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What truly spells trouble for human life on earth are unsustainable business practices. Recycling is a bandaid. Fast fashion is a nightmare. Agriculture is one

What truly spells trouble for human life on earth are unsustainable business practices. Recycling is a bandaid. Fast fashion is a nightmare. Agriculture is one of the biggest causes of carbon emissions. It is unfortunate that travel is creating such an impact but I personally get annoyed whenever I see an article try to make an individual feel guilty for their contribution to climate change. Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. Not that you shouldn't recycle but I find it weak reporting to guilt individuals rather than actually talk about the real problem. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

Aaargh20318 8y ago
> Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. By far the best thing you can do for the environment is to not procreate.
- slavik81 8y ago
  That's a losing strategy. The entire next generation would be raised by those who disagreed with you.
  - kawsper 8y ago
    If you want any say in that, maybe you could adopt.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    A lot of us disagree with our parents on environmental issues so I'm not sure about that.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      Given that animals regulate their procreation rates as well, this may not be such a rational choice as you think. When we judge ourselves as having space and resources, we procreate. When we don't, we don't. Humans explain this to themselves as having a choice, made along some axis, but that's at best partially true. But in 4 billion years nature has in fact realized that just blindly maximizing procreation at all costs is not often the best strategy. It is well known that animal procreation follow an S-curve. This would not happen if everything just maximized reproduction. Then you'd see bubbles and crashes. Well, all of nature except some viruses. They don't tend to survive for long, but some do a lot of damage before they go extinct, which of course may be why most species regulate their reproduction.
      - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
        Well all that went out the window when we invented birth control so the whole discussion is somewhat irrelevant. People aren't even breeding at replacement rates in the 1st world and the 1st world is where the environmental problems stem from.
        candiodari 8y ago
        I doubt it. I don't get why people keep thinking again and again that even the most basic things humans do are entirely new never-before-seen innovations. There are animals with built-in birth control (sex, but no pregnancy unless the female "enables" it), and I doubt condoms are half as effective as that. Nature has experimented a LOT with every form of procreation you could possibly come up with. It seems to me very unlikely that something as stupid as condoms are going to catch it off guard. You wouldn't see the second part of the S-curve unless there was at least statistical birth control (ie. that individuals in those species controlled at least the odds of offspring).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jaredklewis 8y ago
> Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. I feel this creates a bizarre boundary between "individuals" and "industries." "Industries" didn't just magically spring up, created by an unknown exogenous force. They are created by, for, and sustained by individuals. I want a iPhone -> I buy it from Apple -> Apple sources said iPhone from a host of companies wrecking extreme environmental havok. Because I didn't directly create strip mine the precious metals required, I am somehow absolved of all responsibility for the effects of someone else doing it? To me this just seems like a big guilt laundering scheme. It doesn't feel fair to lop on the blame on industries when we are consumers supporting them.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  It's not about forcing a divide, it's about recognizing that you can't solve it from the customer side. This is a coordination problem. Yes, all the individuals on the market for an iPhone combined create the environment for a bunch of companies to damage the environment. But in trying to tackle it on consumer end, you're basically asking each individual in isolation to make a big personal sacrifice (of all the personal, social and productivity benefits coming from a high-quality smartphone) for distant, abstract, and completely uncertain gains. Uncertain, because they depend on most other individual to decide the same way. Most, not every, so maybe I'll buy my iPhone but tell everyone else not to buy it - every single one thinks. There are many other situations where this happens in life, and the solution is universally to not depend on individuals, but create coordination mechanisms that help force the issue from the top. Like environmental regulations in this case. Or worker unions in case of employee/employer power imbalance.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Well, that's the whole thing about environmental regulation. The problem is energy expenditure. Everything you do, down to breathing, expenses energy. Some things more. Some things less. A good proxy for energy is price. This is a heuristic of course, it's not perfect. So if you want to know what it would take to do good for the environment, imagine that you can only spend half as much on everything. Your backpack, your iPhone, ... everything. Not because you don't have the money, but because environmental regulation means you can't spend it like that. So only $20 restaurants. No iPhones, only cheap androids (no flagships) (or of course, if you like featurephones that's fine). No BMW 5-series or SUV, just a hatchback, and one of the smaller ones. And so on and so forth. If you want to regulate this, that means those products would simply become out of reach of the normal person. Not even because they don't have the money, but because it's forbidden for them to spend it like that.
arnoooooo 8y ago
Individuals are always ultimately responsible. Individuals create and work for companies, individuals buy products, etc. People need to be held accountable for what they do.

Aaargh20318 8y ago

> Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. By far the best thing you can do for the environment is to not procreate.

slavik81 8y ago
That's a losing strategy. The entire next generation would be raised by those who disagreed with you.
- kawsper 8y ago
  If you want any say in that, maybe you could adopt.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  A lot of us disagree with our parents on environmental issues so I'm not sure about that.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Given that animals regulate their procreation rates as well, this may not be such a rational choice as you think. When we judge ourselves as having space and resources, we procreate. When we don't, we don't. Humans explain this to themselves as having a choice, made along some axis, but that's at best partially true. But in 4 billion years nature has in fact realized that just blindly maximizing procreation at all costs is not often the best strategy. It is well known that animal procreation follow an S-curve. This would not happen if everything just maximized reproduction. Then you'd see bubbles and crashes. Well, all of nature except some viruses. They don't tend to survive for long, but some do a lot of damage before they go extinct, which of course may be why most species regulate their reproduction.
    - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
      Well all that went out the window when we invented birth control so the whole discussion is somewhat irrelevant. People aren't even breeding at replacement rates in the 1st world and the 1st world is where the environmental problems stem from.
      - candiodari 8y ago
        I doubt it. I don't get why people keep thinking again and again that even the most basic things humans do are entirely new never-before-seen innovations. There are animals with built-in birth control (sex, but no pregnancy unless the female "enables" it), and I doubt condoms are half as effective as that. Nature has experimented a LOT with every form of procreation you could possibly come up with. It seems to me very unlikely that something as stupid as condoms are going to catch it off guard. You wouldn't see the second part of the S-curve unless there was at least statistical birth control (ie. that individuals in those species controlled at least the odds of offspring).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jaredklewis 8y ago

> Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. I feel this creates a bizarre boundary between "individuals" and "industries." "Industries" didn't just magically spring up, created by an unknown exogenous force. They are created by, for, and sustained by individuals. I want a iPhone -> I buy it from Apple -> Apple sources said iPhone from a host of companies wrecking extreme environmental havok. Because I didn't directly create strip mine the precious metals required, I am somehow absolved of all responsibility for the effects of someone else doing it? To me this just seems like a big guilt laundering scheme. It doesn't feel fair to lop on the blame on industries when we are consumers supporting them.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
It's not about forcing a divide, it's about recognizing that you can't solve it from the customer side. This is a coordination problem. Yes, all the individuals on the market for an iPhone combined create the environment for a bunch of companies to damage the environment. But in trying to tackle it on consumer end, you're basically asking each individual in isolation to make a big personal sacrifice (of all the personal, social and productivity benefits coming from a high-quality smartphone) for distant, abstract, and completely uncertain gains. Uncertain, because they depend on most other individual to decide the same way. Most, not every, so maybe I'll buy my iPhone but tell everyone else not to buy it - every single one thinks. There are many other situations where this happens in life, and the solution is universally to not depend on individuals, but create coordination mechanisms that help force the issue from the top. Like environmental regulations in this case. Or worker unions in case of employee/employer power imbalance.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Well, that's the whole thing about environmental regulation. The problem is energy expenditure. Everything you do, down to breathing, expenses energy. Some things more. Some things less. A good proxy for energy is price. This is a heuristic of course, it's not perfect. So if you want to know what it would take to do good for the environment, imagine that you can only spend half as much on everything. Your backpack, your iPhone, ... everything. Not because you don't have the money, but because environmental regulation means you can't spend it like that. So only $20 restaurants. No iPhones, only cheap androids (no flagships) (or of course, if you like featurephones that's fine). No BMW 5-series or SUV, just a hatchback, and one of the smaller ones. And so on and so forth. If you want to regulate this, that means those products would simply become out of reach of the normal person. Not even because they don't have the money, but because it's forbidden for them to spend it like that.

arnoooooo 8y ago

Individuals are always ultimately responsible. Individuals create and work for companies, individuals buy products, etc. People need to be held accountable for what they do.