if CO2 emissions were taxed

[lemur]

Given that we can do these things and many Americans don't, tell me why we shouldn't be be focusing on the cultural and political shortcomings? Finding new solutions will mean nothing if they are not adopted. Look at the pushback by some on the adoption of more efficient light bulbs (that is, more than the 3% efficient bulbs we use at the moment)

It's find to focus on obstacles and bottlenecks for the purpose of coming up with solutions. The problem is when people focus on them as reasons to give up trying and especially when they construe it as a collective problem that requires collective solutions, since all that does is obfuscate the essential fact that for anything to happen, individuals have to act.

 

There is also a structural problem precluding energy efficiency in North America, and that is the existence of an infrastructure built on the assumptions of 'car culture,' which requires a 6-mile round trip by car to buy a bag of chips (crips) at the mall and get back to the suburbs. The urban centers are ghost towns after 6 PM, since everyone is transported 10 to 30 miles out from work to get to their suburban homes, and the public transportation system is essentially non-existent, and is now being cut back to reduce government debt, with the fuel crisis and global warming now taking second place to the debt obsession.

Debt/borrowing is a major cause of the problem, I think, because it causes people to have such large disposable incomes that it doesn't seem irrational to drive 6-miles for a snack.

 

It would cost trillions to tear down that infrastructure laboriously constructed from 1950 to the present, positively designed to waste fuel, and replace it with compact, internally varied urban centers such as Jane Jacobs recommended. Since Europe never lost its livable, concentrated urban environments and its excellent public transport networks, it will always be ahead in energy conservation.

I don't think you have to tear down cities and build new ones. As people continue losing income to recession, with gas prices continuing to rise, they will increasingly seek more local solutions to consumption and work. Then, as energy-independent patterns of local mobility emerge, businesses will open to cater to local pedestrian traffic. It would help if intercity transit was developed, such as trains or busses, that would allow local pedestrians to travel around to nearby cities and spend some of the disposable income they save by foregoing cars and gas. This is part of why EU economies do well, although I think the global interest in touring Europe for historical reasons also draws a lot of tourist spending too.