7 ms·

My first thought was, "Is 2 million tons of CO2 a lot?" According to Wikipedia, "Human activities emit over 30 billion tons of CO2 per year..."[1], so that's 0

by ggreer 5y ago

My first thought was, "Is 2 million tons of CO2 a lot?" According to Wikipedia, "Human activities emit over 30 billion tons of CO2 per year..."[1], so that's 0.007% of yearly CO2 emissions. Germany alone emits 700 million tons of CO2 per year, so that would be 0.3% of their share.[2] It seems like increasing adoption of electric vehicles would do a lot more to solve this problem. Ground transportation is responsible for 161 million tons per year in Germany (23% of their emissions). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_Earth's_atmosphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_Earth's_atmo... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany

Popegaf 5y ago
I'm sure if you used a bus and train instead of a car, you'd reduce way more. But hey, 2M is "really big number" so, let's impress people with that one. Seriously though, the time they spent discussing this could've probably been spent more productively discussing more environmentally impactful measures. This seems like busy work to be able to tell the voters "Look! We're doing something about the problem!".
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  And by "doing something" we mean, doing something ineffective, and you bear all of the burden, and get none of the benefit.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
Every little bit counts, but it's really disheartening to see just how little it is in the grand scheme of things.
- ggreer 5y ago
  Another point of comparison: the mass of Earth's atmosphere is over 5 quadrillion tons.[1] 30 billion tons is 0.0006% or 6 parts per million. These are all really big numbers so it's important to scale them down to something more comprehensible. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_p...
- dataflow 5y ago
  1°C global warming sounds pretty small too, except its impact isn't.
dataflow 5y ago
If you told a compiler guy about an optimization that would speed up code 0.3% he would be pretty happy.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Sure, but in this case all the elephants are still left standing in the room. And it seems pretty clear that buy-in from the general public is not an infinite resource, so these kinds of changes with minuscule impact but significant public perception of the downsides might not be the way to go. I mean, would you be happy about a 0.3% speed improvement for your compiler at the cost of requiring every source file to be < 4 KB? Especially when the compiler doesn't even inline functions yet? (Disclaimer: I have nothing against paper straws or reasonable speed limits. But I know that other people do.)
  - dataflow 5y ago
    OTOH you can see it as a litmus test (or "foot in the door") for whether people would be willing to make larger sacrifices. Every time there's a discussion of something with a bigger impact, people shut it down because they don't like the personal sacrifice required of them, even when we're talking about their elephant contributions. Yet when you try to start small people still object because the impact is too small on its own and they purportedly want larger changes. I see it unfold right here on HN on almost a weekly basis now. I don't know how to have hope for this planet but it's pretty depressing to watch.
    - peytn 5y ago
      Perhaps that is a signal that the personal sacrifice route is a nonstarter. Maybe focus energies on developing more attractive alternatives?
      - dataflow 5y ago
        I don't see any reason why that would be remotely sufficient.
danbruc 5y ago
It seems like increasing adoption of electric vehicles would do a lot more to solve this problem. Only if you do not get the electricity from burning coal and only if you can manufacture the cars in a way that the reduced emissions over their lifetimes are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning. Some more numbers for comparison, 2 Mt are 5.1% of Germany's passenger car motorway traffic emissions, 1.4% of Germany's transportation emissions, 0.27% of Germany's total emissions.
- an_opabinia 5y ago
  > only if you can manufacture the car in a way that the reduced emissions over its lifetime are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning. This is a really bad faith argument I hear, a real eye roller. It never advances the conversation, it is a proverbial “just asking questions.” Why bad faith? You, your friends and the things you read never bring this up about electric trains and busses. If a Tesla doesn’t amortize by some napkin analysis, neither would an electric bus by that same exact analysis - just because someone somewhere doesn’t like Tesla, doesn’t mean there’s any truth to “electric car emissions don’t amortize.” Just because some article online somewhere says electric busses do and Teslas don’t also doesn’t make it true. The worst thing the environmental activist community could do is lose Tesla as an ally. Nobody is going to give a fuck about some cobalt mines somewhere, as horrible as they are, or whatever more substantive grievance it is, if we have to endure another 20 years of excess emissions because environmentally conscious people second guess the purchasing of electric cars.
  - ryder9 5y ago
    just say you're fine with child slavery & deaths, don't sugar coat it https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/03/15/cfp-siddharth-kara-spc-intl.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/03/15/cfp-siddharth-kara-... https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/apple-and-google-named-in-us-lawsuit-over-congolese-child-cobalt-mining-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/a... https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-9ce4-11e9-9c06-a4640c9feebb https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-9ce4-11e9-9c06-a4640c9fe... https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-cobalt-child-labour/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-coba...
alrs 5y ago
The cruise ship industry emitted 21930000 tons of CO2 in 2017. https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-ship/ https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-shi...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lucb1e 5y ago
  And China is worse still. And people cooking non-electrically in Africa, let's get those first. ... or we can tackle multiple areas at once, perhaps? I'm not arguing the Autobahn must be high on the priority list, but simply pointing a finger "this is worse" and then turning away is also not constructive.
  - aeternum 5y ago
    Effort is a resource, it takes a lot of work to change things so it absolutely makes sense to have some discipline, create a prioritized list and focus on the things with the most yield. Too often people jump on the first thing they see and also ignore externalities. How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere?
    - lucb1e 5y ago
      > How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere? Yeah, that is a good point. It must be weighed whether these particular 0.3% are worth it against other potentially contentious issues (and we should additionally consider whether it is likely to become more in the future, or if it's simply a large enough number to matter over the years regardless), hence also my cagey phrasing of "I'm not arguing the Autobahn [in particular] must be high on the priority list". Still, though, simply pointing at cruise ships and forgetting about potential gains here is not the most constructive thing to do in my opinion.
    - aliasEli 5y ago
      > How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere? I am not sure how to put this nicely. Autobahn drivers that currently drive at the maximum speed are already quite likely already frustrated. They probably would like to fly a plane and they are constantly hindered by other cars on the road. In other words, they are the kind of egoists that are unlikely to support any form of CO2 reduction already.
dathinab 5y ago
In the end the discussion about the speed limit is less about the environment but more about human safety as a much higher degree of accidents with high speeds end deadly. Also from personal experience with some of the few highways in Germany without tempo limit ("most" have limits): If there is a truck going with ~80 km/h which is taken over by a bus going ~100 km/h and you take that over with 150km/h but there is nearly an accident because someone thinks it's a good idea to randomly accelerate to around 230 km/h or so on a not so empty highway you start wondering who thought that no tempo limit was a good idea.
- pintxo 5y ago
  Obviously higher speed translates into higher risk. But given that less than 10% of all accidents resulting in bodily injuries happen on Autobahns, it looks like there are for more important factors to consider than speed alone. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkehrsunfaelle/Tabellen/polizeilich-erfasste-unfaelle.html;jsessionid=80FF932D42A4B51DDA631B4F6CEB403B.live722 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh...
  - dathinab 5y ago
    Just because other parts of the streets are "less safe" (in given statistics) doesn't mean you can't or should not improve the situations in other places if it's simple, straight forward and with little drawbacks. (Which is what IMHO it the more important part in the discussion, is a cap of 130 km/h to low? Should it be 160 km/h?) As a side note the statistics about accidents is not the relevant one in this discussion. The relevant on would be deadly accidents on highway vs. city vs. country side as well as deadly accidents on highway involving speeds > 130km/h and not involving speeds > 130 km/h. And yes, if we look at deadly accidents of PKWs (~= normal car, i.e. not bus, truck, bike, etc.) then our country side streets are basically death traps.. But then if we consider they in Germany country side streets are often: Less maintained, seamed with trees, areas where wild animals might cross, used by drunk people going home at 3am, used by farming vehicles, used by people and bicycles, etc. it's not that surprising. And honestly there are a lot of country side roads where due to the road being worn down the maximal speed allowed is completely ridiculous. Edit: Uhm, How did someone one a bicycle die in a traffic accident on a highway? ??
nashashmi 5y ago
Yes it is a lot. Removing inefficiency from our system means everything including the stuff you love like driving fast without limit.
cbmuser 5y ago
Germany’s problem isn’t the transport sector, it’s the electricity and heat sector. Compare Germany and France here: > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?tab=table&country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t... While the speed limit would save 2 million tons of CO2 per year, keeping the remaining six nuclear plants running and shutting down coal instead would save 35(!) times more of CO2 per year (70 million tons).
- adrianN 5y ago
  It's also the transport sector.
Beldin 5y ago
My first thought was "what would the speed limit be?" 130 km/hr (80 mph). So, in addition to the obvious benefits, this speed limit apparently also reduces CO2 emissions. Honestly, not sure why anyone would argue against this.
lucb1e 5y ago
It's easy to dismiss every 0.3% improvement as not worth it. I remember reading that the Gates foundation doesn't invest in things that don't have a chance of improving emissions by at least a percent. But the full picture is to look at both sides. To gain this 0.3% emission reduction, what do we lose? I love the speed-limit-less autobahn. I'm Dutch but now living in Germany, it's one of my favorite things. It's convenient that you often just go with the flow instead of having to look out if maybe you're doing 5km/h too fast. Definitely nice. But also, I really use it (160km/h+) maybe twice a year for a few minutes. It's fun, but only safe when you have at least 2 clear lanes and also damaging to the environment. Mostly I drive ~100 for the regular (non-pandemic) trips (to friends/family; work is by public transport). So I'd miss it, but not a whole lot. The vast majority of people's trips would get longer by a marginal amount. Is that not worth it? I'm inclined to say it might be, but I ultimately don't know. I'd love a system where you get an allocation of, say, 30 minutes per year (and it carries over if you don't use it up), but that's not feasible. Or if a speed limit of 130 is posted, then that you can be caught exceeding it by any amount once every five years with a reasonable fine (not losing your license) unless you clearly created a dangerous situation (that's covered under separate laws already anyway). When lower limits are posted, it's always for a reason so there you just shouldn't go faster. Maybe that could allow people to do it if they're in a truly exceptional rush, or just want to, but still reduce emissions by virtually the same amount? Or we just tax fuel at the price that it costs to take it back out of the air. Then it's simply your choice to drive as economically as you like. But that's also unfair if you live on minimum wage and need to commute by car. Or maybe the first, say, 75 liters a month are tax-deductible, same as with other deductibles? That would keep it affordable for necessary trips but still give the right incentive for those that want to waste fuel.
- allendoerfer 5y ago
  > I'd love a system where you get an allocation of, say, 30 minutes per year (and it carries over if you don't use it up), but that's not feasible. We have that limit, it is called mineral oil tax.
  - freemint 5y ago
    That is a bad way to limit things as the yellow vest movement demonstrated.
oliwarner 5y ago
While your numbers are probably accurate, it's not helpful to dismiss suggestions like this with alternatives. We need to do everything we can. Every 0.3% chunk helps.

by ggreer 5y ago

Popegaf 5y ago

I'm sure if you used a bus and train instead of a car, you'd reduce way more. But hey, 2M is "really big number" so, let's impress people with that one. Seriously though, the time they spent discussing this could've probably been spent more productively discussing more environmentally impactful measures. This seems like busy work to be able to tell the voters "Look! We're doing something about the problem!".

bjt2n3904 5y ago
And by "doing something" we mean, doing something ineffective, and you bear all of the burden, and get none of the benefit.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

Every little bit counts, but it's really disheartening to see just how little it is in the grand scheme of things.

ggreer 5y ago
Another point of comparison: the mass of Earth's atmosphere is over 5 quadrillion tons.[1] 30 billion tons is 0.0006% or 6 parts per million. These are all really big numbers so it's important to scale them down to something more comprehensible. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_p...
dataflow 5y ago
1°C global warming sounds pretty small too, except its impact isn't.

dataflow 5y ago

If you told a compiler guy about an optimization that would speed up code 0.3% he would be pretty happy.

MauranKilom 5y ago
Sure, but in this case all the elephants are still left standing in the room. And it seems pretty clear that buy-in from the general public is not an infinite resource, so these kinds of changes with minuscule impact but significant public perception of the downsides might not be the way to go. I mean, would you be happy about a 0.3% speed improvement for your compiler at the cost of requiring every source file to be < 4 KB? Especially when the compiler doesn't even inline functions yet? (Disclaimer: I have nothing against paper straws or reasonable speed limits. But I know that other people do.)
- dataflow 5y ago
  OTOH you can see it as a litmus test (or "foot in the door") for whether people would be willing to make larger sacrifices. Every time there's a discussion of something with a bigger impact, people shut it down because they don't like the personal sacrifice required of them, even when we're talking about their elephant contributions. Yet when you try to start small people still object because the impact is too small on its own and they purportedly want larger changes. I see it unfold right here on HN on almost a weekly basis now. I don't know how to have hope for this planet but it's pretty depressing to watch.
  - peytn 5y ago
    Perhaps that is a signal that the personal sacrifice route is a nonstarter. Maybe focus energies on developing more attractive alternatives?
    - dataflow 5y ago
      I don't see any reason why that would be remotely sufficient.

danbruc 5y ago

It seems like increasing adoption of electric vehicles would do a lot more to solve this problem. Only if you do not get the electricity from burning coal and only if you can manufacture the cars in a way that the reduced emissions over their lifetimes are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning. Some more numbers for comparison, 2 Mt are 5.1% of Germany's passenger car motorway traffic emissions, 1.4% of Germany's transportation emissions, 0.27% of Germany's total emissions.

an_opabinia 5y ago
> only if you can manufacture the car in a way that the reduced emissions over its lifetime are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning. This is a really bad faith argument I hear, a real eye roller. It never advances the conversation, it is a proverbial “just asking questions.” Why bad faith? You, your friends and the things you read never bring this up about electric trains and busses. If a Tesla doesn’t amortize by some napkin analysis, neither would an electric bus by that same exact analysis - just because someone somewhere doesn’t like Tesla, doesn’t mean there’s any truth to “electric car emissions don’t amortize.” Just because some article online somewhere says electric busses do and Teslas don’t also doesn’t make it true. The worst thing the environmental activist community could do is lose Tesla as an ally. Nobody is going to give a fuck about some cobalt mines somewhere, as horrible as they are, or whatever more substantive grievance it is, if we have to endure another 20 years of excess emissions because environmentally conscious people second guess the purchasing of electric cars.
- ryder9 5y ago
  just say you're fine with child slavery & deaths, don't sugar coat it https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/03/15/cfp-siddharth-kara-spc-intl.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/03/15/cfp-siddharth-kara-... https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/apple-and-google-named-in-us-lawsuit-over-congolese-child-cobalt-mining-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/a... https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-9ce4-11e9-9c06-a4640c9feebb https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-9ce4-11e9-9c06-a4640c9fe... https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-cobalt-child-labour/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-coba...

alrs 5y ago

The cruise ship industry emitted 21930000 tons of CO2 in 2017. https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-ship/ https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-shi...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lucb1e 5y ago
And China is worse still. And people cooking non-electrically in Africa, let's get those first. ... or we can tackle multiple areas at once, perhaps? I'm not arguing the Autobahn must be high on the priority list, but simply pointing a finger "this is worse" and then turning away is also not constructive.
- aeternum 5y ago
  Effort is a resource, it takes a lot of work to change things so it absolutely makes sense to have some discipline, create a prioritized list and focus on the things with the most yield. Too often people jump on the first thing they see and also ignore externalities. How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere?
  - lucb1e 5y ago
    > How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere? Yeah, that is a good point. It must be weighed whether these particular 0.3% are worth it against other potentially contentious issues (and we should additionally consider whether it is likely to become more in the future, or if it's simply a large enough number to matter over the years regardless), hence also my cagey phrasing of "I'm not arguing the Autobahn [in particular] must be high on the priority list". Still, though, simply pointing at cruise ships and forgetting about potential gains here is not the most constructive thing to do in my opinion.
  - aliasEli 5y ago
    > How many frustrated autobahn drivers will oppose CO2 reduction efforts elsewhere? I am not sure how to put this nicely. Autobahn drivers that currently drive at the maximum speed are already quite likely already frustrated. They probably would like to fly a plane and they are constantly hindered by other cars on the road. In other words, they are the kind of egoists that are unlikely to support any form of CO2 reduction already.

dathinab 5y ago

In the end the discussion about the speed limit is less about the environment but more about human safety as a much higher degree of accidents with high speeds end deadly. Also from personal experience with some of the few highways in Germany without tempo limit ("most" have limits): If there is a truck going with ~80 km/h which is taken over by a bus going ~100 km/h and you take that over with 150km/h but there is nearly an accident because someone thinks it's a good idea to randomly accelerate to around 230 km/h or so on a not so empty highway you start wondering who thought that no tempo limit was a good idea.

pintxo 5y ago
Obviously higher speed translates into higher risk. But given that less than 10% of all accidents resulting in bodily injuries happen on Autobahns, it looks like there are for more important factors to consider than speed alone. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkehrsunfaelle/Tabellen/polizeilich-erfasste-unfaelle.html;jsessionid=80FF932D42A4B51DDA631B4F6CEB403B.live722 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh...
- dathinab 5y ago
  Just because other parts of the streets are "less safe" (in given statistics) doesn't mean you can't or should not improve the situations in other places if it's simple, straight forward and with little drawbacks. (Which is what IMHO it the more important part in the discussion, is a cap of 130 km/h to low? Should it be 160 km/h?) As a side note the statistics about accidents is not the relevant one in this discussion. The relevant on would be deadly accidents on highway vs. city vs. country side as well as deadly accidents on highway involving speeds > 130km/h and not involving speeds > 130 km/h. And yes, if we look at deadly accidents of PKWs (~= normal car, i.e. not bus, truck, bike, etc.) then our country side streets are basically death traps.. But then if we consider they in Germany country side streets are often: Less maintained, seamed with trees, areas where wild animals might cross, used by drunk people going home at 3am, used by farming vehicles, used by people and bicycles, etc. it's not that surprising. And honestly there are a lot of country side roads where due to the road being worn down the maximal speed allowed is completely ridiculous. Edit: Uhm, How did someone one a bicycle die in a traffic accident on a highway? ??

nashashmi 5y ago

Yes it is a lot. Removing inefficiency from our system means everything including the stuff you love like driving fast without limit.

cbmuser 5y ago

Germany’s problem isn’t the transport sector, it’s the electricity and heat sector. Compare Germany and France here: > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?tab=table&country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t... While the speed limit would save 2 million tons of CO2 per year, keeping the remaining six nuclear plants running and shutting down coal instead would save 35(!) times more of CO2 per year (70 million tons).

adrianN 5y ago
It's also the transport sector.

Beldin 5y ago

My first thought was "what would the speed limit be?" 130 km/hr (80 mph). So, in addition to the obvious benefits, this speed limit apparently also reduces CO2 emissions. Honestly, not sure why anyone would argue against this.

lucb1e 5y ago

It's easy to dismiss every 0.3% improvement as not worth it. I remember reading that the Gates foundation doesn't invest in things that don't have a chance of improving emissions by at least a percent. But the full picture is to look at both sides. To gain this 0.3% emission reduction, what do we lose? I love the speed-limit-less autobahn. I'm Dutch but now living in Germany, it's one of my favorite things. It's convenient that you often just go with the flow instead of having to look out if maybe you're doing 5km/h too fast. Definitely nice. But also, I really use it (160km/h+) maybe twice a year for a few minutes. It's fun, but only safe when you have at least 2 clear lanes and also damaging to the environment. Mostly I drive ~100 for the regular (non-pandemic) trips (to friends/family; work is by public transport). So I'd miss it, but not a whole lot. The vast majority of people's trips would get longer by a marginal amount. Is that not worth it? I'm inclined to say it might be, but I ultimately don't know. I'd love a system where you get an allocation of, say, 30 minutes per year (and it carries over if you don't use it up), but that's not feasible. Or if a speed limit of 130 is posted, then that you can be caught exceeding it by any amount once every five years with a reasonable fine (not losing your license) unless you clearly created a dangerous situation (that's covered under separate laws already anyway). When lower limits are posted, it's always for a reason so there you just shouldn't go faster. Maybe that could allow people to do it if they're in a truly exceptional rush, or just want to, but still reduce emissions by virtually the same amount? Or we just tax fuel at the price that it costs to take it back out of the air. Then it's simply your choice to drive as economically as you like. But that's also unfair if you live on minimum wage and need to commute by car. Or maybe the first, say, 75 liters a month are tax-deductible, same as with other deductibles? That would keep it affordable for necessary trips but still give the right incentive for those that want to waste fuel.

allendoerfer 5y ago
> I'd love a system where you get an allocation of, say, 30 minutes per year (and it carries over if you don't use it up), but that's not feasible. We have that limit, it is called mineral oil tax.
- freemint 5y ago
  That is a bad way to limit things as the yellow vest movement demonstrated.

oliwarner 5y ago

While your numbers are probably accurate, it's not helpful to dismiss suggestions like this with alternatives. We need to do everything we can. Every 0.3% chunk helps.