Any time you spend thinking or breath you spend talking about someone else’s carbon footprint is a total fool’s errand. Nobody will ever change their carbon footprint because of what someone else tells them. There will always be someone worse than them who they can point to and say, “Well I’m not as bad as them so they should change. If people cared at all about this, they’d change their own behavior. And it’s fine t…
Demonstrably and empirically untrue. We’ve made progress on this issue and we can make more.
Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
71–80 of 80 posts
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#72Any time you spend thinking or breath you spend talking about someone else’s carbon footprint is a total fool’s errand. Nobody will ever change their carbon footprint because of what someone else tells them. There will always be someone worse than them who they can point to and say, “Well I’m not as bad as them so they should change. If people cared at all about this, they’d change their own behavior. And it’s fine t…
Woah, I expected you to get to the point that concerted effort, legislation and better technology is the only thing which will lower carbon dioxide outputs. Instead I got fatalism. :-P
It’s not fatalism. It’s the reality we live in.
If you think there’s going to be some great concerted effort and legislation and magic new technology coming, get real.
If you want to “fix” climate change then a lot of people are going to need to decide to make massive shifts in how they live. And that just isn’t going to happen by choice.
But do keep dreaming about that technology that lets us keep living as wastefully as we do.
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok. My comment wasn't even promoting e-bikes over electric cars. I have an electric car. I use it daily and use it to get me around more than my ebike. But if someone lives somewhere in the world off of a much tinier budget and they can use something like a bike/motorcycle/cart that is electric powered over a much dirtier gas engine, then that's something they should consider.
If you want to set transit folks' hair on fire, show how many E-bikes the government could buy for the cost of a transit project. Then, apply that number to the population that would be served by by that transit system.
I see what you mean, but also:
If you want to set e-bikes folks' hair on fire, show how many shoes the government could buy for the cost of an e-bike distribution program. Then, apply that number to the population that would be served by those e-bikes.
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Demonstrably and empirically untrue. We’ve made progress on this issue and we can make more.
Huh? https://www.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-finds-summer-2024-hottest-to...
We’re talking about carbon emissions.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
You’ll notice that countries trying to reduce emissions are successfully doing so on a per capita basis. Countries which are not trying, aren’t. There you go, GP’s point empirically disproven.
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? https://www.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-finds-summer-2024-hottest-to...
We’re talking about carbon emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... You’ll notice that countries trying to reduce emissions are successfully doing so on a per capita basis. Countries which are not trying, aren’t. There you go, GP’s point empirically disproven.
Isn’t that per person and aren’t there more people than ever before?
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
“Global emissions have increased rapidly over the last 50 years and have not yet peaked”
If Denmark is trying but India and China aren’t, does it really matter lol?
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
We’re talking about carbon emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... You’ll notice that countries trying to reduce emissions are successfully doing so on a per capita basis. Countries which are not trying, aren’t. There you go, GP’s point empirically disproven.
Isn’t that per person and aren’t there more people than ever before? https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions “Global emissions have increased rapidly over the last 50 years and have not yet peaked” If Denmark is trying but India and China aren’t, does it really matter lol?
The US and UK have reduced their annual CO2 emissions in absolute terms as well.
Denmark's emissions move the needle exactly in proportion to Denmark's emissions. They alone won't save the world if India and China aren't reducing emissions, which is why we should be convincing them to reduce emissions, not throwing our hands in the air with totally non-factual claims like:
> Any time you spend thinking or breath you spend talking about someone else’s carbon footprint is a total fool’s errand.
This is demonstrably, unequivocally untrue. Thinking and breath spent talking about someone else's carbon footprint is reducing people's carbon footprints.
I know cynicism and fatalism sounds cool to certain types of people, but it's generally intellectually lazy and in this case it makes you simply wrong.
It's interesting how you're taking this position about how "people" always excuse their own behavior by pointing to larger polluters and therefore we're doomed, but what I see in the data is that plenty of people aren't engaging in that behavior. However, you are, and you're projecting that onto everyone else (despite clear evidence otherwise). You can simply choose not to :)
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I'd argue two points here. First, the average American household spends approximately $5k a year on gasoline [0]. That's still quite a lot of gasoline burned up. Add to that another ~$1k of natural gas the average household is burning up every year. I don't really call that small consumption. On a worldwide scale, each of these American households is burning up way more fossil fuels than the bottom 50%+. THEY ARE…
> Just switch to superior electrified products (and support renewable electricity+batteries as appropriate) "Just switch" as if that's an easy or affordable thing to do I have to heat my house somehow, I'm not going to go cold during the winter to reduce how much carbon I use, and I can't afford to replace my gas heating with electric, replace all of the insulation and windows in my house to make heating more efficie…
At some point you'll need to replace your gas furnace anyway. Then yes, "just switch".
And if you're in the US and you can't afford much (which it sounds like you're implying), use the IRA funds!
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t that per person and aren’t there more people than ever before? https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions “Global emissions have increased rapidly over the last 50 years and have not yet peaked” If Denmark is trying but India and China aren’t, does it really matter lol?
The US and UK have reduced their annual CO2 emissions in absolute terms as well. Denmark's emissions move the needle exactly in proportion to Denmark's emissions. They alone won't save the world if India and China aren't reducing emissions, which is why we should be convincing them to reduce emissions, not throwing our hands in the air with totally non-factual claims like: > Any time you spend thinking or breath you…
Neat!
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which great extinction did humans cause in the past?
There is some hair-splitting around the term, but here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
ahh okay, I thought we were still in progress on that one. We haven’t really stopped since we started, so it’s kind of kind one big miserable period.
Re: Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated
#80Idea of care about carbon footprint by those who survive from day to day is ridiculous. All social engineering idas are irrelevant, if you have difficulties to give a food to your children.
Let get poor rich, then we can speak about care of environment.