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Individual choice has a very small role in climate change. The author has done nothing, zero, to contextualize the issue in numbers and data, which clearly demo

Individual choice has a very small role in climate change. The author has done nothing, zero, to contextualize the issue in numbers and data, which clearly demonstrate that individual choice is maybe 5-10% of what we need to decarbonize. Foreign vacations (which aren't even occurring in 2020) are a pittance here...we're talking about billions of fossil-fuel powered engines, hundreds of millions of livestock, heating and cooling homes for upwards of 10 billion humans, the production of steel, fertilizer, plastics, concrete, electronics, mining operations, shipping, trucking...it's just so much more vast than the hypocrisy of rich leftist environmentalists going on vacations.

leeoniya 6y ago
unfortunately consumers have been pre-conditioned to pricing structures and behaviors that completely discard all externalities. it would be a rude wake-up call for most if suddenly this stuff had to be produced responsibly, without planned obsolecense or presumption of free landfill storage. however, this is exactly what needs to happen. and it needs to happen via regulation of the giant producers, because capitalism is not compatible with anything but maximizing profits and minimizing costs. individual action is mostly meaningless - if people had to personally kill the cattle they eat many would likely swear off meat. without direct involvement in the damaging process of production consumers are fsr too removed to stop consuming ethically-compromised, cheap goods.
golergka 6y ago
You're missing the point, again. It's not about actual role in climate change. It's about your image, as an activist, in a public eye. Publuc eye is stupid. It's certainly guilty of logical errors you accuse it off – you're right about that. However, you will not be able to actually convince this public eye that he makes these mistakes, exactly because it's pretty dumb. So, if you actually want to convince people en masse about something, you have to play by the rules of this PR game, even though you may very well understand that the rules are stupid and people make logical mistakes.
walleeee 6y ago
Your comment is exactly what OP is talking about. The article is about credibility, not the role of individual choice. Obviously climate change is bigger than rich people going on vacations. Neither the article nor OP disputes this. The point you're missing is that people who advocate for sweeping policy change - the sort that will require people to drastically change their lifestyles, as well as drastically changing the way human industry operates - are more likely to be taken seriously when they change their lifestyles in advance.
milsebg 6y ago
Well that is exactly the point. Of course, climate activists reducing their individual leisure demand would decrease global carbon emissions only insignificantly, if at all. That's not the point here. The point is that climate activists ask their government for big changes because they fear civilization could end otherwise. And those big changes would have significant impact on the lifestyle of almost all people affected by these laws. So, why should one be willing to (and thus, vote for the changes) change ones lifestyle, if the advocates just say "well, I stop travelling abroad, when everyone else stops as well (and other carbon emission is reduced, too)"? The OP is about credibility, or, even lower level: sympathy. Maybe it becomes more obvious if we look at one specific example. In the Netherlands they lowered maximum speed on highways to 100 km/h (from 120 km/h). Correct me if I'm wrong but the carbon saving from that law is close to non-existent compared to the whole economy's carbon emissions. Or, the whole EU banned light bulbs. Also, the energy saving compared to the whole EU's energy consumption is probably sub 1%. And with the advent of white LEDs, people just use more light and the overall effect is even less. Both measurments combined have an impact less than your claimed 5%-10%. Does that mean that government should stop taking small steps, and only the "big shot" counts? Or can small steps (by governments OR individuals) be a tool to increase awareness?
- WhompingWindows 6y ago
  Those changes, mandating LEDs and lower speed limits, are vastly more important and easy to make than trying to get a ton of individuals to choose a different lifestyle. Psychology tells us about hedonistic adaptation, it'll be much easier for a government to make a big play than for tens of thousands of rich people to all individually give up their lifestyle. It'd be more influential for them to boycott gas planes and use their wealth to stimulate electric plane use, but again: psychology. That's why we need governments... But think broader, about concrete and steel and shipping, the really hard areas. There is no "choice" about steel, it's a technological and policy issue...Even if we cleaned up our individual consumer choices, that won't change the need for steel or change how it's produced in a dirty way. Look at a wind turbine, for instance. It's a giant tower of steel. Even though we need wind turbines as fast as possible, we still need dirty steel to ramp those up, and we need new tech to then make future steel cleaner. This is why focusing on individual choice is so small. Even if all us rich Westerners went vegan and rode bikes to work, that wouldn't address all the tricky technological and chemical issues.
rhino369 6y ago
>Individual choice has a very small role in climate change. Only if you offload moral culpability onto third parties that are acting on your behalf. You'd probably say you aren't responsible for the climate change due to power companies that use coal instead of green energy. But I'd argue you are responsible for any non-essential energy use since you know they are going to burn coal to generate it. If you turn on an air conditioner when your home is cooler than 95 degrees, that carbon usage is 100% on you. Same goes for agriculture. If you stopped buying meat, they'd stop producing meat for you. If your point is that the masses won't make those trade offs voluntarily, you are probably right. But the point of the article is that its entirely unconvincing to say society must reduce our standard of living by force when you won't do it voluntarily.
- kanox 6y ago
  > its entirely unconvincing to say society must reduce our standard of living by force when you won't do it voluntarily. I think that "reducing standards of living by force" is an extremist position and it's unhelpful to even bring it up. Switching electricity generation and transport towards renewables can have large impacts on CO2 emissions with very low impact on standards of living. Carbon taxes would raise some bills but the effect is much less than (for example) stopping air conditioning.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > I think that "reducing standards of living by force" is an extremist position and it's unhelpful to even bring it up. We're already doing that. But it's not close to being enough. Emissions need to be halved by 2030 to keep to 1.5C warming: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-emissions/emissions-need-to-be-halved-to-avoid-3c-warming-scientists-idUSKCN1TK0WM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-emissions/.... The recent economic shut-down from Covid-19 cut U.S. emissions by just 1/3 for one week in April: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/19/coronavirus-has-caused-whopping-17-drop-global-carbon-emissions/5219885002 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/19/corona....
  - rhino369 6y ago
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
There's also the problem that large corporations have frequently used the mantra of individual responsibility to remove themselves from culpability. See: the plastic industry running ads about "litter bugs". https://www.npr.org/transcripts/757539617 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/757539617

leeoniya 6y ago

unfortunately consumers have been pre-conditioned to pricing structures and behaviors that completely discard all externalities. it would be a rude wake-up call for most if suddenly this stuff had to be produced responsibly, without planned obsolecense or presumption of free landfill storage. however, this is exactly what needs to happen. and it needs to happen via regulation of the giant producers, because capitalism is not compatible with anything but maximizing profits and minimizing costs. individual action is mostly meaningless - if people had to personally kill the cattle they eat many would likely swear off meat. without direct involvement in the damaging process of production consumers are fsr too removed to stop consuming ethically-compromised, cheap goods.

golergka 6y ago

You're missing the point, again. It's not about actual role in climate change. It's about your image, as an activist, in a public eye. Publuc eye is stupid. It's certainly guilty of logical errors you accuse it off – you're right about that. However, you will not be able to actually convince this public eye that he makes these mistakes, exactly because it's pretty dumb. So, if you actually want to convince people en masse about something, you have to play by the rules of this PR game, even though you may very well understand that the rules are stupid and people make logical mistakes.

walleeee 6y ago

Your comment is exactly what OP is talking about. The article is about credibility, not the role of individual choice. Obviously climate change is bigger than rich people going on vacations. Neither the article nor OP disputes this. The point you're missing is that people who advocate for sweeping policy change - the sort that will require people to drastically change their lifestyles, as well as drastically changing the way human industry operates - are more likely to be taken seriously when they change their lifestyles in advance.

milsebg 6y ago

Well that is exactly the point. Of course, climate activists reducing their individual leisure demand would decrease global carbon emissions only insignificantly, if at all. That's not the point here. The point is that climate activists ask their government for big changes because they fear civilization could end otherwise. And those big changes would have significant impact on the lifestyle of almost all people affected by these laws. So, why should one be willing to (and thus, vote for the changes) change ones lifestyle, if the advocates just say "well, I stop travelling abroad, when everyone else stops as well (and other carbon emission is reduced, too)"? The OP is about credibility, or, even lower level: sympathy. Maybe it becomes more obvious if we look at one specific example. In the Netherlands they lowered maximum speed on highways to 100 km/h (from 120 km/h). Correct me if I'm wrong but the carbon saving from that law is close to non-existent compared to the whole economy's carbon emissions. Or, the whole EU banned light bulbs. Also, the energy saving compared to the whole EU's energy consumption is probably sub 1%. And with the advent of white LEDs, people just use more light and the overall effect is even less. Both measurments combined have an impact less than your claimed 5%-10%. Does that mean that government should stop taking small steps, and only the "big shot" counts? Or can small steps (by governments OR individuals) be a tool to increase awareness?

WhompingWindows 6y ago
Those changes, mandating LEDs and lower speed limits, are vastly more important and easy to make than trying to get a ton of individuals to choose a different lifestyle. Psychology tells us about hedonistic adaptation, it'll be much easier for a government to make a big play than for tens of thousands of rich people to all individually give up their lifestyle. It'd be more influential for them to boycott gas planes and use their wealth to stimulate electric plane use, but again: psychology. That's why we need governments... But think broader, about concrete and steel and shipping, the really hard areas. There is no "choice" about steel, it's a technological and policy issue...Even if we cleaned up our individual consumer choices, that won't change the need for steel or change how it's produced in a dirty way. Look at a wind turbine, for instance. It's a giant tower of steel. Even though we need wind turbines as fast as possible, we still need dirty steel to ramp those up, and we need new tech to then make future steel cleaner. This is why focusing on individual choice is so small. Even if all us rich Westerners went vegan and rode bikes to work, that wouldn't address all the tricky technological and chemical issues.

rhino369 6y ago

>Individual choice has a very small role in climate change. Only if you offload moral culpability onto third parties that are acting on your behalf. You'd probably say you aren't responsible for the climate change due to power companies that use coal instead of green energy. But I'd argue you are responsible for any non-essential energy use since you know they are going to burn coal to generate it. If you turn on an air conditioner when your home is cooler than 95 degrees, that carbon usage is 100% on you. Same goes for agriculture. If you stopped buying meat, they'd stop producing meat for you. If your point is that the masses won't make those trade offs voluntarily, you are probably right. But the point of the article is that its entirely unconvincing to say society must reduce our standard of living by force when you won't do it voluntarily.

kanox 6y ago
> its entirely unconvincing to say society must reduce our standard of living by force when you won't do it voluntarily. I think that "reducing standards of living by force" is an extremist position and it's unhelpful to even bring it up. Switching electricity generation and transport towards renewables can have large impacts on CO2 emissions with very low impact on standards of living. Carbon taxes would raise some bills but the effect is much less than (for example) stopping air conditioning.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > I think that "reducing standards of living by force" is an extremist position and it's unhelpful to even bring it up. We're already doing that. But it's not close to being enough. Emissions need to be halved by 2030 to keep to 1.5C warming: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-emissions/emissions-need-to-be-halved-to-avoid-3c-warming-scientists-idUSKCN1TK0WM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-emissions/.... The recent economic shut-down from Covid-19 cut U.S. emissions by just 1/3 for one week in April: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/19/coronavirus-has-caused-whopping-17-drop-global-carbon-emissions/5219885002 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/19/corona....
- rhino369 6y ago

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

There's also the problem that large corporations have frequently used the mantra of individual responsibility to remove themselves from culpability. See: the plastic industry running ads about "litter bugs". https://www.npr.org/transcripts/757539617 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/757539617