Is the California solar power mandate going to solve climate change by itself? No, but it’s another example of where non-wealthy Californians are asked to carry the load for the rest of the world.
Upvoted. Views like yours are not welcome on HN in general but this point is something that goes over the head of HN crowd which happens to be mostly rich people getting fat salaries in bay area.
While all these people talk about compassion and inequality somehow they think that the Mexican family in Gilroy who has 6 kids to feed needs to prioritise solar panels on their house instead of feeding their own children. Techies who otherwise understand the problem of scale and marginal utility and unable to comprehend the fact for every $1000 rise in house price we are forcing a poor person spend more money on housing instead of food, nutrition, health and education.
California's wildfires have generated more CO2 and has destroyed far more wealth than what we have saved by paying huge subsidies for electric cars. Incompetent government services will cause more such wildfires and will negate any benefits of solar panels either.
Solar lobbies are behind this new law. They are the ones going to make money while the poor people will end up paying for it.
>are asked to carry the load for the rest of the world.
Huh? Pretty sure most of the world aint the ones causing climate change, the US is as culpable, often more so, than the rest of the first world, and the rest of the world is not nearly as bad per person.
US Companies (along with other first world nations) acting without effective regulation through the 90's is one of the factors that got climate change as bad as it is now, I don't see how the rest of the world has much to do with it.
Feeling that the lower income areas are shouldering more of the impact than the rich is fair, but the problem there is not climate change regulation as a concept, it's the bad targeting and kid gloves the companies get treated by.
Having companies shoulder more of the responsibility in this, as well as housing, is surely part of what would fix lower income areas getting an unfair lunch?
The mandate doesn't apply to buildings taller than 3 stories. Maybe it'll have the effect of encouraging denser development? That would be a win for climate change, no?
You can't build a 4 story building unless city approves it first and in most cases it is not being allowed. Zoning regulations need to simplified for that to happen.
So we get to the actual root of the problem. Instead of dismissing climate change as an "elitist" concern and demonizing any measures to combat it as "anti-poor" and "anti-development" maybe we should talk about treating the root cause - entrenched interests pushing their interests to the detriment of society's.
