this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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Consumers don't really get a choice, I can't choose to buy greener energy from my utility, and solar on my house is both expensive and less efficient than grid scale.
I don't drive but my wife does, and switching to an EV would cost 10s of thousands of dollars, and not even save money because of higher taxes and insurance.
Make no mistake, these are policy issues.
Yet people won't vote for a carbon tax, people don't want more expensive petrol or roads, people don't want subsidised public transport, people don't want ban the suburbs, people won't pay more for insulation, people won't get heat pumps or induction hobs, or eat less meat. People just spend spend spend, consume consume consume. Happily taking whatever is sold to you.
But your right consumers have 0 choice.
In the majority of these cases, it is a small vocal minority that does these things, corporations have spent decades propgandizing that vehicles are the only way to get around, and changing that feels like an attack on mobility.
Also in my country none of these are hardly ever actually put up to vote by either party, so action feels very incremental during optimistic times, and glacial when it's not.