The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: Shane on February 06, 2020, 10:03:52 PM
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The solution to climate change seems pretty straight forward to me. If burning fossil fuels is warming the planet, wouldn't a logical solution would be for us to burn less fossil fuels?
Recently, talking with regular (non Mustachian) people we meet, I've suggested various solutions, like, "How about we start encouraging more Americans to begin transitioning away from sedentary, car based lifestyles?" Seems like a no brainer to me. We'd burn less fossil fuels, emit less greenhouse gases, and humans would get more exercise by walking, riding a bike, etc. People sometimes nod their heads and passively agree with this statement but, more often, they say something along the lines of, "It'll never work. Americans are NEVER going to give up their cars."
When I start suggesting practical ways we might gently nudge average Americans to step out of their comfort zone and encourage them to start walking, cycling or taking public transport, their resistance starts to get more fierce. Yesterday, in a neighborhood online forum I suggested it might be a good idea for us to start gradually increasing the costs of car ownership. For example, I said, maybe we could get our city to start charging homeowners a fee to park their vehicles on publicly owned streets, and maybe we could encourage our state to start gradually increasing fuel taxes to make gasoline more expensive to encourage people to drive less and to raise revenue that could be used to improve public transport, build more bike lanes, etc. These ideas seemed like fairly straight forward, common sense, Econ 101 ways to push people to use their cars less, or to get rid of them altogether, but people in my neighborhood came out of the woodwork to attack me and my ideas.
Their main complaints seemed to be:
-Gas is already too expensive!
-There's no way I will EVER pay the city to park in front of my own god damn house!
-What about the poor people? How do you expect them to be able to afford to pay to park AND pay higher prices for gas? These ideas are crazy!
-What about all the people who *have* to drive long distances between their homes (in rural areas, 50+ miles outside our city) to come in to work every day? How can you expect them to pay more for gas AND pay to park too? This is nuts!
So, I asked my neighbors, "Well, what do you guys propose we do, then?"...crickets..........
Just feeling kind of frustrated. I mean, personally, I'm not that worried about climate change. We have enough money and are flexible enough that we'll be fine, pretty much no matter what happens. Poor people, people who are living paycheck to paycheck, probably are going to be the ones who will suffer the most, IMHO. Interestingly, middle class and up people are always the ones who trot out "poor people" as a kind of prop, I think, to justify their own wasteful lifestyles and unwillingness to change. I'm just feeling like, Why should I even care? Cheap gas is great for me and my family. Free parking? That's good for us too. I'd be willing to pay more for those things, because I think it might help to slowly begin weaning Americans off of their 100% car-based lifestyle, but if nobody else is willing to give up anything. at. all, why should I bother?
We've been keeping our thermostat set at 64F-67F. Over Christmas, we left town for a few days, and just shut the furnace off, because the forecast wasn't calling for the temperature to fall below freezing. The same neighbors who insist they can't go ANYWHERE without their cars, have also told us they like to keep their thermostats set at between 75F-80F... wtf?
I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
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I am very worried about climate change, and I can’t get myself to change my lifestyle. I honestly think our only hope is adaptation to adjust to harsher weather and rising sea levels. Not sure what that means for a reliable food supply. Peak oil was a hope in that it had the potential to make petroleum uncompetitive relative to renewables, but fracking and other technological advancements have kept the oil flowing smoothly and cheaply. Costs for wind and solar keep dropping though, and storage options keep improving. The long term technology trends are favorable, and better value ultimately wins in the market. If people can make a buck through less carbon intensive energy options, maybe we can avoid the worst potential effects of warming.
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I would start focusing on the win-win-win situations first. So things that reduce your costs/increase comfort AND reduce fossil fuel use.
Examples are solar panels and home insulation. It's pretty easy to make money on your solar panels in just a couple years, saving lots on utilities costs. If you then also get an EV your gasoline costs also evaporate :). Also many people's houses are fairly poorly insulated and just cheap updates can result in dramatic savings. Even the most die hard climate change deniers usually still like to save money on gasoline and utility costs so it's a way to move/motivate them.
Will these things save the world from climate change? Surely they won't, but if everyone does it, it will be at least some drops in the bucket. Plus by the time we get to more rigorous measures you will be better prepared if you've already made adaptations (e.g. be responsible for your own electricity/not needing gas if gas costs increase etc).
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
haha!
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In just for the great use of muggles.
My position has always been that forward thinking companies (and countries), who know regulation is coming, are able to get an advantage by meeting what the population wants ahead of time.
For instance, I was just watching PBS's American Experience episode called The Poison Squad, which discussed a government scientist's crazy experiments to get food regulated: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squad/
One of the interesting takeaways was that the companies who figured out how to make great food that did not need all these horrible preservatives were able to get an advantage -- and we still eat their products today. Heinz was discussed at length for this, as they figured out how to make a more acidic and vinegar ketchup formula that had natural shelf life.
Transfer that to climate change/green energy -- I have no idea why people can't realize how much of a capitalist and societal advantage we would have if we became the world leader in green technology. Green energy, green transportion, solar panels, all of it. We could be the world leader like we were with steel. Oh, AND it would be a win-win for the environment. What's not to like?
So basically -- appeal to their business instincts has always been my approach.
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
Ditto.
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I would LOVE for most of the country to move to a limited-car lifestyle, because that means people would be living in the kind of walkable neighborhoods that used to exist before the 1950s (when the car companies did things like destroy the Los Angeles trolley system in order to force more people to buy cars). Now we have sprawling suburbs, and it would be prohibitively expensive to undo all that. I really don't know the answer.
I think the first thing to do here is: BUY LOCAL. As much as you can. Energy, produce and other foods, appliances etc. And put tariffs on international imports. No one thinks about the pollution produced by giant cargo ships bringing our cheap crap from China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, but just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet. So messing around with reducing gasoline use is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, compared to shifting consumer goods production to the US. (And btw that cheap crap from overseas makes only a brief stop in your home on its way to the landfill - yet another problem.)
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
Ditto.
Me three. And I'm prepared to be increasingly disappointed over the next 20-30 years. Thinking back to about 45 years ago and despite minimal thought being given back then to all things environmental, the world seemed a lot cleaner, simply because there were half the number of humans as there are today. And certainly a whole lot less westernized humans with cars, fridges, electronics, etc.
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We'll change when it becomes bluntly obvious: flooding in Miami and Long Island and Houston, massive crop failures in the midwest, 130 degree summers in Phoenix.
Until then, it's business as usual.
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just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet.
Do you have a source for this? Just given my rudimentary understanding of physics, I have a very hard time believing this.
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From what I understand, cargo ships are quite efficient for the amount of goods transported wrt greenhouse emissions. They are terrible polluters of the sort of combustion byproducts that kill you today though.
I would suggest that going after industry with regulations is more impactful than trying to convince a few individuals. Ask the concrete industry to reduce emissions and give them timelines and goals, apply this to other industries as well, as an example.
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
Ha ha ha. Welcome to reality, my friend. Yes, climate change could be conquered easily if we had the individual incentive to do so. We don't. At least not yet.
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Transfer that to climate change/green energy -- I have no idea why people can't realize how much of a capitalist and societal advantage we would have if we became the world leader in green technology. Green energy, green transportion, solar panels, all of it. We could be the world leader like we were with steel. Oh, AND it would be a win-win for the environment. What's not to like?
But.... muh oil!! How can I own the libs if I admit they are right???
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
Ha ha ha. Welcome to reality, my friend. Yes, climate change could be conquered easily if we had the individual incentive to do so. We don't. At least not yet.
Change is hard. There is a large block of people who have been lying for a long time that change isn't necessary . . . so if you're not paying too close attention (or don't want to hear the truth) it's easy to look the other way and pretend there's no problem and no reason to change what you've been doing.
At some point things will become so catastrophically bad that the truth is unavoidable, but until that happens I don't see much hope for change. Of course, when that happens it may be too late for the change to be effective. :P
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Transfer that to climate change/green energy -- I have no idea why people can't realize how much of a capitalist and societal advantage we would have if we became the world leader in green technology. Green energy, green transportion, solar panels, all of it. We could be the world leader like we were with steel. Oh, AND it would be a win-win for the environment. What's not to like?
But.... muh oil!! How can I own the libs if I admit they are right???
I literally think this is what it is. People on the right can’t realize the advantage we would have because they would have to first admit that something lefties like is a good idea.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkPi-6qf0sk
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkPi-6qf0sk
Oh, look, this old saw. Anyone who has ever used a fossil fuel is a hypocrite who should never say anything about climate change.
:eyeroll:
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I would LOVE for most of the country to move to a limited-car lifestyle, because that means people would be living in the kind of walkable neighborhoods that used to exist before the 1950s (when the car companies did things like destroy the Los Angeles trolley system in order to force more people to buy cars). Now we have sprawling suburbs, and it would be prohibitively expensive to undo all that. I really don't know the answer.
I think the first thing to do here is: BUY LOCAL. As much as you can. Energy, produce and other foods, appliances etc. And put tariffs on international imports. No one thinks about the pollution produced by giant cargo ships bringing our cheap crap from China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, but just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet. So messing around with reducing gasoline use is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, compared to shifting consumer goods production to the US. (And btw that cheap crap from overseas makes only a brief stop in your home on its way to the landfill - yet another problem.)
The bolded is nowhere close to true. Total global cargo ship CO2 emissions are about 1 billion tons.1 The US auto fleet is twice that at 2 billion tons per year.2 Manufacturing, by the way, produces about 6.5 billion tons of CO2 per year.3 Unfortunately, buying local is not the panacea you wish it to be.
Please check your facts before you spout nonsense.
1. https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-shipping-GHG-emissions-2013-2015_ICCT-Report_17102017_vF.pdf
2.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/01/vehicles-climate-change-emissions-trump-administration
3.https://www.statista.com/statistics/276480/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-sector/
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I don't think the way to make changes happen in the USA is anything involving raising taxes. I do however think you can make changes and then raise taxes to pay for it slowly later.
Rather than force people to pay more fees to own a car and to drive it, quietly build bike paths, allow people to use golfcarts near their homes, re-organize streets so there is less neighborhood traffic so people consider walking or biking more, build shops with apartments above, more bike racks around town, more events that people can attend and walk to, etc.
Over time the adjustments are made, people learn to love the adjustments - and meanwhile taxes and fees are gently and slowly adjusted to help pay for things.
This way it isn't conservatives vs liberals, big business versus city government, etc. Places people WANT to live are created.
When I talk to people here (red state) they would never consider riding a bike on errands or to commute to work b/c it is unsafe. And it is dicey in places. People won't walk because the places they shop include a 40 acre parking lot out front. Walking from store to store with shopping is a ridiculous idea. A mall is functionally better perhaps. A rejuvenated neighborhood with shops is better.
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Human beings did not evolve to deal with problems as far ahead in the future as climate change, and we may be de-evolving as I type. Specifically, farmers used to plan for one or two seasons into the future, lest they starve to death. Now everyone lives paycheck to paycheck. Don't expect action on climate change until things are literally on fire.
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I don't the way to make changes happen in the USA is anything involving raising taxes. I do however think you can make changes and then raise taxes to pay for it slowly later.
Rather than force people to pay more fees to own a car and to drive it, quietly build bike paths, allow people to use golfcarts near their homes, re-organize streets so there is less neighborhood traffic so people consider walking or biking more, build shops with apartments above, more bike racks around town, more events that people can attend and walk to, etc.
See my pervious point? Americans have forgotten what it is like to struggle for anything. The silent and greatest generation are mostly gone and replaced with people who can't fathom what it would be like to live in a world where they can't drive their SUV to Starbucks in the morning.
Over time...
Time is the one thing that we absolutely do not have. For further reading please see The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
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I'm not sure politics could get out of the way of the changes we need in this country.
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I'm not sure politics could get out of the way of the changes we need in this country.
Well I agree with you there. At this rate the US will be the last holdout for actually doing something about climate change.
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.... At this rate the US will be the last holdout for actually doing something about climate change.
Except for providing the business environment where Tesla and others are experimenting and hopefully coming up with some great products.
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.... At this rate the US will be the last holdout for actually doing something about climate change.
Except for providing the business environment where Tesla and others are experimenting and hopefully coming up with some great products.
. . . while also being the key business environment directly to blame for the bulk of climate change. Outsourcing the dirty production of all the stuff people in a country buy every year doesn't actually make the world cleaner.
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I am very worried about climate change, and I can’t get myself to change my lifestyle. I honestly think our only hope is adaptation to adjust to harsher weather and rising sea levels. Not sure what that means for a reliable food supply. Peak oil was a hope in that it had the potential to make petroleum uncompetitive relative to renewables, but fracking and other technological advancements have kept the oil flowing smoothly and cheaply. Costs for wind and solar keep dropping though, and storage options keep improving. The long term technology trends are favorable, and better value ultimately wins in the market. If people can make a buck through less carbon intensive energy options, maybe we can avoid the worst potential effects of warming.
Hopefully, you're right that "long term technology trends are favorable." Bill Gates supported TerraPower's innovative traveling wave reactor (https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a25728221/terrapower-china-bill-gates-trump/) concept sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, tensions between the Trump Administration and the Chinese government recently forced TerraPower to shut down the small demonstration power plant project it was building in China. The cool thing about TerraPower's traveling wave reactor is that it can consume the waste produced by currently used nuclear reactors. It's also meant to be cheaper to build and produce energy than conventional reactors. Let's hope Bill Gates and TerraPower are successful at getting permission to build a test reactor somewhere in the US.
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I would start focusing on the win-win-win situations first. So things that reduce your costs/increase comfort AND reduce fossil fuel use.
Examples are solar panels and home insulation. It's pretty easy to make money on your solar panels in just a couple years, saving lots on utilities costs. If you then also get an EV your gasoline costs also evaporate :). Also many people's houses are fairly poorly insulated and just cheap updates can result in dramatic savings. Even the most die hard climate change deniers usually still like to save money on gasoline and utility costs so it's a way to move/motivate them.
Will these things save the world from climate change? Surely they won't, but if everyone does it, it will be at least some drops in the bucket. Plus by the time we get to more rigorous measures you will be better prepared if you've already made adaptations (e.g. be responsible for your own electricity/not needing gas if gas costs increase etc).
Focusing on win-win-win solutions sounds like a great idea to me. Most people don't agree, but I think walking, riding a bike or taking public transport whenever reasonably possible is a good idea, not just because it would produce less pollution and greenhouse gases but, also, because it would make us all healthier and save us lots of money. Pretty much no one I know, though, is willing to go to the lengths (which don't seem, at all, extreme to me) that my family and I do. For example, even in the middle of winter when temperatures are below freezing, we regularly bundle up and walk 1 mile, each way, to the theater on Friday or Saturday evenings, to see plays/musicals. Our neighbors think we're INSANE to leave our paid for, almost brand new car sitting parked in front of our house and walk a mile(!) to the theater. I'm surprised none of them have called Child Protective Services on us yet to report this child abuse we are inflicting on our daughter. :(
As far as convincing people where we live now to install solar panels on their homes goes, I'm pretty sure it would be a huge uphill battle, mostly because electricity costs are extremely low here. Right now, we're paying only $0.063/KWh for electricity. I have literally never seen even one house in our city with solar panels on it, maybe because it would take soooooooo long for the savings to pay for themselves that nobody is interested in financing it? Where we used to live, residential electricity cost $0.37/KWh, and there many, many people, including us, had PV arrays, as well as solar hot water systems mounted on their roofs. Another obstacle to solar in the city where we live now is the fact that the homes in our neighborhood are all ~120 years old and, thus, protected under the city's historic preservation statutes. Probably, to get permits to put solar panels on a roof, a homeowner would have to show that they wouldn't be visible from the street, which wouldn't be hard, but probably we would also have to rebuild the entire roof of the house, because I'm pretty sure these old houses weren't built to withstand the extra weight of a solar array being mounted to them.
As far as insulating the houses in our neighborhood goes, probably the change that would make the biggest difference for the most homeowners would be for them to get rid of their old, single pane, wooden windows and replace them with modern multi-pane insulated windows. Unfortunately, because of our city's historic preservation statutes, all windows facing the front street must be made of wood or appear to be made of wood. We've heard of quotes around $2K/window from Anderson for conforming windows. The big expense is why most of our neighbors just keep their old wooden windows, most of which don't open and close any more. Now problem, though, because our neighbors never open or close their windows, anyway. Why should they when they can just run their central heating/AC 365 days/year? :(
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In just for the great use of muggles.
My position has always been that forward thinking companies (and countries), who know regulation is coming, are able to get an advantage by meeting what the population wants ahead of time.
For instance, I was just watching PBS's American Experience episode called The Poison Squad, which discussed a government scientist's crazy experiments to get food regulated: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squad/
One of the interesting takeaways was that the companies who figured out how to make great food that did not need all these horrible preservatives were able to get an advantage -- and we still eat their products today. Heinz was discussed at length for this, as they figured out how to make a more acidic and vinegar ketchup formula that had natural shelf life.
Transfer that to climate change/green energy -- I have no idea why people can't realize how much of a capitalist and societal advantage we would have if we became the world leader in green technology. Green energy, green transportion, solar panels, all of it. We could be the world leader like we were with steel. Oh, AND it would be a win-win for the environment. What's not to like?
So basically -- appeal to their business instincts has always been my approach.
The US becoming a world leader in green technology sure sounds like a winning idea to me!
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I would LOVE for most of the country to move to a limited-car lifestyle, because that means people would be living in the kind of walkable neighborhoods that used to exist before the 1950s (when the car companies did things like destroy the Los Angeles trolley system in order to force more people to buy cars). Now we have sprawling suburbs, and it would be prohibitively expensive to undo all that. I really don't know the answer.
I think the first thing to do here is: BUY LOCAL. As much as you can. Energy, produce and other foods, appliances etc. And put tariffs on international imports. No one thinks about the pollution produced by giant cargo ships bringing our cheap crap from China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, but just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet. So messing around with reducing gasoline use is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, compared to shifting consumer goods production to the US. (And btw that cheap crap from overseas makes only a brief stop in your home on its way to the landfill - yet another problem.)
We're all about living in a walkable neighborhood and buying local. We specifically moved to our current LCOL area because it's possible to live well here, while using a car very little, if at all. It's bewildering to me that 99% of our neighbors still get in their cars and drive everywhere, bitching the whole time about how hard it is to find a parking spot when they get back home. We use our car so little, that parking is a complete non issue for us. Occasionally, if we come home in the car late at night we have to park a block or two from our house, but so what? That doesn't bother us at all. Everyone else, seems to have a different take on that.
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
Ditto.
Me three. And I'm prepared to be increasingly disappointed over the next 20-30 years. Thinking back to about 45 years ago and despite minimal thought being given back then to all things environmental, the world seemed a lot cleaner, simply because there were half the number of humans as there are today. And certainly a whole lot less westernized humans with cars, fridges, electronics, etc.
Cutting population is another thing I've attempted to talk with people about, to little or no avail. To me, it seems completely reasonable to discuss possibly cutting our population in half (or more). Americans don't want to hear about that, though. I mean, they're fine with talking about forcing other people, especially brown people in other countries they'll probably never visit, to have fewer children, but try suggesting that Americans, God's Chosen People, should have fewer children, and they'll be coming for you with pitchforks.
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We'll change when it becomes bluntly obvious: flooding in Miami and Long Island and Houston, massive crop failures in the midwest, 130 degree summers in Phoenix.
Until then, it's business as usual.
Pretty sure you're right, @bacchi :(
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
Ha ha ha. Welcome to reality, my friend. Yes, climate change could be conquered easily if we had the individual incentive to do so. We don't. At least not yet.
Change is hard. There is a large block of people who have been lying for a long time that change isn't necessary . . . so if you're not paying too close attention (or don't want to hear the truth) it's easy to look the other way and pretend there's no problem and no reason to change what you've been doing.
At some point things will become so catastrophically bad that the truth is unavoidable, but until that happens I don't see much hope for change. Of course, when that happens it may be too late for the change to be effective. :P
It's sad, but I think you guys are right. Until things get so bad people *have* to change, probably most won't do anything, at all.
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Transfer that to climate change/green energy -- I have no idea why people can't realize how much of a capitalist and societal advantage we would have if we became the world leader in green technology. Green energy, green transportion, solar panels, all of it. We could be the world leader like we were with steel. Oh, AND it would be a win-win for the environment. What's not to like?
But.... muh oil!! How can I own the libs if I admit they are right???
I literally think this is what it is. People on the right can’t realize the advantage we would have because they would have to first admit that something lefties like is a good idea.
And what makes it even more bizarre is that many Trump supporters would actually benefit from adopting green technologies even more than us lefties, but they're still against it, just 'cause we want it.
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At some point things will become so catastrophically bad that the truth is unavoidable, but until that happens I don't see much hope for change. Of course, when that happens it may be too late for the change to be effective. :P
The problem I see is twofold: 1) climate change will never become catastrophically bad because the change is glacial (that pun may become archaic if we keep things up), thereby giving people time to adapt and see a shittier world as the new normal, and 2) the short-term individual economic disincentives for action on climate change are strong, whereas the long-term individual economic incentives are extremely weak.
I am personally convinced that meaningful change could happen, but that it would likely have to come from the leadership on the right (as compared to a supermajority on the left). That way, conservatives can rah rah that their party did something, liberals can swallow the plan as advancing their goals, and the plan would have a meaningful economic basis so that it doesn't get overturned in a short period of time following the next transfer of power. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
haha!
You can laugh, but that’s pretty much my attitude as well.
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At some point things will become so catastrophically bad that the truth is unavoidable, but until that happens I don't see much hope for change. Of course, when that happens it may be too late for the change to be effective. :P
The problem I see is twofold: 1) climate change will never become catastrophically bad because the change is glacial (that pun may become archaic if we keep things up), thereby giving people time to adapt and see a shittier world as the new normal, and 2) the short-term individual economic disincentives for action on climate change are strong, whereas the long-term individual economic incentives are extremely weak.
I am personally convinced that meaningful change could happen, but that it would likely have to come from the leadership on the right (as compared to a supermajority on the left). That way, conservatives can rah rah that their party did something, liberals can swallow the plan as advancing their goals, and the plan would have a meaningful economic basis so that it doesn't get overturned in a short period of time following the next transfer of power. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.
I agree that long term foresight and leadership from the right is required and essential on this issue for it to ever be fixed. But that's also pretty much why I'm convinced that meaningful change cannot happen.
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You are suggesting attempts to solve a problem that may or may not even be a meaningful way to improve the situation. The number one rule that change should abide by is that undue burden should not be placed on people for little to no potential benefit.
Cars for instance are only maybe 15% of our problem. And that is at a global scale. If you do want to phase out cars I think the infrastructure to avoid them simply has to be built up to make driving less desirable. As opposed to adding needless penalties on existing behavior.
Cities need to push hard and fast to improve green public transit. Existing cars need to move towards greener models. Electric, hybrid, fuel cell or any combination. The grid providing power for green cars needs to become more green. But we should have to sacrifice cultural staples like road trips and the easy ability to commute over long distances.
Encourage people to bike more is not a realistic solution in many cities where work and living areas are simply not in proximity to each other to create a desirable bike commute. Would it be healthy for me to bike 15 miles to and from work every day? Sure, but I don't want to have to do it and the road blocks to make that safer than driving are vast in my city. For a green future city planning probably needs an overhaul but again that involves a lot of challenging policy.
Your never going to get overwhelming positive response to forcing people to make drastic changes in their day to day lives with no immediate perceivable benefit. That's just a recipe for dead on arrival public policy.You instead have to make the greener alternatives more attractive to allow people to naturally transition.
Raising gas prices pisses off a lot of people because it is already an area where most families get squeezed. Part of me cynically approves of it as a way to punish idiots who buy raised trucks, in the hopes that one day raising prices will make it to expensive for them to own their dangerous vehicles. And that is why I vote yes on every gas hike in California to stick it to those people regardless of how asinine the use of those tax dollars might be. But it is still policy that wont be well received.
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I don't think the way to make changes happen in the USA is anything involving raising taxes. I do however think you can make changes and then raise taxes to pay for it slowly later.
Rather than force people to pay more fees to own a car and to drive it, quietly build bike paths, allow people to use golfcarts near their homes, re-organize streets so there is less neighborhood traffic so people consider walking or biking more, build shops with apartments above, more bike racks around town, more events that people can attend and walk to, etc.
Over time the adjustments are made, people learn to love the adjustments - and meanwhile taxes and fees are gently and slowly adjusted to help pay for things.
This way it isn't conservatives vs liberals, big business versus city government, etc. Places people WANT to live are created.
When I talk to people here (red state) they would never consider riding a bike on errands or to commute to work b/c it is unsafe. And it is dicey in places. People won't walk because the places they shop include a 40 acre parking lot out front. Walking from store to store with shopping is a ridiculous idea. A mall is functionally better perhaps. A rejuvenated neighborhood with shops is better.
What you're saying sounds completely reasonable to me, but in my, actual, lived experience, it doesn't seem to be the case.
Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
In my experience, Americans won't even begin to consider riding a bike or walking somewhere, no matter how safe the infrastructure may be, until driving in their own personal automobile becomes so painful they're basically forced to change. Until then, they will continue to drive their cars everywhere they go.
Even people we know who say they are on board with "fighting climate change," what they really mean is they are willing to fight to force other people and distant, big corporations and governments to change. That they, personally, might have to change anything in their own lives seems unfathomable to most of them.
Last summer, some neighbors invited us to go with them to a "climate strike" protest about a mile from our houses. We were like, yeah, sure we'll go. As we talked more about it, though, it became clear that our neighbors were planning on driving their minivan downtown to go to the "strike." Of course, I suggested we walk the mile to the protest, but our neighbors didn't like that idea very much. Next, I suggested we just take one car. Our neighbors never responded to my text. Later, they explained that they thought, "it would just be more convenient to take separate cars." My wife and I, of course, walked to the protest. Our neighbors drove their car, and we met them there. At the protest I ended up arguing with our neighbors, because I couldn't resist pointing out the hypocrisy of all of the people, who had mostly all driven their SUVs and clown cars into the city, exacerbating an already bad parking situation there, to go to a protest against climate change... Needless to say, our neighbors didn't care too much for that line of discussion. I need to learn to just keep my mouth shut.
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Raising gas prices pisses off a lot of people because it is already an area where most families get squeezed. Part of me cynically approves of it as a way to punish idiots who buy raised trucks, in the hopes that one day raising prices will make it to expensive for them to own their dangerous vehicles. And that is why I vote yes on every gas hike in California to stick it to those people regardless of how asinine the use of those tax dollars might be. But it is still policy that wont be well received.
I'm a proponent of the carbon tax dividend. Tax the hell* out of carbon pollution, then provide a per capita dividend to every U.S. citizen equal to the total tax receipts (and in fact, give it out at the beginning of program implementation, and maybe every three months like Vanguard distributes dividends). In this scheme, nobody is going to be paying more, except for the above-average polluters.
*Granted, this tax would rise progressively over time to give the worst polluters some time to react and adjust their behavior.
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What you're saying sounds completely reasonable to me, but in my, actual, lived experience, it doesn't seem to be the case....
<snip>
Yeah, what Shane says pretty much sums it up. Until we tax fossil fuels enough to where driving even a mile causes people to pause and think about the money they have to spend, we are not going to make much forward progress with the general population. Reducing one's own infinitesimal contribution to climate change is just not high on almost anybody's personal priorities.
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You are suggesting attempts to solve a problem that may or may not even be a meaningful way to improve the situation. The number one rule that change should abide by is that undue burden should not be placed on people for little to no potential benefit.
Cars for instance are only maybe 15% of our problem. And that is at a global scale. If you do want to phase out cars I think the infrastructure to avoid them simply has to be built up to make driving less desirable. As opposed to adding needless penalties on existing behavior.
Cities need to push hard and fast to improve green public transit. Existing cars need to move towards greener models. Electric, hybrid, fuel cell or any combination. The grid providing power for green cars needs to become more green. But we should have to sacrifice cultural staples like road trips and the easy ability to commute over long distances.
Encourage people to bike more is not a realistic solution in many cities where work and living areas are simply not in proximity to each other to create a desirable bike commute. Would it be healthy for me to bike 15 miles to and from work every day? Sure, but I don't want to have to do it and the road blocks to make that safer than driving are vast in my city. For a green future city planning probably needs an overhaul but again that involves a lot of challenging policy.
Your never going to get overwhelming positive response to forcing people to make drastic changes in their day to day lives with no immediate perceivable benefit. That's just a recipe for dead on arrival public policy.You instead have to make the greener alternatives more attractive to allow people to naturally transition.
Raising gas prices pisses off a lot of people because it is already an area where most families get squeezed. Part of me cynically approves of it as a way to punish idiots who buy raised trucks, in the hopes that one day raising prices will make it to expensive for them to own their dangerous vehicles. And that is why I vote yes on every gas hike in California to stick it to those people regardless of how asinine the use of those tax dollars might be. But it is still policy that wont be well received.
Back around 2008-2009, when gas prices where we were living at the time were up around ~$4.50/gallon and diesel was selling for well over $5/gallon, people who had been driving jacked up pickup trucks, some of them 50+ miles each way, back and forth to work for years, suddenly realized it was costing some of them more just for gasoline than they were earning at their low wage jobs. In order to prevent a revolution, our mayor at the time decided to increase the number of public buses and make them all free to the public. When bus fares dropped to $0 and gas was selling for almost $5/gallon, suddenly the public buses were FULL, whereas, previously, they had been only very sparsely used. Now that gas is cheap again and a new mayor re-instituted bus fares, most people have gone back to their preferred mode of transportation - private automobiles - to commute back and forth to work.
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Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
There are a couple things here:
1. Bike infrastructure needs to meed needs of people before they'll use it. I've seen plenty of 'great bike paths along the river' that were designed by people who don't cycle for transport. They tend to be nice for walking the dog, or taking the kid out on Saturday . . . but useless to get from place to place. It's like building a 20 mile loop of freeway with a single on/off ramp just outside of town to address traffic congestion, and then being shocked that nobody seems to be using it.
That doesn't mean that people don't want to ride bikes, but it's frustratingly often used to shoot down bike infrastructure.
2. People are notoriously bad at judging usage of cycle paths. I wouldn't believe 'hardly used' claims if the bike path is in a sensible location though unless a proper study has been done. There are several bike routes that folks argued were "hardly used" and should be removed here in Toronto. Studies showed that they averaged about a thousand cyclists an hour. They just seem empty all the time when compared to lines of cars in bumper to bumper gridlock next to 'em.
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Cars for instance are only maybe 15% of our problem. And that is at a global scale. If you do want to phase out cars I think the infrastructure to avoid them simply has to be built up to make driving less desirable. As opposed to adding needless penalties on existing behavior.
Cities need to push hard and fast to improve green public transit. Existing cars need to move towards greener models. Electric, hybrid, fuel cell or any combination. The grid providing power for green cars needs to become more green. But we should have to sacrifice cultural staples like road trips and the easy ability to commute over long distances.
Encourage people to bike more is not a realistic solution in many cities where work and living areas are simply not in proximity to each other to create a desirable bike commute. Would it be healthy for me to bike 15 miles to and from work every day? Sure, but I don't want to have to do it and the road blocks to make that safer than driving are vast in my city. For a green future city planning probably needs an overhaul but again that involves a lot of challenging policy.
FWIW transportation is 29% of US (https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/) green house gas emissions. How better to address this than to tax carbon and use the revenue to build green infrastructure?
As far as people who live too far out to be economically feasible to truly combat anthropic climate change, I don't care about them. My family lost our family farm because it was no longer economically feasible. I learned about man made climate change in 7th grade, and I'm 36 years old. Suck it up buttercup. A bunch of east coast real estate will soon be worth nothing, they should have seen that coming.
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Has anyone read the book We are the Weather by Jonathan Safron Foer? It's partly a book advocating for eating fewer animal products, but he also focuses a lot on the emotional aspects of climate change - in his words (paraphrased), why so many people who say they believe in the science of climate change live as if they do not.
Some of the reasons:
- It's harder to care about a gradual worsening of things than a sudden catastrophe
- The people with the biggest effect on climate change (people in wealthy countries) are the least affected by it
- It's difficult to say definitively whether any one flood, storm, unusually hot summer, etc. was caused by climate change
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Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
There are a couple things here:
1. Bike infrastructure needs to meed needs of people before they'll use it. I've seen plenty of 'great bike paths along the river' that were designed by people who don't cycle for transport. They tend to be nice for walking the dog, or taking the kid out on Saturday . . . but useless to get from place to place. It's like building a 20 mile loop of freeway with a single on/off ramp just outside of town to address traffic congestion, and then being shocked that nobody seems to be using it.
That doesn't mean that people don't want to ride bikes, but it's frustratingly often used to shoot down bike infrastructure.
2. People are notoriously bad at judging usage of cycle paths. I wouldn't believe 'hardly used' claims if the bike path is in a sensible location though unless a proper study has been done. There are several bike routes that folks argued were "hardly used" and should be removed here in Toronto. Studies showed that they averaged about a thousand cyclists an hour. They just seem empty all the time when compared to lines of cars in bumper to bumper gridlock next to 'em.
Agreed on both points. There is a world of difference between good and poor bike infrastructure, for both the cyclists and auto drivers.
That being said, I'm going to propose a third point: Until there is a severe economic penalty for driving a car relative to riding a bike, then riding a bike is going to be seen by most as frivolous. The corollary is that when such an economic penalty occurs, the demand for bike infrastructure should rise accordingly, as it will become generally accepted as a legitimate mode of transportation.
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Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
There are a couple things here:
1. Bike infrastructure needs to meed needs of people before they'll use it. I've seen plenty of 'great bike paths along the river' that were designed by people who don't cycle for transport. They tend to be nice for walking the dog, or taking the kid out on Saturday . . . but useless to get from place to place. It's like building a 20 mile loop of freeway with a single on/off ramp just outside of town to address traffic congestion, and then being shocked that nobody seems to be using it.
That doesn't mean that people don't want to ride bikes, but it's frustratingly often used to shoot down bike infrastructure.
2. People are notoriously bad at judging usage of cycle paths. I wouldn't believe 'hardly used' claims if the bike path is in a sensible location though unless a proper study has been done. There are several bike routes that folks argued were "hardly used" and should be removed here in Toronto. Studies showed that they averaged about a thousand cyclists an hour. They just seem empty all the time when compared to lines of cars in bumper to bumper gridlock next to 'em.
TBH, my estimation that the bike path along the river is hardly used comes mostly from hearsay. Occasionally, I walk the path along the river, and I sometimes see a bicycle or two, but not many. It would be interesting to sit down near the bike path, some day, and spend some time actually systematically counting bicycles that pass by. There may be more bikes than I think. For sure not 1K bikes/hour, but probably more than just a few.
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Cars for instance are only maybe 15% of our problem. And that is at a global scale. If you do want to phase out cars I think the infrastructure to avoid them simply has to be built up to make driving less desirable. As opposed to adding needless penalties on existing behavior.
Cities need to push hard and fast to improve green public transit. Existing cars need to move towards greener models. Electric, hybrid, fuel cell or any combination. The grid providing power for green cars needs to become more green. But we should have to sacrifice cultural staples like road trips and the easy ability to commute over long distances.
Encourage people to bike more is not a realistic solution in many cities where work and living areas are simply not in proximity to each other to create a desirable bike commute. Would it be healthy for me to bike 15 miles to and from work every day? Sure, but I don't want to have to do it and the road blocks to make that safer than driving are vast in my city. For a green future city planning probably needs an overhaul but again that involves a lot of challenging policy.
FWIW transportation is 29% of US (https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/) green house gas emissions. How better to address this than to tax carbon and use the revenue to build green infrastructure?
As far as people who live too far out to be economically feasible to truly combat anthropic climate change, I don't care about them. My family lost our family farm because it was no longer economically feasible. I learned about man made climate change in 7th grade, and I'm 36 years old. Suck it up buttercup. A bunch of east coast real estate will soon be worth nothing, they should have seen that coming.
When people ask me, "Well what about the poor people who live 50+ miles outside of town and "have" to commute to work 100 miles round trip everyday?" Apparently, my answer sounds really harsh to them, but I tell them that the purpose of taxing fuel and making driving more expensive is to push those types of people into making more sustainable choices, i.e., if they're going to work at an office job in a city, move into town! It makes total sense for people who make a living farming or maybe work remotely online to live far out in the country if that's what makes them happy, but if you work at a 9-5 city job, living way the fuck out in the country might be nice, but either you have to be willing to pay the true cost of living like that, or you need to move closer to where you work and shop and recreate. People don't want to hear that, though. I'm told it's an "elitist argument."...
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Well, I might start with the title. Referring to the people you’re trying to persuade a “muggles” isn’t exactly persuasive. To me, the rest of the post indicates that you’ve already graciously decided what the problem is as well as the available solutions. So the goal then isn’t so much to persuade, but to conquer.
Good luck with that.
If you’re actually interested in accomplishing something worthwhile, you might want to start by watching and listening. And having as open and creative a mind as possible.
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- It's difficult to say definitively whether any one flood, storm, unusually hot summer, etc. was caused by climate change
The reality is that climate change does not *cause* disasters, but it makes them worse. Warmer temperatures increase moisture turnover, which make droughts *AND* floods worse.
The problem is, saying that climate change makes each hurricane/flood/drought a bit worse(largely true) versus *causing* a disaster that would not have otherwise happened(unprovable, at best) doesn't make for a terribly persuasive argument on the impacts of climate change, even if the cumulative magnitude of its effects are massive
I think arguments against air pollution(which causes a wide range of negative health effects) are far more personal and persuasive when it comes to advancing the cause of environmental advocacy. No one wants to breath filthy air that gives them lung cancer/other respiratory issues.
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The problem is that all logical and long-time viewing people have already subscribed to anti-climate (putting aside how much they do).
But to solve such a big problem you need the vast mayority of people actually changing their way.
That cannot be feasibly done on an individual level. Most people (and no doubt that includes me) need a leader to change their ways (that is why Greta is so loved/hated right now in Europe) or they will fail in most cases or take ages to change. All big changes need a culmination point. There may be a vast potential bioling underground but it must be used.
Tesla did it for electric cars. Now every car maker needs to build them.
Or take Martin Luther King. His dead may be tragic, but it was the best that could happen to his cause.
People need an emotional anchor to change.
(If you were a Norwegian, maybe this would help https://www.nrk.no/chasing-climate-change-1.14859595)
That said, of course you can nudge them to do the right thing. But you need ot make it a win-win situation. And that is really hard. If they drive cars, of course they don't see (feel) the point of bike lanes, even if it would make their driving experience better if more people bike even when they are still sitting in the car! (Because of less other cars, less traffic, less bad air)
If you have to convinve people who are still not, don't use "the world" as reason. Use something they can personally experience or have. Like "Didn't you say just yesterday that you had to drive farer to find snow to ski? That is because climate change makes it warmer."
edit: Since I have just seen this (the headline at least), it is a perfect example of my last point. Don't talk about how dangerous (or not) the virus is, how the spread is going technically or whatever.
Make something like this: Video diary of Wuhan man whose wife is infected with Coronavirus
That is the way to get the gut people. Most of them have someone they care for close to them.
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This whole thread is depressing.
Can someone explain to me how the conservatives in the UK have not only managed to accept the science of climate change, but propose and enact policies to actually do something about it (like the banning of sales of ICE motor vehicles by 2035)?
It would be nice to understand how that has happened, and the likelihood of Australian and US conservatives following suit.
We had the extraordinary exchange on a popular TV show last week with a conservative politician, who said that he doesn't believe man influences the climate, but he has an open mind*. When asked what evidence there was to support his view he said "I'm not relying on evidence".
He did not seem to understand the stupidity of that statement.
*The response to that statement from an actual climate scientist on the panel was that it is important to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
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If you want people to use less carbon and use less petrol, tax the bejesus out of it. Like what we do with cigarettes.
The problem is that politicians don't have the guts to do this and the populace yells out about having to pay more tax. Here in Australia we were forced to (when we introduced the aborted carbon tax) compensate low and middle income earners, which just offsets the whole point of having a coercive system designed to get people to change their habits. If you have to compensate, do it via public transport concessions rather than handouts.
You can't just ask for rich people and large corporations to reduce their emissions. It has to be a societal thing.
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Does anyone know how much carbon dioxide production can the world handle without triggering climate change? I'm really asking how much stuff would we have to stop doing to address the climate change forecasts.
For example, would it be necessary to eliminate all personal motor vehicles? Do we need to shut down travel? Or would a hefty gasoline tax worldwide do the job?
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Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
There are a couple things here:
1. Bike infrastructure needs to meed needs of people before they'll use it. I've seen plenty of 'great bike paths along the river' that were designed by people who don't cycle for transport. They tend to be nice for walking the dog, or taking the kid out on Saturday . . . but useless to get from place to place. It's like building a 20 mile loop of freeway with a single on/off ramp just outside of town to address traffic congestion, and then being shocked that nobody seems to be using it.
That doesn't mean that people don't want to ride bikes, but it's frustratingly often used to shoot down bike infrastructure.
2. People are notoriously bad at judging usage of cycle paths. I wouldn't believe 'hardly used' claims if the bike path is in a sensible location though unless a proper study has been done. There are several bike routes that folks argued were "hardly used" and should be removed here in Toronto. Studies showed that they averaged about a thousand cyclists an hour. They just seem empty all the time when compared to lines of cars in bumper to bumper gridlock next to 'em.
Agreed on both points. There is a world of difference between good and poor bike infrastructure, for both the cyclists and auto drivers.
That being said, I'm going to propose a third point: Until there is a severe economic penalty for driving a car relative to riding a bike, then riding a bike is going to be seen by most as frivolous. The corollary is that when such an economic penalty occurs, the demand for bike infrastructure should rise accordingly, as it will become generally accepted as a legitimate mode of transportation.
Economic penalty isn't the only option. What my city did when they saw the center getting clogged with cars was to make the city center less attractive for cars and more attractive for bikes/pedestrians. They redesigned roads in a way that made most of them one-way and if you want to go from "rest of town" to "city center" it's actually faster to go by bike than to go by car. Not even counting parking yet.
At first shop owners were afraid that it would damage their sales, but the city got actually much more walkable, resulting in more people going shopping and better sales for shop owners. It did take some active remodeling of the roads though.
It's still totally doable to get to the city center by car, but for people who live <1 mile away it is more of a hassle compared to biking/walking (not even taking into account parking costs).
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Economic penalty isn't the only option. What my city did when they saw the center getting clogged with cars was to make the city center less attractive for cars and more attractive for bikes/pedestrians. They redesigned roads in a way that made most of them one-way and if you want to go from "rest of town" to "city center" it's actually faster to go by bike than to go by car. Not even counting parking yet.
At first shop owners were afraid that it would damage their sales, but the city got actually much more walkable, resulting in more people going shopping and better sales for shop owners. It did take some active remodeling of the roads though.
It's still totally doable to get to the city center by car, but for people who live <1 mile away it is more of a hassle compared to biking/walking (not even taking into account parking costs).
I agree that such suggestions could work on the local scale, though I'm doubtful that that approach can work on a large scale (and of course climate change is the largest scale problem we have at the moment).
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- It's difficult to say definitively whether any one flood, storm, unusually hot summer, etc. was caused by climate change
The reality is that climate change does not *cause* disasters, but it makes them worse. Warmer temperatures increase moisture turnover, which make droughts *AND* floods worse.
It might not today, but one day it will. Or to be specific, over the next 1000 years we are on course for 160 feet of sea level rise. At that point you can't keeps saying that climate change "made flooding worse."
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Economic penalty isn't the only option. What my city did when they saw the center getting clogged with cars was to make the city center less attractive for cars and more attractive for bikes/pedestrians. They redesigned roads in a way that made most of them one-way and if you want to go from "rest of town" to "city center" it's actually faster to go by bike than to go by car. Not even counting parking yet.
At first shop owners were afraid that it would damage their sales, but the city got actually much more walkable, resulting in more people going shopping and better sales for shop owners. It did take some active remodeling of the roads though.
It's still totally doable to get to the city center by car, but for people who live <1 mile away it is more of a hassle compared to biking/walking (not even taking into account parking costs).
I agree that such suggestions could work on the local scale, though I'm doubtful that that approach can work on a large scale (and of course climate change is the largest scale problem we have at the moment).
I 100% agree with you and yes, we definitely need more action. That doesn't make local scale action worthless though. Especially as it can snowball to other places once they realize they are succesful.
I live in a small country so by definition every action we do is 'meaningless', but that's the whole problem with climate change, ALL countries need to be on board to get stuff done. Even if the USA would cut 100% of its emissions that's only 15ish% of the world.
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The problem is that all logical and long-time viewing people have already subscribed to anti-climate (putting aside how much they do).
But to solve such a big problem you need the vast mayority of people actually changing their way.
That cannot be feasibly done on an individual level. Most people (and no doubt that includes me) need a leader to change their ways (that is why Greta is so loved/hated right now in Europe) or they will fail in most cases or take ages to change. All big changes need a culmination point. There may be a vast potential bioling underground but it must be used.
Tesla did it for electric cars. Now every car maker needs to build them.
Or take Martin Luther King. His dead may be tragic, but it was the best that could happen to his cause.
People need an emotional anchor to change.
(If you were a Norwegian, maybe this would help https://www.nrk.no/chasing-climate-change-1.14859595)
That said, of course you can nudge them to do the right thing. But you need ot make it a win-win situation. And that is really hard. If they drive cars, of course they don't see (feel) the point of bike lanes, even if it would make their driving experience better if more people bike even when they are still sitting in the car! (Because of less other cars, less traffic, less bad air)
If you have to convinve people who are still not, don't use "the world" as reason. Use something they can personally experience or have. Like "Didn't you say just yesterday that you had to drive farer to find snow to ski? That is because climate change makes it warmer."
edit: Since I have just seen this (the headline at least), it is a perfect example of my last point. Don't talk about how dangerous (or not) the virus is, how the spread is going technically or whatever.
Make something like this: Video diary of Wuhan man whose wife is infected with Coronavirus
That is the way to get the gut people. Most of them have someone they care for close to them.
A good post. I disagree that personal action isn’t the way to go. If you’re waiting for a consensus to evolve on X issue, you’re going to be waiting for a long time.
This isn’t my charism, but if it were I would be looking more at root causes. Folks don’t want to give up a carbon lifestyle. Why? What makes someone want that over other alternatives? How does adoption of a more carbon neutral blueprint address other unmet needs?
Now this is just the opinion of one Russian Bot*, but I think a great issue to look into is loneliness. It is a huge social problem. People want tribe, they want to belong and this atomization of communities and culture is devastating. Both on people and the planet. OK. So how does a more carbon neutral lifestyle address that? I can think of several practical things. How about organizing a bike brewery crawl? And here’s the important part; get folks outside the usual converted to come along. Have extra bikes. Buy the first round. Is it going to change things massively in a week? Of course not. But leadership is how things change. Instill pleasant habits that help to change hearts and minds on a micro scale and watch where that leads.
Major revolutions are usually the result of a lot of smaller, less visible revolutions.
The important thing in my view is LEADERS need to stow their egos In a lockbox, listen, and look for creative opportunities.
*(Don’t listen to Russian Bots. They lie.)
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Does anyone know how much carbon dioxide production can the world handle without triggering climate change? I'm really asking how much stuff would we have to stop doing to address the climate change forecasts.
For example, would it be necessary to eliminate all personal motor vehicles? Do we need to shut down travel? Or would a hefty gasoline tax worldwide do the job?
You are asking the wrong question. Climate Change is already happening - at an alarming rate even. If you mean the "tipping points" where self-increasing bad things happen.... well, those already start to happen.
The scientific target to not let it go totally devastating is the 1.5° C goal. We already have +1C.
For this, as always, the IPPC has estimates for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C#Limiting_the_temperature_increase
I disagree that personal action isn’t the way to go.
I think you have misunderstood me.
When I said not feasable on an individual elvel I meant you cannot go around trying to convince everyone one after the other. There is no longer time for this. Exactly because of your lacking consensus ;)
The important thing in my view is LEADERS need to stow their egos In a lockbox, listen, and look for creative opportunities.
The important thing is to make it too costly for leaders to not do anything.
It is not (only) their ego that keeps leaders from doing things they want or need to, but all those people who make a lot of money with the status quo. They have the power, not the leader. Any leader that goes up against them will be kicked out. Why do you think there were that many "nonsense" titles made by kings? It created mutual dependence. The king assured loyality but had to give up something (so kings got creative).
(Really, read the dictator's handbook!)
When Ceasar gave to the poor masses, he had to take it from somewhere. He took it from the influentials. The rest is well known history. He was murdered by his closest, in front of the senators (the main influentials) who watched happily.
If you don't understand that - politics - you will forever wonder why Obama didn't shut down Guantanamo Bay for example. Or why after the big crash banking regulations still are more or less a joke.
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I'm a proponent of the carbon tax dividend. Tax the hell* out of carbon pollution, then provide a per capita dividend to every U.S. citizen equal to the total tax receipts (and in fact, give it out at the beginning of program implementation, and maybe every three months like Vanguard distributes dividends).
I agree. Such a scheme is similar to the state of Alaska receiving royalties on oil produced, then paying Alaskan residents a dividend. If carbon were taxed, everyone pays the tax on carbon, then receive the same dividend, but rich people use more energy, and so pay more carbon tax, than poor people.
The colder regions of the world will benefit from global warming, at the expense of tropical regions.
The irony is that Greta Thunberg comes from a cold country, Sweden, which will benefit from global warming. Same for all Northern Europe, Russia and Canada.
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The thing about taxing carbon is - it is not a solution. It might help a bit . . . maybe even a fair amount. But I don't ever see taxes on carbon being high enough to actually halt climate change because they would need to be priced at business-cripplingly high levels. There's no country that will ever take the first step in that direction, it's political suicide. If they're not priced high enough, then all we're doing in effect is saying that the rich can keep polluting as much as they want.
I'm not saying that they're bad . . . but carbon taxing is at best a first step. Not a solution.
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The thing about taxing carbon is - it is not a solution. It might help a bit . . . maybe even a fair amount. But I don't ever see taxes on carbon being high enough to actually halt climate change because they would need to be priced at business-cripplingly high levels. There's no country that will ever take the first step in that direction, it's political suicide. If they're not priced high enough, then all we're doing in effect is saying that the rich can keep polluting as much as they want.
I'm not saying that they're bad . . . but carbon taxing is at best a first step. Not a solution.
I don't necessarily disagree with the part in bold, but what are alternatives you see as *not* being political suicide?
Ultimately any viable solution needs to have the wealthy bear the bulk of the costs, whether that solution is a redistributive carbon tax or an aggressive program to build out renewable energy infrastructure. It'll never get off the ground if people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck have to bear the burden. To me the key to winning the battle is an effective strategy for fighting and winning against the disinformation campaign that will inevitably come from wealthy plutocrats masquerading as right-wing populists. Because that's exactly how this(and so many other things in our society) plays out - the ultra-wealthy stifle positive change by pitting the poor against the working class against the middle class.
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Where we live now, there is a great bike path along the river, just a couple blocks from our house. Pretty much nobody uses it, though. Recently, there were public meetings to discuss the renovation of a major road that runs through our neighborhood. Residents were given several different scenarios to vote on. One scenario would have reduced some parking spots and limited car lanes in some places, in exchange for a new bike path, which would have been separated from cars by a physical barrier. Residents voted overwhelmingly for the plan that nixed the bike path in favor of more parking spots and more lanes for cars.
There are a couple things here:
1. Bike infrastructure needs to meed needs of people before they'll use it. I've seen plenty of 'great bike paths along the river' that were designed by people who don't cycle for transport. They tend to be nice for walking the dog, or taking the kid out on Saturday . . . but useless to get from place to place. It's like building a 20 mile loop of freeway with a single on/off ramp just outside of town to address traffic congestion, and then being shocked that nobody seems to be using it.
That doesn't mean that people don't want to ride bikes, but it's frustratingly often used to shoot down bike infrastructure.
2. People are notoriously bad at judging usage of cycle paths. I wouldn't believe 'hardly used' claims if the bike path is in a sensible location though unless a proper study has been done. There are several bike routes that folks argued were "hardly used" and should be removed here in Toronto. Studies showed that they averaged about a thousand cyclists an hour. They just seem empty all the time when compared to lines of cars in bumper to bumper gridlock next to 'em.
Agreed on both points. There is a world of difference between good and poor bike infrastructure, for both the cyclists and auto drivers.
That being said, I'm going to propose a third point: Until there is a severe economic penalty for driving a car relative to riding a bike, then riding a bike is going to be seen by most as frivolous. The corollary is that when such an economic penalty occurs, the demand for bike infrastructure should rise accordingly, as it will become generally accepted as a legitimate mode of transportation.
Economic penalty isn't the only option. What my city did when they saw the center getting clogged with cars was to make the city center less attractive for cars and more attractive for bikes/pedestrians. They redesigned roads in a way that made most of them one-way and if you want to go from "rest of town" to "city center" it's actually faster to go by bike than to go by car. Not even counting parking yet.
At first shop owners were afraid that it would damage their sales, but the city got actually much more walkable, resulting in more people going shopping and better sales for shop owners. It did take some active remodeling of the roads though.
It's still totally doable to get to the city center by car, but for people who live <1 mile away it is more of a hassle compared to biking/walking (not even taking into account parking costs).
this is basically what my city did too. They dramatically reduced the amount of parkades and increased the bike infrastructure. Biking has sky rocketed.
IMO, not to be a downer, but there isn't going to be a massive global lifestyle restructure in a short enough time frame to matter (like the next 10 years). Really the only path forward are long term adjustments to create sustainable lifestyles and create technology that allows us to geoengineer the planet.
I do think that lab grown meat though could be a potential game changer. If most meat is grown in labs for really cheap then most animal farming operations will cease and the land could be given back to forests, grasslands etc. Farmers could then become stewards of the land.
Basically I think the only way out of this is through significant technology developments.
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I would LOVE for most of the country to move to a limited-car lifestyle, because that means people would be living in the kind of walkable neighborhoods that used to exist before the 1950s (when the car companies did things like destroy the Los Angeles trolley system in order to force more people to buy cars). Now we have sprawling suburbs, and it would be prohibitively expensive to undo all that. I really don't know the answer.
I think the first thing to do here is: BUY LOCAL. As much as you can. Energy, produce and other foods, appliances etc. And put tariffs on international imports. No one thinks about the pollution produced by giant cargo ships bringing our cheap crap from China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, but just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet. So messing around with reducing gasoline use is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, compared to shifting consumer goods production to the US. (And btw that cheap crap from overseas makes only a brief stop in your home on its way to the landfill - yet another problem.)
The bolded is nowhere close to true. Total global cargo ship CO2 emissions are about 1 billion tons.1 The US auto fleet is twice that at 2 billion tons per year.2 Manufacturing, by the way, produces about 6.5 billion tons of CO2 per year.3 Unfortunately, buying local is not the panacea you wish it to be.
Please check your facts before you spout nonsense.
1. https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-shipping-GHG-emissions-2013-2015_ICCT-Report_17102017_vF.pdf
2.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/01/vehicles-climate-change-emissions-trump-administration
3.https://www.statista.com/statistics/276480/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-sector/
Depends which articles you read. Here's a contrary view:
https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182
...just one of the world’s largest container ships can emit about as much pollution as 50 million cars. Further, the 15 largest ships in the world emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide as the world’s 760 million cars.
Last I checked, both nitrous oxide and sulphur oxide are greenhouse gases. The problem is that the ships burn #6 oil which is very inefficient and dirty (but cheap), and there's no emissions standard that they need to adhere to.
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Those are greenhouse gasses, and they're worse per ppm than carbon dioxide. My understanding though, is that pollution of those gases is so dwarfed by carbon dioxide emissions that they're effectively rounding errors to the climate change problem.
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Those are greenhouse gasses, and they're worse per ppm than carbon dioxide. My understanding though, is that pollution of those gases is so dwarfed by carbon dioxide emissions that they're effectively rounding errors to the climate change problem.
That's correct, but I remember reading that CO2, pound for pound, has much less impact than these other gases. You spurred me to look though, and I found some useful info online:
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
CO2 is 82% of emissions compared to 6% for nitrous oxide and 3% for fluorinated gases - and CO2 lasts longer. BUT:
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. Specifically, it is a measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). The larger the GWP, the more that a given gas warms the Earth compared to CO2 over that time period.
GWP of CO2 is 1 (by definition)
GWP of methane is 28-36
for nitrous oxide it's 265 - 298, meaning that gas functions like almost 300x as much CO2(!!)
for fluorinated gases the GWP is in the thousands
I think the virulent responses to my post about the cargo ships is an indicator of just how under-appreciated the problem is. Also, gotta remember that these products are traveling several thousand miles further to get here from East Asia, South America etc than would be the case if they were made in the US.
As I said, I try really hard not to buy produce from overseas that's out of season (my main exception is avocados from Mexico) and I also opt for US made products where the option exists. I'm aware that even those almost certainly include imported parts, but you do what you can. It is nice to see that with a lot of products on Amazon, there are always questions asking where it's made/sourced if it's not already in the description. So perhaps there is increasing awareness that buying local really is a sound principle for many reasons not limited to climate change concerns.
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Meanwhile in the Netherlands...
Someone invented a Cyclo-Knitter; a pedal-powered machine that weaves a scarf in the 5 minutes you are waiting for a train.
https://t.co/9Zod5C0QtM
Admit it, that guy totally owned you at Mustachianism ;)
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Last I checked, both nitrous oxide and sulphur oxide are greenhouse gases. The problem is that the ships burn #6 oil which is very inefficient and dirty (but cheap), and there's no emissions standard that they need to adhere to.
There are emission standards (http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx) for shipping.
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Last I checked, both nitrous oxide and sulphur oxide are greenhouse gases. The problem is that the ships burn #6 oil which is very inefficient and dirty (but cheap), and there's no emissions standard that they need to adhere to.
Sulfur dioxide is actually the #1 chemical that they talk about using for geoengineering to lower planetary temperatures. As SO2 has a tendancy to favorize the formation of low coulds, in addition to the contribution of sulphate particles to light reflexion, it is considered as a “climate cooler”. - What gases are greenhouse gases?
(https://jancovici.com/en/climate-change/ghg-and-carbon-cycle/what-gases-are-greenhouse-gases/)
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The thing about taxing carbon is - it is not a solution. It might help a bit . . . maybe even a fair amount. But I don't ever see taxes on carbon being high enough to actually halt climate change because they would need to be priced at business-cripplingly high levels. There's no country that will ever take the first step in that direction, it's political suicide. If they're not priced high enough, then all we're doing in effect is saying that the rich can keep polluting as much as they want.
I'm not saying that they're bad . . . but carbon taxing is at best a first step. Not a solution.
I disagree. I think high, gradually (though at a fairly high rate) increasing prices on carbon pollution is the #1 way to get people to stop polluting. First off, as others have said, a tax with per capita dividends acts as a progressive tax, since the rich pollute more. Second, as the price of carbon grows, people will quickly shift activities that were performed using fossil fuels toward using alternative energy sources. There are some industries right now that do not have an acceptable alternate solution to fossil fuels, but the price of those products are going to need to reflect their actual costs if you want people to reduce their use.
I agree that it isn't the only solution, but is a huge first step.
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The thing about taxing carbon is - it is not a solution. It might help a bit . . . maybe even a fair amount. But I don't ever see taxes on carbon being high enough to actually halt climate change because they would need to be priced at business-cripplingly high levels. There's no country that will ever take the first step in that direction, it's political suicide. If they're not priced high enough, then all we're doing in effect is saying that the rich can keep polluting as much as they want.
I'm not saying that they're bad . . . but carbon taxing is at best a first step. Not a solution.
I disagree. I think high, gradually (though at a fairly high rate) increasing prices on carbon pollution is the #1 way to get people to stop polluting. First off, as others have said, a tax with per capita dividends acts as a progressive tax, since the rich pollute more. Second, as the price of carbon grows, people will quickly shift activities that were performed using fossil fuels toward using alternative energy sources. There are some industries right now that do not have an acceptable alternate solution to fossil fuels, but the price of those products are going to need to reflect their actual costs if you want people to reduce their use.
I agree that it isn't the only solution, but is a huge first step.
Steve's right. Taxing carbon at a rate that would actually make a difference would be hugely politically unpopular and, thus, is extremely unlikely to happen. It *could* be done, but probably won't happen, because any politician who tried it would get voted out of office at the next election.
To me, talking with people about individual actions that might work to slow down climate change feels very similar to talking with non-mustachians about how they might pay off their debts and start saving money. Muggles get that same glazed over look in their eyes, before insisting that it's impossible. Then, we spend the next hour and a half going back and forth, round and round, with them shutting down every. single. suggestion on how they *could* do it. Muggles already know ahead of time that it can't be done, so there's really no sense in wasting any time trying to persuade them, because they've already made up their minds that it's impossible.
Many people on this forum get it. That's why I posted this thread here. You guys know it's possible to save 50% or 60% or 70% of your income, invest that money, build up a big enough nest egg of FU money and, eventually, reach FI and retire early if you feel like it. 99% of humans on the planet don't believe that's possible, and they'll argue with you till you're blue in the fact that it can't be done. If all humans were badass Mustachians, solving climate change would be simple. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Recently, I've been thinking the only realistic solution is for us to put everything we've got into researching, basically, a silver bullet. We need a source of energy that doesn't emit any greenhouse gases, no pollution, is cheap and 100% renewable, so that humans can continue living the way they want to live, without making any changes.
Bill Gates' TerraPower (https://www.terrapower.com/) sounds interesting. We need a government or governments that will take an idea like TerraPower's Traveling Wave Reactor and run with it, investing whatever it takes to make clean, safe nuclear power a reality.
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I would LOVE for most of the country to move to a limited-car lifestyle, because that means people would be living in the kind of walkable neighborhoods that used to exist before the 1950s (when the car companies did things like destroy the Los Angeles trolley system in order to force more people to buy cars). Now we have sprawling suburbs, and it would be prohibitively expensive to undo all that. I really don't know the answer.
I think the first thing to do here is: BUY LOCAL. As much as you can. Energy, produce and other foods, appliances etc. And put tariffs on international imports. No one thinks about the pollution produced by giant cargo ships bringing our cheap crap from China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, but just one of those ships produces more greenhouse gas than the entire US auto fleet. So messing around with reducing gasoline use is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, compared to shifting consumer goods production to the US. (And btw that cheap crap from overseas makes only a brief stop in your home on its way to the landfill - yet another problem.)
The bolded is nowhere close to true. Total global cargo ship CO2 emissions are about 1 billion tons.1 The US auto fleet is twice that at 2 billion tons per year.2 Manufacturing, by the way, produces about 6.5 billion tons of CO2 per year.3 Unfortunately, buying local is not the panacea you wish it to be.
Please check your facts before you spout nonsense.
1. https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-shipping-GHG-emissions-2013-2015_ICCT-Report_17102017_vF.pdf
2.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/01/vehicles-climate-change-emissions-trump-administration
3.https://www.statista.com/statistics/276480/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-sector/
Depends which articles you read. Here's a contrary view:
https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182
...just one of the world’s largest container ships can emit about as much pollution as 50 million cars. Further, the 15 largest ships in the world emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide as the world’s 760 million cars.
Last I checked, both nitrous oxide and sulphur oxide are greenhouse gases. The problem is that the ships burn #6 oil which is very inefficient and dirty (but cheap), and there's no emissions standard that they need to adhere to.
Your link talks about "pollution" not greenhouse gases. It's true that NOx are greenhouse gases, but sulfur oxide is not generally considered one (it contributes to the formation of aerosols, which have complex effects, but sulfur oxides are generally considered to be moderately cooling). The first link I included above reported on all greenhouse gases from this shipping industry, reported in CO2 equivalent units.
I think the virulent responses to my post about the cargo ships is an indicator of just how under-appreciated the problem is. Also, gotta remember that these products are traveling several thousand miles further to get here from East Asia, South America etc than would be the case if they were made in the US.
No, the virulent responses to your post are because your post is factually incorrect, and you have provided no evidence that supports your claim.
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Steve's right. Taxing carbon at a rate that would actually make a difference would be hugely politically unpopular and, thus, is extremely unlikely to happen. It *could* be done, but probably won't happen, because any politician who tried it would get voted out of office at the next election.
I'm going to have to disagree. Taxing carbon with a dividend rebate would be very popular* with people who don't pollute much, because they would be making more money, and they will be getting their dividend checks (people like big fat checks). Now, certain industries that are highly dependent on carbon pollution are going to bitch and complain, but I think those industries are simply going to have to suffer a decline, just like the coal industry currently is. The important thing is that those industries are small enough that it won't be political suicide to propose policies that adversely affect them.
*To caveat, I don't think it is politically feasible with Trump in the White House.
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Steve's right. Taxing carbon at a rate that would actually make a difference would be hugely politically unpopular and, thus, is extremely unlikely to happen. It *could* be done, but probably won't happen, because any politician who tried it would get voted out of office at the next election.
I'm going to have to disagree. Taxing carbon with a dividend rebate would be very popular* with people who don't pollute much, because they would be making more money, and they will be getting their dividend checks (people like big fat checks). Now, certain industries that are highly dependent on carbon pollution are going to bitch and complain, but I think those industries are simply going to have to suffer a decline, just like the coal industry currently is. The important thing is that those industries are small enough that it won't be political suicide to propose policies that adversely affect them.
*To caveat, I don't think it is politically feasible with Trump in the White House.
Some of the impacts of a high enough to help carbon tax:
- Food prices will certainly go up significantly. The Agriculture industry is one of the largest producers of CO2, and there really isn't any way around it.
- Personal air travel will need to end (or at least go back to 1950s levels).
- Cement will no longer be viable to use as a building material.
- Steel, iron, and aluminum prices will increase significantly.
- The cost of paper (and paper products) will increase significantly.
- Cost of personal electronics will go up as the manufacture of electrical components will be much more expensive.
- Textile manufacture will become significantly more expensive, so the price of clothing, bedding, drapes will increase a lot.
- Heating costs for residential and commercial buildings will be increased significantly (the majority of people use oil or gas for heating - around here it's less than half the price of heating with electricity).
- production of internal combustion engine as used for personal automobiles will need to completely stop.
- Electricity costs will rise significantly.
- All plastics will become more expensive . . . with wide reaching implications as virtually everything we use and own today has plastic in it.
Not all of these are bad, but there's a lot of stuff that's going to cost a lot more all at once . . . and many of them have either much more expensive alternatives, or no good alternative. It's not even a Trump thing (although, obviously Trump's policy of increasing waste is just making things worse for the future) but I don't see the people of any country accepting this - which means it's politically dead in the water before it starts no matter who is in power. I mean, look at what happened to Jimmy Carter when he told people to turn down their heating in the winter.
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It probably doesn't help. but we could start naming a "carbon tax" a "real price indicator", since that is what is does.
And maybe such a graph helps too:
Two European cities (left: Helsinki; right: Oslo) have zero children, pedestrians & cyclists dying in traffic.
https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1226805967888814080 (https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1226805967888814080)
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
This "anyone who has ever consumed a fossil fuel is a hypocrite if they talk about climate change" BS is such lazy thinking and so typical of the right-wing diversionary propaganda to get people to focus on "elite hatred" rather than the actual problem that we are ALL contributing to.
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
This "anyone who has ever consumed a fossil fuel is a hypocrite if they talk about climate change" BS is such lazy thinking and so typical of the right-wing diversionary propaganda to get people to focus on "elite hatred" rather than the actual problem that we are ALL contributing to.
Straw man much?
I didn't say "anyone who has ever consumed a fossil fuel." I specified people who consume far more than the average American while preaching to Americans about climate change.
The inability to have a civil debate with the other side pretty much guarantees that nothing is going to change.
Why is it that “middle America” thinks of Hollywood actors flying on jets first when they think of climate change, and not the fossil fuel industry and their lobbyists who do anything and everything in their power to divert the question away from them, do you think?
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I honestly think our only hope is adaptation to adjust to harsher weather and rising sea levels.
Agree.
I predict that greenhouse gas reduction targets will not be met so humans will have to adapt.
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- It's difficult to say definitively whether any one flood, storm, unusually hot summer, etc. was caused by climate change
The reality is that climate change does not *cause* disasters, but it makes them worse. Warmer temperatures increase moisture turnover, which make droughts *AND* floods worse.
The problem is, saying that climate change makes each hurricane/flood/drought a bit worse(largely true) versus *causing* a disaster that would not have otherwise happened(unprovable, at best) doesn't make for a terribly persuasive argument on the impacts of climate change, even if the cumulative magnitude of its effects are massive
I think arguments against air pollution(which causes a wide range of negative health effects) are far more personal and persuasive when it comes to advancing the cause of environmental advocacy. No one wants to breath filthy air that gives them lung cancer/other respiratory issues.
I think the difference between causing a disaster and making it worse is mostly a semantics difference when talking about things like droughts and floods.
But I agree that it is hard to construct a narrative around climate change that inspires people to make changes. In California, where I live, the main disasters we worry about are floods, droughts, wildfires (all of which are influenced by climate change), and earthquakes (which largely aren't*).
"There will probably be a M7.5+ earthquake in your lifetime, so you should make an emergency kit" is an easy narrative for people to understand and take action on. So is, "there is currently a drought (or there may be a drought this year) so you should conserve water."
But "climate change will increase both flood risk and drought risk" is already difficult for a lot of people to grasp, and "so you should drive your car less and heat your house less" feels far removed from the consequence.
* There is evidence that earthquake rates are influenced by climate in some parts of the world, but not, to my knowledge, in California.
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
Where does the energy that Gore consumes come from? Is he buying it from green sources, or from a coal powered electrical grid?
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there isn't going to be a massive global lifestyle restructure in a short enough time frame to matter (like the next 10 years).
That's right.
Furthermore, as billions of people climb out of poverty the lifestyle change the world will undergo is one of increasing consumption that will inevitably be accompanied by more and more negative environmental impacts.
princeton.edu 2015/10/12 › angus-deaton-receives-no...
Angus Deaton receives Nobel Prize in ... - Princeton University
Oct 12, 2015 - Deaton was honored with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in “consumption, poverty and welfare,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted in announcing the award today. “The consumption of goods and services is a fundamental part of people's welfare.
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there isn't going to be a massive global lifestyle restructure in a short enough time frame to matter (like the next 10 years).
That's right.
Define "to matter?" 2.5C is better than 3.5C is better than 4.5C. All are bad, but some are much more bad that others.
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Steve's right. Taxing carbon at a rate that would actually make a difference would be hugely politically unpopular and, thus, is extremely unlikely to happen. It *could* be done, but probably won't happen, because any politician who tried it would get voted out of office at the next election.
I'm going to have to disagree. Taxing carbon with a dividend rebate would be very popular* with people who don't pollute much, because they would be making more money, and they will be getting their dividend checks (people like big fat checks). Now, certain industries that are highly dependent on carbon pollution are going to bitch and complain, but I think those industries are simply going to have to suffer a decline, just like the coal industry currently is. The important thing is that those industries are small enough that it won't be political suicide to propose policies that adversely affect them.
*To caveat, I don't think it is politically feasible with Trump in the White House.
Some of the impacts of a high enough to help carbon tax:
- Food prices will certainly go up significantly. The Agriculture industry is one of the largest producers of CO2, and there really isn't any way around it.
- Personal air travel will need to end (or at least go back to 1950s levels).
- Cement will no longer be viable to use as a building material.
- Steel, iron, and aluminum prices will increase significantly.
- The cost of paper (and paper products) will increase significantly.
- Cost of personal electronics will go up as the manufacture of electrical components will be much more expensive.
- Textile manufacture will become significantly more expensive, so the price of clothing, bedding, drapes will increase a lot.
- Heating costs for residential and commercial buildings will be increased significantly (the majority of people use oil or gas for heating - around here it's less than half the price of heating with electricity).
- production of internal combustion engine as used for personal automobiles will need to completely stop.
- Electricity costs will rise significantly.
- All plastics will become more expensive . . . with wide reaching implications as virtually everything we use and own today has plastic in it.
Not all of these are bad, but there's a lot of stuff that's going to cost a lot more all at once . . . and many of them have either much more expensive alternatives, or no good alternative. It's not even a Trump thing (although, obviously Trump's policy of increasing waste is just making things worse for the future) but I don't see the people of any country accepting this - which means it's politically dead in the water before it starts no matter who is in power. I mean, look at what happened to Jimmy Carter when he told people to turn down their heating in the winter.
I'm not sure your point. We need to reduce carbon pollution, therefore we need to reduce our consumption in areas that contribute to carbon pollution. A tax is a good way to reduce this type of consumption, and a revenue-neutral one with per capita dividends would result in the same amount of money in the economy, but just less going to these types of goods as they become progressively more expensive.
The reason Jimmy Carter failed is because he was dealing with a very short-term energy shock. We are currently at 30+ years of being told we need to do something about this. I believe the tide will turn one of these days.
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Steve's right. Taxing carbon at a rate that would actually make a difference would be hugely politically unpopular and, thus, is extremely unlikely to happen. It *could* be done, but probably won't happen, because any politician who tried it would get voted out of office at the next election.
I'm going to have to disagree. Taxing carbon with a dividend rebate would be very popular* with people who don't pollute much, because they would be making more money, and they will be getting their dividend checks (people like big fat checks). Now, certain industries that are highly dependent on carbon pollution are going to bitch and complain, but I think those industries are simply going to have to suffer a decline, just like the coal industry currently is. The important thing is that those industries are small enough that it won't be political suicide to propose policies that adversely affect them.
*To caveat, I don't think it is politically feasible with Trump in the White House.
Some of the impacts of a high enough to help carbon tax:
- Food prices will certainly go up significantly. The Agriculture industry is one of the largest producers of CO2, and there really isn't any way around it.
- Personal air travel will need to end (or at least go back to 1950s levels).
- Cement will no longer be viable to use as a building material.
- Steel, iron, and aluminum prices will increase significantly.
- The cost of paper (and paper products) will increase significantly.
- Cost of personal electronics will go up as the manufacture of electrical components will be much more expensive.
- Textile manufacture will become significantly more expensive, so the price of clothing, bedding, drapes will increase a lot.
- Heating costs for residential and commercial buildings will be increased significantly (the majority of people use oil or gas for heating - around here it's less than half the price of heating with electricity).
- production of internal combustion engine as used for personal automobiles will need to completely stop.
- Electricity costs will rise significantly.
- All plastics will become more expensive . . . with wide reaching implications as virtually everything we use and own today has plastic in it.
Not all of these are bad, but there's a lot of stuff that's going to cost a lot more all at once . . . and many of them have either much more expensive alternatives, or no good alternative. It's not even a Trump thing (although, obviously Trump's policy of increasing waste is just making things worse for the future) but I don't see the people of any country accepting this - which means it's politically dead in the water before it starts no matter who is in power. I mean, look at what happened to Jimmy Carter when he told people to turn down their heating in the winter.
I'm not sure your point. We need to reduce carbon pollution, therefore we need to reduce our consumption in areas that contribute to carbon pollution. A tax is a good way to reduce this type of consumption, and a revenue-neutral one with per capita dividends would result in the same amount of money in the economy, but just less going to these types of goods as they become progressively more expensive.
The reason Jimmy Carter failed is because he was dealing with a very short-term energy shock. We are currently at 30+ years of being told we need to do something about this. I believe the tide will turn one of these days.
I guess my concern is that since the carbon tax at rates necessary to make a significant difference will never be implemented, it seems destined to fail. It's easy to implement a small, insignificant carbon tax and kick back saying 'Good enough'. But it really won't be good enough.
We're at a weird point now. We don't want to do something because the immediate cost is so high. But every day we don't do something, the immediate cost to fix the problem becomes higher. It's a positive feedback loop . . . and those have a habit of catastrophically failing in nature.
I admire your optimism tide will turn one of these days, but don't share it.
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I'm past the stage of thinking that money will save me from climate change, what will save me is that I am old enough that I will be dead before it gets really bad and I don't have children or grandchildren to worry about.
Ditto.
Same, sadly.
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I guess my concern is that since the carbon tax at rates necessary to make a significant difference will never be implemented, it seems destined to fail. It's easy to implement a small, insignificant carbon tax and kick back saying 'Good enough'. But it really won't be good enough.
We're at a weird point now. We don't want to do something because the immediate cost is so high. But every day we don't do something, the immediate cost to fix the problem becomes higher. It's a positive feedback loop . . . and those have a habit of catastrophically failing in nature.
I admire your optimism tide will turn one of these days, but don't share it.
In my opinion, we have the necessary alternatives to cut out, perhaps not easily but not impossibly, 50% of our carbon pollution in the next ten years. Many of those things are as simple as moving closer to work. The right incentives just need to be put into place, with the consent of the people. I continue to hope....
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We are currently at 30+ years of being told we need to do something about this. I believe the tide will turn one of these days.
I remain pessimistic.
I believe rising tides attributable to melted ice will outpace a turning tide of public opinion.
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
Where does the energy that Gore consumes come from? Is he buying it from green sources, or from a coal powered electrical grid?
Snopes says he buys green electricity...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/ (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/)
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
Where does the energy that Gore consumes come from? Is he buying it from green sources, or from a coal powered electrical grid?
Snopes says he buys green electricity...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/ (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/)
That's an oversimplification. From that same link:
The Tennessean also noted that the Gores had been paying a $432 per month premium on their monthly electricity bills in order to obtain some of their electricity from “green” sources (i.e., solar or other renewable energy sources).
Some is not all. And that only accounts for their electricity. It doesn't note natural gas used, which is also much higher than those of us who don't live in mega mansions.
Why does this matter? The house Al Gore lives in has nothing to do with climate science. In addition to (maybe) being a hypocrite, Al Gore could have a sex dungeon in the basement of his house; however, none of that should change our assessment of the risks associated with climate change. If the worst problem facing humanity was hypocrisy we should consider ourselves fortunate.
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A first step to convincing people is to stop hypocrisy. When middle Americans think of the climate change issue, the first thing that comes to mind are the politicians and Hollywood actors who are most vocal about it. These people talking about carbon emissions are the same people flying in private jets around the country/world and and/or living in mega mansions.
It is hard to take Al Gore seriously when his house consumes 21 times more energy than the average US home.
That may be unfair (after all, everyone is a hypocrite in some way or another), but the more vocal people are going to have to practice what they preach before skeptics will take them seriously.
Where does the energy that Gore consumes come from? Is he buying it from green sources, or from a coal powered electrical grid?
Snopes says he buys green electricity...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/ (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/al-gores-energy-use/)
That's an oversimplification. From that same link:
The Tennessean also noted that the Gores had been paying a $432 per month premium on their monthly electricity bills in order to obtain some of their electricity from “green” sources (i.e., solar or other renewable energy sources).
Some is not all. And that only accounts for their electricity. It doesn't note natural gas used, which is also much higher than those of us who don't live in mega mansions.
Why does this matter? The house Al Gore lives in has nothing to do with climate science. In addition to (maybe) being a hypocrite, Al Gore could have a sex dungeon in the basement of his house; however, none of that should change our assessment of the risks associated with climate change. If the worst problem facing humanity was hypocrisy we should consider ourselves fortunate.
Also, studies have shown that sex dungeons naturally require higher heating levels to minimize shrinkage.
Seriously though . . . from that article:
"Al Gore, who was criticized for high electric bills at his Tennessee mansion, has completed a host of improvements to make the home more energy efficient, and a building-industry group has praised the house as one of the nation’s most environmentally friendly.
The former vice president has installed solar panels, a rainwater-collection system and geothermal heating. He also replaced all incandescent lights with compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs.
“Short of tearing it down and staring anew, I don’t know how it could have been rated any higher,” said Kim Shinn of the U.S. Green Building Council, which gave the house its second-highest rating for sustainable design.
Gore’s improvements cut the home’s summer electrical consumption by 11 percent compared with a year ago, according to utility records reviewed by The Associated Press. Most Nashville homes used 20 percent to 30 percent more electricity during the same period because of a record heat wave."
Between that and buying green energy, it sounds like Gore has pretty thoroughly addressed the concerns raised. (One could certainly argue that Gore should live in a smaller home . . . and that using the home as his business office doesn't require that the house be four times the size of the average house, and I think that's fair. Everyone has their own wasteful habits/tendencies that certainly sounds like one of Gore's.)
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It's easy to scapegoat Trump supporters and climate change deniers, much harder yet more effective to own our own complicity in the problem.
Consider the following:
-Somewhere around 80% of the US population lives in urban areas.
-Urban areas tend to vote Democratic.
-The number one thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint is build compact walkable cities that greatly reduce vehicle miles traveled and overall consumption.
Doing these things would require, among other things:
-Revamping regulations to eliminate setbacks, parking requirements, density limits, height limits, and so on.
-Significant streamlining of the review process for building high density housing.
-Substantial increases in local taxes along with substantial investment in mass transit.
-Greatly expand walking and biking infrastructure.
And yet, from where I sit in Coastal California with a raging housing shortage and rampant houselessness, all I see are people claiming to be progressives fighting tooth and nail to preserve car centric suburban level density. Why? They found their little paradise when they moved here and now they want to preserve their mid-20th century "California Dream."
There are huge metro areas that already have the political power to make substantial progress on climate change, but they choose not to because doing so is unacceptable to their constituents. So we're left with virtual signaling and blaming those other guys over there. Stop blaming Trump and get on with it already.
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I guess my concern is that since the carbon tax at rates necessary to make a significant difference will never be implemented, it seems destined to fail. It's easy to implement a small, insignificant carbon tax and kick back saying 'Good enough'. But it really won't be good enough.
We're at a weird point now. We don't want to do something because the immediate cost is so high. But every day we don't do something, the immediate cost to fix the problem becomes higher. It's a positive feedback loop . . . and those have a habit of catastrophically failing in nature.
I admire your optimism tide will turn one of these days, but don't share it.
In my opinion, we have the necessary alternatives to cut out, perhaps not easily but not impossibly, 50% of our carbon pollution in the next ten years. Many of those things are as simple as moving closer to work. The right incentives just need to be put into place, with the consent of the people. I continue to hope....
It's easy to scapegoat Trump supporters and climate change deniers, much harder yet more effective to own our own complicity in the problem.
Consider the following:
-Somewhere around 80% of the US population lives in urban areas.
-Urban areas tend to vote Democratic.
-The number one thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint is build compact walkable cities that greatly reduce vehicle miles traveled and overall consumption.
Doing these things would require, among other things:
-Revamping regulations to eliminate setbacks, parking requirements, density limits, height limits, and so on.
-Significant streamlining of the review process for building high density housing.
-Substantial increases in local taxes along with substantial investment in mass transit.
-Greatly expand walking and biking infrastructure.
And yet, from where I sit in Coastal California with a raging housing shortage and rampant houselessness, all I see are people claiming to be progressives fighting tooth and nail to preserve car centric suburban level density. Why? They found their little paradise when they moved here and now they want to preserve their mid-20th century "California Dream."
There are huge metro areas that already have the political power to make substantial progress on climate change, but they choose not to because doing so is unacceptable to their constituents. So we're left with virtual signaling and blaming those other guys over there. Stop blaming Trump and get on with it already.
I used to work in central London. We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced. A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute. The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped. "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
What changes have you made in your life?
You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.
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This issue is something that I've thought extensively about, consider myself pretty knowledgeable, and am not shy in talking at/with other people about. I'm not a climate scientist, biologist, etc., but I think I'm about as educated as a layperson can be on climate change (though I remain always interested in new data points/ideas).
That said, I've come to the conclusion that we have two near-insurmountable problems when it comes to the problem of climate change.
One is that humanity as a whole has spent the last 150-200 years building modern civilization off of the back of fossil fuels. Absolutely everything in the modern age--from tech to transportation to agriculture to (insert thing here)--is supported by or heavily influenced by fossil fuels. Which means every possible solution to getting off of fossil fuels is, by default, a huge infrastructure issue. Absent someone coming up with a miracle 'clean energy' solution, to solve it would require all of humanity to do a pivot-turn on a worldwide scale on how we live our lives--at least, if we want to preserve our existing civilization without catastrophic consequences to both ourselves (widespread famine, shortages in medicine, etc.) and the biome.
Quite frankly, in all of history I cannot think of a single example where humans have managed to do this.
The other insurmountable problem I've found is summed up by this quote:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Per the first point above--when people's livelihoods depend on fossil fuels, they have a profound incentive NOT to believe in climate change, or if they do believe it, to downplay their own contributions and lump it all on the shoulders of 'those other people'.
It sounds really defeatist, but I think those of us who are fighting for a response to climate change have to accept that reality. And then much like a 'debt snowball', try and get a 'climate snowball' rolling--encourage tiny, win-win-win changes in ourselves and our neighbors and our politicians, and once they've achieved those, push for the next, slightly harder step. And so on. First get people talking about how there would be more money in their pocket if they reduced their electrical bill by doing XYZ (and helping combat climate change!). Then get them talking about how, for only X dollars more on their now-reduced bill, they could ensure all their electricity was renewable (and help combat climate change!). Encourage bikeable/walkable infrastructure by talking about how awful it is to have cars roaring by day and night, endangering kids and the elderly (and help combat climate change!). Then talk about banning cars entirely from some chunks of neighborhoods/investing in more transit (and help combat climate change!). And so on and so on.
The Nature Conservancy (https://www.nature.org/en-us/ (https://www.nature.org/en-us/)) has a pretty good action plan for things humanity can do, on both an individual level and a structural one, to combat climate change. I encourage those who are truly interested in what can be done to check it out.
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Absolutely everything in the modern age--from tech to transportation to agriculture to (insert thing here)--is supported by or heavily influenced by fossil fuels. Which means every possible solution to getting off of fossil fuels is, by default, a huge infrastructure issue.
Not in the beginning. Reducing consumption will be a big first step. The West could essentially halve energy consumption - and thus fossil fuel consumption - without changing lifestyles hugely, and without much investment in infrastructure. A lot of it would just be people moving house or work so they're closer. The average driver spends 90' a day in their car, and for the urban driver at least half of that the car isn't moving - they're burning energy but going nowhere. Which really is symbolic of the whole issue.
Infrastructure's just an excuse to keep consuming. All that concrete and steel and aluminium causes emissions in construction and maintenance, too.
Of course, with 2/3 of the West overweight or obese, reducing consumption is obviously an alien concept to most.
It's interesting, about a decade back I was involved in the peak oil scene. Funny thing is: they were mostly climate change denialists. Then I went and talked to the climate change guys, and they were peak oil denialists. It's like humans can only hold one problem in their head at a time. Anyway, one difference between the peak oilers and the climate changers was - and remains - the peak oilers were willing to do immediate reductions in their personal contributions to the problem by leading a lower-consumption life, whereas the climate changers were convinced that some combination of technologies and taxes would mean that someone else, somewhere else, would reduce contributions for them.
And that's why climate change scientists continue flying to climate change conferences. If we judge by actions rather than words, most climate change scientists and activists are climate change denialists.
Doesn't bother me, I've still reduced my contribution to the problem. Still, it's funny.
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I too like the idea of climate denialists as muggles. This inspired name only appears on this website, which muggles do not read.
The same goes for people who find it impossible to save and invest, or people who believe that economic and population growth can continue indefinitely in a finite world. Muggles. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hilary Clinton famously described Trump supporters as the 'deplorables'. She was forced to apologise, but she was still right.
To misquote Tennyson, Charge of the Light Brigade:
'Muggles to the left, muggles to the right, muggles in front.
Into the valley of muggles rode the six hundred.'
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Absolutely everything in the modern age--from tech to transportation to agriculture to (insert thing here)--is supported by or heavily influenced by fossil fuels. Which means every possible solution to getting off of fossil fuels is, by default, a huge infrastructure issue.
Not in the beginning. Reducing consumption will be a big first step. The West could essentially halve energy consumption - and thus fossil fuel consumption - without changing lifestyles hugely, and without much investment in infrastructure. A lot of it would just be people moving house or work so they're closer. The average driver spends 90' a day in their car, and for the urban driver at least half of that the car isn't moving - they're burning energy but going nowhere. Which really is symbolic of the whole issue.
Infrastructure's just an excuse to keep consuming. All that concrete and steel and aluminium causes emissions in construction and maintenance, too.
Ah yes, consuming less, it's so easy! Anyone could do it, and everyone should do it! (end sarcasm)
Like anything, the devil is in the details. I biked/used mass transit to and from work for about six years--first to Redmond, then to Seattle. Then I switched jobs, got put on the night shift (low person on the totem pole), and now biking is no longer a possibility when I live 25 miles away from work and there are no transit options that wouldn't add 2-3 hours to my commute time. So now I drive to and from work, while working from home as much as my corporate overlord allows.
But I should just move closer to my work, you say? Given the current market in Seattle, my current housing costs would go from a little less than 1/3 my income to over half (or more, depending on how close I get). Commuting doesn't cost nearly as much as that--so that's a big financial hit I would have to take, and sacrifice a lot of other priorities (like retirement, or any chance at FIRE) to do it. The same equation works in reverse for getting a new job closer to home--anything I could find more local, I would have to take a significant pay cut on.
So I don't like it, and feel like a hypocrite for doing it, but I drive. Because the U.S. has spent the last 100 years or so prioritizing roads and suburbs over affordable city housing and mass transit. Hence, infrastructure problem. Will I go back to biking as soon as I'm able? Definitely. But until then, I don't think it's reasonable to people to sacrifice their personal well-being/future on the altar of climate change--humans aren't wired that way.
I see the same equation almost wherever you look. Don't like how much agriculture contributes to climate change? Eat less/no meat! Except then you're still eating a ton of grain which has been extensively fertilized with nitrogen and likely shipped hundreds if not thousands of miles. And out of season veggies that require a ton of irrigation and fertilizers/pesticides and ALSO have to be shipped! So you should only eat local, they say. Which means anyone living in the northern climates can forget about eating any kind of fresh greens in the fall/winter, and will have to rely exclusively on canned/dried stuff, like the good ol' days! For that matter, how 'local' are you going to be when most farmland is often hundreds of miles from the city in which you (and most of us) live? Are you going to protect nearby farmland, no matter how desirable it gets for development? How popular do you think any of these changes are going to be for the average person?
Hence, infrastructure problem. Which requires infrastructure changes--decentralized and renewable energy grid, decentralized, less nitrogen- and irrigation-hungry agriculture, etc--in addition to any personal changes we can (and should) make.
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
What changes have you made in your life?
You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.
I think I've done a fair amount to be honest.
- Line dry my laundry
- Haven't used incandescent light bulbs anywhere in the house for more than fifteen years
- Keep the house at 15 degrees in the winter, and 28 degrees in the summer.
- We walk or bike whenever possible to avoid using the car - including for most errands (going to the library, going to the bank, getting groceries)
- Installed grid tied solar panels on my house as part of Ontario's microFIT program eight years ago.
- Cycle to work 2-3 times a week year round (our family had a single car because of this for more than 10 years, but after I ended up changing jobs and our son started going to school we ended up needing a second car to make things work)
- Have two days a week where we eat vegan, and at least one more that is meatless
- Haven't used plastic bags from the grocery store for more than 15 years (granted, we could do better as we still occasionally put fruit in those clear bags . . . but then tend to use the clear bags to bring lunch to work/keep clothing waterproof in backpacks while cycling in the rain/snow)
- Have a compost in our back yard which we use in the garden
- Have a rain barrel hooked up to the eaves-trough which we use in lieu of running the hose to water plants in the summer
- Don't buy stuff unless we need it. Clothing is replaced when it wears out, but not until. We try to buy used clothing rather than new (so far about 90% of my son's clothes have been used - and he's six now). Our furniture was all purchased used. We don't have too many electronic devices, and those we do have get used until they stop working (We're the only people I know who have a fifteen year old television for example).
- Don't go on vacations involving flight/air travel.
This is seen as some sort of radical deprivation by many people I know . . . even though they're pretty minimal and I'm know that there's lots of other stuff we could do. When are my actions supposed to start speaking loudly?
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I used to work in central London. We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced. A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute. The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped. "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.
When I say "just get on with it" I don't mean making changes for the sake of change. No, I mean get on with making cities denser and more walkable. Your story is interesting because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about: Instead of solving affordability and transit issues that encourage people to commuting long distances, your company was considering changes that would further promoted sprawl. This is not the kind of problem an individual person or company can solve, but rather something that requires collective action, in other words, government intervention.
It's fascinating to me that the Left here in the US, the party that more than anyone believes in the ability of the government to solve problems (which I largely agree with!), suddenly throws up its collective hands and says it's an impossible problem when things begin to challenge the sacred: some historic districts/buildings need to make way for high density housing, no room for a backyard garden, buildings may cast a shadow on your property, rich techies and outsiders will move in, and so on.
Let's think about this from another angle. This thread is about how to talk with Muggles about climate change. Why should they believe climate change is real and serious when Blue cities in Blue states refuse to prioritize densification over aesthetic concerns such as "neighborhood character" which itself has long been a dog whistle for keeping certain people out? Why should the Muggles give up things they find aesthetically pleasing like large SUVs and strip malls with lots of parking, when places like the San Francisco Bay Area continue to resist new development which then pushes poorer people to longer and longer commutes in places with no mass transit? Red state people are not dumb, like all people they can spot hypocrisy from a mile away.
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I used to work in central London. We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced. A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute. The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped. "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.
When I say "just get on with it" I don't mean making changes for the sake of change. No, I mean get on with making cities denser and more walkable. Your story is interesting because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about: Instead of solving affordability and transit issues that encourage people to commuting long distances, your company was considering changes that would further promoted sprawl. This is not the kind of problem an individual person or company can solve, but rather something that requires collective action, in other words, government intervention.
Yes.
My "company" at the time was the Department for Transport.
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
What changes have you made in your life?
You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.
I think I've done a fair amount to be honest.
- Line dry my laundry
- Haven't used incandescent light bulbs anywhere in the house for more than fifteen years
- Keep the house at 15 degrees in the winter, and 28 degrees in the summer.
- We walk or bike whenever possible to avoid using the car - including for most errands (going to the library, going to the bank, getting groceries)
- Installed grid tied solar panels on my house as part of Ontario's microFIT program eight years ago.
- Cycle to work 2-3 times a week year round (our family had a single car because of this for more than 10 years, but after I ended up changing jobs and our son started going to school we ended up needing a second car to make things work)
- Have two days a week where we eat vegan, and at least one more that is meatless
- Haven't used plastic bags from the grocery store for more than 15 years (granted, we could do better as we still occasionally put fruit in those clear bags . . . but then tend to use the clear bags to bring lunch to work/keep clothing waterproof in backpacks while cycling in the rain/snow)
- Have a compost in our back yard which we use in the garden
- Have a rain barrel hooked up to the eaves-trough which we use in lieu of running the hose to water plants in the summer
- Don't buy stuff unless we need it. Clothing is replaced when it wears out, but not until. We try to buy used clothing rather than new (so far about 90% of my son's clothes have been used - and he's six now). Our furniture was all purchased used. We don't have too many electronic devices, and those we do have get used until they stop working (We're the only people I know who have a fifteen year old television for example).
- Don't go on vacations involving flight/air travel.
This is seen as some sort of radical deprivation by many people I know . . . even though they're pretty minimal and I'm know that there's lots of other stuff we could do. When are my actions supposed to start speaking loudly?
One of the biggest changes we made was downsizing our house. Less energy, less stuff, less maintenance etc. Although I did install solar panels on the previous house which the new owners are currently enjoying.
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I used to work in central London. We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced. A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute. The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped. "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.
When I say "just get on with it" I don't mean making changes for the sake of change. No, I mean get on with making cities denser and more walkable. Your story is interesting because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about: Instead of solving affordability and transit issues that encourage people to commuting long distances, your company was considering changes that would further promoted sprawl. This is not the kind of problem an individual person or company can solve, but rather something that requires collective action, in other words, government intervention.
It's fascinating to me that the Left here in the US, the party that more than anyone believes in the ability of the government to solve problems (which I largely agree with!), suddenly throws up its collective hands and says it's an impossible problem when things begin to challenge the sacred: some historic districts/buildings need to make way for high density housing, no room for a backyard garden, buildings may cast a shadow on your property, rich techies and outsiders will move in, and so on.
Let's think about this from another angle. This thread is about how to talk with Muggles about climate change. Why should they believe climate change is real and serious when Blue cities in Blue states refuse to prioritize densification over aesthetic concerns such as "neighborhood character" which itself has long been a dog whistle for keeping certain people out? Why should the Muggles give up things they find aesthetically pleasing like large SUVs and strip malls with lots of parking, when places like the San Francisco Bay Area continue to resist new development which then pushes poorer people to longer and longer commutes in places with no mass transit? Red state people are not dumb, like all people they can spot hypocrisy from a mile away.
Yes.
Since about the 1990s (Clinton era), the Democratic party has turned into the party of corporatist technocrats. There are a ton of reasons for that. But unfortunately, those candidates are the ones who tend to rise to the top.
Maybe the Democrats of that decade learned their environmental lesson from Carter, who asked Americans to wear sweaters in the winter, and got shitcanned in part because people didn't want to hear it.
I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.
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I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.
There are some new neighborhoods that were built with walkability in mind. Denver-Stapleton and Austin-Mueller come to mind. They're popular, albeit expensive.
I see the NIMBYism locally. The resistance to more livable units on first and second ring single-family lots is intense.
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I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.
There are some new neighborhoods that were built with walkability in mind. Denver-Stapleton and Austin-Mueller come to mind. They're popular, albeit expensive.
I see the NIMBYism locally. The resistance to more livable units on first and second ring single-family lots is intense.
I see it, as well. Thankfully, it's not much of a problem in my neighborhood, which is actually getting more dense instead of less.
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NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?
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NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?
I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.
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NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?
I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.
There are likely more suburbs, sure. That wasn't the question though . . . I'm wondering more about environmental damage due to lifestyle.
My dad's a farmer. He lives out in the boonies . . . but he would be the first one to tell you that his lifestyle is orders of magnitude less efficient than someone living in a dense city. His septic and well water system is less efficient than a city run one. His electrical power required the erection of new poles to carry power lines (which he had to pay a fair amount for). He is unable to go anywhere without driving 30 plus minutes . . . and there's a lot of cost to plow the roads around him all winter long. The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs. This requires huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.
My understanding is that the majority of people living out in rural areas also aren't farming.
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The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs. This causes are huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.
This is an interesting point. My family were rural farmers pre-1920. Back then I don't think they had many subsidies. I know they didn't have power, running water, or a car.
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The inability to have a civil debate with the other side pretty much guarantees that nothing is going to change.
And you lose the creative efforts of the people that aren't completely convinced of the importance of the problem, or the desirability of the proposed solutions. Let's say that's 30-40-50% of the population. Can we really afford the luxury of excluding that much potential talent if we think an issue has cataclysmic implications?
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Ah yes, consuming less, it's so easy! Anyone could do it, and everyone should do it! (end sarcasm)
The rest of your post, which I snipped because it was bad enough our having to read it the first time, I believe this site's owner calls "complainypants (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-complainypants/)."
I think I've done a fair amount to be honest. [...]
This is seen as some sort of radical deprivation by many people I know . . . even though they're pretty minimal and I'm know that there's lots of other stuff we could do. When are my actions supposed to start speaking loudly?
I would expect that you would have a more positive reception to your words about climate change etc than would someone who was talking a lot but doing nothing, like most climate scientists.
I think we underestimate the effects of our actions and words both. Change happens slowly, gradually - then suddenly all at once. I believe you're about my age? When we were kids, only a few hippies, isolated rural homesteads and space stations had solar panels - now they're everywhere. Same-sex marriage? Nobody was against it, it just wasn't a concept. A black US President? Only in science fiction. No fault divorce? Decriminalised abortion? Never! Change seems impossible until it happens. Change happens person by person, by increments - and then suddenly all at once.
https://orionmagazine.org/article/revolutions-per-minute/
This applies for good and bad changes both, of course, or changes I would call bad which you would call good, and vice versa. So just go ahead living the life you want to - while being aware that everyone else may want to live that same life, too.
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I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
What changes have you made in your life?
You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.
Recently moved to a walkable neighborhood where it's possible to live mostly without using a car. Still own a car, but it sits parked on the street in front of our house most days. Recently, hired an HVAC guy to redo the system in our house to make it more efficient. Trying to use as little electricity and gas as possible. Buy local, whenever possible. Agreed, actions often speak more clearly than words. Maybe somebody will notice? Not holding my breath, though.
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Ah yes, consuming less, it's so easy! Anyone could do it, and everyone should do it! (end sarcasm)
The rest of your post, which I snipped because it was bad enough our having to read it the first time, I believe this site's owner calls "complainypants (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-complainypants/)."
What this tells me is your reading comprehension is pretty sub-par, then. But hey, if you want to call realism 'complainypants', go right ahead. And I'll call your attitude 'holier-than-thou'. Because I'm sure you don't own a home, or ever drive a car, or wear imported clothing, or eat anything you don't grow yourself. I am completely sure that you live in a cave, typing out screeds about how you're such a better thinker than the unwashed internet masses on a hand-me-down laptop powered by homemade soda-can batteries, all the while challenging the rest of us to prove our green credentials to your satisfaction.
Honestly, you're the kind of environmental advocate I think does more harm than good. Because all it does is make folks who might want to make a change, instead throw up their hands and say, 'well obviously nothing I do is good enough, so why even try?'
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I refer readers to the Book Club section, and the book: Six Degrees: Living in a hotter world, by Mark Lynas.
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And I'll call your attitude 'holier-than-thou'. Because I'm sure you don't own a home, or ever drive a car, or wear imported clothing, or eat anything you don't grow yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)
Also of interest: burning oil could give us vitamin C, it's still finite and can't be drilled for free, so...
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown)
http://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/70_2019.pdf (http://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/70_2019.pdf)
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Do NOT give up. What you said to your neighborhood group? Planted a seed. A seed of doubt... IS my car the best thing I own? SHOULD I bike more?
1. The genius of MMM is he got hundreds of thousands of people to care about the environment by showing them how ridiculously overpriced car ownership is. Don't be deceived: He is absolutely one of those climate nutters people think are too extreme. Yet a massive community has grown around him because he found a way to make us care by showing how rich we could be.
2. Victim blaming and shaming are tools of the fossil fuel industry. Things ARE changing and they know it. Free transit and car-free cities are happening around the world.
3. As a mother, I am thrilled at how my kids (teens) have eagerly embraced bikes and transit. What THEY don't understand is how adults act. I am always disappointed by comments like those in this thread where people pat themselves on the back for not having kids and comfort themselves with a little easy cynicism. What do you think drives an economy (gets the trash, works the jobs, etc)? Young people. Birth rates will/are dropping. Good. Automation and robots may do more labor in a world with fewer and fewer young humans. However, this is an excuse for apathy. You are all better thinkers than that.
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Also, keep holding OUR feet to the fire with questions like this. We are an influential group.
And never forget: As MMM has put it all along, living without clown cars, optimizing for a less wasteful live, is BETTER and MORE FUN and MORE JOYFUL and will make you SEXIER than those trapped in the rat race alternative.
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NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?
I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.
There are likely more suburbs, sure. That wasn't the question though . . . I'm wondering more about environmental damage due to lifestyle.
My dad's a farmer. He lives out in the boonies . . . but he would be the first one to tell you that his lifestyle is orders of magnitude less efficient than someone living in a dense city. His septic and well water system is less efficient than a city run one. His electrical power required the erection of new poles to carry power lines (which he had to pay a fair amount for). He is unable to go anywhere without driving 30 plus minutes . . . and there's a lot of cost to plow the roads around him all winter long. The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs. This requires huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.
My understanding is that the majority of people living out in rural areas also aren't farming.
Until recently I was one of those people living in a rural area and commuting. But I was the exception. When I looked at my friends and neighbours, most were not doing the long commute to Ottawa or Montreal. They lived locally. Their jobs were in the small towns dotted around the farming area. Their total driving was probably no more than someone living in a large city with a job commute. And when they drove, they were not stuck in traffic, because "stuck in traffic" meant catching the light as it turned red, or being stuck at a crossing for the occasional train. However, small towns do not have public transportation, and so modern shopping planning does encourage car use. We still had the big parking lots for the grocery store and Canadian Tire and so on. People might not have to drive far, but they did drive.
One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure. If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped. If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.
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One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure. If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped. If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.
Awareness? Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things. In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance. These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.
Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location. Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance. Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines. As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder) . . . and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows). Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.
I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas. (Cities of course, being the least.)
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and so modern shopping planning does encourage car use.
On a complete side note: Just today I had a half-joking conversation (I think it started with insurance, touched the history of mafia and business models) where we ended up on the conclusion:
Socialism is when the services are brought to you - baker and butcher in every small village - and capitalism is when you go to the services.
And here we are back on car ownership and "you need a car". It's the economy, idiot! Or better: The infrastructure your economy uses.
A car is a device to externalize costs of individual mobility. A shopping center is a device to externalize the costs of delivery (btw. here postal services are thinking about stopping "at the door" delivery or charging a huge additional amount for the last mile).
But whatever the reasons, that is infrastructure. And infrastructure can be changed. Make biking a lot easier and safer, and (pin-point) car driving a bit harder, and people will move to biking. That is how the Netherlands or Kopenhagen changed from car-centric to other means of transportation. Even without any "climate change fundamentalist" telling them to do!
And this can even save a lot of money!!
Like the bridge, where the proposal was to get rid of the bike lane and save 10% of costs. My proposal would be to double the bike lanes and get rid of the car lanes instead, that saving 80% on that very expensive piece of infrastructure!!!
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One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure. If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped. If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.
Awareness? Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things. In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance. These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.
Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location. Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance. Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines. As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder) . . . and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows). Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.
I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas. (Cities of course, being the least.)
As someone that used to live in the suburbs and now lives on 200 acres: YUP!
We have literally a mile of power lines to our house, for only our house. Our house is heated with propane, which requires a big damn truck to drive out and refill for us. We're stubborn fucks and mow with a cheapie 20" "normal" lawnmower, but we only mow directly around the house/parking area and some paths. We drive literally everywhere, furthest I can sensibly walk is out to the mailbox (and that takes 20 minutes). We still have sensible vehicles (Hyundai Accent and a Volvo station wagon) but we drive them way more since I now have a clown commute and we need to drive to get anywhere. Our shitty 6mbps DSL is only an option at all because of old phone lines that had to be subsidized to even exist way off the road here.
We absolutely are more subsidized (and more environmentally damaging) in pretty much every possible way than we were in the suburbs. Rural IL people like to talk shit about Chicago (Cook County is the only reason IL is solidly blue) but that's basically where the entire state's tax revenue comes from to build the inefficient rural roads I use every day.
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I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas. (Cities of course, being the least.)
I think you're right about this, but mostly on a per capita basis. A lot more people live in cities (and suburbs) than rural, so their absolute impact is larger than the relatively small number living in the sticks. But people have to live somewhere so dense cities have the lowest overall impact.
But the nuance between total vs. per capita is part of the (willful?) confusion I see around urban planning in my area. The best and most efficient use of a parcel of land in the city is high density housing. Yet current residents (mostly homeowners) don't want to see an apartment block outside their window, don't want their $1M investment impaired, fear the unwashed masses of lower income renters that may move in next door. So, the green washing begins in earnest. We're going to "help" the planet by "preserving" the lot as a park or an urban garden or whatever. The poor people are excluded, the neighborhood has a new open space that further increases property values, and everyone pats themselves on the back for having done their part to save the planet. What's worse, if someone buys a 10,000 lot (or combines multiple lots) to build a single monstrous McMansion, no one bats an eye.
It's all a terrible farce as all but the extremely wealthy are pushed to longer and longer super commutes just to make ends meet. And as former urban dwellers are pushed to commute from rural areas, they drive up housing prices, forcing existing rural folks to commute to the city so they can afford the higher cost of living. This is happening around the Salinas area which has become a bedroom community for the Silicon Valley, 60 miles each way!!!
We need rural areas doing rural things: agriculture, logging, mining, and so on. These are needed to build, maintain, and support cities. I should add that I think there are ways to improve on these activities to mitigate their impact, but that's a separate thread. I don't have a problem with rural people living in rural areas doing rural types of work. What I take issue with are rural people who are trying to live a city existence and/or just wanting a lot of cheap land to maximize consumption and have lots of space for stuff they don't need. When I grew up rural, people generally lived and worked locally, ate almost all meals at home, and vacation was a week at the local lake. I don't have numbers on this, but increasingly it seems like the rural life has changed dramatically to be way more consumptive. IMO, a big part of this is fulled by cities refusing to build dense, walkable neighborhoods.
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This just came out today, highly recommend reading it to get a sense for the silliness that's going on in California and many US cities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html
It's hard to believe NIMBYs anywhere, however liberal or progressive, can (and do) continue to claim to care about climate change.
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An important distinction to make: Do you care about climate change and, therefore, GHG emissions? Or do you claim to care about climate change, and are just using it as an excuse to beat people who think differently from you over the head, or for a a "group gripe session" about how Awful Those People Are?
And I'll even offer a helpful metric for easily determining if someone who claims to care about it actually cares: Do they actually know what their emissions are? I'll even be nicer - just energy related emissions! Your power company should have carbon intensity numbers available (the vast majority do), and the emissions per gallon of gasoline/gasohol/diesel/kerosene/etc are easily found. Are those numbers decreasing year over year?
This forum tending "fairly wealthy" (I don't know exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that this one is one of the higher average/median net worth forums on the interblags), you'd also expect someone who actually cares to have spent at least some money both optimizing their emissions and, ideally, helping out in their community somehow to further reduce emissions. Though actual impact... eh. Harder to quantify... do mostly unused EV chargers matter? :/ They certainly reduce objection to EV ownership.
But here's my main complaint: The vast majority of those who claim to care about climate change utterly suck at salesmanship. Like, "couldn't sell a bottle of water to a man on a desert island who had a pocket full of gold coins" bad.
If you're trying to sell an idea, it's quite useful to understand how the target of your pitch thinks about things, and to form your pitch in a way that they actually care about. If someone (for whatever reasons!) doesn't think that human caused carbon emissions are that big a deal, one is reasonably unlikely to alter their behavior by arguing about that - so pick something different.
I could try to sell someone on the idea of an EV/PHEV on carbon emissions, on total cost of ownership, on local energy utilization (if you're on a heavily solar/hydro/wind grid), on the driving experience, on the geeky aspects... probably another few if I thought hard enough, but that's the core of it. Or some combination of them. Seriously, just letting people drive them gets the wheels turning in their head. Smooth, seamless acceleration up to the desired speed, and cheaper to own? You don't have to even touch carbon at that point!
Same goes for home energy efficiency, solar, etc. Though if I wanted to sell $4/W solar, I'd have to... well, lie like a solar salesman, really. I prefer used car salesmen. But you can do closer to $1.50/W if you're willing to put in some work and are a homeowner, and I think it's possible to do closer to $1/W, if you're careful about it.
And then you've got the problem of hypocrisy, which is blindingly evident to literally everyone else, just not the person engaging in. If you're going to drive an SUV (hell, any sort of ICE car) to a "climate protest," well... don't be too upset when nobody takes you that seriously. If you're going to fly on a private jet halfway across the world to some summit on climate, again... you might have image issues. Though at least some of the criticism will come from people who don't share your point of view, period, so it might not matter. Choose wisely. Say what you will about Thunberg, she does understand this point quite well, and far better than some other famous climate activists.
But, in literally the first reply to the thread, you have this: "I am very worried about climate change, and I can’t get myself to change my lifestyle." So... if you wonder why "muggles" don't pay too much attention, even people who claim to care about it aren't willing to make changes! Why should someone who doesn't think human GHG emissions are a problem care?
And on CA's housing issues, well. "Caring" about climate change/homelessness/etc doesn't mean it's the first priority. "My property values" tend an awful lot higher on the list of concerns.
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Onto rural areas... and I'm picking on GuitarStv here, mostly because it covers most of what I wanted to cover, but it's certainly not the only opinion of this nature that's come through. I've just had some arguments with him in another thread related to vehicles and if the manufacturers know their head from a hole in the ground, so it drew my attention/ire.
Awareness? Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things. In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance. These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.
That depends on where you live. There's a huge range of "rural," from "acreages in something that looks like a subdivision" all the way to "Literally the middle of nowhere." I'll agree that denser areas have better service cost recovery, but if you're far enough rural, it's pretty simple - you don't get "services." If the driveway is plowed, and the road is accessible, well... you've probably handled it yourself. Or your neighbors have. So claiming that there's "less awareness of the true costs" is a load of crap when people are doing the work themselves.
Depending on the rural area, fire protection is a subscription service, so... the land owners may very well be aware of the costs of that. Police response times are often "Well, hopefully it's nothing important," so... again, you're putting words in people's mouths that those people may very well disagree with.
But those services are also far less frequent, and often are halfway volunteer (at least for fire), so... you're going to have to cite some sources, instead of just blindly asserting.
Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.
If you're far enough out that you don't have grid service, you're likely (at this point) to have solar/batteries, with a backup generator. I'm pretty familiar with this setup from my office, and I run... oh, 5-10 gallons a year through my generator. The rest of the year, it's just the embodied energy of the power generation/storage system. I'm using lead acid, so fairly low energy storage embodied energy, and the panels ought to last an awful long time.
A backup generator is certainly quite inefficient compared to a centralized power plant (small generators are on the 10% efficiency range, plus or minus a bit depending on load), but they're not run that many hours, and consist of common metals.
As for well/septic, again, I'm not sure what you're comparing to, but if you're pumping out of a well, it's likely fairly close to the house, and the energy requirements are basically "the vertical lift." Then gravity drain to a septic field, and maybe a pump out every 5-10 years, depending on how dirty you are (seriously - being paranoid about germs will ruin a septic system, let the kids eat dirt). Compare this to the infrastructure required for centralized water infrastructure and the unpopular leakage rates (which range from "eeeh..." to "Wow, I'd rather not have known that..." in most systems)... you're making claims that you really need to back with more data than blind assertion. Again, a septic system is literally a tank and some PVC, and a well pump is pretty simple metal, and maybe (if you've got a fancy variable speed pump) a bit of semiconductor and PCB. A basic pressure switch and pump isn't that complex. Literally a spring loaded relay and a bunch of common metal at the bottom of a pipe.
Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.
If you're OK on a postage stamp, you usually don't live in a rural area. There's a bit of confirmation bias going on here - yes, people who want more property tend to live in rural areas. They tend to not do well in densely packed areas either.
But as far as a riding mower or tractor... so? How many gallons a gas a year do you think they're going through on those?
I go through maybe 15-20 gallons of gas a year as "property fuel" - so tractor, mower, trimmers, etc. And that's probably high - I just don't always properly distinguish between "generator fuel" for my office and "property fuel" for the other equipment. It's in the same category. My tractor is 80 years old, for what it's worth. Most property tractors tend older, though I certainly have a bit of lust for a newer Kubota or Yanmar or something... eventually. Maybe.
But in terms of emissions, well... they're just not that bad. They might be high on NOx or such, but out in rural lands, it doesn't really matter. My property fuel budget is something like 1000 miles of Prius driving, or less on just about anything else. If you have more property, likely a lot of it is wild (or you're actually farming). It's rare to have more than a few acres of "cleared area" on a rural property unless, again, it's farming.
Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.
That depends on where it comes from, doesn't it? If it's halfway local firewood, transported a few dozen miles from a local orchard or something, it's not that bad. Heat pumps are a thing, and ground source heat pumps are also a thing, though admittedly I don't know anyone with one (air source works fine out here, pellet stoves are also popular). If you're in a wooded area, a gallon or two of gas through a chainsaw may cover your heating needs. And nobody complains about solar thermal collectors in a rural area. I guarantee most neighborhoods would have a problem with an air solar thermal collector in a built up area. Also purple houses, for some reason.
How much of that natural gas you're going on about leaks during production, and just how powerful of a GHG is the leaked methane? It's certainly shorter lived, but quite a bit of recent data indicates that natural gas production/pipelines are both pretty leaky processes.
As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder)
Won't argue there. I don't really ebike into town because of that issue. However, I'm only in town rarely, so...
and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).
Sure, but you've also got the space to store that, along with a more efficient commuter vehicle. If you care. Some people don't, some do. Push gas prices up, and a lot more people will. Or buy an EV as a "trip into town" vehicle.
"Small car to do most stuff and a truck to do the rest" works really well in rural areas. It doesn't mean the truck drives that many miles a year.
Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.
Perhaps. There are also a lot of people in rural areas who don't commute, because they work remotely, are retired, work locally, etc.
I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas. (Cities of course, being the least.)
Giant houses to heat/cool, typically higher incomes to spend on energy and vehicles, and a strong desire to both keep that income stream going and to pay other people to drive out and do stuff they can't do themselves because they're worthless at physical tasks?
I'd love to see those numbers as well.
Also, if I don't respond that quickly, I'm probably working on something other than the internet. Sorry!
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This just came out today, highly recommend reading it to get a sense for the silliness that's going on in California and many US cities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html
It's hard to believe NIMBYs anywhere, however liberal or progressive, can (and do) continue to claim to care about climate change.
Good article. Thanks for posting. That more housing might be a possible solution to a shortage of housing seems pretty obvious, but NIMBYs seem to fight against it, tooth and nail, just about every time.
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Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.
https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918 (https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918)
Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.
Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.
And again: fossil fuels are finite. So even if burning them were harmless, we'd be running short some day. Our children and grandchildren may need these some day, let's not set fire to their inheritance.
We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.
It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.
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I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.
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Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.
https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918 (https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918)
Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.
Thanks. I'd not seen the recent data on that.
Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.
Yeah, well, there's an unpopular opinion if I've ever seen one. Dare suggest that people could use less energy and you're branded all sorts of nasty names in a hurry.
We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.
I like that one, may have to borrow it. Thanks!
It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.
It's friendlier than what the left has been calling those they disagree with for the past few years...
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I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.
It's almost as amusing as life-long Democrats who voted for Hillary but, gosh-darn it, Pelosi ripping up speech papers just convinced them to vote for Trump.
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I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.
Sure. But do you think it'll help?
Outside a land of poorly-educated people whose democracy and rule of law are corrupted by regulatory capture, hysterical media, gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of a large chunk of the population like the United States, most people are agreed there is a problem, they're just not agreed on what the solution should be.
If you are polite and live a life of example of the change you'd like to see, they may be inspired to change. If you're rude and don't make any changes in your life at all, they definitely won't change. I'll take possible success over certain failure any day of the week.
Dare suggest that people could use less energy and you're branded all sorts of nasty names in a hurry.
Energy is like money: it may be spent well, or spent badly. It's obvious that some get more bang for their buck than others. There are people who are spending $100,000 who are miserable, and others spending $20,000 who are happy. Likewise, there are people spending 20kWh a day who are uncomfortable at home, and people spending 2kWh a day and living in comfort.
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
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Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.
https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918 (https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918)
Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned.
No, since the CO2 is "working" in the athmosphere for a way longer time.
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response -
It doesn't matter. It's a gradual process. I'm old enough to remember people smoking in cinemas. Now smokers are banished to the cold and rain outside in the winter, a pack of smokes is AUD35 or more, and people give smokers dirty looks. And the rate has greatly dropped from its peak.
Change happens slowly, bit by bit - and then suddenly all at once.
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Also don't discount simple lack of knowledge. I didn't even KNOW that flying was not good for multiple reasons including where in the atmosphere the CO is released until I read Joshua Spodek here on MMM forum.
Hell, I didn't know fancy educated white people could live without cars, or drive an old one, without being perceived as losers until I read MMM.
Change happens slowly, bit by bit - and then suddenly all at once.
AMEN
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IMHO, cigarette smoking cessation behavior change efforts are very relevant to this topic, as are the evolution of civil rights. I don't know about smoking, but in the case of civil rights in the US, and earlier, the ending of slavery, the actions of regular citizens who were morally outraged by the system made all the difference.
Government follows, it does not lead.
Behavior change as a science depends, from my limited understanding, on a foundation of research to discover an effective fulcrum where the lever of change can be placed.
Increasingly, it looks like cars are that point.
The auto industry crushed the safety bicycle boom of the 1880s. But we can go back to a better time for transportation. This is why I'm not a huge fan of electric or autonomous cars. Cars will not save us. Their time has passed.
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Onto rural areas... and I'm picking on GuitarStv here, mostly because it covers most of what I wanted to cover, but it's certainly not the only opinion of this nature that's come through. I've just had some arguments with him in another thread related to vehicles and if the manufacturers know their head from a hole in the ground, so it drew my attention/ire.
Awareness? Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things. In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance. These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.
That depends on where you live. There's a huge range of "rural," from "acreages in something that looks like a subdivision" all the way to "Literally the middle of nowhere." I'll agree that denser areas have better service cost recovery, but if you're far enough rural, it's pretty simple - you don't get "services." If the driveway is plowed, and the road is accessible, well... you've probably handled it yourself. Or your neighbors have. So claiming that there's "less awareness of the true costs" is a load of crap when people are doing the work themselves.
Depending on the rural area, fire protection is a subscription service, so... the land owners may very well be aware of the costs of that. Police response times are often "Well, hopefully it's nothing important," so... again, you're putting words in people's mouths that those people may very well disagree with.
But those services are also far less frequent, and often are halfway volunteer (at least for fire), so... you're going to have to cite some sources, instead of just blindly asserting.
Y'know, I agree with you completely here. Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas. We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.
Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.
If you're far enough out that you don't have grid service, you're likely (at this point) to have solar/batteries, with a backup generator. I'm pretty familiar with this setup from my office, and I run... oh, 5-10 gallons a year through my generator. The rest of the year, it's just the embodied energy of the power generation/storage system. I'm using lead acid, so fairly low energy storage embodied energy, and the panels ought to last an awful long time.
A backup generator is certainly quite inefficient compared to a centralized power plant (small generators are on the 10% efficiency range, plus or minus a bit depending on load), but they're not run that many hours, and consist of common metals.
I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.
Yeah, if someone like you is completely living off the grid by generating their own power . . . awesome! But what you're talking about is a pretty small percentage of the people in the US. There are currently 60 million rural folks living in the US. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_States)) 180,000 people in the US off grid. (https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/earth-environment/living-off-the-grid (https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/earth-environment/living-off-the-grid)) Even if you assume that every single off grid person is rural (obviously, this is an overestimation), that's less than 0.3%. That is pretty far from normal.
As for well/septic, again, I'm not sure what you're comparing to, but if you're pumping out of a well, it's likely fairly close to the house, and the energy requirements are basically "the vertical lift." Then gravity drain to a septic field, and maybe a pump out every 5-10 years, depending on how dirty you are (seriously - being paranoid about germs will ruin a septic system, let the kids eat dirt). Compare this to the infrastructure required for centralized water infrastructure and the unpopular leakage rates (which range from "eeeh..." to "Wow, I'd rather not have known that..." in most systems)... you're making claims that you really need to back with more data than blind assertion. Again, a septic system is literally a tank and some PVC, and a well pump is pretty simple metal, and maybe (if you've got a fancy variable speed pump) a bit of semiconductor and PCB. A basic pressure switch and pump isn't that complex. Literally a spring loaded relay and a bunch of common metal at the bottom of a pipe.
Fair enough.
Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.
If you're OK on a postage stamp, you usually don't live in a rural area. There's a bit of confirmation bias going on here - yes, people who want more property tend to live in rural areas. They tend to not do well in densely packed areas either.
Agreed. The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.
Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.
That depends on where it comes from, doesn't it? If it's halfway local firewood, transported a few dozen miles from a local orchard or something, it's not that bad. Heat pumps are a thing, and ground source heat pumps are also a thing, though admittedly I don't know anyone with one (air source works fine out here, pellet stoves are also popular). If you're in a wooded area, a gallon or two of gas through a chainsaw may cover your heating needs. And nobody complains about solar thermal collectors in a rural area. I guarantee most neighborhoods would have a problem with an air solar thermal collector in a built up area. Also purple houses, for some reason.
How much of that natural gas you're going on about leaks during production, and just how powerful of a GHG is the leaked methane? It's certainly shorter lived, but quite a bit of recent data indicates that natural gas production/pipelines are both pretty leaky processes.
Firewood is certainly cheap. But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change. Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/01/pollutionwatch-wood-burning-is-not-climate-friendly (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/01/pollutionwatch-wood-burning-is-not-climate-friendly), https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/woody-biomass-power-and-heat-impacts-global-climate (https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/woody-biomass-power-and-heat-impacts-global-climate))
Natural gas pipelines aren't great, and they do leak occasionally. According to the EPA, they leak 1.4%. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-natural-gas-leaks/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-natural-gas-leaks/))
and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).
Sure, but you've also got the space to store that, along with a more efficient commuter vehicle. If you care. Some people don't, some do. Push gas prices up, and a lot more people will. Or buy an EV as a "trip into town" vehicle.
"Small car to do most stuff and a truck to do the rest" works really well in rural areas. It doesn't mean the truck drives that many miles a year.
We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here. Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none? I disagree. Fewer vehicles is better.
Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.
Perhaps. There are also a lot of people in rural areas who don't commute, because they work remotely, are retired, work locally, etc.
Well, yeah. Folks who work remotely, are retired, and work walking distance from their home in the city are more environmentally friendly too. If we compare like for like though, I don't believe that rural living comes out as being better for the environment.
I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).
There are absolutely people who need to live in rural areas and who serve a vital function to our society. My intent is not to attack folks who live in rural areas (I spent most of my childhood living in the boonies, and my dad is a farmer living in a rural area today) . . . but to question some of the often repeated falsehoods and bad assumptions about rural life.
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I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.
It's almost as amusing as life-long Democrats who voted for Hillary but, gosh-darn it, Pelosi ripping up speech papers just convinced them to vote for Trump.
Or like homeowners who really care about the poor and disenfranchised and are vocal in their support for affordable housing...just not this particular project which happens to be in their neighborhood, or that project over there that would require removal of a heritage tree, or that other project that would change the view. Oddly, these folks also care a great deal about making sure we have enough water and infrastructure to support new housing, but dammit if every infrastructure proposal has some kind of fatal flaw! What a shame!
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Y'know, I agree with you completely here. Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas. We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.
I'm fine with that. Don't complain if there's more gravel roads over time out in rural areas. Might be nice to keep some power lines up to pipe in solar production, though. Hard to put up a few acres of solar panels in a city, a lot easier in less built up areas. I'd expect to see some farms converting fields to solar over time, as it's a pretty decent use of some land, and, at least in the midwest, is almost certainly a better use of land than ethanol production.
I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.
And the problem is... ?
You're asserting that people owning backup generators is somehow a problem, without offering any data to indicate that it is. Go find out how many hours a year the generators actually run, and how long they last, because running a generator a few dozen hours a year, intermittently, just isn't that big a problem, as far as I'm concerned. If power's out for that time period, and people are running the generator intermittently, they almost certainly have lower emissions for that period of time than if they're just running normally on the grid. Auto switching transfer switches with backup generators that can run the whole house are somewhat rare compared to an open frame generator and manual transfer switch of some sort, at least in my experience.
Plus, inverter technology has gotten an awful lot better, so you can do things like use a Volt or Prius as a backup generator for limited loads, at somewhat better efficiency than an open frame generator.
Yeah, if someone like you is completely living off the grid by generating their own power . . . awesome!
In terms of climate emissions? No, it's not awesome. It's rather significantly dirtier than grid power, almost everywhere, because of the embodied energy in the components. The saving grace, as it were, is that if you're designing for purely off grid use, you tend to design something that requires far, far less energy, and then shift energy use to when you've got energy. My office system will almost certainly never be lower carbon emissions than grid power, though I value separate energy systems and the ability to experiment quite a bit, so it's worth it for me. But I also shape my demand to my available energy an awful lot. On a cold, dark winter morning, my office is cold, often lit by kerosene (combined heat and light!), and I've got one screen on, unless I'm doing design work I can do on paper. On a sunny spring afternoon, I've got enough surplus generation that I'm "blowing off" close to 800W of compute power, throwing cycles at Folding@Home/BOINC/etc. But I can't run those loads all day, so I don't. It's an attempt to optimize for using what the panels produce, but I certainly don't use nearly as much as they can produce. Grid tie panels typically can.
The optimum solution, climate-wise, is grid tie panels, and I'll argue that east-west panels (which is what's going up for the house system - don't start me on the local red tape) are a better use of land/panel than simply south facing panels, because they generate closer to when demand is high. A typical grid segment has a morning/evening peak demand, and east-west panels service that far better than south facing (which leads to the "duck curve" currently causing ramp rate concerns in CA). The overall system cost is a bit higher, but if you've got the space to do it with ground mount and string inverters, it doesn't really impact the system cost that much. You have higher panel/mounting costs, but you can pair east/west strings into a single inverter because they'll never be fully illuminated at the same time. And generating power when needed is an awful lot lower energy intensity than storage systems are. It takes more space, but that's not in short supply in rural areas.
Agreed. The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.
Pick an argument, because you seem to keep switching between climate emissions (relevant in this thread), and your personal definition of wastefulness. You like cities. Fine. Cram yourselves in, have a ball.
But if you're just going to shit on everyone who doesn't live in your preferred density, well, you're not going to have an awful lot of impact on climate emissions.
Firewood is certainly cheap. But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change. Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal.
Which is CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment, instead of being deeply buried fossil carbon that's been extracted...
Even if the point production is higher, you're really arguing that extracting more fossil carbon is the better option for... reducing emissions?
We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here. Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none? I disagree. Fewer vehicles is better.
If you need transportation, being able to optimize for the smallest vehicle to do a particular task is better than requiring a vehicle that can sort of do everything, yes. The "Prius and Truck" combo, with most of the miles on the Prius, is a pretty common option out here. Rarer than I'd like, but still growing, is "Volt and a Truck." Properly maintained/sheltered, vehicles last based on miles vs years, so fewer miles on a vehicle means it lasts longer. If you've got two vehicles splitting the load, they're likely to last roughly twice as long - it's not that two cars will lead to twice as many miles driven.
Which, certainly, is better than the standard suburban option of "owning a fairly large vehicle." Not owning a car at all is better, but if it's then replaced by a ton of delivery services, well...
I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).
And then the relevant question is, "What's the emission of all those services that are within close range?" To pick on your complaints about wells and septic, I could go out with a clamp on meter and tell you the exact carbon emissions of my well pump (if I cared - can't say I've actually wondered quite that closely about it). City water and septic isn't handled by magic - there's an awful lot of pumping infrastructure, distribution, and then the rather large and methane intense treatment plants. There may very well be some economies of scale there, but it's not magically carbon free. And the head on my well is less than the head required to push water up a halfway decent apartment building.
but to question some of the often repeated falsehoods and bad assumptions about rural life.
You've done that, but in the context of climate change, you're picking some really weird trees to bark up.
Now if I could just figure out how to scale $1/W solar out here...
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Or like homeowners who really care about the poor and disenfranchised and are vocal in their support for affordable housing...just not this particular project which happens to be in their neighborhood, or that project over there that would require removal of a heritage tree, or that other project that would change the view. Oddly, these folks also care a great deal about making sure we have enough water and infrastructure to support new housing, but dammit if every infrastructure proposal has some kind of fatal flaw! What a shame!
It was interesting watching Seattle while I was out in that miserable corner of the country - almost every proposal seemed to be designed to tick all the "I want you to think I deeply care about the poor and disenfranchised people of color" boxes, while, as actually being deployed, trying to screw them over just as much as possible - and, gosh, those consequences were totally unintended, nobody could have foreseen them! Except everyone who mentioned that concern early and was shouted down because those concerns clearly mean they're a racist bigoted {insert the usual stream of snarl words here}.
You can safely assume that a homeowner cares about their property value first and foremost, and that a city council member cares about emitting the correct noises so people think they care (so they can be re-elected), and... maybe property value, you know, to raise taxes for their pet causes.
The question isn't, "Do you care about homelessness?" The question is, "Do you care about homelessness more than your property values and the ability to not see people poorer than you in your neighborhood?" And the answer, almost always, is "No."
Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?" Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No." It's great to care about climate change, as long as it requires someone else to do the work, someone else to make the changes, and not impact your life at all, but... gosh, they just couldn't make that change for some halfway socially accepted list of reasons. So nothing really changes.
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IMHO, cigarette smoking cessation behavior change efforts are very relevant to this topic, as are the evolution of civil rights. I don't know about smoking, but in the case of civil rights in the US, and earlier, the ending of slavery, the actions of regular citizens who were morally outraged by the system made all the difference.
Government follows, it does not lead.
Behavior change as a science depends, from my limited understanding, on a foundation of research to discover an effective fulcrum where the lever of change can be placed.
Increasingly, it looks like cars are that point.
The auto industry crushed the safety bicycle boom of the 1880s. But we can go back to a better time for transportation. This is why I'm not a huge fan of electric or autonomous cars. Cars will not save us. Their time has passed.
Great assessment of the situation. If I might expound on the slavery analogy: Lincoln wasn't elected because he promised to get rid of slavery, he was elected (and just barely!) because he promised to not allow slavery to extend. This was the plurality of public opinion at the time (a much smaller minority in the Upper North clamored for immediate abolition). And of course, it was his election that provided the fulcrum toward full emancipation within several years.
Similarly, the climate situation requires policies that will win a plurality of voters. It's irrelevant how many flights those voters currently fly, what's relevant is the appropriate leadership that will pass laws amenable to the public and applicable to everyone (aside from Mustachians, most people tie their self-worth to keeping up with the Jones's). In other words, the public will accept only flying once or twice per year as long as all of their neighbors are in the same boat.
However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/)
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Y'know, I agree with you completely here. Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas. We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.
I'm fine with that. Don't complain if there's more gravel roads over time out in rural areas
Or more likely . . . no roads at all.
Let's be honest, few small rural communities ever generate enough cash to complete that sort of expensive, large scale project. :P
Personally, I believe that rural areas need subsidies and hand-outs, otherwise the cost of living there would be prohibitive. If you want to bite the teat you suckle at, I won't get in your way though.
I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.
And the problem is... ?
You're asserting that people owning backup generators is somehow a problem, without offering any data to indicate that it is. Go find out how many hours a year the generators actually run, and how long they last, because running a generator a few dozen hours a year, intermittently, just isn't that big a problem, as far as I'm concerned. If power's out for that time period, and people are running the generator intermittently, they almost certainly have lower emissions for that period of time than if they're just running normally on the grid. Auto switching transfer switches with backup generators that can run the whole house are somewhat rare compared to an open frame generator and manual transfer switch of some sort, at least in my experience.
Well we have two scenarios:
- Full cost of electrical grid that feeds to a city of several million
- Full cost of electrical grid that feeds to a city of several thousand, plus the environmental costs associated with building lines further out from house to house, plus the environmental costs associated with buying/running/maintaining a separate generator.
Yes. I'm asserting that the latter is more environmentally damaging. Why wouldn't it be?
Agreed. The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.
Pick an argument, because you seem to keep switching between climate emissions (relevant in this thread), and your personal definition of wastefulness. You like cities. Fine. Cram yourselves in, have a ball.
But if you're just going to shit on everyone who doesn't live in your preferred density, well, you're not going to have an awful lot of impact on climate emissions.[/quote]
My preferred density is very spread out and rural. I find it a much more pleasant way to live than city life. That doesn't mean it's the for the planet though.
Firewood is certainly cheap. But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change. Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal.
Which is CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment, instead of being deeply buried fossil carbon that's been extracted...
Deeply buried fossil fuels are also CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment. Not sure where you're going with this.
Even if the point production is higher, you're really arguing that extracting more fossil carbon is the better option for... reducing emissions?
No, obviously not. Just pointing out that trading gas for wood burning isn't a green alternative. The best way to reduce emissions of course is to reduce consumption. Which is harder to do when you're living in a (more comfortable) rural setting.
We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here. Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none? I disagree. Fewer vehicles is better.
If you need transportation, being able to optimize for the smallest vehicle to do a particular task is better than requiring a vehicle that can sort of do everything, yes. The "Prius and Truck" combo, with most of the miles on the Prius, is a pretty common option out here. Rarer than I'd like, but still growing, is "Volt and a Truck." Properly maintained/sheltered, vehicles last based on miles vs years, so fewer miles on a vehicle means it lasts longer. If you've got two vehicles splitting the load, they're likely to last roughly twice as long - it's not that two cars will lead to twice as many miles driven.
Which, certainly, is better than the standard suburban option of "owning a fairly large vehicle." Not owning a car at all is better, but if it's then replaced by a ton of delivery services, well...
Can you provide the figures you're using to show that the lifetime costs of building/maintaining two separate vehicles are less than a single vehicle (or none)? I don't really follow your math on how the latter is supposed to lose out to the former.
I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).
And then the relevant question is, "What's the emission of all those services that are within close range?"
Unless we're willing to do some pretty drastic stuff (like enforce birth control or to cull the elderly), the real question is "What's the total emissions per person of higher vs lower density living?"
I have seen little to convince me it comes out in favor of lower.
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/)
Not sure what your point is here? Any flight for any purpose adds to the total. Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.
And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.
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Can I just point out here that healthy rural communities need healthy farms, or they die. Huge agribusiness farms are both bad for the environment and bad for supporting rural communities.
My former small town: a grocery store, an elementary school, a high school, a curling club, a community center that includes a skating rink and a big meeting room, small shops including 2 restaurants and a Home Hardware, 2 gas stations, a body shop, a farm equipment dealer, a volunteer fire department, a post office, 2 banks, 2 legal firms, a medical clinic. A seniors residence, some rental lowrise apartments, some old houses, some newer houses. Town water and sewage. No Macdonalds, no Tim Hortons. About half the population right in town, the rest in the surrounding area. You will notice this provides local jobs.
I can't speak for other areas, but non- farm people outside of town paid Ontario Hydro rural low density rates, and they were high. Everyone I knew was very careful about electricity use. We were definitely carrying a good chunk of the added costs of rural power. And there were farms along all the roads, so even if it had been totally farm, no residential, that infrastructure was needed. We didn't have cable though, because Bell didn't want to string cable, we had satellite TV and internet from towers. And we paid more for it than urban dwellers.
Burning wood is short term or fast carbon cycle. This carbon would mostly have reentered the carbon cycle soon anyway, by forest fires or by decomposition. Burning fossil fuel is burning long term or slow carbon cycle. Normally it would not be reentering the carbon cycle, except slowly, mostly through weathering of limestone (calcium carbonate).
For a "fun" read, read Peter Brannen's The Ends of the World.
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Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?" Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No."
This is why I look for the overlap. That is, things which are a good idea to do out of concern about climate change, and are a good idea for other reasons, too. For example, my general guideline for travel is: under 5km walk, 5-15km cycle, 15+km public transport. Each has benefits financial, social, psychological, and physical.
Walking is free except for a new pair of shoes each year. It lets you bump into neighbours and get to know them. It clears your mind to be in the open air. It builds your cardiovascular fitness and keeps your weight sensible.
Cycling can be relatively cheap (you can buy a $5k carbon fibre bike, or a $500 commuting bike), and offers slightly less social benefit than walking (you don't talk as much cycling), it can be a bit stressful in a high-traffic area, but has greater fitness and health benefits.
Public transport has a cost, but it's generally cheaper than cars (taking the whole cost into account, not just the fuel), if you go at the same time each day you'll see the same people and get to know them, you can relax and read a book etc rather than having to concentrate on traffic, and generally you'll have to walk a bit to get to the stop or station, often stand rather than sit, and you miss out on the stress of traffic and danger of accidents.
It just so happens that all three also reduce your contribution to carbon emissions. But even if they didn't they'd be good things to do for those other reasons.
From years working in gyms, I find people respond better to receiving benefits than missing out on detriments. "Be stronger so you can play with your grandchildren" works better than "be stronger so you don't end up on a walking frame with someone else having to wipe your bum for you." Either way what they need to do is the same - lift weights - but the framing changes how they feel about it.
And that's why: yes, it does matter if you call people "muggles." Environmentalists already suffer from their own hypocrisy, and from a perception that they're acting as superiors lecturing the ignorant masses from on high. Much of the discussion initiated by those advocating change has focused on the negative, and this has been amplified by hysterical media. It hasn't worked very well, emissions are higher than ever, we need a different approach.
If the last 100 times we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere it led to a rise in average temperature, we can expect the next time we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere for that to raise the temperature, too. And if the last 100 times an environmentalist took a flight to a climate change conference to wag a moralising finger at everyone else it failed to persuade anyone to change, we can expect the next time it'll do the same. [/size]Environmentalists cry, "Why won't you accept the proven science of climate change?" [/size]We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"
[/size]
[/size]We must live the change we want to see, and present its benefits.
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Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?" Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No."
From years working in gyms, I find people respond better to receiving benefits than missing out on detriments. "Be stronger so you can play with your grandchildren" works better than "be stronger so you don't end up on a walking frame with someone else having to wipe your bum for you." Either way what they need to do is the same - lift weights - but the framing changes how they feel about it.
And that's why: yes, it does matter if you call people "muggles." Environmentalists already suffer from their own hypocrisy, and from a perception that they're acting as superiors lecturing the ignorant masses from on high. Much of the discussion initiated by those advocating change has focused on the negative, and this has been amplified by hysterical media. It hasn't worked very well, emissions are higher than ever, we need a different approach.
If the last 100 times we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere it led to a rise in average temperature, we can expect the next time we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere for that to raise the temperature, too. And if the last 100 times an environmentalist took a flight to a climate change conference to wag a moralising finger at everyone else it failed to persuade anyone to change, we can expect the next time it'll do the same. [/size]Environmentalists cry, "Why won't you accept the proven science of climate change?" [/size]We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"
[/size]
[/size]We must live the change we want to see, and present its benefits.
I have been reading a lot about behaviorial change and environmental psychology. One of the interesting conclusion is like you point it out that environmentalist want people to change everything from one day to another and that is not how people are normally changing their behaviour. Another interesting point is that climate change has turned to an environmental issue instead of an societal problem. So the environmentalist approach is actually stoppning people from taking action. If we instead talked about what kind of society we want to live in then used a save the world approach it would be a lot more succesful. What you are saying with the save the world approach is that there are some bad guys that want to destroy the world and that they are that guy.
I would probably be categorized by most into the environmentalist field but at my workplace I am probably seen as a bad gal because I choose to fly several times a year. I am not prepared to spend 50 hours instead of 20 hours by taking the train to my parents. Interesting enough it has worked as pretty off putting for me. I am not joining the environmental organisations that I have been considering. Some of my colleagues are active in environmental organisations or polictical parties.
Here it has become politically correct to take the train everywhere and especially for your trip to southern europe. But I read that the push to have home vacations has been good for the sales of expensive boats that have a lot bigger environmental impact then the flight to southern europe in the summer. What the psychology litterature says is that guilt is not a way to push for societal change but group pressure is one way to achieve change.
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We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"
Brilliant! I wholeheartedly agree that guilt tends to not work. Fear works somewhat. But joy works a lot!
Also humans copy each other. So don't underestimate the effect your living well while walking, biking, sailing, taking the train may have on others.
In my circle I'm known as that crazy one who bikes a lot (I know it's still not enough). Most won't do what I do. But they sure ask me a lot of questions! And they sure do complain about all the costs of driving. And they wonder how I managed to raise kids who love to walk, bike and hike and can fearlessly navigate anywhere urban or wild.
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Was thinking about this on my morning run. One thing I'm trying to do is force multiply. Last year I joined our local bike coalition and went to one meeting. I want to do more with them. They have achieved so much in our area.
One ironic thing is where I live poor people bike more than rich, at least for commute/basic getting around. And poor kids are really into bikes. Rich people here live in hilly areas. One thing that has been mentioned is that electric bikes will help the rich people ride more since it will take the sting out of the hills.
No matter what, there's evidence we're entering another bicycle boom!
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Was thinking about this on my morning run. One thing I'm trying to do is force multiply. Last year I joined our local bike coalition and went to one meeting. I want to do more with them. They have achieved so much in our area.
One ironic thing is where I live poor people bike more than rich, at least for commute/basic getting around. And poor kids are really into bikes. Rich people here live in hilly areas. One thing that has been mentioned is that electric bikes will help the rich people ride more since it will take the sting out of the hills.
No matter what, there's evidence we're entering another bicycle boom!
I am looking into joining an outdoorsorganisation as I would like to hike more and contribute somehow.
Here it is rather the middle class that bikes with expensive bikes. Ebikes are really popular in my current city as it is hilly. When companies are looking for offices they are asking about bike storages and showers.
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/)
Not sure what your point is here? Any flight for any purpose adds to the total. Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.
And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.
You referenced the no flights thread. I'm saying the worst way to win the case with "muggles" is to suggest not flying at all because pollution is bad. Let's say this pressure results in a 5% reduction of people willing to fly (I'm being optimistic here); I'd be willing to bet that 90% of these people won't be of the true believer mentality, and they will quickly get jealous of everybody else who travels, because flights are still cheap and the average person has no desire to behave in the equivalent manner of a self-flagellating cultist.*
Rather, we need to simply push for a reduction of flights through appropriate taxation. Everybody would still be allowed to fly, but they may have to pay two or three or four times as much as they do now to do so. This will have a much better effect across the board than the insistence that anyone who flies is morally culpable for the destruction of the planet.
*May I use depleted fisheries as an analogy? Do you think it works to tell fishermen that catching fish in a depleted fishery is a moral hazard, therefore they need to stop fishing there, period? This is absurd, when they surely understand that by quitting fishing, it will do nothing for the problem at hand while hurting him or her economically. In the real world, the solution that works is for the government to step in and place a limit on the catch, and in turn the fishermen generally accept the level playing field and make a decision as to whether or not it is still economically viable to continue to fish that fishery.
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/)
Not sure what your point is here? Any flight for any purpose adds to the total. Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.
And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.
You referenced the no flights thread. I'm saying the worst way to win the case with "muggles" is to suggest not flying at all because pollution is bad. Let's say this pressure results in a 5% reduction of people willing to fly (I'm being optimistic here); I'd be willing to bet that 90% of these people won't be of the true believer mentality, and they will quickly get jealous of everybody else who travels, because flights are still cheap and the average person has no desire to behave in the equivalent manner of a self-flagellating cultist.*
Rather, we need to simply push for a reduction of flights through appropriate taxation. Everybody would still be allowed to fly, but they may have to pay two or three or four times as much as they do now to do so. This will have a much better effect across the board than the insistence that anyone who flies is morally culpable for the destruction of the planet.
*May I use depleted fisheries as an analogy? Do you think it works to tell fishermen that catching fish in a depleted fishery is a moral hazard, therefore they need to stop fishing there, period? This is absurd, when they surely understand that by quitting fishing, it will do nothing for the problem at hand while hurting him or her economically. In the real world, the solution that works is for the government to step in and place a limit on the catch, and in turn the fishermen generally accept the level playing field and make a decision as to whether or not it is still economically viable to continue to fish that fishery.
Please see:
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/sweden-flight-shame-movement-arlanda-airport-gotherburg-climate-change-a9277936.html
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However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.
This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/)
Not sure what your point is here? Any flight for any purpose adds to the total. Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.
And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.
You referenced the no flights thread. I'm saying the worst way to win the case with "muggles" is to suggest not flying at all because pollution is bad. Let's say this pressure results in a 5% reduction of people willing to fly (I'm being optimistic here); I'd be willing to bet that 90% of these people won't be of the true believer mentality, and they will quickly get jealous of everybody else who travels, because flights are still cheap and the average person has no desire to behave in the equivalent manner of a self-flagellating cultist.*
Rather, we need to simply push for a reduction of flights through appropriate taxation. Everybody would still be allowed to fly, but they may have to pay two or three or four times as much as they do now to do so. This will have a much better effect across the board than the insistence that anyone who flies is morally culpable for the destruction of the planet.
*May I use depleted fisheries as an analogy? Do you think it works to tell fishermen that catching fish in a depleted fishery is a moral hazard, therefore they need to stop fishing there, period? This is absurd, when they surely understand that by quitting fishing, it will do nothing for the problem at hand while hurting him or her economically. In the real world, the solution that works is for the government to step in and place a limit on the catch, and in turn the fishermen generally accept the level playing field and make a decision as to whether or not it is still economically viable to continue to fish that fishery.
While I agree that taxes would be more effective, I don't agree with the analogy.
In the fishing example you're asking people to completely change their profession and lifestyle which they likely have significant investment in with boats, equipment, relationships, and the location they've chosen to live. In the case of flying it's a much smaller sacrifice.
Another difference is that if someone chooses to make a sacrifice and not fish, it's likely that the fish they left behind will be caught by someone else as long as there is a demand for fish. When someone chooses not to fly, that doesn't make others more likely to fly. Choosing not to fish would be more like a pilot choosing not to fly or an airline shutting down. Choosing not to eat the fish would be more analogous to choosing not to fly.
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It's interesting and a little surprising to me that some people seem to view, "muggles," as a derogatory term. I didn't mean it to be taken that way, at all. I used muggles in the title of this thread, not to disparage anyone, but just to describe "regular" non-Mustachians, i.e., non magical people.
When I tell muggles that my wife and I moved to Hawaii, back in the 90s, took very part-time, close to minimum wage jobs for the first 6 months, and that we still managed to save >50% of our income - in Hawaii!!! - they seem to have a hard time believing it. When I tell muggles that we have a completely paid for, almost brand new car sitting parked on the street, right in front of our paid off house but, yet, my wife regularly walks ~5 miles round trip to a small shop where she likes to buy certain specialty groceries, they seem to have a really hard time understanding why anyone would possibly do that. When I tell muggles that we haven't owned a TV since the 80s, their jaws literally drop wide open, and they just stare, incredulously, as they ask, "Why would you possibly not have a TV?" Recently, two acquaintances offered to give us their old TVs for free. They see us walking all over the neighborhood, so I guess they think we're poor and can't afford a television. I have a friend who works as a patent attorney in Beijing, making well into a six-figure income, who chooses to walk 10 kms, round trip, every day, from his apartment to his office and back, even though he has a perfectly good, almost new car sitting parked in the garage of the building where he lives. Muggles, especially in the US, can't imagine why anyone would possibly choose to do something like that, unless they were dirt poor and couldn't afford to drive by themselves in a car back and forth to work everyday.
Climate change would be easy to solve if everyone were Magical Mustachians. We could all just agree to walk/cycle/public transit to and from work everyday, quit flying around the world on vacations, do away with whole house heating/AC, quit buying a bunch of useless throw away crap that we don't need anyway, cut the world population by about 3/4, all move into cities, surrounded by farms within ~100kms radius, turn the rest of our countries into big national parks where people could enjoy cross country skiing, backpacking, canoeing, etc., and BOOM, problem solved. Unfortunately, if everyone lived the way we do, the stock market would be only a fraction of what it is now. Travel hacking? The only reason American Mustachians can easily get thousands of dollars a year in free travel using CC points is because the majority of our fellow Americans carry balances on their accounts and pay huge amounts of interest to the CC companies. If it weren't for muggles and their high consumption lifestyles, I'm pretty sure FIRE would be a lot more difficult, if not impossible...
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It's interesting and a little surprising to me that some people seem to view, "muggles," as a derogatory term. I didn't mean it to be taken that way, at all. I used muggles in the title of this thread, not to disparage anyone, but just to describe "regular" non-Mustachians, i.e., non magical people.
When I tell muggles that my wife and I moved to Hawaii, back in the 90s, took very part-time, close to minimum wage jobs for the first 6 months, and that we still managed to save >50% of our income - in Hawaii!!! - they seem to have a hard time believing it. When I tell muggles that we have a completely paid for, almost brand new car sitting parked on the street, right in front of our paid off house but, yet, my wife regularly walks ~5 miles round trip to a small shop where she likes to buy certain specialty groceries, they seem to have a really hard time understanding why anyone would possibly do that. When I tell muggles that we haven't owned a TV since the 80s, their jaws literally drop wide open, and they just stare, incredulously, as they ask, "Why would you possibly not have a TV?" Recently, two acquaintances offered to give us their old TVs for free. They see us walking all over the neighborhood, so I guess they think we're poor and can't afford a television. I have a friend who works as a patent attorney in Beijing, making well into a six-figure income, who chooses to walk 10 kms, round trip, every day, from his apartment to his office and back, even though he has a perfectly good, almost new car sitting parked in the garage of the building where he lives. Muggles, especially in the US, can't imagine why anyone would possibly choose to do something like that, unless they were dirt poor and couldn't afford to drive by themselves in a car back and forth to work everyday.
Climate change would be easy to solve if everyone were Magical Mustachians. We could all just agree to walk/cycle/public transit to and from work everyday, quit flying around the world on vacations, do away with whole house heating/AC, quit buying a bunch of useless throw away crap that we don't need anyway, cut the world population by about 3/4, all move into cities, surrounded by farms within ~100kms radius, turn the rest of our countries into big national parks where people could enjoy cross country skiing, backpacking, canoeing, etc., and BOOM, problem solved. Unfortunately, if everyone lived the way we do, the stock market would be only a fraction of what it is now. Travel hacking? The only reason American Mustachians can easily get thousands of dollars a year in free travel using CC points is because the majority of our fellow Americans carry balances on their accounts and pay huge amounts of interest to the CC companies. If it weren't for muggles and their high consumption lifestyles, I'm pretty sure FIRE would be a lot more difficult, if not impossible...
I'm not offended by the term "muggle" in the least bit. Though I agree with others here that the premise of this thread is unhelpful because it veers into tribalism and scapegoating.
All the ideas you list for addressing CC are great. So let's do them where we already have agreement that CC is real and a problem. Instead of worrying about the "muggles" in red states, places like CA, WA, OR, CO and so on can in fact start doing these things now. Folks driving SUVs from McMansions to strip malls in OK shouldn't stop us from doing what is right and leading by example. But from what I observe in CA, we've totally dropped the ball as we continue to sprawl into farmland and the WUI, people continue to fly all over the globe for leisure, and wealthy (mostly older and white) folks continue to fight with everything they have to preserve a suburban lifestyle.
Why waste time and effort on someone who doesn't think CO2 is a problem when a very large number of folks already agree on the science yet live lives that don't align with their beliefs? IMHO, it's more effective to spend time and effort on apostate wizards than muggles.
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Cars for instance are only maybe 15% of our problem. And that is at a global scale. If you do want to phase out cars I think the infrastructure to avoid them simply has to be built up to make driving less desirable. As opposed to adding needless penalties on existing behavior.
Cities need to push hard and fast to improve green public transit. Existing cars need to move towards greener models. Electric, hybrid, fuel cell or any combination. The grid providing power for green cars needs to become more green. But we should have to sacrifice cultural staples like road trips and the easy ability to commute over long distances.
Encourage people to bike more is not a realistic solution in many cities where work and living areas are simply not in proximity to each other to create a desirable bike commute. Would it be healthy for me to bike 15 miles to and from work every day? Sure, but I don't want to have to do it and the road blocks to make that safer than driving are vast in my city. For a green future city planning probably needs an overhaul but again that involves a lot of challenging policy.
FWIW transportation is 29% of US (https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/) green house gas emissions. How better to address this than to tax carbon and use the revenue to build green infrastructure?
As far as people who live too far out to be economically feasible to truly combat anthropic climate change, I don't care about them. My family lost our family farm because it was no longer economically feasible. I learned about man made climate change in 7th grade, and I'm 36 years old. Suck it up buttercup. A bunch of east coast real estate will soon be worth nothing, they should have seen that coming.
Perhaps it would be better to use that revenue as a flat dividend back to the people, then let the local markets figure out the best way to deal with climate change. It's impossible to proscribe solutions because it will be different in different locations. Coal would quickly be phased out. Efficiency and green energy would be incentivized. Local governments and individuals would automatically be drawn to the optimal solution to a problem with the price of carbon factored in.
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I'm not offended by the term "muggle" in the least bit. Though I agree with others here that the premise of this thread is unhelpful because it veers into tribalism and scapegoating.
All the ideas you list for addressing CC are great. So let's do them where we already have agreement that CC is real and a problem. Instead of worrying about the "muggles" in red states, places like CA, WA, OR, CO and so on can in fact start doing these things now. Folks driving SUVs from McMansions to strip malls in OK shouldn't stop us from doing what is right and leading by example. But from what I observe in CA, we've totally dropped the ball as we continue to sprawl into farmland and the WUI, people continue to fly all over the globe for leisure, and wealthy (mostly older and white) folks continue to fight with everything they have to preserve a suburban lifestyle.
Why waste time and effort on someone who doesn't think CO2 is a problem when a very large number of folks already agree on the science yet live lives that don't align with their beliefs? IMHO, it's more effective to spend time and effort on apostate wizards than muggles.
Did you read the OP? The OP ended with,
I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
So instead of the dick eco measuring contest and the scapegoating, what can be done to encourage the 99% of Americans -- including urban Californians and rural Montanans -- to actually make changes?
Based on:
1) Follow-the-leader is great but it's going to be too slow. It also quickly degrades into "You're not being eco enough!" and "You're being a hypocrite for even using electricity to [get on the internet|dry your clothes|drive your EV]!"
2) Shaming is working in Sweden but I'm not convinced it'll work in the US or Canada or Australia.
I'm gonna go with Boofinator here. We need a carbon tax. It can be progressive or a rebate but it needs to have enough teeth to make an impact. Slap it on air travel and non-renewable electricity and petrol and even consumer goods. Make people think of the impact their consumer choices have on the environment.
How to avoid the French riots? Besides the fact that they love their riots, that's where the rebate comes in. Hell, make the rebate a partial auto-contribution to a retirement fund.
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I'm not offended by the term "muggle" in the least bit. Though I agree with others here that the premise of this thread is unhelpful because it veers into tribalism and scapegoating.
All the ideas you list for addressing CC are great. So let's do them where we already have agreement that CC is real and a problem. Instead of worrying about the "muggles" in red states, places like CA, WA, OR, CO and so on can in fact start doing these things now. Folks driving SUVs from McMansions to strip malls in OK shouldn't stop us from doing what is right and leading by example. But from what I observe in CA, we've totally dropped the ball as we continue to sprawl into farmland and the WUI, people continue to fly all over the globe for leisure, and wealthy (mostly older and white) folks continue to fight with everything they have to preserve a suburban lifestyle.
Why waste time and effort on someone who doesn't think CO2 is a problem when a very large number of folks already agree on the science yet live lives that don't align with their beliefs? IMHO, it's more effective to spend time and effort on apostate wizards than muggles.
Did you read the OP? The OP ended with,
I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
So instead of the dick eco measuring contest and the scapegoating, what can be done to encourage the 99% of Americans -- including urban Californians and rural Montanans -- to actually make changes?
Based on:
1) Follow-the-leader is great but it's going to be too slow. It also quickly degrades into "You're not being eco enough!" and "You're being a hypocrite for even using electricity to [get on the internet|dry your clothes|drive your EV]!"
2) Shaming is working in Sweden but I'm not convinced it'll work in the US or Canada or Australia.
I'm gonna go with Boofinator here. We need a carbon tax. It can be progressive or a rebate but it needs to have enough teeth to make an impact. Slap it on air travel and non-renewable electricity and petrol and even consumer goods. Make people think of the impact their consumer choices have on the environment.
How to avoid the French riots? Besides the fact that they love their riots, that's where the rebate comes in. Hell, make the rebate a partial auto-contribution to a retirement fund.
Fair enough.
But CA (which I'll pick on since I reside there) has the ability to pass a carbon tax. In fact, it kinda sorta already does with its cap and trade program, but has essentially gutted it by selling/grandfathering too many emission allowances. CA prides itself as having the world's 5th largest economy, so putting real teeth behind cap and trade would be significant. So why don't we do it already? The Dems have a legislative supermajority and the Governor's mansion.
I'm calling their bluff. They don't have the guts or the will to do it. Like single payer (which CA could also do if we really wanted it) state leaders are holding onto CC as a wedge issue for political purposes while giving cover to virtual signaling hypocrites rather than taking decisive action.
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But CA (which I'll pick on since I reside there) has the ability to pass a carbon tax. In fact, it kinda sorta already does with its cap and trade program, but has essentially gutted it by selling/grandfathering too many emission allowances. CA prides itself as having the world's 5th largest economy, so putting real teeth behind cap and trade would be significant. So why don't we do it already? The Dems have a legislative supermajority and the Governor's mansion.
I'm calling their bluff. They don't have the guts or the will to do it. Like single payer (which CA could also do if we really wanted it) state leaders are holding onto CC as a wedge issue for political purposes while giving cover to virtual signaling hypocrites rather than taking decisive action.
That's exactly the point. (And you're scapegoating those vile Democrats even after you called out scapegoating.)
No one wants to make changes. No one wants to "lower" their quality of life. How does one convince anyone, even purportedly environmentalists, to actually make changes?
Politicians are too timid, the well off have FOMO, the working-class and lower are trying to scrape by -- who's the hero? (Yeah, yeah, I'm the hero but see 1) above. We can measure our penises kwh but it's too little too slow and it's debatable whether it's influencing anyone.)
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Perhaps it would be better to use that revenue as a flat dividend back to the people, then let the local markets figure out the best way to deal with climate change.
Local markets aren't going to build rail lines, bike lanes, remove on street parking, or install more bus-only lanes. Local government might, but not local markets.
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That's exactly the point. (And you're scapegoating those vile Democrats even after you called out scapegoating.)
No one wants to make changes. No one wants to "lower" their quality of life. How does one convince anyone, even purportedly environmentalists, to actually make changes?
Politicians are too timid, the well off have FOMO, the working-class and lower are trying to scrape by -- who's the hero? (Yeah, yeah, I'm the hero but see 1) above. We can measure our penises kwh but it's too little too slow and it's debatable whether it's influencing anyone.)
I live in CA, which is deep blue and has been for a long time. And the Democratic party purports to believe in climate change science. Is it scapegoating to hold voters and elected officials to stated beliefs and goals, and then point out where we are incongruent? Perhaps. But IMO it's fair game. Certainly more so than blaming other places and/or other political parties that effectively have zero political power here.
I don't particularly want apartment blocks towering over my house and quite enjoy having a smallish yard. But the results of our broken land use policies are evident all around me so I loudly advocate for dense housing in my city, in my neighborhood, and in my backyard. Things like showing up at city council meetings and voicing unpopular opinions. It's insane to me that saying we should build housing for people is controversial, but here we are. This makes me a pariah with neighbors who assume I must secretly be a developer. Now I don't think makes me some kind of saint, there are plenty areas where we're still making progress to reduce our carbon footprint. But dense walkable cities with good public transit by far have the highest positive impact on reducing climate change, and they also happen to be healthy for people as well. [ https://www.sierraclub.org/redwood/blog/2019/09/sierra-club-updates-urban-infill-policy ]
YIMBYs are a relatively small band of misfits, but we are seeing some modest success. A handful of pro-housing/pro-density bills were signed into law last year, however, the big one SB 50 failed. Voters can and should be vocal in holding politicians to account for their actions.
A carbon tax is fine and a necessary part of the solution, but a tax alone won't work. What's the point of making gasoline $6/gallon (or whatever) if this disproportionately falls on poor people that have been priced out of cities and are essentially forced to commute from the exurbs? Subsidizing poor people so they can continue to commute from far flung places where they can afford a roof overhead is silly and doesn't reduce CO2 emissions.
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I live in CA, which is deep blue and has been for a long time. And the Democratic party purports to believe in climate change science. Is it scapegoating to hold voters and elected officials to stated beliefs and goals, and then point out where we are incongruent? Perhaps. But IMO it's fair game. Certainly more so than blaming other places and/or other political parties that effectively have zero political power here.
California deserves blame and you can blame whomever you want. Just don't be surprised when someone else scapegoats Wyomites for driving more than Californians. Holy shit, they drive a lot and I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that it's not EV driving powered from solar panels.
A carbon tax is fine and a necessary part of the solution, but a tax alone won't work. What's the point of making gasoline $6/gallon (or whatever) if this disproportionately falls on poor people that have been priced out of cities and are essentially forced to commute from the exurbs? Subsidizing poor people so they can continue to commute from far flung places where they can afford a roof overhead is silly and doesn't reduce CO2 emissions.
Yeah, more diverse, dense, and affordable housing is definitely part of the solution. NIMBYism is strong, as you noted, even in blue cities.
Christopher Alexander long ago suggested "fingers" of farmland reaching into dense cities. You get the density needed for walkable neighborhoods but also the nature that city residents sometimes desire as well as the farmland that cities need to function. Meanwhile, farmers/ranchers are closer to cities too and don't have to drive 45 minutes to get to a hardware store (and can use city sewers). This might require some creative tax schemes and local push/pull but it can be done.
Compare that to our current system of a blob spreading outwards, consuming everything in its path.
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"The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately." - A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
I do believe climate change is a prisoner's dilemma, but the prisoners who are best positioned to make changes are not choosing to do so. If the wealthy and political do not embrace efforts to improve the climate, the average citizen certainly will not. Most average or below average people or families are simply trying to save their own world, not THE world.
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A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
If you think that individuals putting solar panels on their houses is the answer to climate change then I want you to sit down and start over at the beginning.
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I live in CA, which is deep blue and has been for a long time. And the Democratic party purports to believe in climate change science. Is it scapegoating to hold voters and elected officials to stated beliefs and goals, and then point out where we are incongruent? Perhaps. But IMO it's fair game. Certainly more so than blaming other places and/or other political parties that effectively have zero political power here.
California deserves blame and you can blame whomever you want. Just don't be surprised when someone else scapegoats Wyomites for driving more than Californians. Holy shit, they drive a lot and I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that it's not EV driving powered from solar panels.
I have no doubt that Wyomites drive a lot, and probably in very inefficient vehicles as well. But population of Wyoming is around 600,000 compared to California's ~40,000,000. That's a 67x difference. So I view this like a premature optimization problem...don't bother optimizing the for-loop that's rarely executed, instead focus on fixing the n^2 algorithm that's executed in a tight loop.
That, and Californians drive a lot more than people realize. We have a growing number of super commuters driving huge distances every day which, if you think about it, is a rather sad state of affairs.
A carbon tax is fine and a necessary part of the solution, but a tax alone won't work. What's the point of making gasoline $6/gallon (or whatever) if this disproportionately falls on poor people that have been priced out of cities and are essentially forced to commute from the exurbs? Subsidizing poor people so they can continue to commute from far flung places where they can afford a roof overhead is silly and doesn't reduce CO2 emissions.
Yeah, more diverse, dense, and affordable housing is definitely part of the solution. NIMBYism is strong, as you noted, even in blue cities.
Christopher Alexander long ago suggested "fingers" of farmland reaching into dense cities. You get the density needed for walkable neighborhoods but also the nature that city residents sometimes desire as well as the farmland that cities need to function. Meanwhile, farmers/ranchers are closer to cities too and don't have to drive 45 minutes to get to a hardware store (and can use city sewers). This might require some creative tax schemes and local push/pull but it can be done.
Compare that to our current system of a blob spreading outwards, consuming everything in its path.
Interesting. Yes, blob is a good descriptor.
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A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
If you think that individuals putting solar panels on their houses is the answer to climate change then I want you to sit down and start over at the beginning.
1. might as well not bother then, right? We're back to a prisoner's dilemma.
2. Bernie likes solar panels, but he doesn't own any. Pretty sure he doesn't own any geothermal or wind generators either, the three of which are selected explicitly in his Green New Deal:
https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/green-new-deal/
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might as well not bother then, right? We're back to a prisoner's dilemma.
My home is 100% powered by renewable energy. But wait, I don't have any personal solar panels?!!? Why would I pay for my own personal solar panels when I can pay my utility to use theirs (along with wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydropower)? Surely there is an economy of scale that is possible with community solar that is not with personal solar.
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The big one for politicians wouldn't be their domestic electricity use, it'd be all their flights. If their house used double the 14kWh/day average and got all their electricity from coal, that's about 10 tonnes of CO2-equivalent annually.
That's 40 hours of flights, not counting that these guys don't fly economy and take a huge crew of flunkies with them. Either way, the presidential candidates probably each did 40 hours of flights last fortnight.
Now, since obviously they have to travel a lot to meet people in person and maximise their chances of winning, and doing less travel reduces their chances of winning - if a candidate talking about climate change takes the train on their campaign, then we'll know they're serious. They're willing to bet their candidacy on it! :)
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In Europe politicians are starting to get called out for ridiculous flights: Boris Johnson takes private jet to fly 25 minutes from Doncaster to Darlington, despite train taking just 53 minutes (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-private-jet-doncaster-darlington-train-time-air-pollution-a9239261.html).
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Surely there is an economy of scale that is possible with community solar that is not with personal solar.
I hope so, and I hope it gets adopted. I don't have such an option.
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Surely there is an economy of scale that is possible with community solar that is not with personal solar.
I hope so, and I hope it gets adopted. I don't have such an option.
This is something that you could raise a stink about at the local level. For reference, this is what my utility offers: PGE Green Source (https://www.portlandgeneral.com/residential/power-choices/renewable-power/green-source).
EDITed to add - and I think they have offered it for over 10 years. I believe that I originally signed it up for it 15 years ago.
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CA (which I'll pick on since I reside there) has the ability to pass a carbon tax.
So did Washington. The "Ever-Green" state. Newsflash, it didn't pass. https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.1/energy-and-industry-what-killed-washingtons-carbon-tax (https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.1/energy-and-industry-what-killed-washingtons-carbon-tax)
Two things that I think would have been helpful for the initiative: a national platform (since Washingtonians don't want to sacrifice when everybody else isn't), and a republican (not capital R) process rather than a democratic (not capital D) one (since I think it might be easier to get a majority of 538 to pass a bill than a majority of 300 million to pass a referendum). Though to be brutally honest with myself, Washington state's failure to pass the initiative by a large margin shows the challenges that reality faces.
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"The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately." - A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
I do believe climate change is a prisoner's dilemma, but the prisoners who are best positioned to make changes are not choosing to do so. If the wealthy and political do not embrace efforts to improve the climate, the average citizen certainly will not. Most average or below average people or families are simply trying to save their own world, not THE world.
Agree with the last part of this(i.e. people who aren't wealthy are more concerned about getting buy than preventing global warming), but I still think the path has to lie with policy - based on your posts, I know that you believe that the overwhelming majority of people will respond to incentives. The trick is you need a politician with the guts to incentivize greener policies in a way that works for families on an average working class income, and who is willing to fight through the astroturfed blowback that will inevitably come from Big Oil Money.
The "find some random thing about a liberal to turn into the next 'look at the liberal hypocrite' meme is pretty much a right-wing internet trope at this point. It's a great way to avoid having a serious debate about policy.
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None of the muggles I'm referring to are knuckle dragging, climate-change denying, Trump voters from red states. They're all highly educated, rich, privileged, woke folks, who claim to "believe" in anthropogenic climate change. Yet, when I suggest we make fossil fuels more expensive to induce people to use less, every. single. one. of. them. starts whining, "But, but, but, what about the poor people who *have* to drive 50 miles each way to work?" My guess is they aren't really as concerned about the *poor* people as they are about themselves. They don't want to give up their fun little ski weekends in Switzerland. They don't want to have to get rid of that new F-350 and the awesome RV they bought last year. They don't want to have to move out of their McMansion and into a smaller house or apartment, closer to work. TBH, I have zero interest in trying to persuade people who don't want to change to do anything. Muggles are expert at coming up with excuses for why they can't make any changes in their lives. I just feel like it's a waste of time arguing with them.
-"There's no way we could ever move into a smaller place, closer to town. We've got 5 dogs (or horses or llamas or guinea pigs or whatever), and they need a big yard to run around in, blah, blah, blah."
-"My wife is disabled from a car crash she got into two years ago, so we *have* to drive everywhere in a car. There's no way we could ride bikes or walk or take public transit."
I like the idea suggested in this thread of a carbon tax with a dividend that gets redistributed to everyone. That way, those of us who use much less fossil fuels than average would get a bonus. People who wanted to continue living in their 4000sqft McMansions in the suburbs and commuting alone in their Hummers would be free to do so. They'd just have to be able to pay for it. No arguments, no persuasion would be necessary.
Some people have suggested in this thread, and I've also heard it a lot IRL, that we should build bike lanes, increase buses, etc., *before* taxing the shit out of fossil fuels. I disagree. Humans are incredibly resourceful creatures. If the price of gasoline doubled, because of a carbon tax, people would come up with solutions on their own. Some people might start walking, riding bicycles or taking public transport. Others would come up with different solutions, like carpooling. Right now, the vast majority of commuters are riding alone in their vehicles. If the price of gasoline doubled, because of a carbon tax, it might spur some people to actually talk with their co-workers and to propose that they commute together. Someone who really likes driving his car to work everyday would only need to find one co-worker who lived nearby to split gasoline costs in order to halve his fuel bill and also his carbon footprint. Problem solved. No bike lanes and no extra buses necessary.
If enough people in a given community started cycling to work, they would have an incentive to band together to lobby their local government to get separate bike lanes built. If buses started getting to standing room only capacity, the bus company would recognize that and, hopefully, come to the logical conclusion that it needed to add more buses to meet demand. Why not put the pressure on fossil fuel users first and then see what directions people start to move in. If lots of people started abandoning their McMansions in the suburbs in favor of apartments in the city, then local governments could maybe start giving developers incentives to encourage them to build denser developments to accommodate the increased demand for housing. It just seems to me that building a bunch of bike lanes or adding more public transit or building denser housing in the city, first, before taxing fossil fuels, would be putting the cart before the horse.
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Some people have suggested in this thread, and I've also heard it a lot IRL, that we should build bike lanes, increase buses, etc., *before* taxing the shit out of fossil fuels. I disagree.
Especially since there will never been public support to build all those bike lanes and buy all those buses until after driving is expensive. Otherwise you won't have the public support, especially if you need to remove a car lane or car parking.
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I'm not against a carbon tax or dividend, I think it's a good idea. I get tired of debating the order in which things ought to happen. That may just be my personality. At some point I just want to DO something and since I can't pass a tax that won't be what I do.
I will say that talking about taxes, which many environmentalists around the world do, seems a lack of imagination to me. It's so dull. Death and taxes dull. And it's too abstract. And so often, we see taxes pilfered and frittered away to no good use. You can say that's bad of me but let's remember the idea of behavior change, and the best way to achieve it. I say leave the taxes to the bureaucrats. Or make the corporations pay them. (Maybe that's what the cap and trade system is, dunno.)
Dividend is better, maybe. Yang has gotten a lot of mileage with his Freedom Dividend.
I'm also not overly impressed by the Green New Deal, which I have read (albeit a while ago). I think there was a lot of extra political stuff put in there that just serves to fuel "religious" wars, while the really practical ideas and incentives to invent green tech may have been left out.
The name was great (at least, for those who think the first New Deal sounded like a good idea).
The idea about flight shaming was very interesting, though I'm not convinced based on one article and one year's data that that was what was happening. But it is reassuring that Greta is having such an effect, especially in her home country. Shame is probably part of the mix, just like taxes.
Martin Luther King did not lead with shame and guilt. He painted a picture in our minds of a better world.
Right now there's a vast fossil fuel coalition that is working hard to paint a picture of a world where we can burn all this gas. And global warming is advantageous to certain countries in terms of oil exploration and passage.
Interestingly, the auto industry itself is not convinced, and has already planned end of life for ICE cars.
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OTOH I'm down with some shaming of celebrities and politicians for eco-hypocrisy, if it changes their actions.
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I'm also not overly impressed by the Green New Deal, which I have read (albeit a while ago). I think there was a lot of extra political stuff put in there that just serves to fuel "religious" wars, while the really practical ideas and incentives to invent green tech may have been left out.
That's pretty much why the carbon tax is so popular with economists. It's much harder to politicize a carbon tax than any other option. That said, in the sense that we need a national (or international) mobilization, I'm not opposed to a green new deal, per se.
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At the risk of coming across as a total housing zealot crazy person: High density housing addresses a lot of the issues you mentioned.
Remove parking requirements and it becomes difficult to keep vehicles in the city. Charging for for street parking is even better (and can be done under the guise of mitigating traffic).
Housing with off-street parking/garages becomes much more expensive relative to car-free dwellings.
The true cost of parking an RV becomes a lot more apparent when the space premium increases dramatically.
Urban infill removes parking around job centers, especially surface parking lots. Good luck navigating a F350 in a subterranean parking garage.
As people in an area start to walk and bike more, spending priorities change. Why make roads better for those commuting from far away when we can spend our limited transportation dollars improving walking/biking for residents?
As cities densify and make room for bike lanes it takes longer to drive in from the burbs so this becomes an even less attractive option.
The really great news is that many of the younger generation get it. They aren't that interested in cars. They want to walk and bike. They want to live in dense, efficient cities. One of the main things holding back progress, however, are the older generations who happen to have a lot of the political power.
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Agree with the last part of this(i.e. people who aren't wealthy are more concerned about getting buy than preventing global warming), but I still think the path has to lie with policy - based on your posts, I know that you believe that the overwhelming majority of people will respond to incentives. The trick is you need a politician with the guts to incentivize greener policies in a way that works for families on an average working class income, and who is willing to fight through the astroturfed blowback that will inevitably come from Big Oil Money.
You got me. And it's a tall order to expect a roughly-libertarian solution to climate change; a weakness in my position. But given the scale of the problem, it's going to require the participation of individuals. Hopefully enough innovation can create affordable green products and services in the near future to make the choice easier.
The "find some random thing about a liberal to turn into the next 'look at the liberal hypocrite' meme is pretty much a right-wing internet trope at this point. It's a great way to avoid having a serious debate about policy.
It's a consistent idea because it's true. And owning three houses is not a random thing, it's relevant and a great example of a prominent politician saying one thing and doing another. The Green New Deal is a big part of Bernie's platform and the houses he owns are a clear indication of his priorities.
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that this issue seems like more of an economic one. The middle class and below haven't seen enough standard of living increase to embrace this kind of activism, whereas the upper middle and upper class have seen plenty of wealth growth in the last ten years and might feel sympathetic to the cause. I don't think this divergence of sentiment is limited to climate change. You can see it in immigration discussions, and separatist ideas like brexit, etc.
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At the risk of coming across as a total housing zealot crazy person: High density housing addresses a lot of the issues you mentioned.
I'm pretty sure that housing zealots are welcome in this thread, and I agree with you.
As cities densify and make room for bike lanes it takes longer to drive in from the burbs so this becomes an even less attractive option.
Yes, there are plenty of places that it is equally fast for me to get to on my bicycle as in my car because of urban traffic, and when I get there I don't have to fight for parking.
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I remember when gasoline went over $1.00/l. Everyone slowed down until they got used to it, and then speeds picked back up. It's more expensive in Australia and way more expensive in New Zealand. I'm seeing lots of smaller SUVs but not nearly as many really big trucks. So high gas prices may help a little, but not a lot. Making it hard to drive vehicles and especially big vehicles will help. So cut back on freeways and lots of parking, and start the alternative infrastructure because it takes time to implement and have ready for increased demand.
Efficient houses will help more, because the savings are so obvious. A well insulated house needs less heat in the winter and less AC in the summer. That includes public housing, which is usually crappy, costs a lot to run, and is most easily upgraded because it is public. They are doing that in parts of New Zealand. Much stricter standards for rental housing than they used to have.
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“The kind of SUV environmentalism that waxes rhapsodic about all the things everybody else ought to do for the environment, while doing few or none of them, is not a viable response to the crisis of our time.”
― John Michael Greer, Green Wizardry: Conservation, Solar Power, Organic Gardening, and Other Hands-On Skills From the Appropriate Tech Toolkit (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/24087944)
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I remember when gasoline went over $1.00/l. Everyone slowed down until they got used to it, and then speeds picked back up.
$1 per liter (about $4 per gallon) is still way too cheap to induce the amount of behavioral change that is needed. But carbon taxes are effective (as long as the policy can get passed), as indicated by the results from Vancouver's modest tax: https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-why-b-c-s-carbon-tax-is-super-popular-and-effective/ (https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-why-b-c-s-carbon-tax-is-super-popular-and-effective/).
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A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
If you think that individuals putting solar panels on their houses is the answer to climate change then I want you to sit down and start over at the beginning.
1. might as well not bother then, right? We're back to a prisoner's dilemma.
2. Bernie likes solar panels, but he doesn't own any. Pretty sure he doesn't own any geothermal or wind generators either, the three of which are selected explicitly in his Green New Deal:
https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/green-new-deal/
Maybe it is simply not the best solution?
Solar on roofs are fairly often in more denser areas, especially from the time you got a lot of money for it.
But now that the solar panels are dirt cheap compared to 20 years ago, putting them on roofs is actually a bad decision. Because for the same money you could put 2 or 3 times more on level ground. Like former industry areas where nobody wants to live and nothing can be grown because of old waste and poison.
Wind is even worse for position.
Geothermal is generally possible everywhere, but here also there are different factors, and it surely is not the cheapest variant. Also not everybody in denser areas could do geothermal, because it would become geoicy.
Example: for low depth geothermal (the affordable sort) the area you need to heat a house is generally a bit bigger than the house and garden the people have in typical suburban (EU standards). Old style villages, where you can't throw a stone through the window of your neighbor from your own house are okay, but modern with 3-4 times the density are not.
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Solar on roofs are fairly often in more denser areas, especially from the time you got a lot of money for it.
But now that the solar panels are dirt cheap compared to 20 years ago, putting them on roofs is actually a bad decision. Because for the same money you could put 2 or 3 times more on level ground. Like former industry areas where nobody wants to live and nothing can be grown because of old waste and poison.
I don't disagree with your cost figures, but I question whether the monetary aspect is the only aspect that should be considered. Solar farms take up huge amounts of land area (with the associated environmental degradation), relative to rooftop solar which does not take up any.
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Solar on roofs are fairly often in more denser areas, especially from the time you got a lot of money for it.
But now that the solar panels are dirt cheap compared to 20 years ago, putting them on roofs is actually a bad decision. Because for the same money you could put 2 or 3 times more on level ground. Like former industry areas where nobody wants to live and nothing can be grown because of old waste and poison.
I don't disagree with your cost figures, but I question whether the monetary aspect is the only aspect that should be considered. Solar farms take up huge amounts of land area (with the associated environmental degradation), relative to rooftop solar which does not take up any.
Not to mention - aren't we supposed to be avoiding idealistic thinking? Sounds like @LennStar should be directing their concerns at Bernies green deal. The point I'm making is the hypocrisy, not the precise specifics. You'd think someone as wealthy as him and as politically visible would be interested in walking the walk, so to speak. If it's not within Bernies grasp to install some panels, it's not within my grasp to drive less.
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I'm also not overly impressed by the Green New Deal, which I have read (albeit a while ago). I think there was a lot of extra political stuff put in there that just serves to fuel "religious" wars, while the really practical ideas and incentives to invent green tech may have been left out.
That's pretty much why the carbon tax is so popular with economists. It's much harder to politicize a carbon tax than any other option. That said, in the sense that we need a national (or international) mobilization, I'm not opposed to a green new deal, per se.
A carbon tax that's big enough to change the core behaviors of society - where we live, how much we drive, and what we buy - is going to become very, very toxic with people who have a large carbon footprint. I would suspect it'll be toxic enough to become a voting issue, and likely a protests-in-the-streets issue.
The reason it would likely work in spite of the blowback is that if you run it on a revenue neutral basis the dividend creates its own constituency to fight for it. People who are seeing a substantial chunk of change ($100+?) deposited in their account every month are going to become fond of the dividend in a hurry.
But, a government that tries to move where people live en masse is still going to be called Stalinist, dividend or not.
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Relevant to this dividend idea is my experience using OhmConnect to save electricity. It's brilliant, it's easy, it's gratifying, you can make some small change doing it, and kids love it (after the first one, mine asked when we were doing it again -- they wanted an Ohm Hour every night!).
I'm excited to see this as the first wave (?) of consumer apps built off of smart meter data.
http://ohmconnect.com/
https://www.ohmconnect.com/faq/en/articles/1056428-how-does-it-work
There is so much energy optimization possible!
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For those talking about eliminating on-street parking, what are you envisioning becoming of that space?
Where I am at least, the roadway is a perpetual right of way easement on top of private property. The lot extends all the way to the centerline of the street. So, if you dig up the street and make it narrower, the use of the property would revert to the property owner.
What I expect would happen in lots of cases where parking is in short supply, is that the property owners would just put up their own private, now "off street", parking in the spot that used to be public parking.
Maybe that's not an awful shift since it alleviates the public responsibility to pay for that parking, but it wouldn't be some sort of landscape-level transformation.
I do think that a lot of neighborhoods on grids with both alley access and road frontage could do without the road frontage. Rip up a good share of the city streets while maintaining alley access, and run sidewalks where the roads used to be. Let the remaining roadway space revert to front lawns.
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Protected bike lanes. Wider sidewalks.
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For those talking about eliminating on-street parking, what are you envisioning becoming of that space?
Where I am at least, the roadway is a perpetual right of way easement on top of private property. The lot extends all the way to the centerline of the street. So, if you dig up the street and make it narrower, the use of the property would revert to the property owner.
Would the city easement go away if there wasn't a paved street? The city still has to run underground utilities and bike lanes and sidewalks would still be city maintained uses.
I'd expect there to be a narrow lane left for delivery vehicles. In my neighborhood, 2 car families don't want to switch cars in the morning so one car sits in the street. It's a waste of space.
My parents live in a typical 90s suburb and the streets are 35 feet wide. It's not like there's heavy traffic and every house has a 2 car wide driveway.
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For those talking about eliminating on-street parking, what are you envisioning becoming of that space?
Protected bike lanes or bus only lanes.
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For those talking about eliminating on-street parking, what are you envisioning becoming of that space?
In my neighbourhood it'd just be roads, still. Long ago it was factories and market gardens. Then the market gardens got broken up into quarter-acre blocks with 2-3 bedroom houses which each had at most 1 car, they generally parked on their own driveway. So the street could be relatively narrow.
Now many of the quarter-acre blocks have been subdivided into 3-4 units or townhouses, each with 1-2 cars. For each house-wide piece of street frontage we've gone from 1 to 3-6 cars in some cases. Because of parked cars, the street is one-way in many parts, you have to pull over to let oncoming traffic pass.
Increasing housing density means either allowing lots of street parking, or increasing public transport. Unfortunately, local council areas are largely responsible for deciding housing density, but the state is entirely responsible for deciding public transport.
Where decent public transport is available, people can and do choose to use it. There's no way my wife would drive to the CBD, but she takes the train there.
Of course, with intelligent zoning laws people wouldn't have to travel 20+km to work. This thing of having one massive residential area, one massive commercial area, one massive industrial area - it's like some communist playing SimCity. "Let us build One Big Facility, comrade!" It's stupid.
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Of course, with intelligent zoning laws people wouldn't have to travel 20+km to work. This thing of having one massive residential area, one massive commercial area, one massive industrial area - it's like some communist playing SimCity. "Let us build One Big Facility, comrade!" It's stupid.
This really bugs me. The industrial area I work in is completely bike-nonfriendly.
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"The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately." - A guy who owns three houses with zero solar panels(Bernie Sanders).
I do believe climate change is a prisoner's dilemma, but the prisoners who are best positioned to make changes are not choosing to do so. If the wealthy and political do not embrace efforts to improve the climate, the average citizen certainly will not. Most average or below average people or families are simply trying to save their own world, not THE world.
It’s amazing to think that lots of righties see global warming climate change as something the left exaggerates/hystericalizes to push a lefty agenda given what people like Sanders and AOC say.
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A friend of mine was asking how he could do his daily walk for his health. He has to drive more than 30km to his work along highways, and works in an industrial warehousing area. In that 7am-6pm time there's no real chance for him to safely do a walk, let alone a cycle. And he has a desk job.
"It may be," I said, "that your chosen work is not good for your health."
If he worked closer to home in an area with less roads, trucks and concrete, that'd be good for his carbon impact - but good for his physical and mental health, too. Now, there are reasons he makes this choice, but whether his reasons are good or bad makes no difference to his physical or mental health, which are hurt somewhat by his current work. That's why I say it's better to present the carbon changes needed in terms of their other benefits.
More relevant for this discussion, my friend's good reasons for his poor (for his health) choices do nothing to cause government to want to change zoning laws and road-building and the like.
The way I see it, the government is like corporations: it will adjust to our choices and demands over time. If more and more people work closer to home, use public transport or walk, policies and options will slowly change. Government's just slower than corporations are to respond to demand, that's all. But it does eventually get it.
And that's why the first question I asked the OP was what he'd personally done to reduce his impact. A while back in Australia we had a national vote on whether to allow same-sex marriage. Both before and after that people were polled on their opinions about it. And the interesting thing was, the more gay people a person knew, the more likely they were to support same-sex marriage. Obviously they didn't become gay themselves, but they decided they didn't want to stand in the way of other people living like that. If you actually know someone living a lifestyle, you come to see its value. But if every gay person were in the closet, then straight people wouldn't realise they know anyway. It took the courage of many gay people to come out and let people know who they were before straight people could know them and support their having the same rights as them.
If people see you living a lower-impact lifestyle, they will come to see its value; even if they don't change themselves, they'll support changes to make it easier for you to live like that. The first step isn't talking to people about how they should live, it's living that way yourself.
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If people see you living a lower-impact lifestyle, they will come to see its value; even if they don't change themselves, they'll support changes to make it easier for you to live like that. The first step isn't talking to people about how they should live, it's living that way yourself.
I'm guessing you've not spent much time bike commuting? :P
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
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Of course, with intelligent zoning laws people wouldn't have to travel 20+km to work. This thing of having one massive residential area, one massive commercial area, one massive industrial area - it's like some communist playing SimCity. "Let us build One Big Facility, comrade!" It's stupid.
This really bugs me. The industrial area I work in is completely bike-nonfriendly.
There are legitimate reasons for separating industrial and residential/commercial areas. Most people probably don't want to back up to a warehouse with semi-trucks coming and going all day. Those same semi-trucks cannot easily maneuver and back into loading docks on narrow streets. Most zoning laws restrict the amount of noise or air pollution that can travel off the property. Take something like metalwork. The sound of grinding metal and the smell of welding are not necessarily pleasant but might only extend for 100-200 feet or so before dissipating. If that manufacturing is occurring in an industrial area surrounded by other similar businesses, it's expected and no one complains. If it's done surrounded by residential, there will be lots of complaints.
Land prices will always be higher in more desirable areas, i.e. closer to jobs and other amenities. Short of massive subsidies, you can't build an $800-per month two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The underlying land cost is simply too high. The reason that land is so expensive is because there are so many high-paying jobs and other desirable amenities. Some of those jobs are so specialized that they can only exist in very large markets where there is a large enough talent pool to find someone with that level of specialization.
It's difficult to fight basic economics. Supply and demand. Those can and are certainly affected by government regulation, zoning being one prominent example. But if lots of people want to live in walkable neighborhoods with tree-line streets and still have a yard - those homes will be very expensive. If land prices are very high, the only thing that will be financially feasible to build is a tower that maximizes that land and might be filled with hundreds of small apartments.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
There is a whole diaspora of people who are assholes to bikes. . . and it depends where/when you cycle which ones you'll run into the most.
Farmland - men in pickup trucks
Any city just before schools open - women in Lexus/Mercedes/BMW SUVs (actually in the city I've learned to become suspicious of anyone driving a luxury vehicle)
Poor parts of town - old beaten to hell econobox cars
Anywhere you see them - Taxi drivers
Both city and school buses are wildcards - they can range between giant asshole to extremely friendly. Typically I find transport trucks aren't unfriendly, but they are often not paying attention to what's going on around them so require extra care.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
There is a whole diaspora of people who are assholes to bikes. . . and it depends where/when you cycle which ones you'll run into the most.
Farmland - men in pickup trucks
Any city just before schools open - women in Lexus/Mercedes/BMW SUVs (actually in the city I've learned to become suspicious of anyone driving a luxury vehicle)
Poor parts of town - old beaten to hell econobox cars
Anywhere you see them - Taxi drivers
Both city and school buses are wildcards - they can range between giant asshole to extremely friendly. Typically I find transport trucks aren't unfriendly, but they are often not paying attention to what's going on around them so require extra care.
Yes, in the city, I definitely stay wary of anyone in a luxury vehicle, but I'd say that's more general indifference/self-centered selective blindness than outright aggressive hostility to bikers.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
There is a whole diaspora of people who are assholes to bikes. . . and it depends where/when you cycle which ones you'll run into the most.
Farmland - men in pickup trucks
Any city just before schools open - women in Lexus/Mercedes/BMW SUVs (actually in the city I've learned to become suspicious of anyone driving a luxury vehicle)
Poor parts of town - old beaten to hell econobox cars
Anywhere you see them - Taxi drivers
Both city and school buses are wildcards - they can range between giant asshole to extremely friendly. Typically I find transport trucks aren't unfriendly, but they are often not paying attention to what's going on around them so require extra care.
Don't forget delivery trucks!
A Prius almost took out me and my kids on our way to school. Was another dad taking his kids to school.
I've also learned to be wary of minivans in the critical window between school getting out and after school activities.
And also the 30 minutes or so after the high school lets out.
In summary, most drivers are dangerous and woefully unaware of bikers and pedestrians. I could finger wag all day to no effect, would rather we just implement more traffic calming and protected bike lanes and so on.
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We just need cycling infrastructure that makes sense.
Protected bike lanes are great and all . . . but I'd rather have ANY bike lanes (or even just wide shoulders) than hold my breath for protected lanes. My commute is 11 miles each way. I've got about 200 ft of bike lanes on that route which sucks . . . but about 1/3 of the route has 6 ft shoulders which is awesome. There's also 1/3 of the route that is extremely busy city traffic on major routes going past busy highway on/off ramps because there's no other way to get to where I need.
But there's significant resistance to cycling infrastructure that makes sense for transportation in this city by the group of people who think that building an expensive bike lane through a park from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere is great for cycling, and don't understand why after building such a project they still see bikes on the road. :P
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But there's significant resistance to cycling infrastructure that makes sense for transportation in this city by the group of people who think that building an expensive bike lane through a park from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere is great for cycling, and don't understand why after building such a project they still see bikes on the road. :P
This is the most insane thing for me as well! We have a 49 mile gorgeous bike path that goes... nowhere. Meanwhile, I have five grocery stores withing two miles of me that are ridiculously dangerous to get to because of lack of even a semblence of bike lane. It's absurd. People won't ever switch to bikes around here by choice because they don't even see it as an option (and frankly, with this infrastructure, they're right)
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Protected bike lanes are great and all . . . but I'd rather have ANY bike lanes (or even just wide shoulders) than hold my breath for protected lanes.
Some of the best cycling infrastructure in Portland isn't even bike lanes or MUPs, it's these Neighborhood Greenways (https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/50518) with ample signage, 20MPH speed limits, and physical (or other) barriers that force automobile traffic to turn off from time to time. Basically, drivers are trained to expect cyclists on these routes and choose not to drive there.
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Perhaps it would be better to use that revenue as a flat dividend back to the people, then let the local markets figure out the best way to deal with climate change.
Local markets aren't going to build rail lines, bike lanes, remove on street parking, or install more bus-only lanes. Local government might, but not local markets.
And what better way to get (local) government to act than have citizens demanding things? The only way to get everyone on board is to make carbon cost more. The only way to make sure everyone is on board is to not make it prohibitively expensive to live. If you just flat tax people, the poor riot (see France's gas tax). This is especially true because doubling the cost of gas or utilities for poor people has a significant effect on them. Doing the same for wealthy is more of an inconvenience.
If you just tax rich people, they move to other countries. We need to tax carbon at it's source to bring the true cost into the market.
A carbon fee + dividend is far and away the most supported option by economists to reduce CO2 emissions.
Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
All of the other things will start falling into place. People will want to commute by train or actually do the math for commute cost if gas is expensive. People will start looking for ways to make their house efficient, or start learning to live with less AC. It all will happen naturally with the price signal. We will still of course need to push for regulation and bike lanes and all that jazz. But it won't happen until the mass of people are on the same page. Then governments WILL start making infrastructure changes, once the horse is put back in front of the cart.
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Oh, everyone hates the lycra-clad greybeards.
Now, cycling in normal clothes on a cheap bike - well, you get a different response.
That definitely has not been my experience. Unless you count a 'different response' being honked at, cursed at, and the occasional far-too-close pass in order to try and intimidate me off the road.
Mine either. At least for the four years I cycle commuted to work before buying my first pair of bike shorts. I'd say the response has been pretty consistent regardless of what I'm wearing to be honest . . . and I've ridden the same 800$ steel frame touring bike to the same area of the city for more than a decade now.
Not really much support at all of changes I'm making to live an environmentally friendly life. In my opinion, that support will usually be completely non-existent, (and often aggressively antagonistic and against you) if you even mildly inconvenience anyone else while trying to 'live the life'.
The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
There is a whole diaspora of people who are assholes to bikes. . . and it depends where/when you cycle which ones you'll run into the most.
Farmland - men in pickup trucks
Any city just before schools open - women in Lexus/Mercedes/BMW SUVs (actually in the city I've learned to become suspicious of anyone driving a luxury vehicle)
Poor parts of town - old beaten to hell econobox cars
Anywhere you see them - Taxi drivers
Both city and school buses are wildcards - they can range between giant asshole to extremely friendly. Typically I find transport trucks aren't unfriendly, but they are often not paying attention to what's going on around them so require extra care.
Don't forget delivery trucks!
A Prius almost took out me and my kids on our way to school. Was another dad taking his kids to school.
I've also learned to be wary of minivans in the critical window between school getting out and after school activities.
And also the 30 minutes or so after the high school lets out.
In summary, most drivers are dangerous and woefully unaware of bikers and pedestrians. I could finger wag all day to no effect, would rather we just implement more traffic calming and protected bike lanes and so on.
After I started assuming everyone wants to kill me, in other words they are in their own little world, my biking has become a lot safer. I never assume someone see me if it is not totally obvious. I do some roadbiking from time to time and my best experience have been in Mallorca were they drivning was nice. You can see the effects from that the island tourism industry is dependent on a lot of cyclist during the spring months.
I have lived in some of my countries most bicycle friendly cities and I have to say the bicyclist are totally crazy. They don’t respect red lights, they overtake in places were it is not safe and don’t give signed when they turen. I actually stopped bicycling to work in that city due to the crazy bike traffic and started to walk instead. Now I am debating if I should bike 10-15 minutes or walk 40 minutes to work. The bus takes about 15 minutes but is a pain in the ass due to high use and the unmustachian cost.
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Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
I'm not entirely sure that this assumption is true. Our federal government implemented a carbon tax, and allowed the provinces to choose what to do with the money collected - they just had to submit a plan. Here in Ontario we've elected a Conservative provincial government who decided that the free market approach to climate change was a stupid idea and they didn't want to be a part of it. So they didn't submit a plan . . . forcing the Ontario government to simply remit the carbon tax proceeds to all the people in Ontario.
I haven't noticed any change at all in consumption habits at all from the carbon tax and rebate - which currently charges 20$ per ton of carbon to increase to 50$ by 2022 (works out to around 300$ per person per year in Ontario). And even though the increase in price has been so minimal that nobody has altered their habits, there's significant political blowback and complaining from Conservatives in Canada.
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If you just flat tax people, the poor riot (see France's gas tax). This is especially true because doubling the cost of gas or utilities for poor people has a significant effect on them.
You still need to tax fuel enough to drive down usage. Also, France's fuel taxes are inline with its neighbors (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/are-the-french-hit-especially-hard-by-fuel-taxes-protests). If you do a little more reading you will find that France had a very low tax rate on diesel, and people with diesel automobiles are sad to see that day come to an end.
In the 1950s, diesel engines were used only in heavy equipment so, to help sell off the surpluses in French refineries, the state created a favorable tax regime to encourage motorists and manufacturers to use diesel.[90] The 1979 oil crisis prompted efforts to curb petrol (gasoline) use, while taking advantage of diesel fuel availability and diesel engine efficiency. The French manufacturer Peugeot has been at the forefront of diesel technology, and from the 1980s, the French government favoured this technology. A reduction in VAT taxes for corporate fleets also increased the prevalence of diesel cars in France.[91] In 2015, two out of every three cars purchased consumed diesel fuel. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement
But it is true that people will literally riot in the streets to keep their carbon burning way of life.
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You still need to tax fuel enough to drive down usage. Also, France's fuel taxes are inline with its neighbors (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/are-the-french-hit-especially-hard-by-fuel-taxes-protests). If you do a little more reading you will find that France had a very low tax rate on diesel, and people with diesel automobiles are sad to see that day come to an end.
In the 1950s, diesel engines were used only in heavy equipment so, to help sell off the surpluses in French refineries, the state created a favorable tax regime to encourage motorists and manufacturers to use diesel.[90] The 1979 oil crisis prompted efforts to curb petrol (gasoline) use, while taking advantage of diesel fuel availability and diesel engine efficiency. The French manufacturer Peugeot has been at the forefront of diesel technology, and from the 1980s, the French government favoured this technology. A reduction in VAT taxes for corporate fleets also increased the prevalence of diesel cars in France.[91] In 2015, two out of every three cars purchased consumed diesel fuel. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement
But it is true that people will literally riot in the streets to keep their carbon burning way of life.
Interesting characterization of the yellow vest riots.
What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil, and planned around that above all else. So they set up their tax infrastructure to reward high-mileage diesels and strongly incentivized their use.
Then, seemingly overnight, the government “discovered” that while fuel efficient (thus low CO2 emitting), diesels are very high in particulate emissions, which is the nasty localized soot you breathe in when surrounded by diesels, and cause all sorts of health issues. So they reversed course and disincentivized the use of diesels, meaning people who had bought vehicles took a huge hit in resale value, suddenly were unable to drive in certain city centers, saw vehicles they bought because fuel was inexpensive suddenly had operating costs shoot up, etc.
It was a classic case of the government picking winners and doing a shit job of it, and then turning around and penalizing people for doing what they, the government, had asked them to do.
It gives rise to a whole host of questions about how capable the government is at making these decisions, and how much power they should have. Frankly, some of this sentiment is what is behind Brexit. People are sick of being jerked around, especially when they’re trying to just do the right thing.
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
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But it is true that people will literally riot in the streets to keep their carbon burning way of life.
You are insultingly and grossly misrepresenting my discussion points. Make of that what you will.
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
Not to the exclusion of everything else, nope. It causes bad policy just like we saw here.
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
Not to the exclusion of everything else, nope. It causes bad policy just like we saw here.
What policy would have been appropriate to implement?
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
I don't want to speak for Chris22, but in the context of vehicle emissions it was overly prioritized by the French government. Then Paris had several years of high pollution and smog and they realized that when setting the emissions standards that they should have regulated particulate and NOx emissions more and CO2 less. The EPA managed much better than France in this respect- US cities have overall have had less air pollution because they focused more on the overall vehicle pollutants rather than a laser focus on CO2. It's also why VW got in trouble in the US- it was impossible for them to meet diesel NOx standards for their cars (while being fine in the EU), so they had to cheat to make it work. And they wanted to make it work because they were developing all of these fine diesel vehicles for the EU market that sound environmentally friendly (read: high mpg's).
This kind of thing affects poor people most because they are more sensitive to price changes in essential goods. Hence the yellow vest protests.
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
Not to the exclusion of everything else, nope. It causes bad policy just like we saw here.
What policy would have been appropriate to implement?
Carbon tax and dividend. Price the cost of carbon into the market, then the most efficient solutions will automatically sound more appealing. It's not a silver bullet, but it gets like 80% of the way there, then put regulations on problem markets after that. The dividend is what includes economically disadvantages people in the equation. They can still make decisions to be more environmentally efficient without being thrown to the wolves.
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
Not to the exclusion of everything else, nope. It causes bad policy just like we saw here.
What policy would have been appropriate to implement?
Carbon tax and dividend. Price the cost of carbon into the market, then the most efficient solutions will automatically sound more appealing. It's not a silver bullet, but it gets like 80% of the way there, then put regulations on problem markets after that. The dividend is what includes economically disadvantages people in the equation. They can still make decisions to be more environmentally efficient without being thrown to the wolves.
To be clear though . . . carbon pricing would have favored diesel cars still, right? Which means when the diesel cars started producing unacceptable levels of particulates in cities the government still would have needed to step in to fix that issue wouldn't they?
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What happened is that the French government (and the EU in general) bought into the idea that CO2 is evil
I take it that you don't buy into this idea?
Not to the exclusion of everything else, nope. It causes bad policy just like we saw here.
What policy would have been appropriate to implement?
Carbon tax and dividend. Price the cost of carbon into the market, then the most efficient solutions will automatically sound more appealing. It's not a silver bullet, but it gets like 80% of the way there, then put regulations on problem markets after that. The dividend is what includes economically disadvantages people in the equation. They can still make decisions to be more environmentally efficient without being thrown to the wolves.
To be clear though . . . carbon pricing would have favored diesel cars still, right? Which means when the diesel cars started producing unacceptable levels of particulates in cities the government still would have needed to step in to fix that issue wouldn't they?
Yep, that's how I would imagine it anyway. The carbon tax in general would regulate the CO2 before it even got to cars, so no need for a second body to regulate it specifically in vehicles (or power plants or anything else; just tax the carbon as it comes out of the ground). Then the dividend would cushion the economically disadvantaged folks so that they aren't feeling left behind by regulations.
A by-product would be that people would drive less, meaning less pollution in general. It doesn't solve environmental pollution outright, but it would help, especially in industries that combust carbon to survive. In a way it's two separate problems; local environmental pollution (particulates, NOx) and global pollution (CO2). It seems best to me to try to approach those two vastly different pollution types with different regulatory methods.
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Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
I'm not entirely sure that this assumption is true. Our federal government implemented a carbon tax, and allowed the provinces to choose what to do with the money collected - they just had to submit a plan. Here in Ontario we've elected a Conservative provincial government who decided that the free market approach to climate change was a stupid idea and they didn't want to be a part of it. So they didn't submit a plan . . . forcing the Ontario government to simply remit the carbon tax proceeds to all the people in Ontario.
I haven't noticed any change at all in consumption habits at all from the carbon tax and rebate - which currently charges 20$ per ton of carbon to increase to 50$ by 2022 (works out to around 300$ per person per year in Ontario). And even though the increase in price has been so minimal that nobody has altered their habits, there's significant political blowback and complaining from Conservatives in Canada.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers after a few years of this. So far, your evidence that it doesn't work appears to be anecdotal. The fee and dividend model seems to be highly favored by economists, which is why I am so interested in it. If presented right, it also has the most potential to be supported by conservatives (free market) than any of the other drastic changes that are being submitted. It has "conservative" written all over it other than those who outright deny climate change.
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Then, seemingly overnight, the government “discovered” that while fuel efficient (thus low CO2 emitting), diesels are very high in particulate emissions, which is the nasty localized soot you breathe in when surrounded by diesels, and cause all sorts of health issues. So they reversed course and disincentivized the use of diesels, meaning people who had bought vehicles took a huge hit in resale value, suddenly were unable to drive in certain city centers, saw vehicles they bought because fuel was inexpensive suddenly had operating costs shoot up, etc.
Be that as it may per gallon (which is how it is sold) diesel emits 16% more CO2 (https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/oee/pdf/transportation/fuel-efficient-technologies/autosmart_factsheet_6_e.pdf) than gasoline. So all things being equal I would expect the taxes to be 16% more per gallon. You already have the financial incentive that they use less fuel, you don't need additional financial incentives on top of that.
EDITed to add - I can't drive a diesel or petrol car in parts of London without a huge fee, and I'm glad of it.*
* - I have mixed British and american English in this post but I imagine that it is still understandable.
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Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
I'm not entirely sure that this assumption is true. Our federal government implemented a carbon tax, and allowed the provinces to choose what to do with the money collected - they just had to submit a plan. Here in Ontario we've elected a Conservative provincial government who decided that the free market approach to climate change was a stupid idea and they didn't want to be a part of it. So they didn't submit a plan . . . forcing the Ontario government to simply remit the carbon tax proceeds to all the people in Ontario.
I haven't noticed any change at all in consumption habits at all from the carbon tax and rebate - which currently charges 20$ per ton of carbon to increase to 50$ by 2022 (works out to around 300$ per person per year in Ontario). And even though the increase in price has been so minimal that nobody has altered their habits, there's significant political blowback and complaining from Conservatives in Canada.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers after a few years of this. So far, your evidence that it doesn't work appears to be anecdotal. The fee and dividend model seems to be highly favored by economists, which is why I am so interested in it. If presented right, it also has the most potential to be supported by conservatives (free market) than any of the other drastic changes that are being submitted. It has "conservative" written all over it other than those who outright deny climate change.
The British Columbia carbon tax provides an interesting case study. Championed by liberals, implemented by conservatives, scorned by liberals ("Axe the Tax!"), then eventually loved by a large majority due to the dividends and actual environmental gains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_carbon_tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_carbon_tax)
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Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
I'm not entirely sure that this assumption is true. Our federal government implemented a carbon tax, and allowed the provinces to choose what to do with the money collected - they just had to submit a plan. Here in Ontario we've elected a Conservative provincial government who decided that the free market approach to climate change was a stupid idea and they didn't want to be a part of it. So they didn't submit a plan . . . forcing the Ontario government to simply remit the carbon tax proceeds to all the people in Ontario.
I haven't noticed any change at all in consumption habits at all from the carbon tax and rebate - which currently charges 20$ per ton of carbon to increase to 50$ by 2022 (works out to around 300$ per person per year in Ontario). And even though the increase in price has been so minimal that nobody has altered their habits, there's significant political blowback and complaining from Conservatives in Canada.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers after a few years of this. So far, your evidence that it doesn't work appears to be anecdotal. The fee and dividend model seems to be highly favored by economists, which is why I am so interested in it. If presented right, it also has the most potential to be supported by conservatives (free market) than any of the other drastic changes that are being submitted. It has "conservative" written all over it other than those who outright deny climate change.
Hey, here's hoping. But at 300$ ish a year (and those are Canadian dollars . . . that's like what - 200$ US?), I suspect there will be minimal change to people's habits.
Conservatives have moved further and further away from being financially conservative in recent years. Our current conservative government paid thousands of dollars of our tax money and legally required that all gas stations in the province to prominently display anti-carbon tax advertising.
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The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
Speaking as a middle-aged white male: my demographic is the worst. These are the people who are least likely to go to a doctor when they have a problem, least likely to listen to general health advice, most likely to be openly racist, sexist and homophobic, most likely to be heavy drinkers and gamblers, and so on.
Most are overweight or obese, suffering chronic pain (because they're fat and weak), have feelings of inadequacy in the workplace and in their relationships, realising they've gone as far in their careers as they ever will, they'll never be rich and having sex with supermodels, and they take all this disappointment and act it out by being bigoted and obnoxious.
We're mostly fuckheads. I'm sorry.
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The hatred I have gotten from biking has been almost entirely from men. (Actually, entirely from men, if I think about being yelled at, having things thrown at me, "pretending" to veer towards me to hit me...)
It makes me think of the article I read recently that said some men are less likely to recycle, use reusable bags, etc. because they're afraid people will think they're gay. I get the feeling these guys might be part of the same cohort.
Literal toxic masculinity...
Speaking as a middle-aged white male: my demographic is the worst. These are the people who are least likely to go to a doctor when they have a problem, least likely to listen to general health advice, most likely to be openly racist, sexist and homophobic, most likely to be heavy drinkers and gamblers, and so on.
Most are overweight or obese, suffering chronic pain (because they're fat and weak), have feelings of inadequacy in the workplace and in their relationships, realising they've gone as far in their careers as they ever will, they'll never be rich and having sex with supermodels, and they take all this disappointment and act it out by being bigoted and obnoxious.
We're mostly fuckheads. I'm sorry.
You know how the things we learn in adolescence have a special importance in our psychology? For a long time I thought that there was an older generation of men (now in their 60s and older) that were adolescents before the equalities legislation of the 1970s was enacted and to whom bigotry was normalised but that the generations growing up after that would have grown up with an internalised idea that we were all equal?
Yeah, no, as the current saying seems to go.
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Then, seemingly overnight, the government “discovered” that while fuel efficient (thus low CO2 emitting), diesels are very high in particulate emissions, which is the nasty localized soot you breathe in when surrounded by diesels, and cause all sorts of health issues. So they reversed course and disincentivized the use of diesels, meaning people who had bought vehicles took a huge hit in resale value, suddenly were unable to drive in certain city centers, saw vehicles they bought because fuel was inexpensive suddenly had operating costs shoot up, etc.
Well, I can't be sure about France. But it definitely came only surprising (I think that EU directive is from 2008) for people totally uninformed, and at least here in Germany that topic was hot for years before we actually got "no old diesel zones".
But of course Diesel users also complain that Diesel now nearly costs as much as gas, and totally forget about the 20% higher energy of Diesel...
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Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.
https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918 (https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918)
Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.
Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.
And again: fossil fuels are finite. So even if burning them were harmless, we'd be running short some day. Our children and grandchildren may need these some day, let's not set fire to their inheritance.
We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.
It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.
Are the flares considered leakage? Is there nothing useful that could be done with the flare gas?
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Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.
https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918 (https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918)
Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.
Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.
And again: fossil fuels are finite. So even if burning them were harmless, we'd be running short some day. Our children and grandchildren may need these some day, let's not set fire to their inheritance.
We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.
It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.
Are the flares considered leakage? Is there nothing useful that could be done with the flare gas?
Pipes could be run or it could be stored and moved later. Some states require gas to be captured after the initial testing of a well. Other states don't care because capturing gas reduces profits.
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I would start with not calling people "climate change deniers" . I haven't really seen it on this thread, but have seen it at other times on this site. It is inaccurate. There is no one I know that is arguing that climate change doesn't exist. They are denying your reasons as to why it exists. I assume environmentalists know this already, and maybe it's just semantics, but when people say that I wonder if they really understand where the other side is coming from.
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That's like saying that we shouldn't call 'flat-earth' guys by that name because they admit that hills exist . . . and therefore aren't saying that the earth is perfectly flat. Or that we can't use the term 'homophobic' for someone who isn't afraid of gay people, but hates them.
Climate change denial is denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change. Saying that climate change exists, but ignoring the mountain of scientific evidence pointing to the facts indicating that humans are a significant driver of the modern changing climate is still therefore climate change denial.
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I would start with not calling people "climate change deniers" . I haven't really seen it on this thread, but have seen it at other times on this site. It is inaccurate. There is no one I know that is arguing that climate change doesn't exist. They are denying your reasons as to why it exists.
That's just because the argument shifts.
1. There is no climate change. So we shouldn't do anything.
2. There is climate change, but it's natural. So we shouldn't do anything.
3. There is climate change, and it's man-made, but we shouldn't do anything because it's a good thing. So we shouldn't do anything.
4. There is climate change, and it's man-made, and it's a bad thing, but we shouldn't do anything because it'd be too expensive. So we shouldn't do anything.
5. There is climate change, and it's man-made, and it's a bad thing, and fixing it in the West would actually make us money, but what about those poor people in the Third World? So we shouldn't do anything.
The more intelligent ones are using the fifth argument, and that's pretty smart, because the environmentalist movement is not full of smart people, so it has foolishly insisted on making socially progressive views part of a package deal, so "what about the Third World?" cuts into them pretty hard. But not all of the denialists are that intelligent so they might still be using some of the older arguments.
Later the arguments will become,
6. There is climate change, and it's man-made, and it's a bad thing... but it's too late now. So we shouldn't do anything.
The "denialist" part is denying the need for or desirability of action. Of course, this also means they must deny the finiteness of fossil fuels. In this they are joined by the environmentalists. Environmentalists and denialists alike are joined by being part of a consumerist society. The concept that we should consume less stuff is inconceivable to us.
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The more intelligent ones are using the fifth argument, and that's pretty smart, because the environmentalist movement is not full of smart people, so it has foolishly insisted on making socially progressive views part of a package deal, so "what about the Third World?" cuts into them pretty hard.
Agree! However, occasionally the package deal works: I was impressed by how Rep. Deb Haaland, one of first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress (happened in 2018), talks about climate justice from the lens of American Indian culture and experience and current pipeline battles.
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I would start with not calling people "climate change deniers" . I haven't really seen it on this thread, but have seen it at other times on this site. It is inaccurate. There is no one I know that is arguing that climate change doesn't exist. They are denying your reasons as to why it exists. I assume environmentalists know this already, and maybe it's just semantics, but when people say that I wonder if they really understand where the other side is coming from.
GuitarStv and Kyle put the straightforward argument better than I could have, so I won't rehash. But I do want to get your feedback on the thinking process you may have used to get to the conclusion you have made. Have you read up on both sides of the argument, as a kind of agnostic jury member, to get a sense for the veracity of each side? I have listened closely to both sides of the argument. My parents are in your camp and have given me well-written books on the topic. I admit, the arguments against manmade climate change are very convincing when isolated. But here's how I have decided as a non-expert jury member who has listened closely to both sides where the truth lies: 1) Given the facts presented by both sides, the manmade climate change side is far more compelling; and 2) Given the source of information from both sides, I take the vast majority of scientists to be more impartial witnesses than those mostly funded by people with a large financial stake in continuing to pollute carbon.
I recommend, if you haven't done so, that you familiarize yourself with the debate from those saying that manmade climate change is a thing. An excellent introduction is this free online class from Penn State, https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/ (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/), but in particular review Module 3. Module 3 provides the fundamental physics knowledge to understand that addition of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere physically must increase surface temperatures (as certainly as gravity must keep the Earth in orbit around the Sun).
If you are truly informed of both sides of the debate and still consider the argument better made for manmade climate change not being proven, I challenge you to consider whether your biases are influencing your decision process.
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But here's how I have decided as a non-expert jury member who has listened closely to both sides where the truth lies: 1) Given the facts presented by both sides, the manmade climate change side is far more compelling; and 2) Given the source of information from both sides,
If we are taking a purely number based approach, take this:
https://fortune.com/2017/11/14/climate-change-scientists-second-notice-save-planet/
(from the not exactly eco-terrorist website fortune, just because they - as they should lol - have all the important numbers right at top. I haven't read that article, google one from your favorite source yourself if you don't like this)
First, the good news. Since 1,700 top scientists issued a dramatic warning 25 years ago about humanity pushing the Earth beyond its capacity to sustain life as we know it, we’ve managed to stabilize one of the things that was worrying them: the depletion of the ozone layer. Yay us!
Unfortunately, everything else they were warning about has only got worse since 1992. So now almost ten times as many scientists—15,364 to be precise—have come together to give us a “second notice.” With signatories including the likes of Jane Goodall and E.O. Wilson, this is the most scientists to ever co-sign a published journal article.
and it's here: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229
On a side note: The ozone layer was saved in no small part by a small socialist East German company (dkk Scharfenstein / Foron), already on the way to be shut down after the reunification, who did what no capitalist company was capable of doing - produce a fridge that did not need FCKW. They also gave the patent away for free.
I really love history's quirks.
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I would start with not calling people "climate change deniers" . I haven't really seen it on this thread, but have seen it at other times on this site. It is inaccurate. There is no one I know that is arguing that climate change doesn't exist. They are denying your reasons as to why it exists. I assume environmentalists know this already, and maybe it's just semantics, but when people say that I wonder if they really understand where the other side is coming from.
GuitarStv and Kyle put the straightforward argument better than I could have, so I won't rehash. But I do want to get your feedback on the thinking process you may have used to get to the conclusion you have made. Have you read up on both sides of the argument, as a kind of agnostic jury member, to get a sense for the veracity of each side? I have listened closely to both sides of the argument. My parents are in your camp and have given me well-written books on the topic. I admit, the arguments against manmade climate change are very convincing when isolated. But here's how I have decided as a non-expert jury member who has listened closely to both sides where the truth lies: 1) Given the facts presented by both sides, the manmade climate change side is far more compelling; and 2) Given the source of information from both sides, I take the vast majority of scientists to be more impartial witnesses than those mostly funded by people with a large financial stake in continuing to pollute carbon.
I recommend, if you haven't done so, that you familiarize yourself with the debate from those saying that manmade climate change is a thing. An excellent introduction is this free online class from Penn State, https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/ (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/), but in particular review Module 3. Module 3 provides the fundamental physics knowledge to understand that addition of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere physically must increase surface temperatures (as certainly as gravity must keep the Earth in orbit around the Sun).
If you are truly informed of both sides of the debate and still consider the argument better made for manmade climate change not being proven, I challenge you to consider whether your biases are influencing your decision process.
I personally am not a climate change denier. My personal opinion is that it is a natural phenomenon exacerbated by man made causes. Why can't it be both? I just think it is an inaccurate label. Holocaust deniers deny the holocaust. Climate change deniers don't deny climate change. Do you like the term illegal immigrants?
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I would start with not calling people "climate change deniers" . I haven't really seen it on this thread, but have seen it at other times on this site. It is inaccurate. There is no one I know that is arguing that climate change doesn't exist. They are denying your reasons as to why it exists. I assume environmentalists know this already, and maybe it's just semantics, but when people say that I wonder if they really understand where the other side is coming from.
GuitarStv and Kyle put the straightforward argument better than I could have, so I won't rehash. But I do want to get your feedback on the thinking process you may have used to get to the conclusion you have made. Have you read up on both sides of the argument, as a kind of agnostic jury member, to get a sense for the veracity of each side? I have listened closely to both sides of the argument. My parents are in your camp and have given me well-written books on the topic. I admit, the arguments against manmade climate change are very convincing when isolated. But here's how I have decided as a non-expert jury member who has listened closely to both sides where the truth lies: 1) Given the facts presented by both sides, the manmade climate change side is far more compelling; and 2) Given the source of information from both sides, I take the vast majority of scientists to be more impartial witnesses than those mostly funded by people with a large financial stake in continuing to pollute carbon.
I recommend, if you haven't done so, that you familiarize yourself with the debate from those saying that manmade climate change is a thing. An excellent introduction is this free online class from Penn State, https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/ (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/), but in particular review Module 3. Module 3 provides the fundamental physics knowledge to understand that addition of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere physically must increase surface temperatures (as certainly as gravity must keep the Earth in orbit around the Sun).
If you are truly informed of both sides of the debate and still consider the argument better made for manmade climate change not being proven, I challenge you to consider whether your biases are influencing your decision process.
I personally am not a climate change denier. I just think it is an inaccurate label. Holocaust deniers deny the holocaust. Climate change deniers don't deny climate change. Do you like the term illegal immigrants?
What term would you prefer?
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Man made climate change denier??? I'm sure someone smarter than me can come up with something better.
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I personally am not a climate change denier. I just think it is an inaccurate label. Holocaust deniers deny the holocaust.
If someone said that the Nazis only killed a few dozen Jews, would that person be a Holocaust denier in your books?
In my view, they have admitted that some Jews were killed . . . but have denied the Holocaust by failing to admit to the facts of the topic. In the same way, a climate change denier might admit that the climate changes . . . but deny the overwhelming evidence that it is changing right now due to human actions - therefore denying the truth of modern climate change.
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I personally am not a climate change denier. My personal opinion is that it is a natural phenomenon exacerbated by man made causes. Why can't it be both? I just think it is an inaccurate label. Holocaust deniers deny the holocaust. Climate change deniers don't deny climate change. Do you like the term illegal immigrants?
In your personal opinion, why does the evidence favor climate change as a natural phenomenon?
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Man made climate change denier??? I'm sure someone smarter than me can come up with something better.
How about 'modern climate change denier'? As the climate change in the last hundred odd years is entirely due to human action.
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It's not a scientific opinion. I think it has a natural component only because of history. Climate change has occurred throughout the history of the earth. The ice age, the middle ages both were cooling periods in earth's history. I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
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It's not a scientific opinion. I think it has a natural component only because of history. Climate change has occurred throughout the history of the earth. The ice age, the middle ages both were cooling periods in earth's history. I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
Did you review the scientific evidence that showed the entire global warming increase can be tied to manmade pollution? Other changes in the past had different scientific explanations (volcanic aerosols, orbital cycles, etc.).
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I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
I'd suggest you read some of the (many, many, many) research papers demonstrating that the current warming trend is overwhelmingly caused by human action.
Until you do so, it's probably best to refrain from denying the truth of climate change if you don't want people to mention your climate change denial.
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It's not a scientific opinion. I think it has a natural component only because of history. Climate change has occurred throughout the history of the earth. The ice age, the middle ages both were cooling periods in earth's history. I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
Did you review the scientific evidence that showed the entire global warming increase can be tied to manmade pollution? Other changes in the past had different scientific explanations (volcanic aerosols, orbital cycles, etc.).
No I did not. And I don't care enough to look it up. It won't alter my behavior. I recycle, live 4 miles from work, compost my trash, buy local, drive a hybrid, fix things instead of buying new, wear clothes that are 15 years old, and very rarely fly. I try to not abuse the environment. IMO whether or not you believe in climate change why would you want to? Why be a waster? So if that makes me a climate change denier OK. (Like your alternative name by the way. Guitar S) I guess Kyle Shuant will have to add a number between 3 and 4 for me on the denier scale. Person who believes climate change is both natural and man made and is a bad thing.
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It's not a scientific opinion. I think it has a natural component only because of history. Climate change has occurred throughout the history of the earth. The ice age, the middle ages both were cooling periods in earth's history. I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
Did you review the scientific evidence that showed the entire global warming increase can be tied to manmade pollution? Other changes in the past had different scientific explanations (volcanic aerosols, orbital cycles, etc.).
No I did not. And I don't care enough to look it up. It won't alter my behavior. I recycle, live 4 miles from work, compost my trash, buy local, drive a hybrid, fix things instead of buying new, wear clothes that are 15 years old, and very rarely fly. I try to not abuse the environment. IMO whether or not you believe in climate change why would you want to? Why be a waster? So if that makes me a climate change denier OK. (Like your alternative name by the way. Guitar S) I guess Kyle Shuant will have to add a number between 3 and 4 for me on the denier scale. Person who believes climate change is both natural and man made and is a bad thing.
It's great that you live as a Mustachian. But Mustachianism is a lifestyle, and personally I believe people can live the lifestyle that they want as long as it falls within the norms of the social contract. But that's not the issue. The issue is that you are denying a scientifically confirmed fact, a fact that has been politicized to no end by partisans to the point that many people, including yourself, are confused as to what the actual facts are. And the negation of facts I see as wrong.
As to whether or not people should care, that's a different story too. But if you're agnostic about the facts, then you probably shouldn't be forming opinions and sharing them. E.g.: If somebody asked me whether it will rain in Timbuktu next week, I should probably say I don't know and I don't care. But if I did care enough, say I was traveling to Timbuktu next week, I might try to find the answer. Now, if I ask a weatherman and an umbrella salesman, and they give me conflicting answers, and only one of those answers results in a legitimate conflict of interest, who should I believe*? And at this point, based on the conflicting evidence, should I just shrug my shoulders and say "I don't know and I don't care"?
*Actually, the umbrella salesmen have all changed their tune (though they continue to fund disinformation campaigns):
https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/energy-and-environment/environmental-protection/climate-change (https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/energy-and-environment/environmental-protection/climate-change)
https://www.shell.com/sustainability/environment/climate-change.html (https://www.shell.com/sustainability/environment/climate-change.html)
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/climate-change.html (https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/climate-change.html)
https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility/climate-change (https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility/climate-change)
Etc.
p.s. You can probably guess when I joined the forum based on my username. There were so many gems, I was sad I could only pick one....
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Here is my opinion.
The climate is changing and in general the Earth has been warming over the last century or so (as an aside changing global warming to climate change feels like a completely BS move because the climate is always changing so a colder winter or a warmer winter can both be presented as proof of climate change whereas only one could be presented a proof of global warming).
Some percentage of that is due to man-made causes and some percentage is due to natural causes/normal cycles and variation. Whether that percentage is 99% and 1% or 70% and 30% I don't know. The majority is probably from man-made causes.
Even if the global average temperature rises a few degrees, the world will not end. Our planet and many of the species on it have survived warm periods and cold periods before.
Stopping or reversing that change will be extremely expensive on a global scale - on the order of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars. People in rich countries will be marginally impacted, i.e. doubling the price of energy might cost a household making $50k a year another few thousand. People in poor countries will probably face a greater impact.
There is waaaay too much hysteria surrounding this issue. Somehow we've been 5-10 years from an irreversible tipping point and the end of the world as we know it for a few decades. When you keep saying the sky is falling year after year and it just drops slightly, it doesn't really engender a lot of confidence. New York City will be 10 feet under water..... in a century or two.
While the concern many people feel may be heartfelt, it is hard for me not to look at this through a cynical lens as a desire for power, or anti-capitalism, or some other underlying reason other than genuine concern for current and future generations.
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The climate is changing and in general the Earth has been warming over the last century or so (as an aside changing global warming to climate change feels like a completely BS move because the climate is always changing so a colder winter or a warmer winter can both be presented as proof of climate change whereas only one could be presented a proof of global warming).
https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming-vs-climate-change/
Global warming and climate change are two distinct terms.
Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities
Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates.
If anyone is trying to argue that a single season of anything is "proof" of global warming, they can safely be ignored.
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Some percentage of that is due to man-made causes and some percentage is due to natural causes/normal cycles and variation. Whether that percentage is 99% and 1% or 70% and 30% I don't know. The majority is probably from man-made causes.
It's likely that humans are responsible for >100% of the average temperature increase in recent history.
Today’s global warming is overwhelmingly due to the increase in heat-trapping gases that humans are adding to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. In fact, over the last five decades, natural factors (solar forcing and volcanoes) would actually have led to a slight cooling of Earth’s surface temperature.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-difference-between-global-warming-and-climate-change
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Here is my opinion.
The climate is changing and in general the Earth has been warming over the last century or so (as an aside changing global warming to climate change feels like a completely BS move because the climate is always changing so a colder winter or a warmer winter can both be presented as proof of climate change whereas only one could be presented a proof of global warming).
Some percentage of that is due to man-made causes and some percentage is due to natural causes/normal cycles and variation. Whether that percentage is 99% and 1% or 70% and 30% I don't know. The majority is probably from man-made causes.
Even if the global average temperature rises a few degrees, the world will not end. Our planet and many of the species on it have survived warm periods and cold periods before.
Up until this point, I am in total agreement with you (though it is definitely closer to 99%/1%, if not more as Davnasty points out).
Stopping or reversing that change will be extremely expensive on a global scale - on the order of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars. People in rich countries will be marginally impacted, i.e. doubling the price of energy might cost a household making $50k a year another few thousand. People in poor countries will probably face a greater impact.
This is only half correct. What you are not accounting for is the costs of doing nothing. These are (needless to say) difficult to estimate, but here's one estimate: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/717 (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/717). Right now we are living the high life on fossil fuels, but we're going to stick our progeny with the bill.
There is waaaay too much hysteria surrounding this issue. Somehow we've been 5-10 years from an irreversible tipping point and the end of the world as we know it for a few decades. When you keep saying the sky is falling year after year and it just drops slightly, it doesn't really engender a lot of confidence. New York City will be 10 feet under water..... in a century or two.
Tell me what your idea of 'hysteria' is. Because I don't feel that having a rational debate around what most of the world feels is a pretty big problem is the definition of hysteria. There are certainly some people that have exaggerated the potential consequences, but nowhere near as many who have exaggerated in the other direction.
While the concern many people feel may be heartfelt, it is hard for me not to look at this through a cynical lens as a desire for power, or anti-capitalism, or some other underlying reason other than genuine concern for current and future generations.
I, for one, am a strong advocate for capitalism and have little desire for power in the traditional sense. I genuinely have a concern for current and future generations (along with other living things). I think your cynical lens should be re-aimed toward those who have short-term financial interests in continuing the status quo (which to a large degree would reflect on ourselves as a society).
-James in ABQ
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It's not a scientific opinion. I think it has a natural component only because of history. Climate change has occurred throughout the history of the earth. The ice age, the middle ages both were cooling periods in earth's history. I don't understand why anyone would totally discount that the current warming trend has no natural origins.
I'm always amused by this argument.
Heart disease has a genetic component. But if I have a family history of heart disease, that doesn't mean I can go ahead and smoke and drink a lot - it means I have to be MORE careful than if I didn't have that natural tendency. If mum and dad dropped off in their 50s from heart disease despite being slim non-smoking teetotallers, I really don't have any room to fuck around - I have to be very, very careful.
Likewise, if the climate were warming naturally anyway (which it isn't), that wouldn't mean we should keep on motoring, that would mean we should be MORE careful.
The "it's partly natural" argument thus leads to a more severe prescription for change in fossil fuels, land use and overall consumption.
Of course, they've not really thought it through.
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Just to point out that we started burning a significant amount of coal at the start of the Industrial revolution so any anthropogenic climate change started then. Burning wood/peat etc is part of the short term carbon cycle, no real global effects, burning fossil fuels meant the start of using sequestered carbon.
We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
Hot periods in earth's history have always had increasing greenhouse gases as a cause, usually from huge planetary production from huge lava flows. Look up the Deccan traps. And remember that really major warming means a lot of ocean mortality. What do people eat when ocean fisheries collapse and that was their main protein source?
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I'm always amused by this argument.
Likewise, if the climate were warming naturally anyway (which it isn't), that wouldn't mean we should keep on motoring, that would mean we should be MORE careful.
I don't think you get what I am saying. I totally agree with this. Whether it is
The "it's partly natural" argument thus leads to a more severe prescription for change in fossil fuels, land use and overall consumption.
Of course, they've not really thought it through.
I'm not sure you understand my position. I totally agree with this. The fact that I think that "its partly natural" doesn't mean that I don't agree with needing to make the changes necessary to protect the environment. . You want muggles to get on board. Yet It seems like even if they do what you want/ the environment needs, it isn't enough. They have to believe exactly how you believe . The percentage of natural causes, whether it is 99% or 0% has to be exact. Is this like a religion. All or none? You can be a hypocrite and go to heaven, or live like Christ and go to hell if you don't buy the whole package.
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You need to read the thread before responding to it, really.
I don't call them "muggles", that's a conceit of the OP which I've spoken against in this thread.
I'm indifferent to what people believe, I'm interested in what they do. The idea that belief is necessary, relevant or sufficient is a peculiarly American idea. "Only believe! and it will be!" probably originating from evangelical Christianity. But I'm Jewish, and in Judaism it's not a requirement to believe anything at all, only to follow the Law. It's the same as civil law: nobody cares if you don't believe in the existence or utility of courts, magistrates, lawyers and police, so long as you follow the law. Nor will the magistrate be much moved if, on your appearance in court on serious charges, you say, "But Your Honour, I really believe in you!"
Actions matter. We need to consume less. Whether you consume less because you are concerned about climate change, or you're concerned about peak fossil fuels, or you're concerned about pollution, or you're concerned about the loss of local jobs overseas, or you're frugal or you're poor, or you just don't feel all that burning stuff suits your personal style, well it's completely irrelevant to the end result: less consumption.
But typically the arguments are not about exactly why we should reduce consumption, they're elaborate excuses not to. "Well, if we just change to -" "If the government would just -" "Really we need -" "Someone [else] should do something!" and then the person jumps on the next cross-ocean or cross-continental flight and at the other end gets into an SUV and drives to a McMansion bleeding energy out into the air. "But look, I really believe in -" Nobody cares.
That we are on a site dedicated to avoiding wasteful spending and people are still struggling with the idea of reducing consumption shows how intrinsic a part of our culture consumption is.
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You need to read the thread before responding to it, really.
I don't call them "muggles", that's a conceit of the OP which I've spoken against in this thread.
I'm indifferent to what people believe, I'm interested in what they do. The idea that belief is necessary, relevant or sufficient is a peculiarly American idea. "Only believe! and it will be!" probably originating from evangelical Christianity. But I'm Jewish, and in Judaism it's not a requirement to believe anything at all, only to follow the Law. It's the same as civil law: nobody cares if you don't believe in the existence or utility of courts, magistrates, lawyers and police, so long as you follow the law. Nor will the magistrate be much moved if, on your appearance in court on serious charges, you say, "But Your Honour, I really believe in you!"
Actions matter. We need to consume less. Whether you consume less because you are concerned about climate change, or you're concerned about peak fossil fuels, or you're concerned about pollution, or you're concerned about the loss of local jobs overseas, or you're frugal or you're poor, or you just don't feel all that burning stuff suits your personal style, well it's completely irrelevant to the end result: less consumption.
But typically the arguments are not about exactly why we should reduce consumption, they're elaborate excuses not to. "Well, if we just change to -" "If the government would just -" "Really we need -" "Someone [else] should do something!" and then the person jumps on the next cross-ocean or cross-continental flight and at the other end gets into an SUV and drives to a McMansion bleeding energy out into the air. "But look, I really believe in -" Nobody cares.
That we are on a site dedicated to avoiding wasteful spending and people are still struggling with the idea of reducing consumption shows how intrinsic a part of our culture consumption is.
Agreed, actions speak louder than words.
This reminds me of a friend who posted on FB, just after Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement,
"OMG, this is sooooo horrible! It's going to be the end of the world as we know it!"
Then, to her Republican friends,
"This is all your fault, you know? You guys who voted for Trump are responsible for destroying the environment for our kids and grandkids! Are you ready to admit, yet, that you made a big mistake voting for that idiot?"
My response to this post was something like this,
"Gee, are you sure Trump supporters are to blame for global climate change? What about the people who voted for Trump who take a bus or walk to work, and just sit around their small apartments watching Fox News on their TVs, every night? You, OTOH, took your family of four and, literally, flew multiple times around the entire Earth during the past year. How many countries did you guys visit on your epic RTW trip, something like 20, right? Now, you're back home at your big house, with the built in, heated swimming pool, with your SUV parked in the heated and air conditioned garage, and what are you planning on doing next? Last I heard, you guys had just bought a brand new, diesel F-350 and a pretty cool-looking, big ass, brand-new RV that you're planning on using to drive around North, Central and South America for the next year(s). Are you really sure Trump supporters are the ones to blame for climate change?"
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Even if global climate change were a total hoax, which it's not, I still think there are ample good reasons for humans to make changes to our lifestyles.
For example, just take a look around at Americans. Sooooooo many people are sick and fat in the US! Some of that comes from the poor food supply. A lot of it, though, is because of Americans' sedentary lifestyles, which are enabled by easy, cheap access to cars. Making driving anywhere in a car expensive enough that people needed to think twice before driving even 1 mile would force people to get up off their fat asses and move their bodies more than they do now. If making driving a car more expensive resulted in Americans' losing weight and getting healthier, wouldn't that make it worth it, just by itself, even if you didn't believe that climate change was "real?"
I've lost track of how many Americans have told me, just in the last 6 months, that the only way they can get around is by car, because, "I have a bad knee (or back or hip), because I got into a bad car crash (recently, last year, 10 years ago). So, I have to go everywhere by car, because I'm disabled." Many, many more people I know aren't necessarily disabled in any specific way, other than the fact that they're 50 - 100lbs+ overweight and completely out of shape, which makes it extremely uncomfortable for them to walk any significant distances. I used to work with a guy in his early 40s, who could barely make it from the entrance of Walmart to his car parked a couple hundred feet away in one of the handicapped stalls. He used to give me his keys, and I would go get his car and drive it up to the front of the store to pick him up, because it was so hard for him to walk. The only thing wrong with him was that he weighed like 400lbs.
The Left in the US is all up in arms about guns. OMG, 14K people were murdered by guns (mostly pistols), last year, so let's ban scary black assault rifles!!! (that only kill maybe 500 people/year). OTOH, 40K+ people are killed and HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS are permanently maimed in car crashes in the US, every. single. year, but I haven't heard one politician, yet, come out with a proposal to ban cars. I mean, even implementing a tepid carbon tax like Canada has been experimenting with for the past 12 years, would probably save thousands of lives in the US, just because people would drive their cars a little less if gas cost more. But nobody's talking about that, at all, though. wtf?
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Even if the global average temperature rises a few degrees, the world will not end. Our planet and many of the species on it have survived warm periods and cold periods before.
Yes, of course. I am quite sure humanity will even surivive a "nothing is done" scenario. A few million people on the North Pole.
But I do not want the other billions to die. Or 95% of nature.
Stopping or reversing that change will be extremely expensive on a global scale - on the order of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars.
Yes, and it will be at least 10 times more expensive is nothing is done.
There is waaaay too much hysteria surrounding this issue.
Yes. The climate-hysteria hysteria is incredible. You could think many people believe we will end up living in mud huts if we do something against the destruction if the base of our living conditions.
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I don't call them "muggles", that's a conceit of the OP which I've spoken against in this thread.
"Only believe! and it will be!" probably originating from evangelical Christianity. But I'm Jewish, and in Judaism it's not a requirement to believe anything at all, only to follow the Law.
Perhaps you can better help me understand your comment. You criticize OP for a lighthearted criticism of those who speak but do no action on climate change. Then in the next breath you criticize Christians (or is it Americans?) as having to "believe", but Jews are cool they know how to follow the law without believing.
By all appearances this shows 1) a fantastic example of ironic hypocrisy and 2) a grandiose level of self-delusion. To expound on 2 (because 1 is fairly obvious): Are you saying that Christians don't follow laws unless they believe in them (in general), or that Jews' origination of laws didn't originally extend from someone's belief, or what?
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Just to point out that we started burning a significant amount of coal at the start of the Industrial revolution so any anthropogenic climate change started then. Burning wood/peat etc is part of the short term carbon cycle, no real global effects, burning fossil fuels meant the start of using sequestered carbon.
We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
Hot periods in earth's history have always had increasing greenhouse gases as a cause, usually from huge planetary production from huge lava flows. Look up the Deccan traps. And remember that really major warming means a lot of ocean mortality. What do people eat when ocean fisheries collapse and that was their main protein source?
yeah, I remember that. The scientists were predicting another ice age. I never made the connection with the reduction in air pollution though.
so the 70's are actually an example of when we dealt with a climate crisis! (beyond acid rain and ozone depletion, I mean)
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That we are on a site dedicated to avoiding wasteful spending and people are still struggling with the idea of reducing consumption shows how intrinsic a part of our culture consumption is.
You're either virtue signalling or you haven't read the thread OP.
If you're going for the props, here ya go: You're great, you're the ideal, you're the proto environmentalist. Yay you!
But the OP wasn't about the poster's personal consumption and environmentalism. It was about convincing others (read: people who consume a lot) to take action. How do we convince other people to reduce energy use, which of course includes reduced consumption? There have been a few suggestions, including your "influencer" suggestion. That's worthwhile but it's going to be too little too late. (Plus, it's questionable how many people want to emulate my bike riding, small house, lifestyle -- even if we're FIRE partly because of it.)
Because you keep posting it, I'll itemize.
1) We need to consume less.
Yes, of course. We do.
2) People make excuses.
Yes, of course. We do.
No one here disagrees with the above. Most of my neighbors disagree, my parents disagree, but no one in this thread.
tl;dr You're preaching to the choir. How do we convince non-choir people to walk the walk?
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Just to point out that we started burning a significant amount of coal at the start of the Industrial revolution so any anthropogenic climate change started then. Burning wood/peat etc is part of the short term carbon cycle, no real global effects, burning fossil fuels meant the start of using sequestered carbon.
We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
Hot periods in earth's history have always had increasing greenhouse gases as a cause, usually from huge planetary production from huge lava flows. Look up the Deccan traps. And remember that really major warming means a lot of ocean mortality. What do people eat when ocean fisheries collapse and that was their main protein source?
yeah, I remember that. The scientists were predicting another ice age. I never made the connection with the reduction in air pollution though.
so the 70's are actually an example of when we dealt with a climate crisis! (beyond acid rain and ozone depletion, I mean)
Eh, the "ice age" scare was one article in Newsweek or something based on one scientific paper. It was never 1000s of scientists all agreeing on an ice age.
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But the OP wasn't about the poster's personal consumption and environmentalism. It was about convincing others (read: people who consume a lot) to take action. How do we convince other people to reduce energy use, which of course includes reduced consumption?
Power of example.
See the complete failure of the work of Al Gore, Leo Decaprio and others.
How do we convince non-choir people to walk the walk?
By walking it ourselves.
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The solution to climate change seems pretty straight forward to me. If burning fossil fuels is warming the planet, wouldn't a logical solution would be for us to burn less fossil fuels?
Recently, talking with regular (non Mustachian) people we meet, I've suggested various solutions, like, "How about we start encouraging more Americans to begin transitioning away from sedentary, car based lifestyles?" Seems like a no brainer to me. We'd burn less fossil fuels, emit less greenhouse gases, and humans would get more exercise by walking, riding a bike, etc. People sometimes nod their heads and passively agree with this statement but, more often, they say something along the lines of, "It'll never work. Americans are NEVER going to give up their cars."
When I start suggesting practical ways we might gently nudge average Americans to step out of their comfort zone and encourage them to start walking, cycling or taking public transport, their resistance starts to get more fierce. Yesterday, in a neighborhood online forum I suggested it might be a good idea for us to start gradually increasing the costs of car ownership. For example, I said, maybe we could get our city to start charging homeowners a fee to park their vehicles on publicly owned streets, and maybe we could encourage our state to start gradually increasing fuel taxes to make gasoline more expensive to encourage people to drive less and to raise revenue that could be used to improve public transport, build more bike lanes, etc. These ideas seemed like fairly straight forward, common sense, Econ 101 ways to push people to use their cars less, or to get rid of them altogether, but people in my neighborhood came out of the woodwork to attack me and my ideas.
Their main complaints seemed to be:
-Gas is already too expensive!
-There's no way I will EVER pay the city to park in front of my own god damn house!
-What about the poor people? How do you expect them to be able to afford to pay to park AND pay higher prices for gas? These ideas are crazy!
-What about all the people who *have* to drive long distances between their homes (in rural areas, 50+ miles outside our city) to come in to work every day? How can you expect them to pay more for gas AND pay to park too? This is nuts!
So, I asked my neighbors, "Well, what do you guys propose we do, then?"...crickets..........
Just feeling kind of frustrated. I mean, personally, I'm not that worried about climate change. We have enough money and are flexible enough that we'll be fine, pretty much no matter what happens. Poor people, people who are living paycheck to paycheck, probably are going to be the ones who will suffer the most, IMHO. Interestingly, middle class and up people are always the ones who trot out "poor people" as a kind of prop, I think, to justify their own wasteful lifestyles and unwillingness to change. I'm just feeling like, Why should I even care? Cheap gas is great for me and my family. Free parking? That's good for us too. I'd be willing to pay more for those things, because I think it might help to slowly begin weaning Americans off of their 100% car-based lifestyle, but if nobody else is willing to give up anything. at. all, why should I bother?
We've been keeping our thermostat set at 64F-67F. Over Christmas, we left town for a few days, and just shut the furnace off, because the forecast wasn't calling for the temperature to fall below freezing. The same neighbors who insist they can't go ANYWHERE without their cars, have also told us they like to keep their thermostats set at between 75F-80F... wtf?
I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?
We’ve already passed the point of no return., it’s just a matter of when Everything is simply overloaded. Too many people and not enough sustainable resources
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But the OP wasn't about the poster's personal consumption and environmentalism. It was about convincing others (read: people who consume a lot) to take action. How do we convince other people to reduce energy use, which of course includes reduced consumption?
Power of example.
See the complete failure of the work of Al Gore, Leo Decaprio and others.
How do we convince non-choir people to walk the walk?
By walking it ourselves.
Part of the problem is that those of us with voluntarily modest lifestyles are essentially invisible to the more consumerist tendency, and if we are noticed then we are looked down on as poor and/or unexciting and unadventurous, and possibly even small-minded and parochial. That make influencing people harder: the status symbols we eschew are called that for a reason and our lack of them limits our influence with the very many people who deem them important.
Leading by non-consumerist example is a pipe-dream. Leading by hypocrites also fails, as per the examples above. We are, I think, doomed: lemmings heading for a cliff we know is there but carried along in the mob and unable to stop.
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Just to point out that we started burning a significant amount of coal at the start of the Industrial revolution so any anthropogenic climate change started then. Burning wood/peat etc is part of the short term carbon cycle, no real global effects, burning fossil fuels meant the start of using sequestered carbon.
We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
Hot periods in earth's history have always had increasing greenhouse gases as a cause, usually from huge planetary production from huge lava flows. Look up the Deccan traps. And remember that really major warming means a lot of ocean mortality. What do people eat when ocean fisheries collapse and that was their main protein source?
yeah, I remember that. The scientists were predicting another ice age. I never made the connection with the reduction in air pollution though.
so the 70's are actually an example of when we dealt with a climate crisis! (beyond acid rain and ozone depletion, I mean)
Eh, the "ice age" scare was one article in Newsweek or something based on one scientific paper. It was never 1000s of scientists all agreeing on an ice age.
Bah, there was even popular fiction about it. Remember 'Fallen Angels' by Pournelle and Niven?
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Just to point out that we started burning a significant amount of coal at the start of the Industrial revolution so any anthropogenic climate change started then. Burning wood/peat etc is part of the short term carbon cycle, no real global effects, burning fossil fuels meant the start of using sequestered carbon.
We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
Hot periods in earth's history have always had increasing greenhouse gases as a cause, usually from huge planetary production from huge lava flows. Look up the Deccan traps. And remember that really major warming means a lot of ocean mortality. What do people eat when ocean fisheries collapse and that was their main protein source?
yeah, I remember that. The scientists were predicting another ice age. I never made the connection with the reduction in air pollution though.
so the 70's are actually an example of when we dealt with a climate crisis! (beyond acid rain and ozone depletion, I mean)
Eh, the "ice age" scare was one article in Newsweek or something based on one scientific paper. It was never 1000s of scientists all agreeing on an ice age.
Bah, there was even popular fiction about it. Remember 'Fallen Angels' by Pournelle and Niven?
I actually heard about this much later, talking with a retired meteorologist who was working back then.
Given that we have relatively recent historical evidence of large volcanic eruptions producing a lot of particulate matter and causing temporary cooling, and given that we are already past the usual half way point for an inter-glacial, it makes perfect sense that they were concerned about it.
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I actually heard about this much later, talking with a retired meteorologist who was working back then.
Given that we have relatively recent historical evidence of large volcanic eruptions producing a lot of particulate matter and causing temporary cooling, and given that we are already past the usual half way point for an inter-glacial, it makes perfect sense that they were concerned about it.
Of course that "Ice Scare" ignored the time factor. The particles (source of things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London ) were only in the air for a short time. CO2 is up there way way longer, so it would have eventually won. And we don't want that "London Fog" back, right?
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Here is my opinion.
Opinions are nice, but the preponderance of scientific evidence over the last 50 years or more doesn't support your opinion. I continue to be boggled at the number of people who think their opinion is somehow more informed than an overwhelming scientific consensus.
If one thousand oncologists told you that you had cancer, and one told you that you didn't need to worry, it was just gastritis--are you really going to believe the gastritis guy? Because that's kind of where we're at on climate change science at this point.
Some percentage of that is due to man-made causes and some percentage is due to natural causes/normal cycles and variation. Whether that percentage is 99% and 1% or 70% and 30% I don't know. The majority is probably from man-made causes.
Even if the global average temperature rises a few degrees, the world will not end. Our planet and many of the species on it have survived warm periods and cold periods before.
Yes, the scientific consensus is that global warming is nearly entirely man-made causes. And what's worse, it's rocketing up faster than at almost any other time in history (and the one time in history it did happen this fast, it caused a massive extinction event). Natural climate change happens over thousands of years, and has a very definite cycle. We have not only overtopped this cycle on the high end by a wide margin, we have done it much faster than any possible natural cause (barring catastrophic meteor strikes and the like). Scientists have taken multiple ice cores and found a great deal of other evidence in the geological record that confirms this.
There is waaaay too much hysteria surrounding this issue. Somehow we've been 5-10 years from an irreversible tipping point and the end of the world as we know it for a few decades. When you keep saying the sky is falling year after year and it just drops slightly, it doesn't really engender a lot of confidence. New York City will be 10 feet under water..... in a century or two.
IMHO, there's not enough hysteria about this issue. Scientists have been sounding the alarm for the last 50-100 years, depending on when you start counting. If we'd listened and taken action then, this problem would have been much more solvable and much less expensive to tackle. But we didn't want our free ride on fossil fuels to end, so we've been ignoring them. Now we're past the tipping point. Climate change is happening NOW. Low-lying areas are flooding NOW. Droughts and storms and ocean currents are increasing or changing NOW. All of these things are guaranteed to screw us over in any number of ways, from the fresh water we need to drink, to the food we need to eat, to the places we need to live. But because it's happening over decades rather than months or years, people still think we can ignore it.
Yes, humans will adapt, and a certain percentage will survive--as a species, we're really, really good at that. But our civilization may not be able to. Personally, I would prefer not to bequeath a world to future generations where a global, interconnected civilization has been reduced to a feudal/tribal state, or where we're responsible for the widespread destruction of habitat and the mass extinction of millions of animals, insects and plants in our blind pursuit of survival.
While the concern many people feel may be heartfelt, it is hard for me not to look at this through a cynical lens as a desire for power, or anti-capitalism, or some other underlying reason other than genuine concern for current and future generations.
It's easy to be cynical when you don't think it will affect you. It's much harder when you actually give a damn for the natural world around you, or for people stuck in areas and economic situations who aren't as fortunate.
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We are in an inter glacial. Theoretically we could have started to cool. There was a short cooling trend around the 70s because there was so much particulate matter in the atmosphere that we started reflecting more sunlight back into space. We cleaned up that mess and the cfc's but not the greenhouse gases.
yeah, I remember that. The scientists were predicting another ice age. I never made the connection with the reduction in air pollution though.
so the 70's are actually an example of when we dealt with a climate crisis! (beyond acid rain and ozone depletion, I mean)
Eh, the "ice age" scare was one article in Newsweek or something based on one scientific paper. It was never 1000s of scientists all agreeing on an ice age.
The trick is to realise that stories in the mass media are written by journalists, not by by scientists. Journalist, usually, not always, exaggerate the impact of their stories.
I repeat: mass media stories about science are written by journalists, not by scientists.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
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There also isn't a concerted effort by well funded industry groups attempting to discredit the ideal gas law.
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I actually heard about this much later, talking with a retired meteorologist who was working back then.
Given that we have relatively recent historical evidence of large volcanic eruptions producing a lot of particulate matter and causing temporary cooling, and given that we are already past the usual half way point for an inter-glacial, it makes perfect sense that they were concerned about it.
Of course that "Ice Scare" ignored the time factor. The particles (source of things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London ) were only in the air for a short time. CO2 is up there way way longer, so it would have eventually won. And we don't want that "London Fog" back, right?
Mount Tambora's eruption in 1815 caused "the year without a summer" in New England in 1816. Volcanoes can inject masses of small particles into the upper atmosphere if the explosion is violent enough.
The dust that was causing increased albedo in the 1970s was mostly very fine soil particles from wind soil erosion, plus particulates from burning. Large particles low to the ground don't have much effect on albedo, since rain washes them to the ground. It is the ones that are small enough to get into the upper atmosphere that do. Cloud cover also affects albedo, as do snow and ice on the ground.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
The way that science works is, you propose a theory. The theories are collected and reviewed - and the one that best fits the known facts becomes generally accepted. If the known facts that we have change, or if a better theory comes along that explains them better . . . then yeah . . . everything has to change. So agreed, science is never truly settled.
That said, arguing that science changes and is not settled is a common climate change denial tactic. If science is never settled, then we can never trust it - and stuff along these lines. That's an invalid argument as the denialists aren't arguing they've got a better fitting theory for the facts. They're simply denying facts they don't like.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
Settled does not equate to proven. It just means it is sufficiently agreed upon by the scientists who have studied the topic to assume it is likely true.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong (https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong)
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
Settled does not equate to proven. It just means it is sufficiently agreed upon by the scientists who have studied the topic to assume it is likely true.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong (https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong)
Black swans - there were no black swans known to European science, so black swans didn't exist - and then there was Australia, and Black swans. So one negative data point can invalidate a theory, certainly. That is why scientists are so cautious with language. And certainly new evidence can revolutionize a scientific discipline's basic theories - plate tectonics did that for geology, evolution and genetics did that for biology.
But there is lots of evidence for climate change, the main discussion is how much of it is anthropogenic - and it looks like the added CO2 from fossil fuels is definitely having an effect. The big thing, to me, is how badly we want to run this experiment to its conclusion, when this is the only planet we have. Remember, Marie Curie is known for her 2 Nobel prizes, what gets mentioned less is that she died of radiation poisoning.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
Settled does not equate to proven. It just means it is sufficiently agreed upon by the scientists who have studied the topic to assume it is likely true.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong (https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong)
Black swans - there were no black swans known to European science, so black swans didn't exist - and then there was Australia, and Black swans. So one negative data point can invalidate a theory, certainly. That is why scientists are so cautious with language. And certainly new evidence can revolutionize a scientific discipline's basic theories - plate tectonics did that for geology, evolution and genetics did that for biology.
But there is lots of evidence for climate change, the main discussion is how much of it is anthropogenic - and it looks like the added CO2 from fossil fuels is definitely having an effect. The big thing, to me, is how badly we want to run this experiment to its conclusion, when this is the only planet we have. Remember, Marie Curie is known for her 2 Nobel prizes, what gets mentioned less is that she died of radiation poisoning.
The black swan isn't a good analogy. For one, science didn't say there could only be white swans, and on the contrary, one could easily postulate that black swans could exist with a fairly minor genetic mutation (which was perhaps wiped out by natural selection in swans who lived in snowy Europe). Secondly, there was no major decision hanging on whether or not black swans existed.
A more appropriate analogy might be the discovery of geocentric solar systems in the universe, wherein a massive star orbits a much less massive planet. If such a situation were discovered, settled science would be upended.
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One of the problems with climate science is that, unlike other sciences, it's hard to demonstrate the theories.
Think of the ideal gas law for example. It's easy to demonstrate the ideal gas law. Get a cylinder full of gas, heat it up and measure the pressure increase. You can see the day to day application every time you start your car. Few will argue about this.
Climate science is much harder. Climate scientists have no way to demonstrate their theories. All they can do is made predictions, and then see how well they do against future measurements. There's lots of evidence that climate is changing. Just compare the extent of the Columbia icefields over the last 40 years. But it's hard to demonstrate what's causing the shrinking ice fields and polar gaps.
You're correct, verifying climate change is not as easy as verifying the ideal gas law. However, we have spent untold millions to verify whether the hypothesis that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would result in increased temperatures, and the resounding answer is yes.
The climate science is settled. Difficult to comprehend by the layperson? Sure. But so was the heliocentric model, and it was resisted for a long, long time, even after the preponderance of evidence was staring everyone in the face. But it's certainly easier to throw up one's hands and say I don't know rather than carefully review both sides' arguments with an open mind.
Science is never settled and climate science is no exception. We will continue to learn about the climate in the years and decades to come. Dogma is the enemy of science, as you point our with your geocentric/heliocentric example!
Settled does not equate to proven. It just means it is sufficiently agreed upon by the scientists who have studied the topic to assume it is likely true.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong (https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/15/settled-does-not-mean-proved-scientific-method-and-why-so-many-people-get-it-wrong)
Black swans - there were no black swans known to European science, so black swans didn't exist - and then there was Australia, and Black swans. So one negative data point can invalidate a theory, certainly. That is why scientists are so cautious with language. And certainly new evidence can revolutionize a scientific discipline's basic theories - plate tectonics did that for geology, evolution and genetics did that for biology.
But there is lots of evidence for climate change, the main discussion is how much of it is anthropogenic - and it looks like the added CO2 from fossil fuels is definitely having an effect. The big thing, to me, is how badly we want to run this experiment to its conclusion, when this is the only planet we have. Remember, Marie Curie is known for her 2 Nobel prizes, what gets mentioned less is that she died of radiation poisoning.
The black swan isn't a good analogy. For one, science didn't say there could only be white swans, and on the contrary, one could easily postulate that black swans could exist with a fairly minor genetic mutation (which was perhaps wiped out by natural selection in swans who lived in snowy Europe). Secondly, there was no major decision hanging on whether or not black swans existed.
A more appropriate analogy might be the discovery of geocentric solar systems in the universe, wherein a massive star orbits a much less massive planet. If such a situation were discovered, settled science would be upended.
I know we are going a bit off topic, but maybe this will be an interesting side track for the non-scientists here.
Black swans were doctrinaire enough that Taleb used them for one of his book titles.
We don't need to look at outer space for changes in paradigms. Tectonic plate theory is a lovely example. Continental drift was loved by biologists (all those fossil deposits lining up across continents) and geographers (look at how the continental margins fit together so nicely) but the geologists poo-pooed it because the basic mechanism didn't work. Poor Wegener.
Then a bunch of information from various areas of geological research came together (sea-floor spreading, vulcanism, etc.) and we got plate tectonics. Lovely theory, explained the ring of fire, the widening of the Atlantic, and all those pesky fossil patterns. It basically revolutionized earth science. A colleague of mine told me that when he was in University his professor came back from a conference (really THE CONFERENCE, where plate tectonics got started) and told his class to rip up all their notes, everything he had told them had been wrong. And now plate tectonics is the underlying theory for Geology as a discipline.
Climatology has lots of information going in - we know about the various solar cycles, orbital cycles, etc. Add in our increasing understanding of earth's internal processes and we can look at snowball earth and most of the great extinctions and tie them in with what the climate was doing, and why it was doing it. What climatologists are basically doing now is adding another factor into the climate equation - and that factor is increasing greenhouse gases that had been sequestered. Both long-term C that is in fossil fuels, and medium term C that is in methane deposits (permafrost and ocean methane hydrates). At least we don't have a super-continent at the moment, that really messes up climate.
Plus we have to remember that so often science is in the details. And things can be non-linear - often there are tipping points - change a current and you get el nino/la nina, or the monsoons come late, or the jet stream changes a bit and weather patterns move faster or slower than usual. Climatology is messy. So are biology and geology, all are much messier than chemistry or physics. Too many variables.
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I know we are going a bit off topic, but maybe this will be an interesting side track for the non-scientists here.
Black swans were doctrinaire enough that Taleb used them for one of his book titles.
We don't need to look at outer space for changes in paradigms. Tectonic plate theory is a lovely example. Continental drift was loved by biologists (all those fossil deposits lining up across continents) and geographers (look at how the continental margins fit together so nicely) but the geologists poo-pooed it because the basic mechanism didn't work. Poor Wegener.
Then a bunch of information from various areas of geological research came together (sea-floor spreading, vulcanism, etc.) and we got plate tectonics. Lovely theory, explained the ring of fire, the widening of the Atlantic, and all those pesky fossil patterns. It basically revolutionized earth science. A colleague of mine told me that when he was in University his professor came back from a conference (really THE CONFERENCE, where plate tectonics got started) and told his class to rip up all their notes, everything he had told them had been wrong. And now plate tectonics is the underlying theory for Geology as a discipline.
Climatology has lots of information going in - we know about the various solar cycles, orbital cycles, etc. Add in our increasing understanding of earth's internal processes and we can look at snowball earth and most of the great extinctions and tie them in with what the climate was doing, and why it was doing it. What climatologists are basically doing now is adding another factor into the climate equation - and that factor is increasing greenhouse gases that had been sequestered. Both long-term C that is in fossil fuels, and medium term C that is in methane deposits (permafrost and ocean methane hydrates). At least we don't have a super-continent at the moment, that really messes up climate.
Plus we have to remember that so often science is in the details. And things can be non-linear - often there are tipping points - change a current and you get el nino/la nina, or the monsoons come late, or the jet stream changes a bit and weather patterns move faster or slower than usual. Climatology is messy. So are biology and geology, all are much messier than chemistry or physics. Too many variables.
I agree, the details are messy. I'm certain that there is a large range of uncertainty as to exactly how the climate will change with the addition of greenhouse gases. But I want to emphasize for any doubters in the audience that the science is essentially settled (perhaps not as much as the laws of gravitational physics, but certainly as much as plate tectonics).
1) In science, one wants to have a mechanism if possible (rather than just observation). The experimentally verified mechanism by which one can postulate global warming is the fact that carbon dioxide absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation. https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits-infrared-radiation (https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits-infrared-radiation)
2) Extrapolating the basic warming mechanism to the entire climate cannot be performed experimentally (because we only have one Earth), but one can develop models and verify whether the predictions of those models are accurate. The climate models have been fairly accurate in predicting the temperature rise over decades. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming)
3) Perhaps most importantly for the layperson, there is complete consensus among the scientists, to include those with a conflict of interest that would bias them away from global warming. I posted earlier about all of the oil companies being in complete agreement regarding climate change. Here's another data point: Perhaps the most extensive study of climate change outside of the mainstream was that performed by Berkeley Earth (don't let the name fool you), which consists largely of a group of skeptics initially funded in large part by the Koch brothers (among others). Their results ended up mirroring that of the consensus. Here's a summary: http://berkeleyearth.org/about/ (http://berkeleyearth.org/about/). And here's a skeptic's guide: http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/skeptics-guide-to-climate-change.pdf (http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/skeptics-guide-to-climate-change.pdf).
I am willing to accept any level of policy, including 'who cares', just so long as it is based on what is considered settled science. When people insist we don't know whether climate change is real, they are misrepresenting what everybody who studies this topic says is the case.
Edited for some funkiness that showed up. Which won't seem to go away. :(
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I am willing to accept any level of policy, including 'who cares', just so long as it is based on what is considered settled science. When people insist we don't know whether climate change is real, they are misrepresenting what everybody who studies this topic says is the case.
I'm in full agreement here. The political propaganda is so strong on this case, though, that it's hard to even communicate this sentiment.
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I think a better analogy might be vaccinations.
Vaccinations are well known the reduce the incidence of some pretty nasty diseases. Scientists have conducted multitudes of studies to demonstrate their effectiveness and also to demonstrate the absence of side effects. Yes, there is some residual risk that a vaccination may have a serious side effect. But the risk of getting the disease is substantially worse than the risk of the side effect.
No reasonable person would refuse vaccinations.
Similarly climate science isn't perfect. It will be difficult to have accurate predictions due to modelling errors and unexpected non-linear effects. But no reasonable person would say that our production of greenhouse gases isn't effecting climate change.
Just like we have a group of anti-vaxxers, we have a group of climate deniers. Being dogmatic is unlikely to convince anyone of the opposite point of view. Climate deniers are afraid that they'll have to give up their cars, their vacations, their fresh produce in winter and central heating and air conditioning. Even folks who promote climate science are generally unwilling to consider much of this. This is not a fight we can win directly.
As an engineer, I'm much happier to avoid the dogma, and proceed with the rational approach. I know this sometimes comes across as climate skepticism or even denial. But I believe that we need to harness social forces (perhaps like the ongoing innovation with electric vehicles) and make things happen through an unstoppable tide of progress. Spending our energy on effective means is much better than fighting with people who don't agree and aren't interested.
Many industries hate the notion of reducing our dependency on oil and other fossil fuels. That hasn't stopped Tesla and Toyota and Honda and even GM from making hybrid and electrical cars, and people are buying them.
Solar cells on your roof was a pipe dream when I was growing up. Imagine - free electricity from your roofing! Things are changing and we should look for ways to accelerate the change.
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I think a better analogy might be vaccinations.
Vaccinations are well known the reduce the incidence of some pretty nasty diseases. Scientists have conducted multitudes of studies to demonstrate their effectiveness and also to demonstrate the absence of side effects. Yes, there is some residual risk that a vaccination may have a serious side effect. But the risk of getting the disease is substantially worse than the risk of the side effect.
No reasonable person would refuse vaccinations.
Similarly climate science isn't perfect. It will be difficult to have accurate predictions due to modelling errors and unexpected non-linear effects. But no reasonable person would say that our production of greenhouse gases isn't effecting climate change.
Just like we have a group of anti-vaxxers, we have a group of climate deniers. Being dogmatic is unlikely to convince anyone of the opposite point of view. Climate deniers are afraid that they'll have to give up their cars, their vacations, their fresh produce in winter and central heating and air conditioning. Even folks who promote climate science are generally unwilling to consider much of this. This is not a fight we can win directly.
As an engineer, I'm much happier to avoid the dogma, and proceed with the rational approach. I know this sometimes comes across as climate skepticism or even denial. But I believe that we need to harness social forces (perhaps like the ongoing innovation with electric vehicles) and make things happen through an unstoppable tide of progress. Spending our energy on effective means is much better than fighting with people who don't agree and aren't interested.
Many industries hate the notion of reducing our dependency on oil and other fossil fuels. That hasn't stopped Tesla and Toyota and Honda and even GM from making hybrid and electrical cars, and people are buying them.
Solar cells on your roof was a pipe dream when I was growing up. Imagine - free electricity from your roofing! Things are changing and we should look for ways to accelerate the change.
I wish I could see things the same way as you, but as I see it almost all of the progress in stemming the runaway carbon train (with the exception of coal's increasingly marginal position) has been due to the staunch beliefs of early proponents (even if those beliefs were unrelated to climate), not due to some wave of progress.* Progress, if anything, has resulted in unrestrained growth for carbon pollution since fossil fuels were discovered.
Here's my quibble with the vaccination analogy: anti-vaxxers only experience personal repercussions (for the most part), whereas climate denialists collectively result in global repercussions with little to no personal repercussions. Historically, the only way to fight these tragedy of the commons type scenarios is through government action. (A better analogy would be overfished fisheries, where it makes little economic sense for any individual fisherman to reduce fishing, but a lot of sense for collective reduction of catch.)
*As evidence, I submit the historical cost and performance of solar panels and electric cars, which until recently did not come close to their polluting counterparts.
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Give citizens the $ back, and without even trying they will consume less things that are carbon intensive just because of the cost.
I'm not entirely sure that this assumption is true. Our federal government implemented a carbon tax, and allowed the provinces to choose what to do with the money collected - they just had to submit a plan. Here in Ontario we've elected a Conservative provincial government who decided that the free market approach to climate change was a stupid idea and they didn't want to be a part of it. So they didn't submit a plan . . . forcing the Ontario government to simply remit the carbon tax proceeds to all the people in Ontario.
I haven't noticed any change at all in consumption habits at all from the carbon tax and rebate - which currently charges 20$ per ton of carbon to increase to 50$ by 2022 (works out to around 300$ per person per year in Ontario). And even though the increase in price has been so minimal that nobody has altered their habits, there's significant political blowback and complaining from Conservatives in Canada.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers after a few years of this. So far, your evidence that it doesn't work appears to be anecdotal. The fee and dividend model seems to be highly favored by economists, which is why I am so interested in it. If presented right, it also has the most potential to be supported by conservatives (free market) than any of the other drastic changes that are being submitted. It has "conservative" written all over it other than those who outright deny climate change.
Hey, here's hoping. But at 300$ ish a year (and those are Canadian dollars . . . that's like what - 200$ US?), I suspect there will be minimal change to people's habits.
Conservatives have moved further and further away from being financially conservative in recent years. Our current conservative government paid thousands of dollars of our tax money and legally required that all gas stations in the province to prominently display anti-carbon tax advertising.
The conservative governments of Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan have all raised legal challenges the carbon tax and the results are in. Ontario/Saskatchewan court of appeals have dismissed the challenges . . . but interestingly, in the most conservative province in Canada . . . the Alberta court of appeals has upheld them (on the grounds that a tax on carbon is too big and expansive a problem for the federal government to make rules about). So it will go to Canada's supreme court in a couple months to determine an outcome.
This case will determine whether conservative governments in Canada can legally continue to prevent people from having to pay the costs of their pollution.
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I find the opposition to the carbon tax a little weird. The government gives everyone a rebate on the tax, so it has little financial impact, except for the really heavy users.
In particular, Alberta seems to be taking it as a personal affront! I sure hope they manage to diversify their economy, though historically this doesn't look good. We're considering moving back there...
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I think a better analogy might be vaccinations.
Vaccinations are well known the reduce the incidence of some pretty nasty diseases. Scientists have conducted multitudes of studies to demonstrate their effectiveness and also to demonstrate the absence of side effects. Yes, there is some residual risk that a vaccination may have a serious side effect. But the risk of getting the disease is substantially worse than the risk of the side effect.
No reasonable person would refuse vaccinations.
Similarly climate science isn't perfect. It will be difficult to have accurate predictions due to modelling errors and unexpected non-linear effects. But no reasonable person would say that our production of greenhouse gases isn't effecting climate change.
Just like we have a group of anti-vaxxers, we have a group of climate deniers. Being dogmatic is unlikely to convince anyone of the opposite point of view. Climate deniers are afraid that they'll have to give up their cars, their vacations, their fresh produce in winter and central heating and air conditioning. Even folks who promote climate science are generally unwilling to consider much of this. This is not a fight we can win directly.
As an engineer, I'm much happier to avoid the dogma, and proceed with the rational approach. I know this sometimes comes across as climate skepticism or even denial. But I believe that we need to harness social forces (perhaps like the ongoing innovation with electric vehicles) and make things happen through an unstoppable tide of progress. Spending our energy on effective means is much better than fighting with people who don't agree and aren't interested.
Many industries hate the notion of reducing our dependency on oil and other fossil fuels. That hasn't stopped Tesla and Toyota and Honda and even GM from making hybrid and electrical cars, and people are buying them.
Solar cells on your roof was a pipe dream when I was growing up. Imagine - free electricity from your roofing! Things are changing and we should look for ways to accelerate the change.
I wish I could see things the same way as you, but as I see it almost all of the progress in stemming the runaway carbon train (with the exception of coal's increasingly marginal position) has been due to the staunch beliefs of early proponents (even if those beliefs were unrelated to climate), not due to some wave of progress.* Progress, if anything, has resulted in unrestrained growth for carbon pollution since fossil fuels were discovered.
Here's my quibble with the vaccination analogy: anti-vaxxers only experience personal repercussions (for the most part), whereas climate denialists collectively result in global repercussions with little to no personal repercussions. Historically, the only way to fight these tragedy of the commons type scenarios is through government action. (A better analogy would be overfished fisheries, where it makes little economic sense for any individual fisherman to reduce fishing, but a lot of sense for collective reduction of catch.)
*As evidence, I submit the historical cost and performance of solar panels and electric cars, which until recently did not come close to their polluting counterparts.
Vaccination programs lead to herd immunity. Not global, but it does have a wider ranging impact if people opt out.
You're right about government regulation working to deal with the 'tragedy of the commons.' There's little political will to do this for climate change. At least not yet.
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Remember too that just because fossil fuels aren't involved doesn't mean there's no impact.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/tech-companies-rely-child-labour-abuse-to-mine-coltan-in-congo/11855258 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/tech-companies-rely-child-labour-abuse-to-mine-coltan-in-congo/11855258)
To reduce your impact, consume less - of everything.
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Remember too that just because fossil fuels aren't involved doesn't mean there's no impact.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/tech-companies-rely-child-labour-abuse-to-mine-coltan-in-congo/11855258
To reduce your impact, consume less - of everything.
How do you approach that as someone who is in a field devoted to waste? The entire exercise industry is designed to burn calories needlessly, and has encouraged quite a few fad diets that are environmentally damaging. The equipment you use to train people is wasteful and unnecessary. At best it's prolonging the lives of people - thereby increasing the waste and environmental damage that they'll be able to cause in their lives.
Serious question as I'm into fitness as well. On a hundred forty klick bike ride, I burn five or six thousand calories. It makes me feel great, but involves lots of waste in terms of chain/cassette wear, cables that need to be replaced, calories required, tires that wear out. Environmentally it would be better if I was sedentary and unfit.
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That's one way to look at it.
However, exercise alone doesn't lose people much if any weight, they also have to consume less calories. As well, if their focus is health they need to consume more nutrients. I mean, the overweight person could change from 3,000kCal a day of doughnuts to 1,500kCal and lose weight, but for optimal health they're better off with 2,000kCal of fruit, vegies, nuts, wholegrains, beans and fish.
Generally speaking, processed food is less friendly to the environment and more wasteful than whole fresh foods. Obviously as it's processed there are losses of energy both in the processing and the food itself, but as well processed food generally has more packaging, and because it can be transported across the world is more likely to be. Your Uncle Toby's muesli bar probably has more miles in it than your bag of oats, your bottle of applesauce more miles than some apples.
Now, as for "fitness". Well, fitness means "the ability to perform a task." If the "task" is health, well you don't need to cycle 140km for your health any more than you need to squat 140kg for your health. If it's just for your health, then a 30-60' walk, or 150-200% of that cycling, well that's plenty. And so there we're talking about a commuting length of ride, rather than a dedicated ride.
As for the resource consumption of it, unless you have a truly top of the line carbon fibre bicycle, it's really not very much - certainly not compared to machine-powered transport. Likewise weights - barbells last a pretty long time, and are 100% recyclable.
So if we're talking about fitness for health, then the food consumption is actually far less wasteful than the typical Western diet, and the resource consumption for the exercise part of it likewise.
If you want to critique the fitness world on the basis of wasteful use of resources, you can say that we only exist because of a massive energy surplus, ie fossil fuels. Historically people ate good food because junk food simply wasn't available, and they were physically active because they had to be to be able to eat. Junk food can only exist because of massive energy surpluses, and people can only be sedentary because of the same.
In the middle ages, 10 out of every 11 people were involved in food production; 10 people were needed to produce enough surplus food to keep 1 other person going, so that person could be a noble, priest, blacksmith or whatever. Various low-resource technologies like literacy and crop rotation took us from 90% farming down to 25-50%, but fossil fuels and their derivatives have taken it down to 2% or less.
Because people can eat crap food, they do, and because they can earn their keep without sweating, they do. Which if they do for a few years leads to their being fat, sick and weak. So the fitness industry only exists because of a massive surplus of energy in the form of fossil fuels. In a century or two it won't exist, or it'll just be someone training a nobleman how to fight, that sort of thing.
But in a century or two there are a lot of jobs which won't exist or will be greatly diminished in importance. Halve our oil consumption and take us down to 1kWh a day of electricity consumption and we won't have as many Personal Trainers, but also not as many Set Intimacy Co-Ordinators, Diversity Managers, Public Relations Consultants, Stockbrokers, IT Support Teams, and so on.
Consider what mobile phones might cost if Solange (see above abc article) and her colleagues had to be paid even US minimum wage. From USD21 pw to 290 or so. Oh and some workplace safety laws in her mine, too. We wouldn't be replacing our mobile phones each year.
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WE aren't doing it anyway. There are people out there who get a new $500-1000 phone very two years though.
It's the result of consumerism and the notion that people who don't work their asses off are somehow morally bad persons. (The favorite right wing line: Immigrants just come here for the free food. They all want something for nothing - and they take away our jobs!!)
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Remember too that just because fossil fuels aren't involved doesn't mean there's no impact.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/tech-companies-rely-child-labour-abuse-to-mine-coltan-in-congo/11855258
To reduce your impact, consume less - of everything.
Serious question as I'm into fitness as well. On a hundred forty klick bike ride, I burn five or six thousand calories. It makes me feel great, but involves lots of waste in terms of chain/cassette wear, cables that need to be replaced, calories required, tires that wear out. Environmentally it would be better if I was sedentary and unfit.
Thoughts on this:
Being healthy almost surely results in lower consumption of healthcare resources. Whether that be a supply chain of meds, medical equipemtnt, hospital rooms, doctors, etc. It takes a lot of energy and backup resources to keep a hospital going. Now, if you do a lot of risky sports, needing PT and that I'd imagine it gets to a more of a break-even circumstance. Or if you do sports that require more than a few ounces of steel every few hundred miles to perform, such as wake boarding or sky diving or the like.
I don't have the numbers on this, and I'm sure it varies wildly based on what food you eat. A vegetarian local foods bicyclist will cause less environmental impact than a waygu-beef eating sedentary person even if they're doubling the calories. A triathlete competing in exotic locations multiple times a year will consume far more resources than an enthusiast cruising local routes every weekend, even if the triathlete is exercising half the amount of time, etc.