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What can I do about climate change?

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Re: What can I do about climate change?

#91

Post by justaaron »

roenxi wrote: post #66

> Nicholas’s study concluded that having fewer children is the best way to reduce your contribution to climate change Environmentalism as a philosophy isn't all that coherent, and this suggestion in point 8 really encapsulates the heart of my problems with it. If we are saving the planet "for" someone else, who are they? If we are saving the planet for ourselves, do minor actions of deprivation make sense? The extrem…

If you insist upon cherry-picking an incoherent viewpoint from a basic principle: "I wish to live", I suppose one could concur with your premise.

See:

1) I, myself, my spawn, any reasonable proxy for me. a human?

2) Wish, desire, seek, want.

3) to live, life. continuance. reproduction, etc.

See, we are currently trashing the entire ball we live on:

1) too many of us. We did a good job at the whole "Go forth and multiply" thing. (talk about an incoherent philosophy: how about "the underpinnings of our civilization" for 2 points.)

resulting in:

A) loss of biodiversity. We killed the other animals

B) a HUGE footprint (land area) required for making our STUFF

C) hubris. we think OUR STUFF and OUR ECONOMY (read: make-believe silly nonsense we pretend is real) is more important than LIFE itself! The hacker news crowd is extremely guilty of this, as many people live in a simulated screen reality so much that they forgot about the wetware underpinnings of LIFE. your life.

2)We have no sense of collective responsibility, no sense of collective existence at all. It's not the squirrels fault that you can't understand why sustaining life on earth might be a worthy goal.

Collectively speaking, humanity is a dud. We didn't manage to organize anything with regards to our collective selves. We just ignorantly pursue selfish aims because some 18th century English "economist" (phlebotomist?) told us about "invisible hands"...

Maybe you should devote your vast brainpower to explaining the coherence involved in justifying industry and human "civilization" thus far?

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#92

Post by pdimitar »

robotbikes wrote: post #80
pdimitar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy less stuff. This is becoming harder and harder with time. Believe me, I would love to buy my kitchen stove, washing machine, refrigerator, aspirator, air conditioner and vacuum cleaner from a local manufacturer. But there are none. How many household brands do really exist and how many are actually known and bought by almost everyone? Additionally, even if you are an idealist who wants to be the change they wan…

If you are really dedicated you can buy used equipment that will substantially lower the impact of production of new goods. Older appliances might break more and require more maintenance but are repairable for the most part. Additionally you can get pretty good deals on last years tech that is still pretty cool.

Oh I agree but the last year's tech is also from the big brands, no? While the CO2-reductions / reduce-corporations-influence argument usually tells you to buy locally sourced stuff.

I'd very much like to but there really are no such local vendors. :(

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#93

Post by doombolt »

ForHackernews wrote: post #28
Vinnl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your children's contribution to climate change is their contribution, not yours. The goal of combating climate change is to make the planet more liveable. You don't achieve that by not living.

> Your children's contribution to climate change is their contribution, not yours. It's not some moral game of attribution of blame, it's just maths. Fewer people produce less CO2.

Yes, your children don't get to live to benefit some other people's children.

That, or we end as species. Guess what? Worst case of global warming, mankind extermination. "Best" case, also mankind extermination.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#94

Post by Torakfirenze »

Whilst this article has some points of merit, its premise infuriates me.

Shifting the blame to the consumer and shielding corporates is toxic. The Carbon Majors report last year illustrated pretty clearly that 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

Me going vegan and not using straws isn't going to save the planet.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#95

Post by eeZah7Ux »

KnightOfWords wrote: post #3

This graphic give a pretty good summary of the relative impact: https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire...

The graphic hides the fact that energy consumption and pollution are extremely correlated with income.

There is no meaningful "average" child, or average lifestyle, to base the last column on.

No, I'm not implying that we shouldn't decrease population, just pointing out energy inequality.

Also the chart severely underestimate the impact of diet.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#96

Post by air7 »

> Other than that, what’s the best daily action I can take?

While obviously well-intended, I fear this question might do more harm than good. The question stems (imho) from the fear of being helpless or the desire to be active, to do something in the face of a problem. The issue is that the desire to do good is trumped by the desire to feel good about yourself doing good. This might skew people to look for actions that are easy (therefor low-cost to feeling good) rather than helpful. For example I might decide to not use plastic straws, deliberately take shorted showers, and recycle and therefor feel good about doing my part for the environment. The risk is that doing negligible things might allow me to avoid doing the important ones. (I call these actions negligible because personal changes are hard to sustain, they don't scale, and the overall impact is relatively minute)

The important things were stated simply before the "Other than that", namely: "... system-wide basis – like revamping our subsidy system for the energy and food industries" and what people should be doing is "... putting pressure on their governments and on companies to make the system-wide changes that are needed."

That's it. Make it a political agenda. Everything else is (relatively) fluff.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#97

Post by icebraining »

yread wrote: post #88
pdimitar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main argument against them was along the veins of that it draws big amounts of wattage in an initial burst and that we must use "slower" and thus allegedly more sustainable tech. Which is ridiculuous because every electrician will tell you that your home-grade fuses and the switchboard of your house/block handle such loads quite well without much additional strain on... anything, really. I quickly wrote her off a…

Well, you could make a point that if everyone has powerful appliances at home then the network has to be robust enough to handle quick changes in power needed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup So, in a sense, boiling water with gas has less externalities. EDIT: You can of course also argue, if we can't have powerful appliances why bother with electricity at all. I'm just saying it's not an issue that can b…

The problem with the "TV pickup" is the synchronicity of the use, not the power of the device. Kettles used throughout the day won't have that problem.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#98

Post by ed_balls »

Author wants people to make huge sacrifices and it's written in a similar style like articles about startups or losing weight. The Fetishization of Redemptive suffering.

I do not believe this to be effective. It's much better to show them value e.g. electric cars tend to be safer, because of the battery pack, instant torque make the car zippy and they're quiet. I was thinking about getting an aircon, but I'll get a celling fan instead. It's cheaper and doesn't require much maintenance.

Showing people value proposition is more effective.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#99

Post by doombolt »

justaaron wrote: post #91
roenxi wrote: post #66

> Nicholas’s study concluded that having fewer children is the best way to reduce your contribution to climate change Environmentalism as a philosophy isn't all that coherent, and this suggestion in point 8 really encapsulates the heart of my problems with it. If we are saving the planet "for" someone else, who are they? If we are saving the planet for ourselves, do minor actions of deprivation make sense? The extrem…

If you insist upon cherry-picking an incoherent viewpoint from a basic principle: "I wish to live", I suppose one could concur with your premise. See: 1) I, myself, my spawn, any reasonable proxy for me. a human? 2) Wish, desire, seek, want. 3) to live, life. continuance. reproduction, etc. See, we are currently trashing the entire ball we live on: 1) too many of us. We did a good job at the whole "Go forth and multi…

Do squirrels worth very much without humans to observe them? To whom?

They will be dead anyway in a few years, and their species also in a few MYr. Do you value their continuity more than our own?

Last time I checked, a lot of planets in our galaxy, I doubt squirrels have that much inherent value.

These are basically Malthus talks, with people suggesting to take straws who gets to live and who does not.

Re: What can I do about climate change?

#100

Post by doombolt »

gaius wrote: post #13
throw1118 wrote: post #5

> 8. Should I think about how many children I have (or don’t have)? ... > Nicholas’s study concluded that having fewer children is the best way to reduce your contribution to climate change, with almost 60 tonnes of CO2 avoided per year. But this result has been contentious – and it leads to other questions. ... > And we could ask if having children is necessarily a bad thing for solving climate change: our challenge…

Just be honest and admit that this possible solution (fewer kids!) conflicts with your ideology or your reader’s The planet’s population has doubled in my lifetime alone, and I may see it double again, and it could be pure coincidence that all the warning signs clearly track the human population (CO2 levels, sea temperature etc etc) but maybe, just maybe, there is some causation there...? We could all have nice thing…

Most countries actually did. Should you only send this message to societies which did not? Caution: Will be very un-PC.
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