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If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

nytimes.com

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Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#31

Post by jcroll »

ctlby wrote: post #3

If we take climate change activists at their word, the answer is a resounding YES. There is a full-blown crisis brewing, one that can only be resolved with massive social changes ("if everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little" [1]). The NYT should be pushing much more draconian measures. [1] https://www.withouthotair.com/c1/page_3.shtml

You can curb the consumption of anything with a tax, unfortunately getting the political capital to implement one is another thing. It looks sadly like the climate will have to change quite a bit more until that possible

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#32

Post by tbirrell »

Pursuant to the arguments that ships are "even worse" than planes, it is worth noting that a lot of ships (especially cargo) are built specifically to burn bunker fuel (residual oil left over after gasoline, diesel and other light hydrocarbons are extracted from crude oil). This is partly because the thought is that _someone_ will burn it, so you might as well use it in the middle of the ocean, away from all the pollutants generated by the land bound population.

And realistically, that's the best thing you can do for the environment until such time as literally everyone on earth agrees to not use it (which is staggeringly unlikely). Because by burning on its own in the middle of nowhere, the ecosystem is can handle it without fuss. Whereas burning it on land (in a power plant presumably), you merely help overload that ecosystem since it is already having to handle everything else.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#33

Post by jobigoud »

buboard wrote: post #22

I feel like some of the biggest offenders are scientists attending conferences. Is there an estimate of the research budget % spent on travel expenses?

Why pick on scientists? Engineering and all industries and hobbies have conferences all around the planet. Convention centers of major cities are probably booked all year long.

Not sure how much that contributes though.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#34

Post by vkou »

buboard wrote: post #22

I feel like some of the biggest offenders are scientists attending conferences. Is there an estimate of the research budget % spent on travel expenses?

Unless you think that 3 out of every 5 days of a climate scientist's job is flying around the world, attending conferences, their travel budget is much lower then what is spent on putting food on their tables, and roofs over their heads.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#36

Post by PyroLagus »

estebank wrote: post #30
Harvey-Specter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - you can't think of any solutions for heating and cooling houses without burning fossil fuels? Electric baseboard heaters have been a thing forever, just power those with solar or wind or nuclear and we're done. My air conditioner is already electric. Drive an electric car, and buy renewable electricity.

The problem I see though is that "drive an electric car" is interpreted all too often as "buy an electric car, and now that you're 'green', do not worry yourself about the fact that you change cars every two years and the footprint of your gas consumption is dwarfed by the footprint of actually making the cars pat self in back ".

I don't think electric cars break down after two years. Maybe the battery may give problems after a while, but that should be replaceable.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#37

Post by pjc50 »

bubblewrap wrote: post #12
geff82 wrote: post #5

The recent argument against traveling is a proxy war. Heating, cooling, electricity and driving are the things that make up 75% of the emissions, plus about 20% for industrial production. All of the points I listed can be replaced by sustainable alternatives TODAY (ok, maybe not all people in one year, but the products are available) without us having to reduce out comfort in a major way. We could travel 5 times more…

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollution with toxins to prevent mold? And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose?

"Passivhaus" designs significantly reduce this energy need without running into mould problems.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#38

Post by eeZah7Ux »

ardit33 wrote: post #2

Heating your home "ruins" the world. You probably wont die at 40*F inside your home, but it sure would suck living that type winter. So does cooling it during the summer, so do many other modern amenities, etc... At some point it begs the question: Is the world you are preserving worth living? Sure, there are billions of people that don't have any of these amenities in life, but it is mostly by necessity and they can…

> Is the world you are preserving worth living?

Future generations would like to exist.

Perhaps in people year 5000 will put 2019 in the same bucket with the dark ages.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#40

Post by gnode »

avalys wrote: post #19

Rather than endlessly agonize about individual industries, pursuits, and interests, let’s just tax carbon emissions until they’re reduced to an acceptable level, and let the market sort the rest out. If travel is valuable to you, pay for it.

I think something missing from this, is that people wouldn't just stop doing things. People will still want to travel, and have air conditioning, so large incentives will exist to develop technologies that make this possible without the emissions. The greener alternatives will be relatively less expensive when the externalities of fossil fuels are priced in.
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