Anyone even vaguely familiar with the science understands that we need to cut emissions on a wide scale, and that air travel by a few hundred politicians is a meaninglessly small fraction of the actual problem. This is essentially a bad faith attack on the few people in congress trying to do something about climate change. Where is your ire for the dozens of Republican congressmen who don't believe climate change is real or believe the Christian end times will happen first? Please, be serious and don't engage in contrarian purity tests that only serve to set back our attempts at mitigation.

> Anyone even vaguely familiar with the science understands that we need to cut emissions on a wide scale, and that air travel by a few hundred politicians is a meaninglessly small fraction of the actual problem. This is essentially a bad faith attack on the few people in congress trying to do something about climate change.

The post you replied to isn't talking about the science, but rather the politics. Humans tend to respond badly to authority figures saying but not doing, and this is a real problem that we need to fix (by electing/creating better leaders) in order to meet the requirements of the moment.

So yeah, the total Congress emissions are tiny scientifically, but they're rather large politically.

Also, someone I once read highlighted that political polarisation increased when Reps could fly back home every weekend. Maybe one should require that Senators maintain their primary residence in D.C.?

> Where is your ire for the dozens of Republican congressmen who don't believe climate change is real or believe the Christian end times will happen first?

Oh, it's there, believe me. Just wasn't part of that particular post.

How about your and mine air travel? Meaninglessly small fraction of the actual problem?

Indeed, commercial aviation is only something like 3% of overall carbon dioxide emissions globally. If you want to make a personal difference you would be an order of magnitude more effective if you stop commuting in a non-electric car or gave up consuming meat when dining in restaurants. Expecting individual action to fix this (or worse, blaming individual actions for it) isn't going to work though. Individual consumption is not the majority source of emissions, and it's a bit of a classic prisoners dilemma problem anyway, and we know how much Americans trust each other these days.

Are you taking the human/mass psychology apect (which underlies human actions) of the problem into consideration?

Many would say our political economy is built on insatiable consumption, and is therefore incapable of cutting emissions to such a scale to materially impact climate change. It makes no sense to blame 'Republicans' and/or 'Christians' for not trusting every proposed solution to these massively complex problems.

It's not that they "don't trust every proposed solution". It's that they do not believe the problem is real, and therefore do not trust any solution.

It could be that when someone doesn't trust your solution, you call them out for not believing in the problem. Logical fallacy.

Or it could be that they say "climate change isn't real" in exactly those words.

Another problem is when so many people take a politician's words at face value. It simply doesn't work like that.

First, this isn't limited to politicians. Second, calling it a logical fallacy to believe what others say about themselves is utterly ridiculous and doesn't move goal posts so much as it pretends there are invisible goal posts swooping around the field at will and only you can know if the ball goes in.

Actually it is a logical fallacy to interpret one's rejection of a proposed solution to be a rejection of the problem. I'm not arguing any specific case for it, but it does seem to be quite common and problematic in civil discourse.

And the "another problem" is to misunderstand the way that money influences PR statements from powerful entities (politicians or otherwise). This part isn't illogical but just ignorant/mis-educated about wealth and power.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is terrible politics. Politics is about leading other humans, in this case leading them to make less comfortable choices.

I don't buy into the argument that if those people limited their travel and consumption then all of the sudden the non-believers will start believing. There's just no evidence that's an effective way to have societal impact. Not an exact parallel but just because people talk about wanting higher overall taxes and at the same time don't want to pay more than what is required doesn't mean they are hypocritical and it doesn't mean that if they did pay more others would follow.

> I don't buy into the argument that if those people limited their travel and consumption then all of the sudden the non-believers will start believing.

Maybe it would convince folks, maybe it wouldn't, but you'd have a chance. By contrast, any effort that involves "Do as I say, not as I do", is pretty much guaranteed to fail, and rightfully so. Trying to force others to do something that you yourself are unwilling to do voluntarily is the exact opposite of leadership.

> I don't buy into the argument that if those people limited their travel and consumption then all of the sudden the non-believers will start believing.

"All of a sudden" was not claimed.

> There's just no evidence that's an effective way to have societal impact.

No evidence, or none that you are aware of? Also, evidence is not required for something to be true.

> and it doesn't mean that if they did pay more others would follow.

It could be achieved via legislation, which is to some degree influenced by public sentiment, which is to some degree influenced by the manner in which we discuss and conceptualize reality.