[yeasurebut]

We had conversations about going to the moon and we got there in 10 years.

Talk about producing less disposable crap, driving less, flying less, and cutting military budgets, everyone gets “exercise their 2A rights” in the US.

[DennisP]

> Talk about producing less disposable crap, driving less, flying less, and cutting military budgets

That comment illustrates the problem pretty well. We could do all those things and we'd still be way, way behind on what climate scientists say we actually need to do, to avoid disaster.

What we need to do is reduce emissions to zero in less than thirty years, with steep declines starting now. That's not just electric grids, it's all transportation, industry, direct emissions from steel and concrete production, agriculture, everything. And then we need to start pulling massive amounts of excess CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Going to the moon was trivial by comparison; without a breakthrough in cheap fusion or something we're not likely to achieve all this.

SRM isn't a solution but it could buy us a little time, before higher temperatures get the planet releasing gigatons of CO2 and methane without any further help from us.

[parkingrift]

The US is just one of many countries. Not every country agrees that global warming exists. Some countries think global warming will be beneficial.

You could cut the US military budget to $0 and it would be less than a rounding error to what’s needed globally.

[BobbyJo]

Cost. The "cost" of all of those things is "too high" for the average American, as evidenced by the reaction to such proposals. So, we gotta do something else.

[treeman79]

If the US drastically cut its military budget the world will go to war fast. China will take anything it wants.

Our huge over bloated military keeps a lot of countries in check.

WW1 we went home and ignored the world. 20 years everyone was back at it. We didn’t leave after WW2. Longest period of peace in history.

[specproc]

No, it's been a period of near-constant American-led war.

[jasonlotito]

We couldn't get people to wear a simple mask.

Drying less? You have politicians that would attack you for even suggesting that.

We've been trying to talk about climate for a long time.

Clearly, a good portion of the country doesn't care.

[TurkishPoptart]

Because even if every American stopped driving _tomorrow_, we are still going to have the effects of climate change anyway. We can't stop India and China from developing, so instead of trying to limit the rights of Americans to do something which might not even help, it's better to develop a solution such as in TFA.