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Exactly. People (not necessarily the parent comment) love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrit

by SamBam 7y ago

Exactly. People (not necessarily the parent comment) love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message. The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production. These require changes at the policy level that individuals can't create by themselves but only by calling for action by legislators. Planting more trees on a national scale can absolutely be one of the many policy changes that we call for to help balance the scales, because we will never get those three sectors down to zero. As for the specific question of meat, it would undoubtably help for everyone to eat less meat, but in fact if every single person in the US went vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by about 5%. [2] 1. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-ate-a-bit-less-meat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-at...

brokenawipicute 7y ago
To some extent, it's not about reducing emissions as so far as voting with your wallet. If a large enough group unsupported the meat/airline/etc industry, they would go bankrupt.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  I would like to vote with my wallet, but products don't come with 'CO2 emitted' labels. That's important because the exact same product could be produced I a variety of ways, some many times more polluting than others.
  - jorgemf 7y ago
    I don't think it is that complicated: - go by car or by public transport? - buy local vegetables vs eating a burger in a franchise? - turn on the heater vs use a bigger blanket? - go to work in a suit with a tie in summer with A/C at maximum power vs go in summer clothes with a normal A/C? That is voting with your wallet and your lifestyle. Please stop saying is others fault... it is our fault, of everybody, from politics to regular people. And we ALL have to do something.
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      Thank you for getting it wrong and demonstrating my point. It is actually complicated - otherwise you would have gotten it right. I can have the exact same lifestyle in France and the US and in US my carbon footprint will be twice larger. There is no reason eating out should have higher environmental footprint than cooking yourself. Buying locally grown vegetables is often the wrong choice.I can buy a tomato in the supermarket, and if it grown locally in the UK, it's carbon footprint will be twice larger than if it was imported from Spain due to fuel and heating needed for greenhouses. http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local... Let's dig into details, do you know how environmental impact of bananas compares to that of oranges? You might have heard avocados have high environmental impact, but is that per KG, or per unit of calories? But let's consider buying a manufactured product, like a microwave. How would I, as a consumer, ever know if was manufactured with renewable energy or coal? I am happy to be proven wrong. If you do claim it's easy, I take it you at least know what's your annual carbon footprint and how many trees you need to plant to offset it?
      - jorgemf 7y ago
        what about the other 3 examples I told you? There are obvious things, there are complex things. But not caring is not a solution.
        ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        They are reasonable, and of-course we should care. Out of the things you listed, public transport is probably the most impactful.
bogle 7y ago
5% is a significant percentage.
jogjayr 7y ago
> People love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message. You're right, and it drives me mad. There's also the other side of it, when someone really does live off the grid, eat vegan etc. "Ugh who wants to live like that?" > The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production 1. These industries don't generate emissions for the heck of it - they do it to satisfy consumer demand. 2. To force industries to change their ways of doing business, there's not many options beyond carbon taxes. Which will result in some changes - in manufacturing techniques, costs, end product - that are hard to predict now. Some may be for the better, and some, for the worse. Given these facts canny businesses will almost always successfully lobby against climate regulation and taxes with appeals like "bad for jobs! no more cheeseburgers! they're taking away your SUVs!" to the electorate. But if people are OK with more expensive cheeseburgers or SUVs, these appeals have less purchase. You're not going to get everyone to give up these things, but at least they'll realize their true cost. > if every single person in the US went vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by about 5%. And that's exactly what GP was getting at. There isn't one single solution that will fix 90% of the problem. This type of thinking introduces complacency - "They'll fix it before it gets really bad. I heard you just have to plant a bunch of trees/drop some rocks in the ocean/run a carbon capture machine." Our economy is a leaky pipe, with carbon dripping out all along its length and breadth. The solution to climate change is a bunch of 2-5% solutions.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  But people want their SUVs and cheeseburgers. If you force people's standard of living to go backwards too far you will soon be voted out of office or have a revolt to deal with. Telling people to consume less does not work at the scale we are dealing in here. We need to find technical solutions because the cumulative lifestyle changes would be so massive they are a non-starter. With sufficient technical solutions the behavioral solutions can hopefully be small enough to be realistic.
  - rammy1234 7y ago
8ytecoder 7y ago
(I need to find this study. I’ll update my comment if I do). Meat contributes a lot more than 5% when you breakdown transportation or deforestation or cultivation and land and energy used for cultivation of food for livestock - instead of simply livestock. The study said the number was closer to 18%. Edit: here https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010
- zaroth 7y ago
  I don’t see the 18% number in your linked paper. It says total US food production (meat and otherwise) uses 17% of fossil fuel consumption.
  - 8ytecoder 7y ago
    I got my sources crossed. This [1] is where I read the 18% number. Note that the 17% quoted is for fossil fuels only - land use, water use and deforestation are not factored in. Also 85% of that 17% is for meat and dairy. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warmi...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
screye 7y ago
The funny thing is, that even people that make these lifestyle choices can be hypocrites in their own right. They buy gas guzzling cars. They stay in huge houses with massive heating bills. They endorse sparse suburban housing too. I am also not a huge fan of those advocating for complete veganism in the name of climate change. (not those who make an individual choice mind you. That I respect). Ingredients like fish sauce, worcestershire and the like have trace contributions to climate change, and make it incredibly difficult to cook certain cuisines without. Fish, chicken and to an extent milk products make minuscule contributions to climate change and are still lumped together with red meat. Some peer review & published studies [1][2] believe that total US veganism will lead to only a 2% decrease in GHG emissions in the US. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 [2] https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-environment-but-cows-are-not-killing-the-climate-94968 https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-envi... IMO, the most effective move would be to move to low meat cuisines. Stir frys, curries, brothy soups and the like use a lot less meat than burgers or steak. Some of those work perfectly fine with zero meat (minus meat derived spices/sauces). Feel like the current trend with veganism is a stop gap until we figure out hoew to lag grow our meat anyways.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production. But the reason we use so much transportation, industry, and electricity is due to lifestyle choices. Meat requires feed which is transported, and then the animals are transported, and then the meat itself is also transported. Industry makes those iPhones you buy a new model of every other year. Etc. > As for the specific question of meat, it would undoubtably help for everyone to eat less meat, but in fact if every single person in the US went vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by about 5% 5% is nothing to sneeze at. Eating less meat alone won't stop climate change, it's true, but in combination with other sacrifices? Here's my problem with the people who make arguments like you're making: I feel like you're unwilling to make sacrifices and are using this argument to justify how you can claim to care about the environment while also doing basically nothing to improve the situation. You'll say "well, one person isn't going to make a difference", yes, in the same way a raindrop does not consider itself responsible for the flood. If we are so unwilling to make sacrifices for ourselves, why should we believe that other people will make any? Why will they vote against their interests? Pay lip service to the idea in a public forum and then explain away your own contribution to the problem as being but one drop in the flood, voting is secret. Someone says "we should eat less meat", an objectively helpful thing to do by your own metric, and you say "No, no. It's a small thing, we should focus on something less important to me!". It's frankly quite frustrating to see. Short of some miracle techology, I'm pretty sure this kind of thing is the reason we won't be able to avoid the worst case scenarios of climate change and future generations will look back on us with well deserved disgust.
- candiodari 7y ago
  I don't get this reasoning. Global warming has been self-reinforcing since before my dad was born, so a 100% reduction in human co2 emissions will not stop climate change, just slow it down. It's also an exponential process and we're not in the early stages, so it won't even slow it down that much. Imagine the effect of a 5% change now, which is a completely unrealistic goal to boot. It's nothing. https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedbacks-are-so-bad https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedba... We don't need miracle technology, we have the technology to take control of the climate, and we'll be forced to use it, whatever other measures are used. So lifestyle choices are great and all, but please stop saying they're for the climate. They're insignificant, even if 100% implemented. The proverbial raindrop you're talking about matters very little if the reason for the flood is a dam breaking. Great attitude on the part of the raindrop to not make the situation worse. But all the raindrops together only make the situation 0.1% worse than it was before the rain ...
johnisgood 7y ago
Sorry, but your sources are accounting for the US only, it is not global. In 2014, the top carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters were China, the United States, the European Union, India, the Russian Federation, and Japan. According to the chart, in 2014, US made up 15% of those emissions. > Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (24% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.[1] Plus, as other comments have pointed out, transportation and the rest are closely related to our lifestyles. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
tracker1 7y ago
Even then, some of us cannot realistically go vegan/vegetarian (legume allergies, t2d, do not respond well to grains). Also, farming works better with and can use better integration of animal and plant farming in support of each other. Much more than the large mono-crop farms we have now. It's about supporting an ecosystem, not force feeding humanity as much mutant grain and legumes as possible. I do think that all options should be on the table, and moving the needle is an overall good. For the upper-mid US, a couple more nuclear power plants. For the mid-west, more wind. Southwest, more solar. Continued support for electric tax credits. Expansion of efforts to increase forests in terms of trade policy. Reducing/elimination of farming subsidies to large mono-crop farming, especially where using patented seed. Nutrition policy based on science, not religion. Reduction of pollution as a primary focus would help a lot as well. Abusing pollution and climate change to push a political agenda brings out a lot of resistance. It also shows that most of those screaming the loudest really don't care as much about it as they claim.
munificent 7y ago
> People (not necessarily the parent comment) love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message. The non-cynical intepretation is that people focus on lifestyle changes because those are the ones they are personally able to do.
noobermin 7y ago
Huh? Those are lifestyle related. Transpo and electrical use are consumption, primarily of the middle and upper middle class and their preference to drive and live in sprawl rather than dense, city centric housing. Industrial uses refine petroleum/steel/copper, etc...for use in commercial goods that are then consumed by the middle and upper middle class. I agree with the meat deal (I never understood why people treat it like it's a major cause of GHG's, the most it contributes to flattening forests for farm land but usual AG does that too), but the categories you mentioned are either directly consumption or facilitate consumption. Sure, they may require systemic changes, but certain people have to then get out of the way, like stop resisting things like traffic calming and bike lanes and dense housing development near their workplaces that allow people to change their consumption in the first place.
- McWobbleston 7y ago
  Agriculture is a major source of GHG and meat is multiple times more energy intensive to produce than plant foods. It's not as large of a contributor as transportation and industrial manufacturing, but it's still a significant contributor. https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708 https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-...
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  > Transpo and electrical use are consumption, primarily of the middle and upper middle class and their preference to drive and live in sprawl rather than dense, city centric housing. It's a self-fufilling problem. Previous generations prefered single family units so cites enacted building height limits and zoned most of their residential land for low density housing. Those areas are still highly coveted so they are too expensive for most people (e.g Boulder) so the current generation of middle & upper middle has to live in the suburbs which are also low density housing.
  - noobermin 7y ago
    I'm not claiming everyone who lives in sprawl does it because they want to, but these people then turn around and support measures that reinforce that, like any regulation that makes driving more safe. You're right though about NIMBY's, but that's why I said "middle and upper middle," as in people who do have a choice and some latitude in their choices. Even if no individual is the source of demand (which is true), in aggregate their demand reinforces the system.
corodra 7y ago
May I point something out? Bitcoin, for 2019, is another Denmark in CO2 production (34,730,000,000 kg this year alone) due to the amount of electricity it burns. This data compiled by digiconomist. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Mind you, there are universities and critics that claim digiconomist understates the amount of power consumed by Bitcoin. I also think their average .49 kg of CO2 produced per kWh is a bit too low. Even when weighing for renewables on the average grid. Also, this doesn't take into account cooling costs. But at these numbers, it takes about 1.9 billion trees to neutralize the excess CO2 produced by Bitcoin, alone. There are other coins red lining computers as well. Certain lifestyles as a target are silly when there's some others that are much easier low hanging fruit to deal with.
tathougies 7y ago
> transportation, industrial use and electrical production Transportation, industrial use, and electrical production are all directly related to lifestyle choices. Transportation is affected both by personal choices in accepting mass transit, using one's car, etc. Transportation of products is fueled by mass demand for new products built in far away lands, as well as cheap produce. Industrial uses are usually in supply chains for goods people do not strictly need, but want for convenience. Electricity production is either used directly as a consumer or to support that which the consumer would like to buy. The greatest myth that has been fed to us in the climate change 'debate' is that there are large corporations out there polluting and burning fossil fuels for fun.
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  > accepting mass transit Most places don't have public/mass transit that can get you to work on time. Most people who care about climate change are also in favor of publich transport and already vote liberaly. > Industrial uses are usually in supply chains for goods people do not strictly need, but want for convenience. > Electricity production is either used directly as a consumer or to support that which the consumer would like to buy. Without CO2 & other emmision taxes how am I suppose to know which consumer products are the worse offenders? (Besides the obvious ones like meat). > The greatest myth that has been fed to us in the climate change 'debate' is that there are large corporations out there polluting and burning fossil fuels for fun. No one is saying that. It's just considerably more effective to put the emmision taxes & limits on the production/corporation side than the consumer side. A good portion of American's aren't going to do anything of their own accord so policy at state & federal level is much more attractive.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    > Most people who care about climate change are also in favor of publich transport and already vote liberaly In my experience, I know many 'liberals' who vote for transit, but do not take it, preferring to drive their car for convenience. Voting honestly doesn't matter. Public transit being provided by the government also does not matter. What matters is actually choosing to take multi-person transportation. Whether that be a public bus, or a private car-pooling service like uberpool, the effect is the same. You do not get brownie points for voting, sorry. And before someone says this is anecdata, the facts support it: https://psmag.com/economics/why-people-are-not-using-public-transit https://psmag.com/economics/why-people-are-not-using-public-.... Thus, conservatives and liberals are equally bad. Actually the liberal voters who voted for transit and then don't use it are worse because the transit going unused is probably worse for the environment. > Without CO2 & other emmision taxes how am I suppose to know which consumer products are the worse offenders? (Besides the obvious ones like meat). Just consume less? I dunno... wild thought. > No one is saying that. It's just considerably more effective to put the emmision taxes & limits on the production/corporation side than the consumer side. A good portion of American's aren't going to do anything of their own accord so policy at state & federal level is much more attractive. Um, that's fine. Choosing to tax at the production side due to easier regulatory enforcement is fine. The tax will be passed to the consumer, who can then use pricing to better judge externalities. However, taxing the production does not mean that the production is what is ultimately to blame for the emissions. The consumer is to blame. Without the consumer, the production wouldn't take place, and a production-side tax is a great way to enforce that consumers (who are fantastic at tax evasion) actually comply.
Johnny555 7y ago
The vast majority of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production Why did you exclude transportation and electrical production from "lifestyle choices" since lifestyle choices can reduce both of those? And it doesn't even have to be a large change in lifestyle -- do you really need that 18mpg full size SUV/truck, or would a 29 mpg car suffice for your daily needs and you can hire a truck when you actually need to haul stuff?

by SamBam 7y ago

brokenawipicute 7y ago

To some extent, it's not about reducing emissions as so far as voting with your wallet. If a large enough group unsupported the meat/airline/etc industry, they would go bankrupt.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
I would like to vote with my wallet, but products don't come with 'CO2 emitted' labels. That's important because the exact same product could be produced I a variety of ways, some many times more polluting than others.
- jorgemf 7y ago
  I don't think it is that complicated: - go by car or by public transport? - buy local vegetables vs eating a burger in a franchise? - turn on the heater vs use a bigger blanket? - go to work in a suit with a tie in summer with A/C at maximum power vs go in summer clothes with a normal A/C? That is voting with your wallet and your lifestyle. Please stop saying is others fault... it is our fault, of everybody, from politics to regular people. And we ALL have to do something.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    Thank you for getting it wrong and demonstrating my point. It is actually complicated - otherwise you would have gotten it right. I can have the exact same lifestyle in France and the US and in US my carbon footprint will be twice larger. There is no reason eating out should have higher environmental footprint than cooking yourself. Buying locally grown vegetables is often the wrong choice.I can buy a tomato in the supermarket, and if it grown locally in the UK, it's carbon footprint will be twice larger than if it was imported from Spain due to fuel and heating needed for greenhouses. http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local... Let's dig into details, do you know how environmental impact of bananas compares to that of oranges? You might have heard avocados have high environmental impact, but is that per KG, or per unit of calories? But let's consider buying a manufactured product, like a microwave. How would I, as a consumer, ever know if was manufactured with renewable energy or coal? I am happy to be proven wrong. If you do claim it's easy, I take it you at least know what's your annual carbon footprint and how many trees you need to plant to offset it?
    - jorgemf 7y ago
      what about the other 3 examples I told you? There are obvious things, there are complex things. But not caring is not a solution.
      - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        They are reasonable, and of-course we should care. Out of the things you listed, public transport is probably the most impactful.

bogle 7y ago

5% is a significant percentage.

jogjayr 7y ago

> People love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message. You're right, and it drives me mad. There's also the other side of it, when someone really does live off the grid, eat vegan etc. "Ugh who wants to live like that?" > The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production 1. These industries don't generate emissions for the heck of it - they do it to satisfy consumer demand. 2. To force industries to change their ways of doing business, there's not many options beyond carbon taxes. Which will result in some changes - in manufacturing techniques, costs, end product - that are hard to predict now. Some may be for the better, and some, for the worse. Given these facts canny businesses will almost always successfully lobby against climate regulation and taxes with appeals like "bad for jobs! no more cheeseburgers! they're taking away your SUVs!" to the electorate. But if people are OK with more expensive cheeseburgers or SUVs, these appeals have less purchase. You're not going to get everyone to give up these things, but at least they'll realize their true cost. > if every single person in the US went vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by about 5%. And that's exactly what GP was getting at. There isn't one single solution that will fix 90% of the problem. This type of thinking introduces complacency - "They'll fix it before it gets really bad. I heard you just have to plant a bunch of trees/drop some rocks in the ocean/run a carbon capture machine." Our economy is a leaky pipe, with carbon dripping out all along its length and breadth. The solution to climate change is a bunch of 2-5% solutions.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
But people want their SUVs and cheeseburgers. If you force people's standard of living to go backwards too far you will soon be voted out of office or have a revolt to deal with. Telling people to consume less does not work at the scale we are dealing in here. We need to find technical solutions because the cumulative lifestyle changes would be so massive they are a non-starter. With sufficient technical solutions the behavioral solutions can hopefully be small enough to be realistic.
- rammy1234 7y ago

8ytecoder 7y ago

(I need to find this study. I’ll update my comment if I do). Meat contributes a lot more than 5% when you breakdown transportation or deforestation or cultivation and land and energy used for cultivation of food for livestock - instead of simply livestock. The study said the number was closer to 18%. Edit: here https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010

zaroth 7y ago
I don’t see the 18% number in your linked paper. It says total US food production (meat and otherwise) uses 17% of fossil fuel consumption.
- 8ytecoder 7y ago
  I got my sources crossed. This [1] is where I read the 18% number. Note that the 17% quoted is for fossil fuels only - land use, water use and deforestation are not factored in. Also 85% of that 17% is for meat and dairy. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warmi...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

screye 7y ago

The funny thing is, that even people that make these lifestyle choices can be hypocrites in their own right. They buy gas guzzling cars. They stay in huge houses with massive heating bills. They endorse sparse suburban housing too. I am also not a huge fan of those advocating for complete veganism in the name of climate change. (not those who make an individual choice mind you. That I respect). Ingredients like fish sauce, worcestershire and the like have trace contributions to climate change, and make it incredibly difficult to cook certain cuisines without. Fish, chicken and to an extent milk products make minuscule contributions to climate change and are still lumped together with red meat. Some peer review & published studies [1][2] believe that total US veganism will lead to only a 2% decrease in GHG emissions in the US. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 [2] https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-environment-but-cows-are-not-killing-the-climate-94968 https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-envi... IMO, the most effective move would be to move to low meat cuisines. Stir frys, curries, brothy soups and the like use a lot less meat than burgers or steak. Some of those work perfectly fine with zero meat (minus meat derived spices/sauces). Feel like the current trend with veganism is a stop gap until we figure out hoew to lag grow our meat anyways.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

> The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production. But the reason we use so much transportation, industry, and electricity is due to lifestyle choices. Meat requires feed which is transported, and then the animals are transported, and then the meat itself is also transported. Industry makes those iPhones you buy a new model of every other year. Etc. > As for the specific question of meat, it would undoubtably help for everyone to eat less meat, but in fact if every single person in the US went vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by about 5% 5% is nothing to sneeze at. Eating less meat alone won't stop climate change, it's true, but in combination with other sacrifices? Here's my problem with the people who make arguments like you're making: I feel like you're unwilling to make sacrifices and are using this argument to justify how you can claim to care about the environment while also doing basically nothing to improve the situation. You'll say "well, one person isn't going to make a difference", yes, in the same way a raindrop does not consider itself responsible for the flood. If we are so unwilling to make sacrifices for ourselves, why should we believe that other people will make any? Why will they vote against their interests? Pay lip service to the idea in a public forum and then explain away your own contribution to the problem as being but one drop in the flood, voting is secret. Someone says "we should eat less meat", an objectively helpful thing to do by your own metric, and you say "No, no. It's a small thing, we should focus on something less important to me!". It's frankly quite frustrating to see. Short of some miracle techology, I'm pretty sure this kind of thing is the reason we won't be able to avoid the worst case scenarios of climate change and future generations will look back on us with well deserved disgust.

candiodari 7y ago
I don't get this reasoning. Global warming has been self-reinforcing since before my dad was born, so a 100% reduction in human co2 emissions will not stop climate change, just slow it down. It's also an exponential process and we're not in the early stages, so it won't even slow it down that much. Imagine the effect of a 5% change now, which is a completely unrealistic goal to boot. It's nothing. https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedbacks-are-so-bad https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedba... We don't need miracle technology, we have the technology to take control of the climate, and we'll be forced to use it, whatever other measures are used. So lifestyle choices are great and all, but please stop saying they're for the climate. They're insignificant, even if 100% implemented. The proverbial raindrop you're talking about matters very little if the reason for the flood is a dam breaking. Great attitude on the part of the raindrop to not make the situation worse. But all the raindrops together only make the situation 0.1% worse than it was before the rain ...

johnisgood 7y ago

Sorry, but your sources are accounting for the US only, it is not global. In 2014, the top carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters were China, the United States, the European Union, India, the Russian Federation, and Japan. According to the chart, in 2014, US made up 15% of those emissions. > Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (24% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.[1] Plus, as other comments have pointed out, transportation and the rest are closely related to our lifestyles. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

tracker1 7y ago

Even then, some of us cannot realistically go vegan/vegetarian (legume allergies, t2d, do not respond well to grains). Also, farming works better with and can use better integration of animal and plant farming in support of each other. Much more than the large mono-crop farms we have now. It's about supporting an ecosystem, not force feeding humanity as much mutant grain and legumes as possible. I do think that all options should be on the table, and moving the needle is an overall good. For the upper-mid US, a couple more nuclear power plants. For the mid-west, more wind. Southwest, more solar. Continued support for electric tax credits. Expansion of efforts to increase forests in terms of trade policy. Reducing/elimination of farming subsidies to large mono-crop farming, especially where using patented seed. Nutrition policy based on science, not religion. Reduction of pollution as a primary focus would help a lot as well. Abusing pollution and climate change to push a political agenda brings out a lot of resistance. It also shows that most of those screaming the loudest really don't care as much about it as they claim.

munificent 7y ago

> People (not necessarily the parent comment) love to focus on the lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message. The non-cynical intepretation is that people focus on lifestyle changes because those are the ones they are personally able to do.

noobermin 7y ago

Huh? Those are lifestyle related. Transpo and electrical use are consumption, primarily of the middle and upper middle class and their preference to drive and live in sprawl rather than dense, city centric housing. Industrial uses refine petroleum/steel/copper, etc...for use in commercial goods that are then consumed by the middle and upper middle class. I agree with the meat deal (I never understood why people treat it like it's a major cause of GHG's, the most it contributes to flattening forests for farm land but usual AG does that too), but the categories you mentioned are either directly consumption or facilitate consumption. Sure, they may require systemic changes, but certain people have to then get out of the way, like stop resisting things like traffic calming and bike lanes and dense housing development near their workplaces that allow people to change their consumption in the first place.

McWobbleston 7y ago
Agriculture is a major source of GHG and meat is multiple times more energy intensive to produce than plant foods. It's not as large of a contributor as transportation and industrial manufacturing, but it's still a significant contributor. https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708 https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-...
KingMachiavelli 7y ago
> Transpo and electrical use are consumption, primarily of the middle and upper middle class and their preference to drive and live in sprawl rather than dense, city centric housing. It's a self-fufilling problem. Previous generations prefered single family units so cites enacted building height limits and zoned most of their residential land for low density housing. Those areas are still highly coveted so they are too expensive for most people (e.g Boulder) so the current generation of middle & upper middle has to live in the suburbs which are also low density housing.
- noobermin 7y ago
  I'm not claiming everyone who lives in sprawl does it because they want to, but these people then turn around and support measures that reinforce that, like any regulation that makes driving more safe. You're right though about NIMBY's, but that's why I said "middle and upper middle," as in people who do have a choice and some latitude in their choices. Even if no individual is the source of demand (which is true), in aggregate their demand reinforces the system.

corodra 7y ago

May I point something out? Bitcoin, for 2019, is another Denmark in CO2 production (34,730,000,000 kg this year alone) due to the amount of electricity it burns. This data compiled by digiconomist. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Mind you, there are universities and critics that claim digiconomist understates the amount of power consumed by Bitcoin. I also think their average .49 kg of CO2 produced per kWh is a bit too low. Even when weighing for renewables on the average grid. Also, this doesn't take into account cooling costs. But at these numbers, it takes about 1.9 billion trees to neutralize the excess CO2 produced by Bitcoin, alone. There are other coins red lining computers as well. Certain lifestyles as a target are silly when there's some others that are much easier low hanging fruit to deal with.

tathougies 7y ago

> transportation, industrial use and electrical production Transportation, industrial use, and electrical production are all directly related to lifestyle choices. Transportation is affected both by personal choices in accepting mass transit, using one's car, etc. Transportation of products is fueled by mass demand for new products built in far away lands, as well as cheap produce. Industrial uses are usually in supply chains for goods people do not strictly need, but want for convenience. Electricity production is either used directly as a consumer or to support that which the consumer would like to buy. The greatest myth that has been fed to us in the climate change 'debate' is that there are large corporations out there polluting and burning fossil fuels for fun.

KingMachiavelli 7y ago
> accepting mass transit Most places don't have public/mass transit that can get you to work on time. Most people who care about climate change are also in favor of publich transport and already vote liberaly. > Industrial uses are usually in supply chains for goods people do not strictly need, but want for convenience. > Electricity production is either used directly as a consumer or to support that which the consumer would like to buy. Without CO2 & other emmision taxes how am I suppose to know which consumer products are the worse offenders? (Besides the obvious ones like meat). > The greatest myth that has been fed to us in the climate change 'debate' is that there are large corporations out there polluting and burning fossil fuels for fun. No one is saying that. It's just considerably more effective to put the emmision taxes & limits on the production/corporation side than the consumer side. A good portion of American's aren't going to do anything of their own accord so policy at state & federal level is much more attractive.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > Most people who care about climate change are also in favor of publich transport and already vote liberaly In my experience, I know many 'liberals' who vote for transit, but do not take it, preferring to drive their car for convenience. Voting honestly doesn't matter. Public transit being provided by the government also does not matter. What matters is actually choosing to take multi-person transportation. Whether that be a public bus, or a private car-pooling service like uberpool, the effect is the same. You do not get brownie points for voting, sorry. And before someone says this is anecdata, the facts support it: https://psmag.com/economics/why-people-are-not-using-public-transit https://psmag.com/economics/why-people-are-not-using-public-.... Thus, conservatives and liberals are equally bad. Actually the liberal voters who voted for transit and then don't use it are worse because the transit going unused is probably worse for the environment. > Without CO2 & other emmision taxes how am I suppose to know which consumer products are the worse offenders? (Besides the obvious ones like meat). Just consume less? I dunno... wild thought. > No one is saying that. It's just considerably more effective to put the emmision taxes & limits on the production/corporation side than the consumer side. A good portion of American's aren't going to do anything of their own accord so policy at state & federal level is much more attractive. Um, that's fine. Choosing to tax at the production side due to easier regulatory enforcement is fine. The tax will be passed to the consumer, who can then use pricing to better judge externalities. However, taxing the production does not mean that the production is what is ultimately to blame for the emissions. The consumer is to blame. Without the consumer, the production wouldn't take place, and a production-side tax is a great way to enforce that consumers (who are fantastic at tax evasion) actually comply.

Johnny555 7y ago

The vast majority of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial use and electrical production Why did you exclude transportation and electrical production from "lifestyle choices" since lifestyle choices can reduce both of those? And it doesn't even have to be a large change in lifestyle -- do you really need that 18mpg full size SUV/truck, or would a 29 mpg car suffice for your daily needs and you can hire a truck when you actually need to haul stuff?