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It's definitely bad, but my view on this is to tackle also the problem at the source: cars. gas or even electric cars which have a pollution and carbon impact a

It's definitely bad, but my view on this is to tackle also the problem at the source: cars. gas or even electric cars which have a pollution and carbon impact about the same magnitude. We must de-motorize the world, 80% of people in developed countries live in cities yet 95% household have cars, that's way too much. We must change people lifestyles on a global scale. When I see people stay in their parked cars with their engine and radiators maxed out for AC, when I'm riding among this perpetual dense traffic of cars , when I still hear them the night, I get the same reaction as this fisherman.

sokoloff 5y ago
One step farther along the path to the root of the issue: Cars are incredibly expensive. That people in cities often choose to own cars and pay those prices reflects that they get more value from the car than the costs, often because alternative transport solutions are not cheaper, are way less time-efficient, and not nearly as convenient. Fix that and many people will quickly pivot away from cars, reducing pull-through demand for oil, tires, brakes, lubricants, etc.
- corty 5y ago
  This isn't fixable. The only solution is to make cars more expensive, because it is impossible to improve alternative transport without massively raising prices. Alternative transport will always be massively inferior in cost or quality (usually both). Some may advocate subsidizing alternatives by taxing car traffic more. But as soon as the desired effect of vanishing car traffic appears, subsidies will vanish, alternative transport will be expensive and bad again. And everybody will be poorer, less happy and nobody will have gained anything (except alternative transport profiteurs).
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If you constrain yourself to having public transport be self-sustaining in the funding department, you’re probably right. I don’t see a particular reason to think that that constraint is some kind of necessary, inviolable condition.
MikeKusold 5y ago
Oil is used for so much more than gasoline. Plastics are made from oil as well.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  We can ban the use of plastics for disposable packaging, or really any disposable application, too.
jnwatson 5y ago
I agree. If you've ever had a conversation with someone that lives in the suburbs in a single-family home on a quarter acre on a cul-de-sac about the environmental impact of their choices, you might as well be debating about eating their children. Getting folks to change their behavior will take top-down significant restructuring of the economy.
abeppu 5y ago
We must change our lifestyles -- but does that solve this problem? We have better tools for dealing with spills. Yes we should shrink the industry that causes spills by removing demand. But that larger, slower, systemic change is compatible with also having more responsible responses to the near-term and acute problem. An American gun-shot wound victim still needs acute care, even if all agree that also systemically we need to get rid of guns. And in fact, placing responsibility on the companies involved to dedicate real resources to cleaning up the mess they've made makes the business less profitable and helps the system move towards more responsible behavior. Paying to clean up is of a piece with paying for emissions, in that both recognize some portion of the externalities that are otherwise inflicted on the community.

sokoloff 5y ago

One step farther along the path to the root of the issue: Cars are incredibly expensive. That people in cities often choose to own cars and pay those prices reflects that they get more value from the car than the costs, often because alternative transport solutions are not cheaper, are way less time-efficient, and not nearly as convenient. Fix that and many people will quickly pivot away from cars, reducing pull-through demand for oil, tires, brakes, lubricants, etc.

corty 5y ago
This isn't fixable. The only solution is to make cars more expensive, because it is impossible to improve alternative transport without massively raising prices. Alternative transport will always be massively inferior in cost or quality (usually both). Some may advocate subsidizing alternatives by taxing car traffic more. But as soon as the desired effect of vanishing car traffic appears, subsidies will vanish, alternative transport will be expensive and bad again. And everybody will be poorer, less happy and nobody will have gained anything (except alternative transport profiteurs).
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If you constrain yourself to having public transport be self-sustaining in the funding department, you’re probably right. I don’t see a particular reason to think that that constraint is some kind of necessary, inviolable condition.

MikeKusold 5y ago

Oil is used for so much more than gasoline. Plastics are made from oil as well.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
We can ban the use of plastics for disposable packaging, or really any disposable application, too.

jnwatson 5y ago

I agree. If you've ever had a conversation with someone that lives in the suburbs in a single-family home on a quarter acre on a cul-de-sac about the environmental impact of their choices, you might as well be debating about eating their children. Getting folks to change their behavior will take top-down significant restructuring of the economy.

abeppu 5y ago

We must change our lifestyles -- but does that solve this problem? We have better tools for dealing with spills. Yes we should shrink the industry that causes spills by removing demand. But that larger, slower, systemic change is compatible with also having more responsible responses to the near-term and acute problem. An American gun-shot wound victim still needs acute care, even if all agree that also systemically we need to get rid of guns. And in fact, placing responsibility on the companies involved to dedicate real resources to cleaning up the mess they've made makes the business less profitable and helps the system move towards more responsible behavior. Paying to clean up is of a piece with paying for emissions, in that both recognize some portion of the externalities that are otherwise inflicted on the community.