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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
181–190 of 422 posts
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've started composting. I'm sure that'll outweigh the average Vegas visitor's emissions. /s I'm being a bit facetious obviously, but it does feel a bit like tilting against windmills. We need policy and systemic changes, if we're relying on individuals to all collectively start doing the "right thing", we're sunk.
You laugh but if everyone changed just some of their behavior, we would be in a much better place. We used to reuse glass jars, now it’s plastic. We used to can goods, now it’s plastic. We used to use refillable bottles, now it’s plastic. We used to have car doors that went “thunk” when you slammed them shut, now it’s plastic. If we each are mindful of the amount of trash/litter/waste we produce and take an active st…
The problem is that a single consumer can't throw themselves into the gears of the industrial machine to slow its progress. If you stop buying food in plastic containers, the food will still be produced, and it will still be purchased by the large multinational corporations that have supply contracts with the food industry, it will just go straight into a landfill when its expiration date passes instead of being purchased. Unsold subsidized produce, which took petroleum based fertilizers to grow, and petroleum powered equipment to cultivate and distribute, will rot in a landfill. Farmers won't stop growing it if you stop buying it. The damage has already been done by the time you make the choice to purchase it or not, and it takes more than a handful of people making a conscientious decision to reduce waste to stop the waste from happening in the first place. And that's if you even have a choice in the first place. The only way to eliminate carbon emissions is to return to manual labor and subsistence farming, and since all the arable acreage is owned by land barons and the price is so high, even that is out of reach of the average consumer. We are trapped.
If you buy an electric car, consider the amount of petroleum it took to forge the steel, power the aluminum smelters, and ship the components around the world on titanic ships. How long does it take to pay off the carbon debt that was incurred by getting rid of that old polluting car? How much petroleum would it take to relocate to a locality with clean-energy powered public transit? What other externalities are incurred by such a choice, and are they greater than simply maintaining the status quo? Is it even within the means of the majority to make such a choice?
Consider that aviation is a much larger contributor to emissions. Airlines will consistently fly completely empty planes just so they can maintain a parking spot at a given airport. Or compare the carbon emissions of the military to the rest of society. Or the quantity of flare gas that gets uselessly burned off by oil rigs. All market forces which a single consumer or group of consumers is powerless to stop. And all of which are backed by investors with more clout to sway the powers that be than you or I will ever have.
As a sibling commenter said, it's a fun hobby and makes us feel a little better about ourselves, but it's a drop in the bucket. A depressing state of affairs to be sure.
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#183It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…
There simply is no solution to this problem. We would all need to stop driving, flying, and eating meat. Most families (in the US, anyway) would suffer unemployment and starvation if they couldnt drive to work.
Humans will continue to do whatever is needed to survive,, and that currently involves driving, flying, and eating meat. They will only stop when those behaviours are either not possible, or hinder survival.
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#184If only there was a clean, nearly limitless source of energy, where the waste for hundreds of years of energy could be stored in less than a square kilometer. If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™.
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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#185It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…
> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the…
I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#186This is one of the key sentences: > Policymakers and the public, however, remain largely unaware of the risks posed by such a practically irreversible transition Most people still underestimate what it means for the earth system to change from the current stable state into another state, which might need many years to become stable again. And that new stable state might be a lot less favourable for us humans.
> might need many years to become stable again People really fail to grasp the significance of this part. One of our most common apocalyptic fantasies lays this out quite well: nuclear annihilation. The common narrative is about the post -apocalyptic world and rebuilding . But this presumes a new normal has been established. With climate change we will continue to experience more extreme changes at a faster rate over…
> the transition period will be worse because you can't adapt.
As far as agriculture goes we can adapt but the cost would be exorbitant. Vertical farming is technically doable.
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a case of prisoner's dilemma. Individuals making the proposed lifestyle changes in order to make a genuine dent in AGW amount to jumping on the tracks in order to stop a freight train. This is the one issue where I feel some sympathy with the right. I hate "Virtue signaling" about as much as they do. I'm sorry, but if you are going to snap at people over eating beef, while you fly/drive all over the country/world…
Don't forget buying mountains worth of crap that gets used for a month or less and trashed.
Right to Repair and some type of incentives that actually rewarded it would probably do more globally than most other consumer level solutions.
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced! Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users. There are quantitative arguments against many silly co…
> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
Why don't you pay for a more expensive bag and bring it to the store?
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the…
I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?
Neat, I’ve never seen a fossil fuel company exec on hacker news before. Welcome!
Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. If you want to see real progress on th…
But individual behavior is not about preventing climate change, it’s about doing what’s right. It’s wrong to pollute the environment, one way or another. A single person not stealing won’t reduce the crime rate in a country yet it is the right thing to do.
That's not a fair comparison. Everything we do affects the environment. The goal is to limit that effect where it matters. It's not ethical, it's practical.