4 ms·

Not trying to poke holes in your theory because it's been enlightening to me, but wouldn't it make more sense to look at the global statistics? I think since it

by bumby 5y ago

Not trying to poke holes in your theory because it's been enlightening to me, but wouldn't it make more sense to look at the global statistics? I think since it's a global problem, it might be a mistake to take an overly US-centric (or worse yet, CA-centric) perspective. In that context of global use, industry (29.4%, if you add industrial and cement/chemical processes) does exceed road transport (11.9%) and total transport (16.2%). For that matter, agriculture (18.4%) is still higher than transport. I think the GP claim that transport "doesn't hold a candle" to ag/industrial emissions is a bit aggressive, but it's not as lopsided worldwide as the data you shared either. To be fair, the data is 5 years old so maybe the proportions have changed. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

epistasis 5y ago
Good questions! I think policy at a particular level of government should be devoted to the domain that it controls. So at the local government level, I advocate for the most influential policy, based on the numbers of what's being emitted there. In my small coastal community, replacing natural gas with heat pumps has a huuuuge impact on emissions. In most of the SF Bay, land use and allowing housing near jobs is by far the most impactful change. If we are setting policy globally, sure, focus on global numbers, but we don't really set policy globally. Individual governments make broad promises for reductions, but it would be a mistake for a government to base their actions on global numbers rather than their own numbers. I don't think that decarbonization is solvable through personal actions, but when I'm looking to change my personal impact, I look at what my actions are doing, not what the average person's actions are doing.
- bumby 5y ago
  This seems like a bit of contradictory logic to me regarding focusing on local policy and then stating that hyper-local decisions aren't enough to solve the problem. It's hard for me to ascertain from your response where the effective policy threshold is set. From your perspective is it at the personal, local, state, nation-state, or global level where it's sufficient to solve the problem? Policy can be (and is) created globally. I think we can impart global climate policy, but only to the level the individual state actors are willing to hold others accountable. If your local community bans natural gas fired heating, but also doesn't hold people accountable for breaking that standard it's not going to be an effective policy. Global policy is very much the same.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    In the US, local policy is the best we have for changing land use at the moment. I'd love nothing more than for states or the feds to wrest control away from municipalities and counties, since local levels do not have a good understanding of land use. However, acting on the local level does not preclude acting at higher levels. It's just that both changing policy and changing who controls the policy might be a bigger challenge than working within the current separation of powers. And even though local communities only change small parts of a system it's still changing the system, and demonstrating to other cities what is possible. My planning commissioners think that apartments "destroy" neighborhoods. When they see nearby communities adopting apartments without neighborhoods getting destroyed, it makes change more likely. One thing about setting policy at a higher level is that it would still have the same effect that lower levels should enact to optimize their decarbonization path. Even if global policy is the same, different regions have different decarbonization paths.

by bumby 5y ago

epistasis 5y ago

Good questions! I think policy at a particular level of government should be devoted to the domain that it controls. So at the local government level, I advocate for the most influential policy, based on the numbers of what's being emitted there. In my small coastal community, replacing natural gas with heat pumps has a huuuuge impact on emissions. In most of the SF Bay, land use and allowing housing near jobs is by far the most impactful change. If we are setting policy globally, sure, focus on global numbers, but we don't really set policy globally. Individual governments make broad promises for reductions, but it would be a mistake for a government to base their actions on global numbers rather than their own numbers. I don't think that decarbonization is solvable through personal actions, but when I'm looking to change my personal impact, I look at what my actions are doing, not what the average person's actions are doing.

bumby 5y ago
This seems like a bit of contradictory logic to me regarding focusing on local policy and then stating that hyper-local decisions aren't enough to solve the problem. It's hard for me to ascertain from your response where the effective policy threshold is set. From your perspective is it at the personal, local, state, nation-state, or global level where it's sufficient to solve the problem? Policy can be (and is) created globally. I think we can impart global climate policy, but only to the level the individual state actors are willing to hold others accountable. If your local community bans natural gas fired heating, but also doesn't hold people accountable for breaking that standard it's not going to be an effective policy. Global policy is very much the same.
- epistasis 5y ago
  In the US, local policy is the best we have for changing land use at the moment. I'd love nothing more than for states or the feds to wrest control away from municipalities and counties, since local levels do not have a good understanding of land use. However, acting on the local level does not preclude acting at higher levels. It's just that both changing policy and changing who controls the policy might be a bigger challenge than working within the current separation of powers. And even though local communities only change small parts of a system it's still changing the system, and demonstrating to other cities what is possible. My planning commissioners think that apartments "destroy" neighborhoods. When they see nearby communities adopting apartments without neighborhoods getting destroyed, it makes change more likely. One thing about setting policy at a higher level is that it would still have the same effect that lower levels should enact to optimize their decarbonization path. Even if global policy is the same, different regions have different decarbonization paths.