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You say fungible, I say aggregate. Here's essentially the problem you're laying out. If I have a house run by solar power and walk to the store to buy fruit f

You say fungible, I say aggregate. Here's essentially the problem you're laying out. If I have a house run by solar power and walk to the store to buy fruit from 10,000 miles away to feed to my 5 children, my carbon costs are so astronomically high from the last two that the first two don't matter. I agree! Absolutely! But also, if transporting fruit 10,000 miles could be done with renewables that will zero that out. If by the time the children are adults, significant delimited activity has transformed through say, better agricultural practices, more efficient appliances, better building design to that can regulate temperature better, all these small things, then the aggregate decreases Stop having 5 kids and buying 10,000 mile away fruit, I'm with you. Sure. But the point of this exercise is to make such things not so high cost so that the freedom to do these things, however much I personally disapprove of it, can be preserved. That's one of the things the anti-climate change people don't get. They see the current transformations as a restriction of their liberties. No, it's a massive effort to preserve them. If we fail to transform society and cities start sinking into the sea, I assure you, forced sterilization, meat consumption bans, bans on private car ownership, local only food by law, a ban on air travel, it'll all be on the table. We all saw how quickly the shoe dropped on covid last march; from busy streets to boarded up ghost towns in about 2 weeks. We didn't heed the warnings to prepare and here we are still living with the consequences. Let's stay on top of this one.

Robotbeat 5y ago
If your kids have a negative carbon footprint (this is possible... after all, trees do it... because carbon is a good building material for cell walls), then having more kids is potentially superior to having fewer...
- ajuc 5y ago
  I don't think kids can do photosynthesis. And I can't imagine any way to make kids carbon negative that wouldn't be considered a crime against humanity.
  - monkeycantype 5y ago
    Kids can plant trees
    - ajuc 5y ago
      Planting trees isn't the problem. Trees can plant themselves pretty well already, just leave them space that you won't cut and plow every year. My late grandpa had a small plot of land where he grew tomatoes and other vegetables. Since he died 12 years ago nobody does anything to that land cause he lived far from the rest of the family. It's a small forest now. Not cutting trees for new farming land and leaving the space is the problematic part. And more kids is kinda at odds with this. BTW what you're actually doing by planting a tree is burning carbon to move an already existing plant from one place to another.
      - Firadeoclus 5y ago
        > BTW what you're actually doing by planting a tree is burning carbon to move an already existing plant from one place to another. That is true (unless you're actually planting seeds), but generally the idea is that another tree will grow where you took it from, so the end result is more trees.
        ajuc 5y ago
        Yeah but if there are any trees in the region where you plant - a tree would grow in that spot anyway if you just leave it be :) BTW one of the weirdest examples of "patriarchy" is the preference of city planners to plant only male trees (because they generate less "junk"). Which reduces the amount of new trees growing in and near cities significantly.
        Robotbeat 5y ago
        That’s not necessarily true. Some places have been ravaged by desertification and so actively planting trees can facilitate a forest where otherwise there wouldn’t be any. Second, you can choose trees which are particularly good at sequestering carbon for long periods. Humans are already animals that act as “ecosystem engineers” (like beavers or trees). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_engineer We just haven’t historically been very good at it (ie we’ve often historically reduced ecological diversity instead of facilitating it). I think we can do much better, and there are many examples of humans who HAVE done a great job at it (for instance, the man who planted a forest on an island in India). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZDSqyE1do https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZDSqyE1do Do you think the planet would be better off if everything else was the same but his parents had decided not to have him? So this is why I think we can’t apply a broad average of human footprint to whether someone should decide to have kids or not. Instilling values, such as being a net-positive to the environment and the value of choosing to live a net-carbon-negative life (and support continued climate action), can be more important than just the marginal impact of not having kids at all. Also, negative-sum thinking ends up in a pretty dark place pretty fast if brought to its logical conclusion. And it seems pretty obvious what the long term result would be if all climate-conscious people had no kids but folks who don’t give a crap about climate action raise lots of children.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
This is the best argument on why we should follow the "green transformation" path I have yet seen. Thank you
perl4ever 5y ago
>If I have a house run by solar power and walk to the store to buy fruit from 10,000 miles away to feed to my 5 children, my carbon costs are so astronomically high from the last two that the first two don't matter. >I agree! Absolutely! No, you're not agreeing with me. You're talking about a family unit as if the net balance matters. That's exactly what I was saying makes no sense. Nothing has to balance except the whole world. Not people, or families, or industries, or companies, or countries. I don't know if there is a name for the fallacy, but there's this mental short circuit I think I observe, where people want to compose the parts of something to get a quality of the whole, and it doesn't work. If you want a blue city, then the way you get it is by making all the parts of the city blue. And recursively, every part of the parts can be painted blue. But if you want a profitable company you do not get it by making every part profitable. That's stupid and destructive and often people seem to consider it obviously idiotic when it is tried. Carbon emissions are like the latter, not the former. In equations: blue + blue = blue but 5 + 5 ≠ 5
- kristopolous 5y ago
  If you expect coordinated global action from some kind of global conductor I really invite you to look at the literature from about 1915-1950 or so that culminated in the United Nations. It was typically called "world government" in the literature. Essentially their highest aspirations were to avoid global war and assist in ongoing nation scale catastrophes, which they have done ok at. They were pretty cynical about systems that essentially COP is structured under as being ineffective. Which it has been, closing in on year 30 of ineffectiveness. This problem of global governance for issues like this is still fundamentally unsolved. It has to work more like slavery, colonialism and chemical weapons; humanity eventually collectively found the idea reprehensible and we are mostly in agreement on the right direction. This is the only method that has worked so far. You can have inspectors and enforcements but unless the people of the country also find the thing to be dishonerable, their loyalty to their leaders (political, bosses, wealthy, whatever) is the more important loyalty. They'll stop shoveling coal into the furnace when the global police come by but then do it again after they leave. They have to want to stop intrinsically, not through a punitive threat. They have to be able to thrive and live well by not doing it too. It's gotta be less work, easier, and pay better. I mean look, I'm open to trying other things but they haven't been working. This method takes centuries, we still have prison and indentured labor which are effectively slavery, over 200 years later We don't have that kind of time but also we don't have any other kind of solution
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
So I am trying to work out the basics of climate change action needed 1. More efficient agriculture Cutting and clearing land for agriculture is generally destructive - so a) everyone becomes vegetarian, b) stop growing food in 2 dimensions c) grow more efficient food (broth and hydroponics) 2. more efficient transport of food Don't transport food thousands of miles, don't refrigerate it, don't fly it, 3. transport to move off carbon Stop flying, more EV. 4. reduce travel apart from flights and holidays (carbon tax) commuting is huge contributor- remote working will impact this 4. Building efficiency Insulation and ground source heat pumps and so on See also strongtowns - denser living is halley kore efficient t living Anyone have any links to the numbers?

Robotbeat 5y ago

If your kids have a negative carbon footprint (this is possible... after all, trees do it... because carbon is a good building material for cell walls), then having more kids is potentially superior to having fewer...

ajuc 5y ago
I don't think kids can do photosynthesis. And I can't imagine any way to make kids carbon negative that wouldn't be considered a crime against humanity.
- monkeycantype 5y ago
  Kids can plant trees
  - ajuc 5y ago
    Planting trees isn't the problem. Trees can plant themselves pretty well already, just leave them space that you won't cut and plow every year. My late grandpa had a small plot of land where he grew tomatoes and other vegetables. Since he died 12 years ago nobody does anything to that land cause he lived far from the rest of the family. It's a small forest now. Not cutting trees for new farming land and leaving the space is the problematic part. And more kids is kinda at odds with this. BTW what you're actually doing by planting a tree is burning carbon to move an already existing plant from one place to another.
    - Firadeoclus 5y ago
      > BTW what you're actually doing by planting a tree is burning carbon to move an already existing plant from one place to another. That is true (unless you're actually planting seeds), but generally the idea is that another tree will grow where you took it from, so the end result is more trees.
      - ajuc 5y ago
        Yeah but if there are any trees in the region where you plant - a tree would grow in that spot anyway if you just leave it be :) BTW one of the weirdest examples of "patriarchy" is the preference of city planners to plant only male trees (because they generate less "junk"). Which reduces the amount of new trees growing in and near cities significantly.
        Robotbeat 5y ago
        That’s not necessarily true. Some places have been ravaged by desertification and so actively planting trees can facilitate a forest where otherwise there wouldn’t be any. Second, you can choose trees which are particularly good at sequestering carbon for long periods. Humans are already animals that act as “ecosystem engineers” (like beavers or trees). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_engineer We just haven’t historically been very good at it (ie we’ve often historically reduced ecological diversity instead of facilitating it). I think we can do much better, and there are many examples of humans who HAVE done a great job at it (for instance, the man who planted a forest on an island in India). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZDSqyE1do https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZDSqyE1do Do you think the planet would be better off if everything else was the same but his parents had decided not to have him? So this is why I think we can’t apply a broad average of human footprint to whether someone should decide to have kids or not. Instilling values, such as being a net-positive to the environment and the value of choosing to live a net-carbon-negative life (and support continued climate action), can be more important than just the marginal impact of not having kids at all. Also, negative-sum thinking ends up in a pretty dark place pretty fast if brought to its logical conclusion. And it seems pretty obvious what the long term result would be if all climate-conscious people had no kids but folks who don’t give a crap about climate action raise lots of children.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

This is the best argument on why we should follow the "green transformation" path I have yet seen. Thank you

perl4ever 5y ago

>If I have a house run by solar power and walk to the store to buy fruit from 10,000 miles away to feed to my 5 children, my carbon costs are so astronomically high from the last two that the first two don't matter. >I agree! Absolutely! No, you're not agreeing with me. You're talking about a family unit as if the net balance matters. That's exactly what I was saying makes no sense. Nothing has to balance except the whole world. Not people, or families, or industries, or companies, or countries. I don't know if there is a name for the fallacy, but there's this mental short circuit I think I observe, where people want to compose the parts of something to get a quality of the whole, and it doesn't work. If you want a blue city, then the way you get it is by making all the parts of the city blue. And recursively, every part of the parts can be painted blue. But if you want a profitable company you do not get it by making every part profitable. That's stupid and destructive and often people seem to consider it obviously idiotic when it is tried. Carbon emissions are like the latter, not the former. In equations: blue + blue = blue but 5 + 5 ≠ 5

kristopolous 5y ago
If you expect coordinated global action from some kind of global conductor I really invite you to look at the literature from about 1915-1950 or so that culminated in the United Nations. It was typically called "world government" in the literature. Essentially their highest aspirations were to avoid global war and assist in ongoing nation scale catastrophes, which they have done ok at. They were pretty cynical about systems that essentially COP is structured under as being ineffective. Which it has been, closing in on year 30 of ineffectiveness. This problem of global governance for issues like this is still fundamentally unsolved. It has to work more like slavery, colonialism and chemical weapons; humanity eventually collectively found the idea reprehensible and we are mostly in agreement on the right direction. This is the only method that has worked so far. You can have inspectors and enforcements but unless the people of the country also find the thing to be dishonerable, their loyalty to their leaders (political, bosses, wealthy, whatever) is the more important loyalty. They'll stop shoveling coal into the furnace when the global police come by but then do it again after they leave. They have to want to stop intrinsically, not through a punitive threat. They have to be able to thrive and live well by not doing it too. It's gotta be less work, easier, and pay better. I mean look, I'm open to trying other things but they haven't been working. This method takes centuries, we still have prison and indentured labor which are effectively slavery, over 200 years later We don't have that kind of time but also we don't have any other kind of solution

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

So I am trying to work out the basics of climate change action needed 1. More efficient agriculture Cutting and clearing land for agriculture is generally destructive - so a) everyone becomes vegetarian, b) stop growing food in 2 dimensions c) grow more efficient food (broth and hydroponics) 2. more efficient transport of food Don't transport food thousands of miles, don't refrigerate it, don't fly it, 3. transport to move off carbon Stop flying, more EV. 4. reduce travel apart from flights and holidays (carbon tax) commuting is huge contributor- remote working will impact this 4. Building efficiency Insulation and ground source heat pumps and so on See also strongtowns - denser living is halley kore efficient t living Anyone have any links to the numbers?