41–50 of 198 posts
I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…
I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…
If I said that apples were the cause of global warming and that to avoid catastrophe you had to avoid eating apples it wouldn't worry you nearly as much, would it? I mean apples are delicious, but they aren't worth the misery that extreme weather will inflict on us. There are also a lot of people who depend on apple production to make a living. We would have to find some way for them to transition to something else f…
I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…
I honestly think at this point a carbon tax wouldn't help a whole lot unless we did something like develop and fund carbon sequestration with that money. A reduction in total output wouldn't help because there's already a whole lot of CO2 in the atmosphere right now causing problems that something needs to be done about. All of the reductions measures are punts to a future generation because we're still putting CO2 i…
Consider an electrified road would be cheaper than gas and no need to refill the tank, but we have ~zero cars that could use it right now. However, start building them and economics will finish the job. How to pay up to that tipping point? Well a new tax of some type...
It's hot in summer, who would expect that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I said that apples were the cause of global warming and that to avoid catastrophe you had to avoid eating apples it wouldn't worry you nearly as much, would it? I mean apples are delicious, but they aren't worth the misery that extreme weather will inflict on us. There are also a lot of people who depend on apple production to make a living. We would have to find some way for them to transition to something else f…
I up-voted you because I really appreciated the concept and the form, but... > I would work very hard to learn how to be happy without apples (or at least with a tiny amount of apples). The problem is: with no apples, you can't be as happy as with apples. At least, not until the others are enjoying their apples and share the negative sides with you. It's the usual tragedy of the common, when anybody could be happier…
Warning, past this point you may think I'm a lunatic. I really am trying to see what works and what doesn't work. I've been really surprised at how much stuff I really don't want once I've gotten rid of it.
I don't have a car. I hang my clothes on a line (I even went a year washing my clothes by hand, but my wife drew the line there ;-) ). I wash my dishes by hand. I have a 200W heater that I use for 4 hours a night in the winter (1 degree C). I have a small electric fan that I use for a similar time in the summer (35 degree C). I experience weather* (wow). I have LCD panel lights (which are incredibly awesome). My wife and I average no more than 1.5 kWh a day. Even though we pay about 40 cents per kWh, I can't remember when our bill exceeded the minimum charge (imposed by stupid-power-company-fees). I could go on and on. And the thing is, I really am happier as a result of what I'm doing.
Can everybody be as happy as me with as little as me? I'm not sure. Maybe somebody can do better. I hope so. But I keep seeing what I can do and showing it to others to see what they think. I think it's the only way.
* I use about $20 a year in charcoal in a hibachi in really cold weather. I work from home and don't heat the home. I try to heat me. However, below 5 degrees C is pretty hard on the health, so I really don't advise it. Above that is surprisingly doable. 10 degrees C is even pleasant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I said that apples were the cause of global warming and that to avoid catastrophe you had to avoid eating apples it wouldn't worry you nearly as much, would it? I mean apples are delicious, but they aren't worth the misery that extreme weather will inflict on us. There are also a lot of people who depend on apple production to make a living. We would have to find some way for them to transition to something else f…
The problem is that most of your neighbours and friends would see you as the hippy idealist guy who gave up apples in vain, because while you don't use apples anymore, airplanes full of apples keep flying, apples factories and farms keep producing and consuming apples, and apples provider ads keep showing how cheap apples are. There's a sense of helplessness (learned helplessness, some would say), due to the percepti…
It's an amazing device.
When are we going to stop f *ing around and start doing something serious? Let's just buy off the carbon lobby (oil/coal/gas owners) and get on with a crash program of energy decarbonisation.
I think that many people agree with you in principle, but when they start considering the cost in terms of lifestyle, than the followers start to vanish.
Seems to me that people believe that doing nothing we will keep living in the same way. Sorry to have to wake you up. Doing nothing will screw up the planet and your (and mine) "lifestyle".
The article referenced in this discussion[1] have other nice data/information about this topic.
I have kids and this is not the future I want for them.
[0] https://ir.citi.com/hsq32Jl1m4aIzicMqH8sBkPnbsqfnwy4Jgb1J2kI...
I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…
I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…
Making adjustments into your own life helps if it changes cultural norms. If not, you are just making it cheaper for others to consume C2O. Pushing for carbon tax and carbon trade is the best overall option. Devil is in the details, of course. Carbon tax should be significant and carbon trade shouldn't have loopholes. It should prevent exporting carbon production to other countries (carbon tax for imported products).…
I think it is genuinely difficult to say that with any certainty. The economy as well as the climate is highly non linear, with all sorts of unforeseen cost gradients off in undiscovered territory, of low slopes and mountain ridges, and local minima.
The purpose of a carbon tax would be to lower the barriers in favour of low carbon technologies, but we can't say in advance what the result will be, until we are on that path, and seeing the outcome of our capital investments.
It's perfectly possible that we could collectively direct our capital investments solely in solar, batteries, fuel cells etc, and within a short period of time they drive below the local minima accessible through fossil and combustion technologies. You would see a great disruption of existing investments, but disruption is not inherently a bad thing.
You could see 40 years of extraordinary technological and economic progress, but even so you'd still have no way to compare what the outcome might have been of 40 years of energy investment going solely to fossil fuels, relative to the same time and money going to the alternatives. It is undiscovered until you are there.
I think ultimately we just have to do our best to price in the externalized costs and to a certain extent to set the hard limits of the amount of damage we are willing to inflict, and let the economy adjust to the reality of the situation.