Insanity at the Polls: The Myth of Voting to Save the Climate

CO2 rises no matter who you vote for

Looking at the data in the below graph, it becomes painfully obvious: CO2 levels continue to climb, no matter who’s in power. From Reagan to Biden, the trajectory of global carbon emissions has remained virtually untouched by the political theater we see every election cycle. It’s almost laughable how little impact politicians, on both sides, have had on what many claim is the defining crisis of our time. And yet, year after year, election after election, we’re bombarded with the same message: “Vote for the right candidate to stop the planet from warming.” But let’s face it, your vote won’t stop the climate from changing or CO2 from rising.

Source: https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX

I've watched this charade unfold for years. CO2 is increasing at an accelerating rate, yet all I hear are empty promises about how we’re “fighting” climate change. The reality? The Western world isn’t reducing emissions—it’s offshoring them. In How the Western world, and particularly the US, reduced GHG emissions, I’ve laid out how we import goods from high-emission countries like China and India, conveniently washing our hands of responsibility while global CO2 levels continue to soar. This isn’t a solution; it’s a mirage. And politicians know it.

Let’s talk money for a second. We love to throw trillions at climate solutions that don’t work. In Exposing the Waste in Climate Solutions, I dug into how ineffective technologies and policies are being propped up by politicians and corporations. Sure, these measures make them feel good, and, let’s be honest, make some of them a lot richer, but they don’t move the needle on climate change. We’re pouring taxpayer dollars into schemes that claim to lower emissions, and yet CO2 levels continue to rise, as shown in the Mauna Loa chart above.

It’s like we’ve all signed up for a massive, global version of insanity. You’ve probably heard the quote often attributed to Einstein, although most likely from author, Rita Mae Brown:

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

This is exactly what our climate policy looks like. Every election cycle, we’re told the planet is on the ballot, and if we don’t vote the “right” way, we’re dooming future generations. Yet here we are, decades later, with nothing to show for it. And still, we’re expected to believe that another vote will make a difference. Here is Bill Nye, the science guy, telling people how they can affect climate change…

This brings me back to something I wrote in Complex Systems, Simple Solutions, and the Myth of Climate Fixes. Climate change is a highly complex, multifaceted issue, but we keep pretending it can be solved with one-dimensional solutions like carbon taxes or EV subsidies. We’re treating a sprawling, interconnected problem as if it’s just about reducing emissions. The truth is, the world is far more complex than that. These top-down, oversimplified solutions are doomed to fail because they ignore the very nature of the problem.

Politicians and activists like to say that we’re on the verge of a climate breakthrough, that we’re just one election or one policy away from saving the planet. But this belief is misguided. It’s not only naive but dangerous to think that tinkering with a few levers in a vast, global system will lead to anything meaningful. We’ve already seen how complex systems react, they push back, adapt, and often behave unpredictably.

We’re spending trillions on feel-good solutions, and yet the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere keeps rising. If you really think your vote in the next election will change that, you’re deluding yourself.

We need to stop pretending that simple fixes will solve a complex problem. As the Mauna Loa graph shows, no president, no politician has been able to alter the trajectory of rising CO2. Voting for the next so-called “climate warrior” won’t stop this trend either.

But here’s the kicker, and this is where it gets even more interesting. All of this scrambling, all of this frantic attempt to control CO2, might not even matter that much in the first place. The entire premise rests on the assumption that temperature is highly sensitive to CO2 levels, but what if it isn’t? There’s a growing body of research suggesting that the climate might be relatively insensitive to CO2. Despite all the fear-mongering about runaway warming, the actual temperature response to rising CO2 might be much more moderate than we’re being led to believe.

Even the IPCC’s own projections have shown large ranges of uncertainty when it comes to climate sensitivity. We could be looking at a situation where the temperature increase is far less dramatic than the worst-case scenarios thrown around in the media. If that’s true, then what exactly are we panicking over? Trillions of dollars are being spent, and economies are being reshaped over something that may not even lead to catastrophic outcomes. It’s like we’re preparing for a disaster that may never come.

In the end, we’re left with a simple question: what if all of this, policies, elections, global agreements, isn’t actually solving anything? What if, despite our best efforts to “fight” climate change, the Earth’s temperature will only rise slightly and stabilize, rendering these trillions of dollars wasted? Instead of crafting real, effective solutions to actual, immediate human problems, we’re fixated on a doomsday scenario that may never happen.