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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#381
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

How could you leave out the one with the biggest impact, which is basically "less humans"?

pretty hard to influence for individuals

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we all have a fairly good idea of some things that would help, it's the scale we struggle to comprehend. But even if you could find out the magic threshold for what it would take , if there's anything that lockdown and covid restrictions in the UK have taught me in the past 18 months, it's that we all need to follow the rules or it's pointless. It's so disheartening to see others not pay these taxes, to not r…

The attempt to force people into limiting their lives for CO2 concerns falls into environmental authoritarianism. That’s why. Lots of people see it that way and when you mix hyperbolic environmentalist doomsday predictions that never actually happen people stop taking this seriously. Additionally, the US is built on the foundation of personal freedom and autonomy. We would be the last country where people would willi…

> environmental authoritarianism

What's the name for the epistemic dark arts practice of attaching an ominous-sounding label to an argument, so it can be dismissed without consideration?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#383
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

How could you leave out the one with the biggest impact, which is basically "less humans"?

And what’s your solution to this? And has any study said explicitly the number of humans is the main problem? Or their actions and consumption that’s the problem?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#384
Is there any sign something will happen at COP26? Or will we just carry on with the same? Can you imagine what the anti-vax nut jobs will do when confronted with the reality of extremely expensive everything and less of it? For example moving the food system over to local produce with very little meat would help a lot but there is no political ability to make such a change.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#386
post #346

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

Of course the biggest emitters are industrial. Anything we attribute to individuals pales in comparison to the transport industry, production of goods like steel and concrete, resource extraction, power generation and production of consumer goods.

Telling consumers to cut back on X is essentially passing the back and making consumers feel bad without actually addressing the bulk of emissions.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#387

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

Here's a small parametric projection you can adjust to get a rough idea[1]. The conclusion is that we need to work on all ends, starting with heavy carbon taxing. We have pretty much squandered the time for anything but a drastic 180 degree turn. The best thing you can do as an individual is to be vocal about those concerns and put pressure on your political representatives to take action, CCL[2] being one example of…

I love how corporations can pollute the absolute shit out of the atmosphere, but when it comes to me having a steak, I’m the bad guy, this is one of the biggest cons of our time.

Could you imagine how much more damage cheap air travel, coal fired power generation etc has done compared to people eating food ?

Do you know who eats all the beef they like ? Oil company executives.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#388
post #329

I'm still very skeptical how the measures will take into effect if they ever happen. In france the yellow vests protest was caused by a planned carbon tax increase on gas. Car dependent citizens rioted. A carbon tax will reduce the living standard of everyone, and it will take time for society to readjust. I really think the economy will tank and take a lot of time to adjust to a green economy, as it's not only elect…

> Only 12% of ROAD TRANSPORT emits co2. So to be clear, electric cars are nice, but they're solving almost nothing. I just want to add, that so many people buy in to the idea that the solution to gas powered cars is electric cars. But I feel like the significantly climate friendlier solution is bicycles and trains. The latter requires us to really go outside of our comfort zones (in the USA anyway) and we just don't…

> I just want to add, that so many people buy in to the idea that the solution to gas powered cars is electric cars. But I feel like the significantly climate friendlier solution is bicycles and trains.

And I want to say: yes. Everyone knows that. I don't get why this point has to be raised every time the topic of EVs and climate intersect.

EVs aren't competing with bicycles and trains, they're competing with ICE cars. Both for market and attention. If bicycles could work instead of EVs where people want to introduce EVs, they would've already replaced ICEs in that role.

To use a software analogy, bringing up bikes and trains here reads like, "You all talk about replacing this legacy component with an API-compatible alternative that's an order of magnitude faster -- but you know what would be even better? Rewriting the whole codebase so that we don't need that component anymore."

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#390

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

We don't even need a carbon tax per se; we just need consumption based tax system (as the US had until 1913), instead of a productivity based tax system.
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