UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

You can achieve that steady grid by over-building wind+solar, interconnecting larger areas of grid, as that naturally smooths out the variability as the system gets larger and more diverse, and adding storage. Storage is not quite there yet, cost efficiency wise, but it's less of a stretch to believe it can get there, than it is to believe nuclear can be made cost competitive.

I used to go to college. Nobody would spend $5 on a typical case of 24 average water bottles, that was way too much. $3 was more like it. A single reusable water bottle though? Even a cheap plastic one could run you $10, I'm sure you could find one for like $7 but the point stands. Convincing my friends to get a water filter was easy when looking at the money long-term, because they had the money short-term to cover it. If they didn't have the money short-term to get the filter and the bottle though, then they wouldn't have. It's as simple as that.

>> So for example, if I were poor enough, I'd buy cases of water instead of a water bottle, EVEN IF I knew the single use water bottle was better for the environment and a better choice long-term!

> I disagree. This seems to be based on pure speculation and projection.

No, it's based on not having enough money. I guess water bottles are a worse example here, you're right, I've done a bad job of making this point here. See my other paragraph for a better job. Here's a more specific example: a homeless person with $10 goes to a store charging $5 for a box of pads and $40 for a diva cup. They will not buy a diva cup. It's that simple. They'll get their pads. "They won't buy a pad at all" people have needs, maybe some won't but this is a matter many wouldn't compromise on. "They will save" what will they save, pennies? Trust me, this is not a winning argument, there are mathematical boundaries you can't cross, and there's also the fact that if you're optimizing so hard on the diva cup, you aren't optimizing as hard (if at all) on something else.

> You seem to be imagining that poor people can't do any long-term economic planning in their own lives, which is false. As if they're somehow trapped in irrational, short-term, self-defeating thinking.

You're looking at a poor person who has the money to save. I'm looking at a poor person who doesn't. My point wasn't about smarts, this is about basic human needs and a lack of money.

It's true that with more money, you can spend it on more green things. I won't disagree with you there - it was actually the central point that started all of this! And we were agreeing that just because they can doesn't mean they will! That poor people are not somehow magically much more eco-friendly, if only they were given more money. They're not some monolith.

> We're not talking about a homeless person with a few dollars to their name, who wouldn't be buying cases of water anyway, because there would be nowhere to put a case of water.

Very good point, my diva cup argument is a much better one than the water bottle one.

>> A case of water bottles [...]. That's an example of the parenthetical, I'm sure you can think of many more

>> [...] pads [...] diva cup

> how much do you think water containers are contributing to global warming

As I hope you can see from my own words, not very much. I'm providing specific examples of a generality. I can do more at other economic levels if you want. How about "how much does a cheap ICE car cost vs a cheap EV"? Of course, keep in mind the idea I have that people aren't all investing the most resources possible into eco-friendliness, as well as how eco-friendliness exists in many dimensions, so if you're saving for the EV it's harder to be saving for other eco-friendly things, the difficulty in finding a cheap used EV nearby, dealing with debts, etc. - and yes, I do think we can construct a lot of scenarios where a person choosing ICE vs EV can afford the EV, but I think we can also see how it can be quite burdensome on average, and that with more money, the person in question could afford to get to and buy a used EV (but again, I'm not saying they necessarily will! Or even that poor people put into this scenario are more likely to choose the EV over a more expensive ICE car, or something else entirely)

I wish someone calculated with some certainty how much the lifestyles in different countries would have to change if the world just had to drop production that emits excess gases. I bet that would show that there's no way people modify their habits for this, especially in the ‘first world’.

(As for myself, I'm living on less that 400 bucks a month, including rent, use transport once a month; and most energy I use is probably for central heating in the winter and for pumping water—otherwise it's the fridge and boiling water for tea. But idk about the ‘footprint’, probably still not good.)

There is no shortage of evidence that human beings have a strong conversion to fundamentalist, religious-like language.

Additionally, be careful to not overlook the unknown.

> I used to go to college.

College students are your example of poor people? I can see why we're having trouble here.

Poor people can't afford to go to college, unless they have a full-ride scholarship or massive student loans (which they'll have to pay back later). The cost of water bottles is quite irrelevant here, when college is vastly more expensive than water.

> a homeless person with $10 goes to a store

Are we now going to blame global warming on... the homeless? (Going back to the OP: "The worst thing for the environment is poverty.")

Anyway, the homeless are only a subset of the poor.

It should also be said that homelessness is not a result of "kneecapping our economy" (OP) but rather our Darwinistic social policy that allows people to fall through the cracks. We have homelessness even in the "best" of economic times, and often in the wealthiest of places (SF, NYC).

> You're looking at a poor person who has the money to save. I'm looking at a poor person who doesn't.

I'm looking at low income people. Mainly, the working poor. People who have an income, and also expenses, but who are not destitute and begging for spare change on the street. It is possible for low income people to budget over the long term, i.e., monthy, yearly, etc.

> How about "how much does a cheap ICE car cost vs a cheap EV"?

Well, public transportation would be the most environmentally friendly option, and also the cheapest.

You'll usually have a harder time convincing a wealthier person to take public transportation than a poor person.