3 ms·

Anecdotal, and also not true.

• vixen99 8y ago
  There are seemingly endless links to 'climate hypocrisy' but I suppose that's all fake news. Is it anecdotal that 50,000 people attended the Paris Climate Conference? Wouldn't video conferencing have sent a resounding message that these attendees really did believe that doom is at hand?
  • jacobolus 8y ago
    There are something like 100,000 flights per day. Billions of passenger trips per year. 50,000 people attending a single conference or not is not going to have a significant effect on global climate, except as a symbolic gesture. What is needed are large-scale systemic changes, not canceling one or another particular meeting.
    • smsm42 8y ago
      Me not flying to my once-a-year vacation is going to make effect 50,000 less of that, and yet that's what Nature implies I should do if I believe them. But if people that can produce 50000x effect with only minor inconvenience to them don't do it, why should I do it for the price of very major inconvenience (forgoing long awaited vacation and never seeing other countries again ever)?
      • jacobolus 8y ago
        Nature did not state that you personally should do any particular thing. They only pointed out that travel accounts for 8% of global emissions and growing (and at current carbon emissions levels the world will be altered dramatically and irrevocably). Individual people’s personal sacrifices are barely going to dent global carbon emissions. We need to tackle these enormous global problems systematically. For example, we might be able to substitute less carbon-intensive means of long-distance transportation, impose significant taxes on jet fuel, figure out ways of discouraging business travel by plane, or raise public awareness of closer-to-home vacation destinations.
    • rdiddly 8y ago
      Since these are the people trying to lead the way, a symbolic gesture would go a long way.