Trump will seek to revoke California’s authority to regulate auto emissions

[Liberty]

We're not talking about the same things, and you seem to be conflating environmental movements and protecting the environment, which sometimes overlap and sometimes don't. I'm also not saying that technological progress can't improve things, clearly it's something I often write about. Just that it would be much worse without regulation in situations where there is market failure, like if catalytic converters were an option on cars or whatever, I've already given examples. In cases where there is clear market forces present in favor of cleaner tech, like solar becoming cheaper than other sources, then that's not a market failure, even though solar would be even more competitive if fossil fuels couldn't externalize a lot of their costs to society's health/the environment and hadn't been so subsidized (directly and indirectly) for decades.

 

If you're saying that environmentalists have often been misguided or ineffective, or even counter-productive, and sometimes even less necessary because there's already a societal consensus, then I totally agree. But that's a different discussion. I'm talking about improving results (consequentialism), not having good intentions or activism or whatever.

 

And I'm pro-nuclear, have been for a long time. My fave design is the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), but I'd be happy with a push for smaller uranium breeders or other IV-V generation designs too.