were using for a million different things?
Yeah. They didn't get rid of CFC's by incentivizing alternatives. They straight up banned them. And it forced the world to start finding other ways to get the same things done. Period. The world didn't end. We just started using less harmful methods.
When it comes to fossil fuels, we've been fucking around with incentives, in the hope that industry and the market will change their patterns, voluntarily...and we are still nowhere near our goals. And at this point, it's starting to look like they've stopped even pretending they care.
If you make it an "option"...they will never change. If you make it mandatory...they have no choice. It really is that simple.
CFCs didn't make your food, or transport you to work or make sure the electricity stayed on in hospitals. You're talking about something that while used, was not a major foundation of the entire global existence. It's not even in the same galaxy.
They were used in almost everything that required compressed air to function...from fire extinguishers to refrigeration units, air conditioners, and even hair spray bottles. Entire industries needed to come up with alternatives, with millions of products directly affected.
Sure...fossil fuels are a bigger issue. But that only means that even harder methods are required to force a change.
Look around you. What gains have we made, by leaving it up to the fossil fuel industry to phase itself out, voluntarily? We already have cheaper alternatives...thanks to the incentives you mentioned. But we are still nowhere near the point of replacing them on any significant scale. That will never happen as long as they are still "allowed" on the market.
That's not a ton of stuff. They had replacements already in use. Oil is literally in everything we use, and I mean literally everything.
Again, good luck.
They won't, and that's not the argument I have presented at all. I've already stated they will fight.
Yea no shit, but we've not done enough, and thanks to the turnip we're rolling back a huge portion of those incentives.
This is completely incorrect. EVs have a much bigger footprint then ever before, solar and wind as well. Nuclear should be next but NIMBYs push it away more than anything.
You make something that's cheaper than the alternative, people will choose the cheaper option.
And like I said. Good luck banning the use of oil.