4 ms·

>For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is just such a

>For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is just such a huge magnitude of people doing the "wrong" thing to cancel it out, largely because that (from a short-term-pragmatic-standpoint, the "wrong" thing is better) or at least cheaper. If you value your time at all, flying across the country is cheaper, meat is readily available and inexpensive (and typically taste good), and driving to work is substantially easier than biking. It only takes a small percentage of the population to make a systematic change[0], I hope for humanity we are reaching a tipping point on this. People living their life in the correct way is spreading awareness and they are putting their money where their mouth is. These people and the youth climate strike may be our last chance. Also, the environment is the number one issue for the democratic party in the 2020 election. But, I do agree eventually these people making these changes will have to drive government agendas and the real mass changes will have to happen that way. [0]http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of...

tombert 7y ago
I should backpedal a bit and reemphasize; please do not stop doing good things for the environment by any means. The more sustainably you can live your life, especially if you can demonstrate a way to do it fairly easily, the more of a proof-of-concept you become, which can help put pressures on governments. I mean, I don't own a car, am mostly vegetarian (I eat fish occasionally), and take public transit nearly everywhere, so it's not like I don't try and do my part (though I do fly a lot, so that probably cancels out all my savings). Part of the problem with writing comments like this is that I do think some of the the issues causing climate-change to become a problem are due to a specific political party, and HN typically gets a bit flag-heavy whenever you start getting into overt politics.
kami8845 7y ago
The data from the article you provided talks about violent and non-violent protests and the numbers required for it. If 11,445,000 people were to storm the White House I imagine that would indeed have quite the effect. I don't see how it's related to not flying planes or not eating meat to effect climate change.

tombert 7y ago

I should backpedal a bit and reemphasize; please do not stop doing good things for the environment by any means. The more sustainably you can live your life, especially if you can demonstrate a way to do it fairly easily, the more of a proof-of-concept you become, which can help put pressures on governments. I mean, I don't own a car, am mostly vegetarian (I eat fish occasionally), and take public transit nearly everywhere, so it's not like I don't try and do my part (though I do fly a lot, so that probably cancels out all my savings). Part of the problem with writing comments like this is that I do think some of the the issues causing climate-change to become a problem are due to a specific political party, and HN typically gets a bit flag-heavy whenever you start getting into overt politics.

kami8845 7y ago

The data from the article you provided talks about violent and non-violent protests and the numbers required for it. If 11,445,000 people were to storm the White House I imagine that would indeed have quite the effect. I don't see how it's related to not flying planes or not eating meat to effect climate change.