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> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Those are all good things, and we

> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Those are all good things, and we should do that, but the vast majority of emissions come from commerce and industry and not consumers. The single most important thing for people to do is to use whatever influence they have to compel governments, and institutions to eliminate carbon emissions. > Campaign for nuclear power. It takes a decade to build a plant. For this to work, we need to speed this up. Scrutinizing regulations and bringing down capital investment needed to build plants could help. But wind and solar can be deployed now, and can be built quickly and I think that, in combination with storage, is our best hope.

jeffbee 5y ago
In my state of California, 28% of the GHGs are from light passenger vehicles, 7.7% from agriculture (virtually all of that for animal production), 6.1% for direct residential emissions (natural gas cooking and heating) and 15% for electric generation, of which a third goes to residential loads. That means the majority of the GHG emissions in California are under the direct control of individuals, not commerce and industry.
- mwint 5y ago
  What percentage from wildfires?
  - sgrove 5y ago
    Quite an interesting question as well. Looks like SF Chronicle did an article on it [0] and estimates 111,700,000 metric tons released last year (a record year with 4.2 million acres burned). I don't know how that fits into the overall % the the OP shared, but it'd be good to factor into the plan since it's likely to make things worse. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/California-wildfires-emitted-a-huge-amount-of-15775044.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Cal...
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    I guess you meant this as some kind of checkmate moment, but wildfire emissions are quantified separately, are considered part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, and are 10-100x smaller than human GHG emissions from fossil fuels, depending on the year. In 2019 they were 1.1%. https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2018/ghg_inventory_trends_00-18.pdf https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2018/g... https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/ca_wildfire_co2_emissions_estimates.pdf https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/ca_wildfire_co2_emi...
    - mikeg8 5y ago
      Not sure why you assume it was a checkmate at all, could have been a purely inquisitive question. But thanks for providing your response with links, I’ve been curious about wildfires as well.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    Increased wildfires are a positive feedback effect of too much carbon in the atmosphere… And generally they are releasing carbon that was captured by vegetation fairly recently.
- sgrove 5y ago
  Very interesting numbers! I always appreciate having a breakdown like this so my personal actions can have some rational basis. Where were you able source them from? And is there a full list that could be posted alongside your comment?
  - epistasis 5y ago
    California's Air Resource Board tracks this: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-descriptions-sources https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-descriptions-sources The full inventory is quite detailed, and it takes a bit of data mingling to dive deeper, but it can be done.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  But California is such a tiny fraction of global emissions that it's almost irrelevant in the long run. Cargo ships and manufacturing are the serious issues. Sure, do what you can to reduce your personal footprint, but know that you can't make a difference without changing some paradigms.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  Is it? Transport is an infrastructure problem, which is controlled by policy. How many ways do you have to get to work? I have three. Bus, bike, and car. - If I decide to ride the bus, I will walk 45 minutes to the bus stop for an express bus, which will take me to my job site, which picks me up 5:50 am and the fare costs as much as gas would for a drive there in a personal vehicle. - If I decide to bike, there are no direct routes with a bike lane. The remaining routes have been shutdown due to construction, but cars are still afforded a lane. I either have to take very long and convoluted routes through neighborhoods or ride on a 60mph expressway with no median. - If I drive, I have a choice of several routes of well maintained road infrastructure and I am confident that I will arrive in 30mins. If we want to place the responsibility of vehicle GHG emissions on consumers, we need to at least stop biasing against non-car transportation options. Otherwise we’ll end up with a lot of blame, and no reductions in GHG emissions. A call to action should be placed on people who have agency over the situation (politicians) and not on people who have none.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Government of and by the people, is the way I heard it.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      Right, but which people? The biggest determinant of whether people can live close to their jobs in Cupertino is not the people that work there, but the tiny minority of Cupertino residents that live in Cupertino and have the time to follow the intricacies of zoning; namely the wealthy and retired, the people who typically have a lot of wealth tied up in their Cupertino real estate and benefit hugely by keeping new housing out, both economically and in their aesthetic preferences. Our system for determining who gets to have short commutes and who are damned to long, high carbon commutes, is inherently undemocratic and can not be fixed as is. We need state level regulation to overpower the greed of local entrenched interests.
gruez 5y ago
>but the vast majority of emissions come from commerce and industry and not consumers. And what do you think industry/commerce is serving? Consumers.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  ...also shareholders. I assume the implication is to stop buying their stuff? Or choose other market participants who have lower emissions in their supply chain? Try changing your utility provider. If you go to a store and ask an employee how much carbon was released to produce one or another product, how likely will you get an answer for every product you need in your daily life? Our markets provide consumers with neither the influence nor the information needed to apply their purchasing power to lower the carbon emissions of corporations. Policy is needed to eliminate emissions.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >...also shareholders Right, but Exxon isn't drilling for oil so they can pay dividends to their shareholders in the form of oil. >I assume the implication is to stop buying their stuff? Yes, what do you think would happen if a corporation saw that demand was dropping? >Our markets provide consumers with neither the influence nor the information needed to apply their purchasing power to lower the carbon emissions of corporations. Policy is needed to eliminate emissions. Refusing to buy such products would lead to it not being produced. What else do you think would happen? That they'll continue producing a surplus and let it pile up? As for still buying the product but wanting it to be less polluting, I agree that policy is the best solution, as long as you can get everyone on board. This is tricky because support for the environment tends to drop when people realize they have to pay for it.

jeffbee 5y ago

In my state of California, 28% of the GHGs are from light passenger vehicles, 7.7% from agriculture (virtually all of that for animal production), 6.1% for direct residential emissions (natural gas cooking and heating) and 15% for electric generation, of which a third goes to residential loads. That means the majority of the GHG emissions in California are under the direct control of individuals, not commerce and industry.

mwint 5y ago
What percentage from wildfires?
- sgrove 5y ago
  Quite an interesting question as well. Looks like SF Chronicle did an article on it [0] and estimates 111,700,000 metric tons released last year (a record year with 4.2 million acres burned). I don't know how that fits into the overall % the the OP shared, but it'd be good to factor into the plan since it's likely to make things worse. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/California-wildfires-emitted-a-huge-amount-of-15775044.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Cal...
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I guess you meant this as some kind of checkmate moment, but wildfire emissions are quantified separately, are considered part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, and are 10-100x smaller than human GHG emissions from fossil fuels, depending on the year. In 2019 they were 1.1%. https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2018/ghg_inventory_trends_00-18.pdf https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2018/g... https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/ca_wildfire_co2_emissions_estimates.pdf https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/ca_wildfire_co2_emi...
  - mikeg8 5y ago
    Not sure why you assume it was a checkmate at all, could have been a purely inquisitive question. But thanks for providing your response with links, I’ve been curious about wildfires as well.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Increased wildfires are a positive feedback effect of too much carbon in the atmosphere… And generally they are releasing carbon that was captured by vegetation fairly recently.
sgrove 5y ago
Very interesting numbers! I always appreciate having a breakdown like this so my personal actions can have some rational basis. Where were you able source them from? And is there a full list that could be posted alongside your comment?
- epistasis 5y ago
  California's Air Resource Board tracks this: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-descriptions-sources https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-descriptions-sources The full inventory is quite detailed, and it takes a bit of data mingling to dive deeper, but it can be done.
rpmisms 5y ago
But California is such a tiny fraction of global emissions that it's almost irrelevant in the long run. Cargo ships and manufacturing are the serious issues. Sure, do what you can to reduce your personal footprint, but know that you can't make a difference without changing some paradigms.
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
Is it? Transport is an infrastructure problem, which is controlled by policy. How many ways do you have to get to work? I have three. Bus, bike, and car. - If I decide to ride the bus, I will walk 45 minutes to the bus stop for an express bus, which will take me to my job site, which picks me up 5:50 am and the fare costs as much as gas would for a drive there in a personal vehicle. - If I decide to bike, there are no direct routes with a bike lane. The remaining routes have been shutdown due to construction, but cars are still afforded a lane. I either have to take very long and convoluted routes through neighborhoods or ride on a 60mph expressway with no median. - If I drive, I have a choice of several routes of well maintained road infrastructure and I am confident that I will arrive in 30mins. If we want to place the responsibility of vehicle GHG emissions on consumers, we need to at least stop biasing against non-car transportation options. Otherwise we’ll end up with a lot of blame, and no reductions in GHG emissions. A call to action should be placed on people who have agency over the situation (politicians) and not on people who have none.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Government of and by the people, is the way I heard it.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Right, but which people? The biggest determinant of whether people can live close to their jobs in Cupertino is not the people that work there, but the tiny minority of Cupertino residents that live in Cupertino and have the time to follow the intricacies of zoning; namely the wealthy and retired, the people who typically have a lot of wealth tied up in their Cupertino real estate and benefit hugely by keeping new housing out, both economically and in their aesthetic preferences. Our system for determining who gets to have short commutes and who are damned to long, high carbon commutes, is inherently undemocratic and can not be fixed as is. We need state level regulation to overpower the greed of local entrenched interests.

gruez 5y ago

>but the vast majority of emissions come from commerce and industry and not consumers. And what do you think industry/commerce is serving? Consumers.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago
...also shareholders. I assume the implication is to stop buying their stuff? Or choose other market participants who have lower emissions in their supply chain? Try changing your utility provider. If you go to a store and ask an employee how much carbon was released to produce one or another product, how likely will you get an answer for every product you need in your daily life? Our markets provide consumers with neither the influence nor the information needed to apply their purchasing power to lower the carbon emissions of corporations. Policy is needed to eliminate emissions.
- gruez 5y ago
  >...also shareholders Right, but Exxon isn't drilling for oil so they can pay dividends to their shareholders in the form of oil. >I assume the implication is to stop buying their stuff? Yes, what do you think would happen if a corporation saw that demand was dropping? >Our markets provide consumers with neither the influence nor the information needed to apply their purchasing power to lower the carbon emissions of corporations. Policy is needed to eliminate emissions. Refusing to buy such products would lead to it not being produced. What else do you think would happen? That they'll continue producing a surplus and let it pile up? As for still buying the product but wanting it to be less polluting, I agree that policy is the best solution, as long as you can get everyone on board. This is tricky because support for the environment tends to drop when people realize they have to pay for it.