Addressing Climate Change: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

One of the main topics you will encounter in an introductory political theory class is collective action problems, which describe the challenge of convincing a large group of individuals to do what is best for the group. Most people have a more inherently selfish way of prioritizing their decisions, thinking about the benefit to them and their immediate community before the larger community. One area in which the collective action problem has yet to be conquered is climate change. All rational people, which unfortunately is not everybody, but enough, know that climate change is a real and serious problem, and one that gets worse the longer we wait to address it. However, in America it has proved seemingly impossible to get federal legislation to do both damage control and preventative measures. In fact, it can be argued that under the Trump administration negative progress was made. During his incumbency, over 100 previous air pollution rules and regulations were reversed, and on his fourth day in office he signed an executive order to revive the highly controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, which was so highly contented because of the environmental and climate damage created in both the oil mining and the transportation. President Biden was able to halt the pipeline through an executive order on his first day in office, but executive orders have a limited reach when dealing with such an immense issue as climate change. Real, federal, aggressive policies need to be created and enforced in order to prevent a point of no return (which we are dangerously close to).

Enter Gavin Newson, the Governor of California, who created an executive order to eliminate the sale of gasoline fueled vehicles by 2035:

By 2026: 35% of ​​ new vehicle sales in California must be EVs and hydrogen-powered vehicles

By 2030: 68%

By 2035%: 100%

This type of legislation is striking because it calls for complete eradication. It was received positively by a large portion of Californians, and Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington and the District of Columbia, have all adopted a memorandum of understanding to implement the same policy on a more extended timeline – reaching complete eradication by 2050. However his executive order has also received a lot of pushback, some of which comes from social conservatives that see this as an attack on the liberty to buy gas guzzling, stereotypical ‘American trucks, but also criticism comes from economists, infrastructure planners, and even environmentalists. For example, the Manhattan Institute calculated in 2020 that every electric car necessitates the extraction and processing of 500,000 pounds of materials, and that each mile traveled by an EV “consumes” five pounds of earth.

This switch would also require doubling copper production and lithium mining to supply car batteries, and would be extremely expensive and also have negative environmental impacts. Electric vehicles are also more expensive, and most multi-dwelling units do not have the necessary charging technology, creating significant barriers for low income Californians to be able to be car owners. Also, due to the shortage of charging stations on major highways and in small towns, where there are gas stations aplenty pose logistical problems and likely increases of the charging prices once there is more demand, as there surely will be by 2035.

While valid and worthy of concern, many, including myself, do not see these issues as a reason to abandon support for this executive order. Those of us with the privilege to do so have chosen to try and solve the collective action problem of climate change by disregarding the personal issues and expenses this legislation might create because of the contribution it provides towards helping keep our planet a hospitable place. The problem is that not everybody thinks that way, and since it will only take effect in California, people will be able to cross state borders to buy new cars that are not electric or hydrogen powered. Without federal support, this initiative will be much less impactful and striking as Newson’s opposition try to make it seem in their fear mongering ads. We come to an intersection, having to choose between a rock and a hard place: what benefits us personally, or what benefits the collective, while both hurting and helping the individual.

What do you think? Is this type of legislation too severe and too hastily implemented? Or is it necessary, and we should accept that our infrastructure and economy might struggle to figure out how to adapt? Is it worth it for California, and another dozen of states to do so without federal implementation?