The debate isn't based on reason because people don't even factor in the fact that the electricity is being produced the same old way it always was for the most part, or perhaps by nuclear power, which has its own huge issues. The same people against oil and gas and coal are usually also against nuclear power, at least here. Even if you're for nuclear power, as things stand now you're probably not polluting less than someone driving a low emissions gas powered vehicle.
The U.S. isn't Europe. It's vast, and people are very mobile. I thought nothing of driving close to 200 miles each way every weekend to go see my parents after I moved away. Driving 30 miles each way to work is common.
As for climate change itself, yes, I believe fossil fuels are impacting it, but I have no idea to what extent it's worse than it would be anyway because the data doesn't exist back far enough. What I do know is that we've had climate fluctuations before the massive population the planet now sustains and cars and factories and massive herds of cows, and I'm not talking about the ones thousands and thousands of years ago. We had a "mini" one in the Middle Ages.
Plus, from what I've been able to glean as a "lay person", we're overdue for an ice age. What if the "warming" is staving it off? An ice age would be a lot bigger problem than losing some shoreline.
Until the scientists stop massaging the data either for leftist think tanks or oil and gas companies and try to give us some objective data, I don't know what to think.
I know it's hard to imagine a life so dissimilar to life in Europe, but the closest supermarket to me is about 2 miles away. How can I load up on the weekly grocery shopping on foot? I suppose I could get a few staples using the granny cart, but that's about it.
The elementary school is perhaps a mile away, but the middle school and high school much further. Same goes for regular shops. There is no functioning without your car.
Yes, I carpooled for the trip into NYC and back for work and I often take the train for going in for entertainment purposes, but I can't carpool for the other things. Plus, most American cities are new, created after the age of the automobile, and don't have trains or public transit of any kind. NYC is better in that way, but those kinds of solutions won't work for most Americans. San Francisco doesn't even have taxis roaming around, which is damn inconvenient if you didn't drive in. Plus, there's no place to park. Maybe with uber it's more convenient.
No, I haven't given up using airplanes. How could I get to San Francisco if not by plane, or even Boston or Washington, D.C.? Our distances are vast. A person with two or three weeks vacation a year doesn't have ten days to drive one way from N.Y. to S.F. spend a few days there and then ten days back, nor, frankly, the desire to drive hours and hours each day for days on end. I don't even drive from N.Y. to Florida, although I'd like to because then I don't have to rent a car down there. My son has done it twice but stopped because it's two days of constant driving each way. It makes no sense if you have seven days off. I can't do that anymore period. For the only train service where I can bring my car, I have to drive five hours plus to Washington D.C. and then drive 3 hours from Orlando to my condo. Plus, you're sleeping in a train seat the whole night. I tried it once. My back didn't thank me. We're not all in our early twenties.
That young girl pontificating about climate change just irritated the hell out of me. I was a teenager and a twenty something too, arrogant in my certainty that I knew exactly how everything worked. Now I'm only arrogant about my certainty that if you have any brains you should be certain of almost nothing.