6 ms·

> the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. It has at the individual level too for most individuals. Try to get someone to consider fly

by spodek 9y ago

> the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. It has at the individual level too for most individuals. Try to get someone to consider flying less. Look at the size of vehicles on the road. How much meat we eat. Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter. All personal choices anyone can make, no legislation necessary. We can blame fossil fuel companies, and they are abusing their power, but we have a long way to go as individuals before legislators see that regulation will result in more votes, not less.

friendzis 9y ago
While these are personal choices, there must be some incentive. If increased electricity bill from abusing "Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter" compared to conservative temperatures boils down to single digit percentage values (as non-USian I don't know what those values are) of all annual home upkeep expenses, it is difficult to rationalize saving.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  And somewhat useless. Changing the temperature from 72 to 75 in my well-insulated house does take off a few kWh. But it seems a bit meaningless when the shop down the road is trying to get more people to come in by setting their thermostat at a chilly 65 and leaving the door open all day. Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car, only to drive down the road alongside coal-rolling semis that believe DEF is a conspiracy.
  - codeulike 9y ago
    Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Incremental changes in the right direction help, whatever everyone else is doing.
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    Just because others aren't doing anything, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Every bit helps, and unless there is a major shift in public opinion, or the government steps in, businesses will not change their behavior, i.e. doing what improves their bottom line.
  - vel0city 9y ago
    > Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car I'm really curious about this as well. I drive an old Honda Accord that gets ~22-26mpg. In Texas I can choose to only purchase renewable energy, but how much environmental impact will be had from my purchase from an electric car compared to keeping this nearly two-decade-old car running? What is the point where this car is better left as recycled metal vs. keeping it running?
    - danans 9y ago
      This depends on a lot of factors, including: - How much you have to drive. The more you drive, the more you can offset the embodied carbon footprint of the EV, and the more fossil fuels you offset. - How fast your decades old ICE car deteriorates, and therefore decreases in efficiency and increases its operational pollution emissions. - The embodied carbon footprint of the vehicle parts you replace through maintenance of an old vehicle. High range EVs with large batteries cancel their embodied footprint in 18 months with a typical drive cycle, even lower if you are mostly using renewably sourced electricity. Lower range EVs take even less time [1] It sounds to me like from your situation (old car, renewable power available) the numbers already suggest you should do it now. From the report linked below, driving an EV in Texas today is like getting 52 mpg with an ICE car. If you're using only renewables it is multiple times more efficient (see equivalents for CA and NY) 1. https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.WuEpK6VlB-E https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life...
  - Gravityloss 9y ago
    That's why we have these things called laws and democracy and international agreements. Relying on individual action rarely brought massive change.
- spodek 9y ago
  > there must be some incentive My experience and observation say otherwise. I have no incentive not to litter when I know no one will fine me. Still I get up and walk trash to garbage cans. Even with all the litter around, most people still walk trash to garbage cans instead of littering. Most people don't shoplift even when they know they wouldn't get caught. Most people stop at red lights in the middle of the night when no one is around. Etc. Etc. I've found living by my values the greatest incentive. The alternative is to try to accept that my comfort and convenience come at the cost of others' health and resources, which ate me up inside. I think most people value clean air and water enough that when the culture shifts, they won't need material incentive. Laws will follow behavior, not the other way around.
  - skosch 9y ago
    Over many years, laws shape culture though. With all problematic behaviours, citizens fall into three groups: 1) those who refrain out of a healthy sense of personal responsibility; 3) those who persist out of a pathological understanding of personal freedom, and then 2) those who refrain only because they fear personal consequences (ostracism, fines, jail time). My suspicion is that a well-written, well-hated law can push a healthy chunk of people from pompous group 3 into reluctant group 2. As the next generation sees less of the problematic behaviour growing up, group 3 shrinks smaller and smaller over time. That's how progressives ended slavery, got women to vote, made gay marriage mainstream, banned public smoking, and how we are now reining in the war on drugs; it's not clear why it shouldn't work to address energy decadence and meat overconsumption.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      That's also how "progressives" sent thousands to the guillotine in 18th century France and starved millions in 20th century China. They wrote laws. People who couldn't get behind those laws (or who were just associated with the wrong people) got screwed. "Get on board or we'll screw you over", which is exactly the dynamic a "well-hated" law creates, is not how a healthy society is run. NY-SAFE is an example of a "well hated law". How is it working outside the areas that wanted it in the first place? Culture isn't shifting very much as far as I can tell.
bamboozled 9y ago
This is so true, one can be thought of as crazy for suggesting some of those ideas you mentioned. I've come to realise that it's the market that drives a lot of demand. Sure, in some cases markets are rigged in the fossil fuel industries favour (by the Government); However, I see more people not caring about environmental issues than anything else so it makes it easier for politicians to do nothing.
deadwing0 9y ago
I work in a bank. They keep it so cold inside in the summer that employees are forced to have space heaters in their offices to keep from shivering all day. All in hopes that a customer who comes in from the outside heat will feel comfortable for the less than 5 minutes that they are inside. The amount of waste is unreal and disgusting. I was laughed at the other day by a coworker because I commented on how much energy we waste by doing this. He said, "But you don't have to pay for it. Who cares?" That about sums up the attitude here in Texas.
- xyproto 9y ago
  As long as the energy wasted is clean energy, I guess it should be fine? The sun is shining on Earth at all times and most of the energy is wasted.
  - tonyarkles 9y ago
    I read an article a few months back (no reference handy, unfortunately) that was talking about attitudes towards energy utilization in Quebec, Canada, where the vast majority of the electricity is generated from hydro. The basic conclusion was that when everyone knows that the energy they're using is "clean", they don't actually worry too much about it. That idea really excites me! If our energy sources are both clean and abundant, that opens up a lot of doors to technology that previously had uncomfortable tradeoffs. For example, high-energy-consumption recycling instead of mining new raw materials; right now it can be a bit of a wash (sure, we're mining less, but we're burning coal to power the process), but post-scarce-clean-energy it becomes way less of concern. Likewise with a lot of automation tasks. Very exciting!
  - marcandre 9y ago
    It would be fine if all energy used everywhere on the planet was green. Until then, wasting clean energy still creates more demand for that clean energy, which affects its price and thus its competitiveness vs other energy sources. Even in Quebec, for example, energy not used is sold outside the province.
    - 9y ago
xfitm3 9y ago
As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly shipping materials and grocery packaging. All of these examples are the direct consequence of prioritizing myself. There simply has to be a stronger (perhaps economic) incentive that will change the behavior of people like me.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Artificial scarcity of garbage disposal maybe? Where I live in Australia, you wouldn't be able to put 13 gallons of trash a day in a bin. The trash bin has maybe 20-30 gallons total and gets taken every other week. The recycling and compost are larger and get taken more often. You could produce more garbage of course, but then it's up to you to drive to the tip and you'll have to pay to drop stuff off.
- cvantez 9y ago
  While I don't dispute that economic incentives are important in changing people's behavior on large scales... on a purely individual level, whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do? You're not some self-serving automaton. You're aware that these practices produce unnecessary waste. Is your tap water unsafe to consume?
  - kodablah 9y ago
    > whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do? Taken to its logical conclusion, one could follow anyone around and claim they aren't doing the most right thing. The "right thing to do" is a scale, not binary, and it often conflicts. E.g. right thing to do for self health, vs environment, vs for my customers, vs for my employees, vs for my family (and time with them), vs happiness (for self and others), etc. GP is right, you have to align "right thing to do" with "prudent thing to do" and it becomes viable. Otherwise, to many it comes off as preaching as though they are bad people when they only optimize for other right things.
DEFCON28 9y ago
And obesity! If you eat twice the food you need, you clearly don’t care about resource use.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by spodek 9y ago

friendzis 9y ago

While these are personal choices, there must be some incentive. If increased electricity bill from abusing "Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter" compared to conservative temperatures boils down to single digit percentage values (as non-USian I don't know what those values are) of all annual home upkeep expenses, it is difficult to rationalize saving.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
And somewhat useless. Changing the temperature from 72 to 75 in my well-insulated house does take off a few kWh. But it seems a bit meaningless when the shop down the road is trying to get more people to come in by setting their thermostat at a chilly 65 and leaving the door open all day. Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car, only to drive down the road alongside coal-rolling semis that believe DEF is a conspiracy.
- codeulike 9y ago
  Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Incremental changes in the right direction help, whatever everyone else is doing.
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  Just because others aren't doing anything, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Every bit helps, and unless there is a major shift in public opinion, or the government steps in, businesses will not change their behavior, i.e. doing what improves their bottom line.
- vel0city 9y ago
  > Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car I'm really curious about this as well. I drive an old Honda Accord that gets ~22-26mpg. In Texas I can choose to only purchase renewable energy, but how much environmental impact will be had from my purchase from an electric car compared to keeping this nearly two-decade-old car running? What is the point where this car is better left as recycled metal vs. keeping it running?
  - danans 9y ago
    This depends on a lot of factors, including: - How much you have to drive. The more you drive, the more you can offset the embodied carbon footprint of the EV, and the more fossil fuels you offset. - How fast your decades old ICE car deteriorates, and therefore decreases in efficiency and increases its operational pollution emissions. - The embodied carbon footprint of the vehicle parts you replace through maintenance of an old vehicle. High range EVs with large batteries cancel their embodied footprint in 18 months with a typical drive cycle, even lower if you are mostly using renewably sourced electricity. Lower range EVs take even less time [1] It sounds to me like from your situation (old car, renewable power available) the numbers already suggest you should do it now. From the report linked below, driving an EV in Texas today is like getting 52 mpg with an ICE car. If you're using only renewables it is multiple times more efficient (see equivalents for CA and NY) 1. https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.WuEpK6VlB-E https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life...
- Gravityloss 9y ago
  That's why we have these things called laws and democracy and international agreements. Relying on individual action rarely brought massive change.
spodek 9y ago
> there must be some incentive My experience and observation say otherwise. I have no incentive not to litter when I know no one will fine me. Still I get up and walk trash to garbage cans. Even with all the litter around, most people still walk trash to garbage cans instead of littering. Most people don't shoplift even when they know they wouldn't get caught. Most people stop at red lights in the middle of the night when no one is around. Etc. Etc. I've found living by my values the greatest incentive. The alternative is to try to accept that my comfort and convenience come at the cost of others' health and resources, which ate me up inside. I think most people value clean air and water enough that when the culture shifts, they won't need material incentive. Laws will follow behavior, not the other way around.
- skosch 9y ago
  Over many years, laws shape culture though. With all problematic behaviours, citizens fall into three groups: 1) those who refrain out of a healthy sense of personal responsibility; 3) those who persist out of a pathological understanding of personal freedom, and then 2) those who refrain only because they fear personal consequences (ostracism, fines, jail time). My suspicion is that a well-written, well-hated law can push a healthy chunk of people from pompous group 3 into reluctant group 2. As the next generation sees less of the problematic behaviour growing up, group 3 shrinks smaller and smaller over time. That's how progressives ended slavery, got women to vote, made gay marriage mainstream, banned public smoking, and how we are now reining in the war on drugs; it's not clear why it shouldn't work to address energy decadence and meat overconsumption.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    That's also how "progressives" sent thousands to the guillotine in 18th century France and starved millions in 20th century China. They wrote laws. People who couldn't get behind those laws (or who were just associated with the wrong people) got screwed. "Get on board or we'll screw you over", which is exactly the dynamic a "well-hated" law creates, is not how a healthy society is run. NY-SAFE is an example of a "well hated law". How is it working outside the areas that wanted it in the first place? Culture isn't shifting very much as far as I can tell.

bamboozled 9y ago

This is so true, one can be thought of as crazy for suggesting some of those ideas you mentioned. I've come to realise that it's the market that drives a lot of demand. Sure, in some cases markets are rigged in the fossil fuel industries favour (by the Government); However, I see more people not caring about environmental issues than anything else so it makes it easier for politicians to do nothing.

deadwing0 9y ago

I work in a bank. They keep it so cold inside in the summer that employees are forced to have space heaters in their offices to keep from shivering all day. All in hopes that a customer who comes in from the outside heat will feel comfortable for the less than 5 minutes that they are inside. The amount of waste is unreal and disgusting. I was laughed at the other day by a coworker because I commented on how much energy we waste by doing this. He said, "But you don't have to pay for it. Who cares?" That about sums up the attitude here in Texas.

xyproto 9y ago
As long as the energy wasted is clean energy, I guess it should be fine? The sun is shining on Earth at all times and most of the energy is wasted.
- tonyarkles 9y ago
  I read an article a few months back (no reference handy, unfortunately) that was talking about attitudes towards energy utilization in Quebec, Canada, where the vast majority of the electricity is generated from hydro. The basic conclusion was that when everyone knows that the energy they're using is "clean", they don't actually worry too much about it. That idea really excites me! If our energy sources are both clean and abundant, that opens up a lot of doors to technology that previously had uncomfortable tradeoffs. For example, high-energy-consumption recycling instead of mining new raw materials; right now it can be a bit of a wash (sure, we're mining less, but we're burning coal to power the process), but post-scarce-clean-energy it becomes way less of concern. Likewise with a lot of automation tasks. Very exciting!
- marcandre 9y ago
  It would be fine if all energy used everywhere on the planet was green. Until then, wasting clean energy still creates more demand for that clean energy, which affects its price and thus its competitiveness vs other energy sources. Even in Quebec, for example, energy not used is sold outside the province.
  - 9y ago

xfitm3 9y ago

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly shipping materials and grocery packaging. All of these examples are the direct consequence of prioritizing myself. There simply has to be a stronger (perhaps economic) incentive that will change the behavior of people like me.

viraptor 9y ago
Artificial scarcity of garbage disposal maybe? Where I live in Australia, you wouldn't be able to put 13 gallons of trash a day in a bin. The trash bin has maybe 20-30 gallons total and gets taken every other week. The recycling and compost are larger and get taken more often. You could produce more garbage of course, but then it's up to you to drive to the tip and you'll have to pay to drop stuff off.
cvantez 9y ago
While I don't dispute that economic incentives are important in changing people's behavior on large scales... on a purely individual level, whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do? You're not some self-serving automaton. You're aware that these practices produce unnecessary waste. Is your tap water unsafe to consume?
- kodablah 9y ago
  > whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do? Taken to its logical conclusion, one could follow anyone around and claim they aren't doing the most right thing. The "right thing to do" is a scale, not binary, and it often conflicts. E.g. right thing to do for self health, vs environment, vs for my customers, vs for my employees, vs for my family (and time with them), vs happiness (for self and others), etc. GP is right, you have to align "right thing to do" with "prudent thing to do" and it becomes viable. Otherwise, to many it comes off as preaching as though they are bad people when they only optimize for other right things.

DEFCON28 9y ago

And obesity! If you eat twice the food you need, you clearly don’t care about resource use.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]