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Governments of this planet are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champ

Governments of this planet are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champion these efforts can pressure governments to drive faster change. Climate Pledge To protect all of humanity globally now and for the future of our posterity I am committing to the following. I pledge to limit eating red meat. I will restrict intake of cows and lambs etc. If I choose to have children, I will have 2 or less. I will try to use cycling or mass transit options whenever possible and to participate in efforts to expand transit. I will restrict flying to only when necessary and try to limit flying to only when no other choice is available. If I do fly I will try to offset all emissions. I will try my utmost to conserve energy and minimize use of heating and cooling appliances. I will try my best to limit energy use to renewable sources when I have the choice. When I cannot choose I will fight for the ability to have this choice. I will try to help those close to me understand these choices and the need for those able, to also join the pledge. I will only consume what I need. I will not perpetuate extravagance and will only support companies who champion sustainable efforts. I will do my best to strive for and support sustainable and minimalist technology. I will stay involved in the public discourse on environmental issues and stay engaged on efforts to mitigate climate change.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I know its the trend to say individual effort is useless but I think the best thing about individual effort is it gets you in the mindset of conserving and a population that has made a habit of putting in their part will be extra frustrated when they see corporations and governments not putting in their part. It also prepares people for systematic change which will result in us having to do most of these things anyway.
- kovek 7y ago
  Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. And they could do similarly for all other products relating to emissions. The government could achieve that by installing the right taxes of these energy sources destroying the environment.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    It would be cool but they haven't done it and we don't have time to sit and wait. If we start self enforcing these rules on ourself then when it comes to election time people will be more open to voting for a government that does this.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      The people likely to self-enforce these rules are exactly the people that would already vote for a carbon tax. The real problem are the majority who either don't care, or actively believe that climate change is a Chinese hoax.
  - danbolt 7y ago
    A nice element of carbon taxes is that, if desired by voters, can be revenue-neutral and substitute other tax revenues. This helps encourage your economy to grow in ways that avoid environmental externalities. Canada has recently implemented one federally and it has a lot of pushback in regions where a larger portion of their economy has historically come from bitumen tar sands. Other regions with different economies are more receptive to it.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. Taxes to stop behavior are bunk in this context. There's a lot of consumption that's necessary for many in some amount and luxury for other who afford a vast amount. Taxes cut into some people's basic survival and economic activity while not stopping over people's consumption. What is necessary is the state to dictate to various industries and companies that they must stop CO2 production - by changing their products and production methods. The simplest thing is that US is to mandate a lot more travel by bus. No one likes that but hey, no like a burning planet.
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      > more travel by bus. No one likes that but hey, no like a burning planet. Says who? I hate driving, I find it the most soul crushing and time wasting activity there is. In comparison I find taking the bus to be relatively relaxing and cheaper. What I don't like is a shitty bus service that doesn't take me to where I need to go or only comes every hour. Some areas may only have a shitty bus service and this is probably where you got the idea from but lets not pretend that this is just a reality of public transport.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
maxmalysh 7y ago
What's your opinion on China's and India's impact on global warming? I am honestly interested.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  If the US had the same per capita emissions as India I'd personally organize a parade in the streets. I'd openly weep with how amazing that would be. I'd build statues to the leaders who made that happen. That's how I feel about India's impact on global warming.
  - nostromo 7y ago
    You’d be incredibly poor though, because the US produces a tremendous amount of wealth in GDP per carbon emission - much greater than India or China.
    - ageofwant 7y ago
      That wealth is not yours.
    - nl 7y ago
      India and the US emit almost exactly the same C02 per GDP dollar, but China is quite a lot worse. Germany, OTOH is over 1/3rd less than the US and similarly rich, and Japan is quite efficient too. Figures in kg per PPP $ of GDP China: 0.561 Germany: 0.189 India: 0.304 Japan: 0.243 US: 0.3 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?view=map https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?view=...
      - lorenzhs 7y ago
        Germany burns a lot of lignite (the dirtiest kind of coal) as well as hard coal, so imagine what that figure would be if the political will existed to shut those power plants down. To answer the question, 38.6% of Germany's CO2 emissions are from power generation [1], and around 70% of those are from coal power plants [2]. That's 27% of total emissions from burning coal. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/co2-emissionen-103.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/co2-emissionen-103.ht... [2] Figure 10, https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/1410/publikationen/171207_uba_hg_braunsteinkohle_bf.pdf https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/14...
pa7ch 7y ago
I think the idea that red meat will always be far worse for the environment then other food is a bit of a red herring and conflated with ethics of animal eating. There are many factors not considered in those statistics such as nutrient absorption and protein quality. While it is true that carbon emissions are worse for grain fed animals (most of the red meat you see) it doesn't have to be this way. "Regenerative agriculture" claims to you raise carbon neutral (or negative) beef farms by restoring the native plant life and replenishing the soil. This won't feed the entire earth, but I try to support grass fed farms and obtain most of my red meat from them. Chriss Kresser offers some interesting points on this topic.
- jm547ster 7y ago
  ....but he can’t read forest plots sooo...
- hkyeti 7y ago
  Oxford and CSIRO already proved grass fed cattle emit more greenhouse gases then CAFO grain fed, and that's after taking into account sequestration
  - pa7ch 7y ago
    Thanks for this I'm reading about it now.
- top_kekeroni_m8 7y ago
  Imagine taking advice from Chriss Kresser unironically.
  - pa7ch 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested. I admit only a shallow investigation into this topic and its certainly not my wheelhouse.
nostromo 7y ago
> If I choose to have children, I will have 2 or less. This is the only thing that actually matters. Everything else you’ve listed is a rounding error compared to this. Although I’m curious how you came up with two as your threshold.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  It's a copypasta. OP didn't make up the number 2 but I'm guessing it comes down to 2 being a tolerable number to most people.
  - yoube 7y ago
    I mean, it's literally the replacement population. 2 parents die, 2 children remain.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Technically you need a little more than 2 because people die without having children occasionally.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- drblast 7y ago
  Two is slightly below replacement rate so will result in a steadily decreasing population which would solve many environmental issues but itself.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  The delay on population decisions is huge. We need action before the impact of any population decrease is felt. In any case, the population of the Western World is stable or decreasing and the places where population is increasing couldn't care less about personal responsibility for decreasing climate change.
  - 7y ago
mrosett 7y ago
I respect your creed, but I'm not religious so I don't think I'll adopt it.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

I know its the trend to say individual effort is useless but I think the best thing about individual effort is it gets you in the mindset of conserving and a population that has made a habit of putting in their part will be extra frustrated when they see corporations and governments not putting in their part. It also prepares people for systematic change which will result in us having to do most of these things anyway.

kovek 7y ago
Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. And they could do similarly for all other products relating to emissions. The government could achieve that by installing the right taxes of these energy sources destroying the environment.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  It would be cool but they haven't done it and we don't have time to sit and wait. If we start self enforcing these rules on ourself then when it comes to election time people will be more open to voting for a government that does this.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    The people likely to self-enforce these rules are exactly the people that would already vote for a carbon tax. The real problem are the majority who either don't care, or actively believe that climate change is a Chinese hoax.
- danbolt 7y ago
  A nice element of carbon taxes is that, if desired by voters, can be revenue-neutral and substitute other tax revenues. This helps encourage your economy to grow in ways that avoid environmental externalities. Canada has recently implemented one federally and it has a lot of pushback in regions where a larger portion of their economy has historically come from bitumen tar sands. Other regions with different economies are more receptive to it.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. Taxes to stop behavior are bunk in this context. There's a lot of consumption that's necessary for many in some amount and luxury for other who afford a vast amount. Taxes cut into some people's basic survival and economic activity while not stopping over people's consumption. What is necessary is the state to dictate to various industries and companies that they must stop CO2 production - by changing their products and production methods. The simplest thing is that US is to mandate a lot more travel by bus. No one likes that but hey, no like a burning planet.
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    > more travel by bus. No one likes that but hey, no like a burning planet. Says who? I hate driving, I find it the most soul crushing and time wasting activity there is. In comparison I find taking the bus to be relatively relaxing and cheaper. What I don't like is a shitty bus service that doesn't take me to where I need to go or only comes every hour. Some areas may only have a shitty bus service and this is probably where you got the idea from but lets not pretend that this is just a reality of public transport.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

maxmalysh 7y ago

What's your opinion on China's and India's impact on global warming? I am honestly interested.

UncleMeat 7y ago
If the US had the same per capita emissions as India I'd personally organize a parade in the streets. I'd openly weep with how amazing that would be. I'd build statues to the leaders who made that happen. That's how I feel about India's impact on global warming.
- nostromo 7y ago
  You’d be incredibly poor though, because the US produces a tremendous amount of wealth in GDP per carbon emission - much greater than India or China.
  - ageofwant 7y ago
    That wealth is not yours.
  - nl 7y ago
    India and the US emit almost exactly the same C02 per GDP dollar, but China is quite a lot worse. Germany, OTOH is over 1/3rd less than the US and similarly rich, and Japan is quite efficient too. Figures in kg per PPP $ of GDP China: 0.561 Germany: 0.189 India: 0.304 Japan: 0.243 US: 0.3 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?view=map https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?view=...
    - lorenzhs 7y ago
      Germany burns a lot of lignite (the dirtiest kind of coal) as well as hard coal, so imagine what that figure would be if the political will existed to shut those power plants down. To answer the question, 38.6% of Germany's CO2 emissions are from power generation [1], and around 70% of those are from coal power plants [2]. That's 27% of total emissions from burning coal. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/co2-emissionen-103.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/co2-emissionen-103.ht... [2] Figure 10, https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/1410/publikationen/171207_uba_hg_braunsteinkohle_bf.pdf https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/14...

pa7ch 7y ago

I think the idea that red meat will always be far worse for the environment then other food is a bit of a red herring and conflated with ethics of animal eating. There are many factors not considered in those statistics such as nutrient absorption and protein quality. While it is true that carbon emissions are worse for grain fed animals (most of the red meat you see) it doesn't have to be this way. "Regenerative agriculture" claims to you raise carbon neutral (or negative) beef farms by restoring the native plant life and replenishing the soil. This won't feed the entire earth, but I try to support grass fed farms and obtain most of my red meat from them. Chriss Kresser offers some interesting points on this topic.

jm547ster 7y ago
....but he can’t read forest plots sooo...
hkyeti 7y ago
Oxford and CSIRO already proved grass fed cattle emit more greenhouse gases then CAFO grain fed, and that's after taking into account sequestration
- pa7ch 7y ago
  Thanks for this I'm reading about it now.
top_kekeroni_m8 7y ago
Imagine taking advice from Chriss Kresser unironically.
- pa7ch 7y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested. I admit only a shallow investigation into this topic and its certainly not my wheelhouse.

nostromo 7y ago

> If I choose to have children, I will have 2 or less. This is the only thing that actually matters. Everything else you’ve listed is a rounding error compared to this. Although I’m curious how you came up with two as your threshold.

jdnenej 7y ago
It's a copypasta. OP didn't make up the number 2 but I'm guessing it comes down to 2 being a tolerable number to most people.
- yoube 7y ago
  I mean, it's literally the replacement population. 2 parents die, 2 children remain.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Technically you need a little more than 2 because people die without having children occasionally.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
drblast 7y ago
Two is slightly below replacement rate so will result in a steadily decreasing population which would solve many environmental issues but itself.
joe_the_user 7y ago
The delay on population decisions is huge. We need action before the impact of any population decrease is felt. In any case, the population of the Western World is stable or decreasing and the places where population is increasing couldn't care less about personal responsibility for decreasing climate change.
- 7y ago

mrosett 7y ago

I respect your creed, but I'm not religious so I don't think I'll adopt it.