The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What Does it DO!?

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law in August 2022 by President Biden. In this video, Hank Green from the vlogbrothers gives a broad overview and a detailed breakdown of the act. In 2005, the United States reached peak carbon emissions at 7 billion tons per year, but since then, cost, efficiency, and availability of alternative energy technologies have improved immensely, and net carbon emissions have been reduced by at least 2 billion tons. In the spirit of the United States’ goal to reach net zero carbon emissions in America by 2050, the IRA aims to continue to build out a renewable energy industry in the U.S. Broadly, the goals of the IRA are to reduce greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions, lessen the impact of climate change and pollution on individuals, and make the United States an industrial center of clean technology. The act outlines strategies for incentivizing companies to install renewable energy projects with specific wage and apprenticeship requirements, provides manufacturing tax credits for renewable energy, electric vehicle tax credits and charging stations, home energy and efficiency improvements for citizens, seeks to electrify the postal service, garbage trucks and city buses, incentivizes companies to capture their carbon emissions, among many other allocations for clean energy improvements. Check it out to learn all about this landmark legislation!