4 ms·

Travelling less is much more important. Skip that vacation to Europe or Asia if you really want to have an impact on your footprint. Just one such trip dominate

Travelling less is much more important. Skip that vacation to Europe or Asia if you really want to have an impact on your footprint. Just one such trip dominates the impact of eating meat.

devmunchies 9y ago
> Just one such trip dominates the impact of eating meat. impact of eating meat for how long? one year? I know that going vegan for a year is better than getting an electric car.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  You could do both though.
  - tertius 9y ago
    The end your argument leads to suicide. Let's do what's needed not what to utmost but useless.
DamonHD 9y ago
"... four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less)." http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/meta http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/m...
- DamonHD 9y ago
  BTW, compared to many of my peers I have done all four. http://www.earth.org.uk/ http://www.earth.org.uk/ I'm definitely not strictly veggie: I just wolfed down a nearly free burger when offered! And though I haven't flown for years, I may need to visit China once or more over the next couple of years.
- username223 9y ago
  > having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year) I.e. one (or one thousandth, given his carbon footprint) less Zuckerberg? I could get behind that. Heck, I supported NPG back when I thought humanity had a chance.
  - tertius 9y ago
    We'll even out at about 10bil. Then this won't be a problem.
    - DamonHD 9y ago
      Indeed: if a few hundred million westerners made a real effort to curtail frivolous footprint then that 10b may happen with a lower-than-current total footprint.
      - tertius 9y ago
        Convincing a few hundred million to act in a certain way without force won't happen before we got 10b. I don't think that's an outlandish prediction to make...
        DamonHD 9y ago
        <rant>Yes, but I get annoyed at some fat white western guy claiming that all those poor brown people a long way away are the problem. We (my family in the UK) managed to cut tonnes per year off our footprint while raising two kids in the UK; not that hard. Some would much rather blame others rather than even make any effort.</rant>

Travelling less is much more important. Skip that vacation to Europe or Asia if you really want to have an impact on your footprint. Just one such trip dominates the impact of eating meat.

devmunchies 9y ago

> Just one such trip dominates the impact of eating meat. impact of eating meat for how long? one year? I know that going vegan for a year is better than getting an electric car.

wavefunction 9y ago
You could do both though.
- tertius 9y ago
  The end your argument leads to suicide. Let's do what's needed not what to utmost but useless.

DamonHD 9y ago

"... four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less)." http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/meta http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/m...

DamonHD 9y ago
BTW, compared to many of my peers I have done all four. http://www.earth.org.uk/ http://www.earth.org.uk/ I'm definitely not strictly veggie: I just wolfed down a nearly free burger when offered! And though I haven't flown for years, I may need to visit China once or more over the next couple of years.
username223 9y ago
> having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year) I.e. one (or one thousandth, given his carbon footprint) less Zuckerberg? I could get behind that. Heck, I supported NPG back when I thought humanity had a chance.
- tertius 9y ago
  We'll even out at about 10bil. Then this won't be a problem.
  - DamonHD 9y ago
    Indeed: if a few hundred million westerners made a real effort to curtail frivolous footprint then that 10b may happen with a lower-than-current total footprint.
    - tertius 9y ago
      Convincing a few hundred million to act in a certain way without force won't happen before we got 10b. I don't think that's an outlandish prediction to make...
      - DamonHD 9y ago
        <rant>Yes, but I get annoyed at some fat white western guy claiming that all those poor brown people a long way away are the problem. We (my family in the UK) managed to cut tonnes per year off our footprint while raising two kids in the UK; not that hard. Some would much rather blame others rather than even make any effort.</rant>