141–150 of 185 posts
What does everyone think about an open source project to find and eliminate all personal nonrenewable carbon emissions? Something like a spreadsheet across all features that can be optimized, possibly with machine learning. For example: * Best/cheapest/easiest rooftop solar parts and suppliers * Best/cheapest/easiest electric/hybrid cars * Most practical home greenhouse and hydroponic kits (for growing all non-grain…
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Earth's atmosphere doesn't care about geo-political boundaries either Countries won't solve it. If Americans can own up to the fact that per capita reduction in co2 emissions by them, will have a huge effect on co2 emissions in the world (because that means practices/regulations/technology that'll trickle down to largest polluting countries.), then it'll mean genuine difference. American media has no right to point f…
You have some good points. I personally think we still would have an unacceptably large problem w.r.t. climate change regardless of what happens in the USA. And the U.S.'s potential for emissions growth is just so much smaller than other large countries - and ones that have strong, independent governments to boot. The US is definitely a big player. I think it is still most useful to look at this in terms of emissions…
But my POV (as someone who spend 1/3 of my life in US and rest in India) is that US has huge potential to cut down on unnecessary emissions in terms of HVAC, lighting, using efficient cars, subsidizing public transport systems. Hence I have this huge bias against the energy consumption habits of Americans in the US.
Main problem is that the economy of US and many developed nations run on fuel burning carbon emitting industries (crude oil, car manufacturing, gas/electric utilities, car dealerships selling IC engine cars, HVAC equipment). That is why lobbies in US scuttle any govt moves toward encouraging solar/wind power, electric cars (It's a surprise for me that Tesla has survived this far), public transport systems.
I also agree that emissions as a geo-political entity helps in driving global policies to reduce emissions. But beyond that, if US is not setting an example like recently GM shut down many sedan making plants in US and Canada (and POTUS gives an excuse that he'll get rid of subsidies for GM's electric cars while Americans are moving back to their SUV craze), it's only going to mean tougher choices for India and China to make, with costs born by those citizens, and a price will be paid by the current heads of state in the respective countries because they capitulated to US's pontificating (Eg: Canada PM has a growing anti incumbency for the next round of elections).
India is making the right moves as of now (crazy huge solar fields and alliances, massive investments in public transport infra, LPG and electricity connections / supply to more households etc), but it'll take a decade at least for any of this to materialize into reduced emissions.
(None of this is even factoring the pollution in China because of US's consumption of goods manufactured in China and transported to the US, which gives US kind of a free ticket to pontificate saying they are not the most most polluting country.)
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Unfortunately this doesn't work in a globalized race to the bottom. People can go buy a cheaper item that was shipped around the world 3 times before landing on supermarket shelves.
That is a completely separate problem. If country X can produce food cheaper than yours, your farmers will be unprofitable and you'll end up importing food (or subsidizing local food somehow). If both countries impose a carbon tax in the same amount, nothing about that has changed. Moreover, the best way to do a carbon tax is to just give the money back to people -- use it to fund a UBI. Then the amount can be as hig…
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Population density (people/km2) - EU: 116 - US: 33 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
You didn't explain, but I assume your point is that it's easier to reduce emissions per capita when populations are more dense. E.g. less transportation required.
If they believe the EU is cheating through higher population density, just move your population closer together?
Send the money into DARPA and call it increased defense spending to appease the elephants.
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Unfortunately this doesn't work in a globalized race to the bottom. People can go buy a cheaper item that was shipped around the world 3 times before landing on supermarket shelves.
That is a completely separate problem. If country X can produce food cheaper than yours, your farmers will be unprofitable and you'll end up importing food (or subsidizing local food somehow). If both countries impose a carbon tax in the same amount, nothing about that has changed. Moreover, the best way to do a carbon tax is to just give the money back to people -- use it to fund a UBI. Then the amount can be as hig…
It really depends on where the tipping point is, country X might have a slight advantage but measures like this can widen the gap, then secondary factors like economies of scale kick in.
> If both countries impose a carbon tax in the same amount, nothing about that has changed.
Most international agreements are (rightfully) trying to give developing countries a reprieve and let the developed ones shoulder must of the short term burden for the renewable transition. But it's happening at the same time that we're reducing tariffs and developing countries get a double advantage while the working class in developed nations get a kick in the guts.
> Moreover, the best way to do a carbon tax is to just give the money back to people -- use it to fund a UBI
I'm all for both, but using a carbon tax to fund UBI would invert the incentive, governments would want companies polluting more to fund their welfare commitments. We see the same with high cigarette taxes, the government gets dependent on them for general revenue.
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Some people have no choice but to live in the countryside. I don't live in France anymore but in the village that I used to live in which was 40km from Paris, the rent for a decent size apartment i.e, not a broom closet was around 700 euros per month. Many people in France make less than 1800 euros per month. Which means that in the best case scenario they are left with 1k euro before any basic necessities such as fo…
Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap. If the problem is the poorest, why not use the fuel duty raised to help them? They're surely not using all the fuel, so this could be a net benefit to them.
The problem I have is that those incentives are driving people to kill themselves as they cannot afford to live anymore. I guess that's what the government wants though, less pollution.
Can't pollute if your dead.
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Does that have to be the case? Crypto mining can be done in areas with surplus hydroelectric power that can't be efficiently distributed elsewhere.
But in reality, this by and large isn't what's happening. Some mining is done with surplus hydroelectric power. A lot isn't. I don't think crypto should be banned because I don't know how you'd enforce that effectively, but it's a real issue.
You can't think of how cyrpto could be clamped down on but i assume your onboard with taxing carbon?
Because i can't think how you would enforce that effectively.
Relatively ignorant observer here. I thought things were looking pretty good on this front. How does this headline square with "The U.S. Leads All Countries In Reducing Carbon Emissions" (Oct 2017)? [1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-...
The article states that China accounts for twice as much emissions as the United States: > The world’s largest emitter is still China, which produces 27 percent of global carbon emissions, according to the report. The United States accounts for 15 percent of emissions, the European Union 10 percent and India 7 percent. > China’s emissions are projected to rise 4.7 percent in 2018, the report said. The country is stim…
Don't forget that china is also making a comeback in CFC emissions.