Climate policy is working – double down on what’s succeeding instead of despairing over what’s not

My takeaways were that we(average people) are still dependent on our ruling class to incentivize and enact large, sweeping changes, and they're still acting too slowly.

This is technically true, but implies — wrongly!! — that the “ruling class” is both monolithic (it isn’t) and indifferent to public sentiment (it absolutely isn’t).

The public does have to incentivize politicians to do things. That’s what it means to live in a democracy. Theoretically you don’t want politicians acting too independently of public sentiment, and the way they gauge public sentiment is a mixture of polling and direct feedback from constituents (surveys, town halls, etc.). In practice, specific projects and solutions require specific and targeted pressure campaigns aimed toward relevant stakeholders in government and industry. These don’t necessarily have to be combattive—they can be collaborative—but politicians can’t necessarily initiate all those things. They don’t know the answer to every problem. It’s our responsibility to advocate for solutions. Think of advocacy less as screaming into the void and more as informing officials of actionable processes to do something that benefits their constituents.

Many politicians want green solutions. When you delve into the nitty gritty details, high-level desires (“net zero by 2050”) are ridiculously complicated. When we consider why politicians are “acting too slowly” we have to consider both the obvious pessimistic answers (influence from anti-enviro groups, personal financial stakes in fossil fuels, etc) as well as the generally more universally applicable reasons (such as that many climate solutions so far are complex and expensive and won’t be implemented until we solve those sub-problems). And often one of the biggest problems is that there literally is not enough data showing that a hyper-specific solution actually solves a problem in a particular circumstance… or that we know it does, but it has some other externality that makes it difficult for a politician—who represents all their constituents—to stand behind. Enviro activists including myself have a tendency to be dismissive of those externalities when they’re things like “wind farms are ugly” (cool opinion bro), but much of the time a specific solution is not so cut and dry. High-speed rail projects are essential for decarbonization, but they do have legitimate localized problems like the demolition of existing properties, complex engineering, and physical divisions to the landscape. Even if someone agrees with HSR in principle (which they should), and most people do, solving the problem of “this new HSR project has to change the automobile and pedestrian routings in this area for safety reasons” is a subjective matter. Do we need a pedestrian bridge? Tunnel? What about wildlife? Car tunnel or bridge? Should the train be elevated? Sunken? What if every cost-effective pedestrian rerouting would require the demolition of a historic building? Exactly how would government fund the more expensive solution that, say, doesn’t end up destroying that historic building? That’s an example of something local that activists can engage with stakeholders on—advocating for best practices that support the mission (HSR) and solve the externality (access changes, unintended destruction of local landmarks).

Americans elected Joseph Biden in 2020 along with a majority of Democrats in the House and Senate. Those officials knew that the constituents who elected them – and even many who didnt – wanted climate action. So they wrote the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to devote trillions to infrastructure including hundreds of billions to low-carbon rail, bus, and micromobility transportation solutions. They also wrote the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which invests billions and billions into clean energy specifically—everything from solar and wind research and rebates to a massive push toward EV charging infrastructure (which is increasing like 5% month-by-month!!), and so much more. Well the EV charging might be the BIL, I don’t remember. But the IRA is HUUUUGE for green energy. It has kickstarted a chain reaction and each year we will only see more progress.

That’s federal. In the US there is also the state level, which is far less politicized and far easier for individuals to engage with – literally anyone can schedule a meeting with State Representatives. I did this just yesterday. We had a great conversation and my rep committed to supporting the policy I proposed and writing letters to the state agencies who could enact it. Sure, politicians are a “ruling class” because the bureaucratic system we live under gives them the ability to sign off on stuff. But they’re extremely influencable by “regular people” if you make any effort to engage.

Anyway, even without you personally walking into a rep’s office, many states are making their own, COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT climate goals/policies because they have identified public sentiment as wanting this. California will literally be banning the production of gas cars in the 2030s—that’s enshrined in state law, they didn’t wait for the federal government. Just because the national Congress isn’t doing enough doesn’t mean states can’t step up. In New York and New Jersey, the states have committed billions of dollars to new rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River (the NEC is the busiest rail route in the country) to improve travel times, reduce delays, and literally double max throughput—which all ultimately gets people out of cars and airplanes (very polluting) and into trains (comparatively green, especially the NEC which is entirely electric), alongside some federal funding. But it wasn’t just the BIL, the states are really contributing here. The states of Virginia and North Carolina are—of their own volition—purchasing huge swaths of freight rail rights-of-way to extend the NEC southward and dramatically improve rail service. Those aren’t even traditionally “liberal” states. They still see the value in actions that have environmental benefits. Just a few examples. There are lots more.

And then there is the local level, another separate element of the so-called “ruling class.” Ruling class yeah right. If you get involved in local politics you will realize just how much you can change, and also how “normal” your elected officials are. In a very big city, sure, this stuff can be complicated with long timelines. But by contributing (time or money) to nonprofit orgs (501c3 and especially 501c4 in this case, as they can lobby politicians and make candidate endorsements) that want to see climate action, you can see really major local policies be enacted. It could be anything from transportation funding for buses and bikes (reducing emissions), funding for better water management systems (reducing flooding and potentially improving efficiency/therefore reducing emissions; or better water conservation practices in dry climates), street tree planting programs (tree coverage reduces temps and absorbs carbon, and encourages biodiversity in general), and — SHOCKINGLY — the literal closure of gas and oil power plants within the city. Did you know? People hate living next to dirty fossil fuel plants. It is extremely possible to leverage that distaste politically to make local governments redevelop these polluting sites or otherwise make them pay for the damage they’re inflicting.

My city, which currently is Philly in Pennsylvania, has just bulldozed its massive oil refinery (which by itself contributed like 1/4 of the city’s total carbon emissions) to replace it with greener industrial uses like science innovation centers and warehouses with rail access. This involves cooperation between the city and the landowner as well as a new private industrial/commercial real estate developer. You can’t build houses on brownfield land but you can sure build warehouses; and we still need that stuff. And it beats a filthy oil refinery any day of the week. This NEVER would have happened without pressure from local residents to get rid of this polluting& dangerous facility and replacing it with green ones—which actually offer more jobs and will help the local economy.

New York City, the USA’s largest by far, is about to implement a car congestion pricing plan that will dramatically decrease car use in lower Manhattan and midtown . This will get SO many more people out of their fossil fuel-powered cars and onto the subways and buses which are perfectly reasonable for their purposes. That’s serious business. And it would likewise NEVER have happened without constant pressure from environmental groups to focus on public transit.

Las Vegas has in the local level largely been banning water-thirsty grass turfs in favor of local foliage/rock gardens. That’s totally a result of residents’ pressure to make life more sustainable. It reduces water waste and also energy used to pump water wastefully; and it makes the environment more resilient. That, again, was the product of residents going to council meetings to demand greener policies.

It isn’t just a big city thing. Every town can add bike lanes. Hoboken, NJ (a quite small city) has installed bike lanes on like half of streets and has seen huge increases in cycling and therefore less car use, which significantly reduces local emissions. It’s also made a ton of infrastructure changes to make walking safer and more pleasant, including daylighting intersections (increasing visibility), adding curb bulb-outs-bump-outs (shorter crossing distances), adding traffic calming measures (slowing down cars), etc. This makes walking, rather than unnecessary driving, far more appealing and therefore reduces emissions. Literally every town in the country can do this sort of thing.

Yes “average people” is a thing insofar as I am not an elected official or an agency bureaucrat, so I don’t literally (physically) sign the legislation that does XYZ. But saying “well shucks, can’t do anything” isn’t true and isn’t helpful. You can’t solve every problem as an individual, but you don’t have to– humans are a social species and it is quite easy to find like-minded individuals to work together as a group and pursue actionable change for the climate.