Comment Re:Buy a Prius as your next car... (Score 1) 869
"Reduced it's carbon footprint more than any other" - that's arguable. More likely the emissions have been shifted elsewhere since so much of the stuff North Americans buy comes from Asia and those container ships have horrible emissions thanks to the bunker fuel they burn.
Even if I grant you that "reduced carbon footprint", it's still MUCH too high.
Get the per-capita emissions down to within 20% of the average advanced Western European country and then we'll talk.
Expanding fracking beyond what is now is a HORRIBLE idea; it sucks fresh water out of places that are already in short supply, emits large amounts of methane that have a much greater short-term GWP than CO2 and contaminates the water table.
Instead of repealing income taxes, just cut the defence budget to the $ equivalent of its lowest point during the Clinton administration; cut the DHS budget to 20% of its average since Obama took office and invest that money in job creation.
Solving the problem of nuclear disposal or reprocessing is required before you can build large numbers of new nuke plants which always cost much more and take longer than estimated.
And efficiency measures at all levels should be a priority - and those kinds of new builds & retrofits would create millions of new jobs.
The lack of a carbon / emissions tax has hidden the depth of the problem from the average person. It's telling that most large corporations have been using an internal carbon tax for years - incl Exxon whose CEO has been calling for a carbon tax since 2009.