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This carbon footprint BS is always trotted out. If these folk really cared about that then actually attack the real companies that contribute the most to the ca

This carbon footprint BS is always trotted out. If these folk really cared about that then actually attack the real companies that contribute the most to the carbon footprint. Otherwise it's just a waste of space. This article wasn't proofread as there were no 2021 London Olympics. BTW, the Olympics is meant to showcase the city/country that the event is in for that particular Games. It has knock on effect for tourism, economic impact and the like.

cogman10 5y ago
Right, this sort of thing drives me a bit nuts as well. Yearly global CO2 emissions are at 31Gt. This article is complaining because the Olympics adds 0.0004Gt -> 0.003Gt? I dislike this part of the green movement. Absolutely it's important to cut down CO2 emissions. However, worrying about the emissions of a sporting event, even a really big one, is really just asinine.
- breuleux 5y ago
  An event only accounting for 1/10,000th of global emissions doesn't mean it is asinine to worry or complain about it. That very much depends on how easy it is to cut it relative to other sources. If it's easy, it's absolutely worth complaining about: if you can find a thousand such events to eliminate, that's 10% of global emissions (I know, there aren't a thousand olympics :P) I'm not saying this particular argument has any merit, mind you. Just that it's legitimate to care about smaller sources of pollution if the effort required to eliminate them is proportionately smaller.
- voldacar 5y ago
  Basically any complex thing humans do consumes energy and therefore emits carbon dioxide. So you can selectively criticize anything you want by invoking carbon emissions. It's pretty funny actually, especially considering how much sway it seems to have over peoples' minds these days.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    The conspiracy side of my mind says it's likely by design. The fossil fuel industry used solar to attack nuclear back in the day. I'm pretty suspicious that a lot of that is happening today. Distract with minor issues while the big ones go unaddressed.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    A funny slippery slope Ive read is "you are the carbon they want to remove" as some CO2 debates are rooted in misanthropy and the premise that earth is overpopulated and headed for an inevitable malthusian crisis.
- yosamino 5y ago
  It makes sense for the same reason that advertizing at the olympics makes sense: It's a global event that a lot of people pay attention to. You can use it to make the topic that everything has to reduce CO2 emissions stay at the front of people's minds. Depending on which bubble one is in, that's not always a given. I do agree though, it does seem to have significant overlap with the idea that replacing plastic straws will save the ... something (?) ...
  - SllX 5y ago
    Movements that depend on being at the forefront of peoples’ minds are precisely what people don’t want. Human activity of every kind is going to have environmental impacts of some variety, and part of that impact will increase atmospheric carbon dioxide. Given that there are now more people alive today than at any other point in history, seriously, every single day we’re breaking that record, human activity will remain high, and so will our environmental impact projected out into the future. When there are more deaths than births on a consistent basis, environmental measurements will be lagging indicators of a decrease in human activity. That does not mean we have to depend on combustible hydrocarbons in order to continue or advance our industry, if the concern is actually carbon dioxide, but we are almost entirely unwilling to build the one kind of power plant that would short circuit our carbon dioxide output in the shortest amount of time: nuclear plants. Instead we spend our time and waste our energy arguing about consumer uses of energy rather than how we can produce more or the same amount of energy with less carbon dioxide output because at the end of the day it always comes down to: how can we control our neighbors and make them live down to or below our standards?
- thecrash 5y ago
  CO2 emissions are a chemical problem. We know the answer to the chemical/physical problem: stop doing the reactions which produce CO2 gas as an output. But what makes it so confounding is it's also a political problem: people get to decide for themselves whether to do those reactions, and they overwhelmingly choose to do them. Their choices are informed by all kinds of social, emotional and symbolic influences - one of which is the Olympics. While the Olympics may not be a huge event relative to the entire global economy, it is pretty big relative to the entire global mindshare.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    This makes the assumption that the CO2 chemical experiment is done in a shared manner. That's not the case. In fact, very few organizations run the experiment to an extent that impacts the global climate. Businesses are certainly aware of climate change, who isn't at this point? The issue is that those businesses care FAR more about profit than they do about the future. You could say "Ok, it's the consumers responsibility to vote with their wallet!" But that doesn't mean anything. How can I impact agricultural CO2 emissions at the grocery store? There's not label on the food goods which says "This is a high CO2 emission product". And even if I did that, how can you expect the general population to do the same? We can't even convince the general population that wearing a mask to slow the spread of a respiratory illness is a good idea. We can't even convince everyone that a vaccine doesn't "magnetize" you. What's worse, this sort of thing would very likely backfire. Sure, everyone that thinks climate change is an issue will say it's a good to ok move. However, those in deep denial about climate change, the 40% of the population we need to convince it is a problem, will see a move like this as being "liberal cancel culture gone mad!" If I'm going to poke the outrage machine, I'd rather poke it with measures that are effective at addressing climate change. Carbon taxes and subsidies for green tech and farming.
gruez 5y ago
>then actually attack the real companies that contribute the most to the carbon footprint You mean the companies that consumers outsource their pollution to?
- sys_64738 5y ago
  But isn't that the hypocrisy of it all? People will only be onboard with something until it directly impacts them and the real cost of the burden is disclosed.
  - gruez 5y ago
    what's the "something" here? I'm assuming you intend it to mean "polluting through corporations" but it could also very well mean "saving the environment" (ie. people saying they're pro-environment, but then start hand wringing when costs are brought up)
    - sys_64738 5y ago
      Tangible items that would impact their lifestyle. E.g. plastic bags, diapers, feminine pads, etc.
- michaelt 5y ago
  I didn't ask BP to spill 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico in 2010 - did you?
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Indirectly, we all did. By increasing demand for oil. By insisting on higher profits. By voting for politicians that don't put harsher regulations in place. Our way of living became quite an environmental liability it seems, and that makes us all to some degree part of the problem.
  - rjmunro 5y ago
    No one working for BP asked to spill 5 million barrels of oil either. But they did ask for oil to be extracted, and we all asked them for it so that we could put it in our cars, busses, trains, delivery trucks etc.
lwansbrough 5y ago
Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them. Nobody is culpable for climate change except “the companies.” Certainly couldn’t blame America for wanting to live in suburbs or their obsession with beef and trucks.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them. There actually are, though. Think of how much plastic stuff is packaged in in the US, compared to Europe; there's no way to “vote with your wallet” out of that situation.
  - lwansbrough 5y ago
    If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved. European laws are different possibly because Europeans actually do care more than Americans.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved. Can you give an example of a case where this has actually happened? (i.e. an issue that isn't useful as a populism wedge gets solved because people care about it)
mathattack 5y ago
The Olympics are usually money losers unless they are overcommercialized like the Atlanta/Coca-Cola olympics in 1996.BThisbmeans you have fewer non-Oligarchs willing to host them.
jjulius 5y ago
Are you absolutely certain that the people who complain about the carbon footprint of the Olympics never worry/complain about the carbon footprint of anything else, as well? The way you write your post suggests that that's an impossibility.
tomjen3 5y ago
Do you have a scientific list of what causes the most carbon emissions?
- sys_64738 5y ago
  I found this list of companies via google: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed...

cogman10 5y ago

Right, this sort of thing drives me a bit nuts as well. Yearly global CO2 emissions are at 31Gt. This article is complaining because the Olympics adds 0.0004Gt -> 0.003Gt? I dislike this part of the green movement. Absolutely it's important to cut down CO2 emissions. However, worrying about the emissions of a sporting event, even a really big one, is really just asinine.

breuleux 5y ago
An event only accounting for 1/10,000th of global emissions doesn't mean it is asinine to worry or complain about it. That very much depends on how easy it is to cut it relative to other sources. If it's easy, it's absolutely worth complaining about: if you can find a thousand such events to eliminate, that's 10% of global emissions (I know, there aren't a thousand olympics :P) I'm not saying this particular argument has any merit, mind you. Just that it's legitimate to care about smaller sources of pollution if the effort required to eliminate them is proportionately smaller.
voldacar 5y ago
Basically any complex thing humans do consumes energy and therefore emits carbon dioxide. So you can selectively criticize anything you want by invoking carbon emissions. It's pretty funny actually, especially considering how much sway it seems to have over peoples' minds these days.
- cogman10 5y ago
  The conspiracy side of my mind says it's likely by design. The fossil fuel industry used solar to attack nuclear back in the day. I'm pretty suspicious that a lot of that is happening today. Distract with minor issues while the big ones go unaddressed.
- neither_color 5y ago
  A funny slippery slope Ive read is "you are the carbon they want to remove" as some CO2 debates are rooted in misanthropy and the premise that earth is overpopulated and headed for an inevitable malthusian crisis.
yosamino 5y ago
It makes sense for the same reason that advertizing at the olympics makes sense: It's a global event that a lot of people pay attention to. You can use it to make the topic that everything has to reduce CO2 emissions stay at the front of people's minds. Depending on which bubble one is in, that's not always a given. I do agree though, it does seem to have significant overlap with the idea that replacing plastic straws will save the ... something (?) ...
- SllX 5y ago
  Movements that depend on being at the forefront of peoples’ minds are precisely what people don’t want. Human activity of every kind is going to have environmental impacts of some variety, and part of that impact will increase atmospheric carbon dioxide. Given that there are now more people alive today than at any other point in history, seriously, every single day we’re breaking that record, human activity will remain high, and so will our environmental impact projected out into the future. When there are more deaths than births on a consistent basis, environmental measurements will be lagging indicators of a decrease in human activity. That does not mean we have to depend on combustible hydrocarbons in order to continue or advance our industry, if the concern is actually carbon dioxide, but we are almost entirely unwilling to build the one kind of power plant that would short circuit our carbon dioxide output in the shortest amount of time: nuclear plants. Instead we spend our time and waste our energy arguing about consumer uses of energy rather than how we can produce more or the same amount of energy with less carbon dioxide output because at the end of the day it always comes down to: how can we control our neighbors and make them live down to or below our standards?
thecrash 5y ago
CO2 emissions are a chemical problem. We know the answer to the chemical/physical problem: stop doing the reactions which produce CO2 gas as an output. But what makes it so confounding is it's also a political problem: people get to decide for themselves whether to do those reactions, and they overwhelmingly choose to do them. Their choices are informed by all kinds of social, emotional and symbolic influences - one of which is the Olympics. While the Olympics may not be a huge event relative to the entire global economy, it is pretty big relative to the entire global mindshare.
- cogman10 5y ago
  This makes the assumption that the CO2 chemical experiment is done in a shared manner. That's not the case. In fact, very few organizations run the experiment to an extent that impacts the global climate. Businesses are certainly aware of climate change, who isn't at this point? The issue is that those businesses care FAR more about profit than they do about the future. You could say "Ok, it's the consumers responsibility to vote with their wallet!" But that doesn't mean anything. How can I impact agricultural CO2 emissions at the grocery store? There's not label on the food goods which says "This is a high CO2 emission product". And even if I did that, how can you expect the general population to do the same? We can't even convince the general population that wearing a mask to slow the spread of a respiratory illness is a good idea. We can't even convince everyone that a vaccine doesn't "magnetize" you. What's worse, this sort of thing would very likely backfire. Sure, everyone that thinks climate change is an issue will say it's a good to ok move. However, those in deep denial about climate change, the 40% of the population we need to convince it is a problem, will see a move like this as being "liberal cancel culture gone mad!" If I'm going to poke the outrage machine, I'd rather poke it with measures that are effective at addressing climate change. Carbon taxes and subsidies for green tech and farming.

gruez 5y ago

>then actually attack the real companies that contribute the most to the carbon footprint You mean the companies that consumers outsource their pollution to?

sys_64738 5y ago
But isn't that the hypocrisy of it all? People will only be onboard with something until it directly impacts them and the real cost of the burden is disclosed.
- gruez 5y ago
  what's the "something" here? I'm assuming you intend it to mean "polluting through corporations" but it could also very well mean "saving the environment" (ie. people saying they're pro-environment, but then start hand wringing when costs are brought up)
  - sys_64738 5y ago
    Tangible items that would impact their lifestyle. E.g. plastic bags, diapers, feminine pads, etc.
michaelt 5y ago
I didn't ask BP to spill 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico in 2010 - did you?
- hef19898 5y ago
  Indirectly, we all did. By increasing demand for oil. By insisting on higher profits. By voting for politicians that don't put harsher regulations in place. Our way of living became quite an environmental liability it seems, and that makes us all to some degree part of the problem.
- rjmunro 5y ago
  No one working for BP asked to spill 5 million barrels of oil either. But they did ask for oil to be extracted, and we all asked them for it so that we could put it in our cars, busses, trains, delivery trucks etc.

lwansbrough 5y ago

Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them. Nobody is culpable for climate change except “the companies.” Certainly couldn’t blame America for wanting to live in suburbs or their obsession with beef and trucks.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them. There actually are, though. Think of how much plastic stuff is packaged in in the US, compared to Europe; there's no way to “vote with your wallet” out of that situation.
- lwansbrough 5y ago
  If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved. European laws are different possibly because Europeans actually do care more than Americans.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved. Can you give an example of a case where this has actually happened? (i.e. an issue that isn't useful as a populism wedge gets solved because people care about it)

mathattack 5y ago

The Olympics are usually money losers unless they are overcommercialized like the Atlanta/Coca-Cola olympics in 1996.BThisbmeans you have fewer non-Oligarchs willing to host them.

jjulius 5y ago

Are you absolutely certain that the people who complain about the carbon footprint of the Olympics never worry/complain about the carbon footprint of anything else, as well? The way you write your post suggests that that's an impossibility.

tomjen3 5y ago

Do you have a scientific list of what causes the most carbon emissions?

sys_64738 5y ago
I found this list of companies via google: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed...