California Can't Make its Emissions Fall

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

A climate problem even California can't fix: tailpipe pollution

How does this happen? You can't just say "urban planning" and leave it at that. Electric buses? Bikes? Hovercrafts? There has to be a solution.

[John Foote + 1,135]

Laws and regulations, to work, have to match the basic ethos of society. CA may want say green, but they really want is their cars and sprawl as well. And the silly cost of property has accelerated sprawl because who wants to live in an expensive tiny apartment in a high rise building, no car, relying on mass transit, which is pretty second rate in most of the state. 

Roughly a 100 years ago America voted for Prohibition, and then went on a serious drinking bing. Anyone that thinks alcohol hasn't caused massive problems is a fool. But outlawing was a disaster of a solution. You don't stop abortions by preaching abstinence either. You minimize by demystifying sex (good luck with that) and normalizing and granting easy access to birth control. And why the heck does anyone take up smoking, never could figure that one out.

I'd like to think economics and education and rational thought can put most things in the right direction. But it's not so simple. People are messy.