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So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. > spending billions on so

So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. > spending billions on something that gets you from 100 to 99.9 you're wasting time and energy that you don't have. Of course those numbers are just made up but they are also very far from reality. Solutions to climate change have actually been ranked in terms of total cost and total amount of CO2 reductions and electric cars come in at the 26th most cost-effective solution to climate change: https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/transport/electric-vehicles https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/transport/electric-vehicl... I really don't know why climate change seems to inspire so many people's inner contrarian where they just want to deride any attempt at preventing it because they haven't solved the whole thing in one go. There is no perfect solution, we are not going to fundamentally transform the world to a car-less society, or eliminate meat consumption. Its like if you buy an electric car, somebody tells you "BUT you still fly!". If you stop flying, somebody tells you "BUT you still eat meat!". If you stop eating meat somebody tells you "BUT you still heat your home with gas!" If you switch to electric heating based of clean energy sources somebody tells you "BUT you still buy avacados imported from across the world!" It never ends.

irq11 7y ago
Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple fact. It’s easy to do. But nobody wants to do that. It’s far less painful to pretend that we can keep the Titanic from sinking by making sure we sip our boat drinks from metal straws. The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, but predictably, a group of technology people want desperately to believe that if we just make the stuff we’re consuming better — with technology! — we’re helping. To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Someone should go through the comments and collect together all the "perfect" solutions. If we let the "ban cars" and the "ban children" folk fight it out then that frees up time for the "pragmatically improve things along many different dimensions, many of which would be beneficial even if we totally ignored climate change" folk to get on with things.
  - irq11 7y ago
    You can deny it all you like, but it’s true [1] and you’re just illustrating the point: nobody wants to do the things that actually matter, because those things are painful (not incidentally, #2 is “sell your car”). It’s far easier to mock the people who tell you the truth than it is to make substantial changes. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...
    - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
      Or those things will just scare people into doing nothing because it's so overwhelming and hopeless to be so uncompromisingly perfectionist about it. Whereas making a car or a plane trip or a burger or a child x% more expensive will move us in the right direction and even that will be resisted to a crazy degree.
      - irq11 7y ago
        What is so “scary” here? It’s literally the easiest thing you can possibly do. It’s the default option. “You know how you were gonna have a second kid? Here’s a thought: consider using the time and money you’d spend on that to do something else. Like retire early.” If we can’t convince people not to do an expensive, time-consuming, painful thing in order to help stop global warming, we really do have problems.
    - theworld572 7y ago
      You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. But people don't want to listen to the harsh truths. They would rather consume their way out of the problem with electric cars, education for third world countries, reforestation, solar power and other false hopes.
JKCalhoun 7y ago
> So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. The author acknowledges electric cars are a modest improvement. And who is working on the better solution?
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Better question is who can work on the better solution? The article claims it is a problem of consumption, but yet also it's a systemic problem. You can't fix systemic problems from consumption choices, and blaming individual consumers for systemic problems misses the point entirely of: a) who is to blame, and b) who could fix it.
notJim 7y ago
> So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. This isn't true. No one is arguing we should sit around and wait for a perfect solution, and that's a really dishonest framing of this article. The argument is that electric cars are over-weighted as a solution, and it's one I see all the time. Not only that, but it directly conflicts with other goals. In the US, cities and states are still investing in expanding highway and car-based infrastructure at a time when we desperately need to be moving away from car-centric cities. Infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming to build, so putting resources into car-centric infrastructure means that a) we will be stuck with car-centric cities for a long time, and b) there will be less money for non-car infrastructure. If instead, we stopped building new car infrastructure and poured our efforts into non-car infrastructure, we'd be much better off.

irq11 7y ago

Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple fact. It’s easy to do. But nobody wants to do that. It’s far less painful to pretend that we can keep the Titanic from sinking by making sure we sip our boat drinks from metal straws. The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, but predictably, a group of technology people want desperately to believe that if we just make the stuff we’re consuming better — with technology! — we’re helping. To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Someone should go through the comments and collect together all the "perfect" solutions. If we let the "ban cars" and the "ban children" folk fight it out then that frees up time for the "pragmatically improve things along many different dimensions, many of which would be beneficial even if we totally ignored climate change" folk to get on with things.
- irq11 7y ago
  You can deny it all you like, but it’s true [1] and you’re just illustrating the point: nobody wants to do the things that actually matter, because those things are painful (not incidentally, #2 is “sell your car”). It’s far easier to mock the people who tell you the truth than it is to make substantial changes. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    Or those things will just scare people into doing nothing because it's so overwhelming and hopeless to be so uncompromisingly perfectionist about it. Whereas making a car or a plane trip or a burger or a child x% more expensive will move us in the right direction and even that will be resisted to a crazy degree.
    - irq11 7y ago
      What is so “scary” here? It’s literally the easiest thing you can possibly do. It’s the default option. “You know how you were gonna have a second kid? Here’s a thought: consider using the time and money you’d spend on that to do something else. Like retire early.” If we can’t convince people not to do an expensive, time-consuming, painful thing in order to help stop global warming, we really do have problems.
  - theworld572 7y ago
    You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. But people don't want to listen to the harsh truths. They would rather consume their way out of the problem with electric cars, education for third world countries, reforestation, solar power and other false hopes.

JKCalhoun 7y ago

> So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. The author acknowledges electric cars are a modest improvement. And who is working on the better solution?

WorldMaker 7y ago
Better question is who can work on the better solution? The article claims it is a problem of consumption, but yet also it's a systemic problem. You can't fix systemic problems from consumption choices, and blaming individual consumers for systemic problems misses the point entirely of: a) who is to blame, and b) who could fix it.

notJim 7y ago

> So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. This isn't true. No one is arguing we should sit around and wait for a perfect solution, and that's a really dishonest framing of this article. The argument is that electric cars are over-weighted as a solution, and it's one I see all the time. Not only that, but it directly conflicts with other goals. In the US, cities and states are still investing in expanding highway and car-based infrastructure at a time when we desperately need to be moving away from car-centric cities. Infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming to build, so putting resources into car-centric infrastructure means that a) we will be stuck with car-centric cities for a long time, and b) there will be less money for non-car infrastructure. If instead, we stopped building new car infrastructure and poured our efforts into non-car infrastructure, we'd be much better off.