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It is articles like this that remind me that we so desperately need a carbon tax. Making a t-shirt in China, shipping to the US, wearing it for a few times, an

It is articles like this that remind me that we so desperately need a carbon tax. Making a t-shirt in China, shipping to the US, wearing it for a few times, and then shipping it to Africa should not be economically viable.

snarf21 5y ago
I agree that we need a carbon tax. However, mega ships are super carbon efficient. You driving to the store to buy the shirt burned added more carbon than the amount of carbon to ship it from Asia. Our personal vehicles are not efficient. Large, relatively slow moving transport (train, container ship) is. We are a major contributor to all the consumption driven pollution in Asia.
- mc32 5y ago
  On the other hand commercial shipping produces more hydrocarbon pollution than personal transport. Apparently the pollution from one large container ship produces as much pollution as 50MM cars!
  - telchar 5y ago
    That's a factoid that has been going around, but lost some information as you stated it. Large container ships produce tremendous amounts of NOx and SOx pollution compared to passenger cars, true, but CO2 is a different story. Still a lot probably but not anywhere near as much as 50MM cars per ship. Unfortunately I think some hear that factoid and take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Agreed. The pollution is different but it’s dirty pollution non the less. So I think it’s misleading to have people believe container ships are a “free ride”.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true. The time during pandemic lockdown where traffic levels plummeted and how quickly the air cleared pretty much proves that personal auto traffic is huge contributor to bad air quality.
      - mschuster91 5y ago
        Climate change != local climate != local emissions (gases, particulate matter, noise). The thing that people noticed during the 'rona was almost exclusively the latter... especially the noise and particulates. I could hear birds outside when the windows were open, the street-facing windows accumulated a lot less dust.
        dylan604 5y ago
        Local pollutions just don't stay local. They eventually become part of the entire global climate. Global climate is the sum of all of the local climates. There's no walls protecting CityA from CityB's pollution. Look at the effect of wild fires on parts of the globe without fires. This is just a sad way to look at things. Changes have to start somewhere. They can start small, and then grow larger. People like you saying "too small, not effective" just need to sit down and be quiet, thank you very much.
        mschuster91 5y ago
        edit to add: particulate emissions (diesel soot, tire and brake wear) stay local and don't ever become global. The focus on "individual action" is a talking point that BP invented in the 70s (see https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...). I won't stop anyone from reducing their footprint, but we have tried this shit for decades now and it clearly hasn't worked a single bit. We need to hold the big emitters of greenhouse gases accountable, they haven't been for about half a century. Remember the "ozone hole" and the CFC ban? That one worked, because the companies bringing CFCs into circulation were tackled instead of pushing the blame to consumers.
    - flavius29663 5y ago
      > cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true I couldn't find some ready numbers, so I tried some estimations. 26% of all energy goes into transportation[1]. Automobiles are about 60% from that, so about 15% of total energy is spent moving automobiles[2]. 1 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=3-6-9-12 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... This does not include land use and agriculture emissions. Looking at it another way, US has close to 300 million vehicles, and the average automobile emits 4.8 tonnes [3] of CO2 a year. It comes down to 1.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. Total US emissions are about 5 gigatons. This would make it a 30% part of CO2 emissions. It's higher than the number above because that was based on European values of 60% of all transportation emissions coming from automobiles. The US automobiles are bigger and consume more. 3. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... I think it's safe to say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 15-30% of all CO2 emissions are from automobiles. I don't consider the manufacturing of the automobiles, because people will need moving regardless. It's either a battery powered car, plane, train etc. Those all need manufacturing and maintaining.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      SOx is dropping a lot as they move away to increasingly désulfurized fuels. To max 0.5% sulfur in fuel from max 3.5% in maritime fuel: https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...
nitrogen 5y ago
[commerce] should not be economically viable. Declaring that the cornerstones of modern, industrialized life should not be economically viable is basically calling "game over" and giving up. We can do much better. Climate defeatism should be replaced by climate entrepreneurism. If you don't like something, make something better!
- jakeinspace 5y ago
  It's only possible to compete as a "climate entrepreneur" if negative externality costs are imposed on existing business (carbon tax or cap & trade).
- jnwatson 5y ago
  It isn't that all convenience should be banned. All these items should include the actual environmental cost to produce the product. We've been selling timber from somebody else's forest for too long. It is time to charge for the trees.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
Or you know, just don't make it in the first place. If all low quality fast fashion were $20 instead of $7 across the board people would still gorge themselves on it. They're not buying stuff for the need to have clothes, they're buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new.
- TremendousJudge 5y ago
  Supply and demand: if it was more expensive, less people would buy it. The reason fast fashion is popular is because it's cheap as hell, which can give a lot of people "buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new". If clothing was as expensive as some decades ago, this experience would only be affordable to rich people as was in the past
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  And who is going to police this? All the trinkets and gadgets that we produce all fall in the same category. >Nest, Echo, Homepod... Just get up and turn off the damn lights yourself. >Drones How many people bought one or two, flew it around for a while and crashed it. Very few are making videos or doing something interesting with them. >Starbucks Do we really need separate stores, trucks shipping product all over for someone to have the convenience of a cup of coffee? >TV/Netflix If we want to talk about the utility of something, this one is amazing. How much money, time and energy has been spent so that someone can watch a 30 minute show on demand. And we have to keep spending money and energy because the novelty of the old stuff has worn off.
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    Yet the net result of all this "waste" is to employ billions, to incentivize productivity to the point of surplus bringing much of civilization into a luxurious life - rather than scrimping bare sustenance. Remove the smart speakers, entertainment UAEs, luxury drinks, screen time, etc and the economic ripple effects will stop funding essentials that near all currently enjoy. We've driven world abject poverty from >90% to <10% in half a century. End the products you mention (and the like), and those buying them won't themselves have customers enough to fund their own work. End Starbucks etc, and coffee farms worldwide will crash. Money is the ultimate arbiter of value. Many deride whatever as "trinkets and gadgets" etc, but they're not putting up the sustenance calories to support life otherwise.
ctdonath 5y ago
Yet here we are, having achieved what so many claim to want yet fret when achieved: capitalism has increased productivity so high, and costs so low, that we can literally "clothe Africa for free". Why the imperative to take from the productive, when they will freely give generously from their surplus?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

snarf21 5y ago

I agree that we need a carbon tax. However, mega ships are super carbon efficient. You driving to the store to buy the shirt burned added more carbon than the amount of carbon to ship it from Asia. Our personal vehicles are not efficient. Large, relatively slow moving transport (train, container ship) is. We are a major contributor to all the consumption driven pollution in Asia.

mc32 5y ago
On the other hand commercial shipping produces more hydrocarbon pollution than personal transport. Apparently the pollution from one large container ship produces as much pollution as 50MM cars!
- telchar 5y ago
  That's a factoid that has been going around, but lost some information as you stated it. Large container ships produce tremendous amounts of NOx and SOx pollution compared to passenger cars, true, but CO2 is a different story. Still a lot probably but not anywhere near as much as 50MM cars per ship. Unfortunately I think some hear that factoid and take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Agreed. The pollution is different but it’s dirty pollution non the less. So I think it’s misleading to have people believe container ships are a “free ride”.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true. The time during pandemic lockdown where traffic levels plummeted and how quickly the air cleared pretty much proves that personal auto traffic is huge contributor to bad air quality.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      Climate change != local climate != local emissions (gases, particulate matter, noise). The thing that people noticed during the 'rona was almost exclusively the latter... especially the noise and particulates. I could hear birds outside when the windows were open, the street-facing windows accumulated a lot less dust.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        Local pollutions just don't stay local. They eventually become part of the entire global climate. Global climate is the sum of all of the local climates. There's no walls protecting CityA from CityB's pollution. Look at the effect of wild fires on parts of the globe without fires. This is just a sad way to look at things. Changes have to start somewhere. They can start small, and then grow larger. People like you saying "too small, not effective" just need to sit down and be quiet, thank you very much.
        mschuster91 5y ago
        edit to add: particulate emissions (diesel soot, tire and brake wear) stay local and don't ever become global. The focus on "individual action" is a talking point that BP invented in the 70s (see https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...). I won't stop anyone from reducing their footprint, but we have tried this shit for decades now and it clearly hasn't worked a single bit. We need to hold the big emitters of greenhouse gases accountable, they haven't been for about half a century. Remember the "ozone hole" and the CFC ban? That one worked, because the companies bringing CFCs into circulation were tackled instead of pushing the blame to consumers.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    > cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true I couldn't find some ready numbers, so I tried some estimations. 26% of all energy goes into transportation[1]. Automobiles are about 60% from that, so about 15% of total energy is spent moving automobiles[2]. 1 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=3-6-9-12 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... This does not include land use and agriculture emissions. Looking at it another way, US has close to 300 million vehicles, and the average automobile emits 4.8 tonnes [3] of CO2 a year. It comes down to 1.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. Total US emissions are about 5 gigatons. This would make it a 30% part of CO2 emissions. It's higher than the number above because that was based on European values of 60% of all transportation emissions coming from automobiles. The US automobiles are bigger and consume more. 3. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... I think it's safe to say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 15-30% of all CO2 emissions are from automobiles. I don't consider the manufacturing of the automobiles, because people will need moving regardless. It's either a battery powered car, plane, train etc. Those all need manufacturing and maintaining.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    SOx is dropping a lot as they move away to increasingly désulfurized fuels. To max 0.5% sulfur in fuel from max 3.5% in maritime fuel: https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...

nitrogen 5y ago

[commerce] should not be economically viable. Declaring that the cornerstones of modern, industrialized life should not be economically viable is basically calling "game over" and giving up. We can do much better. Climate defeatism should be replaced by climate entrepreneurism. If you don't like something, make something better!

jakeinspace 5y ago
It's only possible to compete as a "climate entrepreneur" if negative externality costs are imposed on existing business (carbon tax or cap & trade).
jnwatson 5y ago
It isn't that all convenience should be banned. All these items should include the actual environmental cost to produce the product. We've been selling timber from somebody else's forest for too long. It is time to charge for the trees.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

Or you know, just don't make it in the first place. If all low quality fast fashion were $20 instead of $7 across the board people would still gorge themselves on it. They're not buying stuff for the need to have clothes, they're buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new.

TremendousJudge 5y ago
Supply and demand: if it was more expensive, less people would buy it. The reason fast fashion is popular is because it's cheap as hell, which can give a lot of people "buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new". If clothing was as expensive as some decades ago, this experience would only be affordable to rich people as was in the past
themaninthedark 5y ago
And who is going to police this? All the trinkets and gadgets that we produce all fall in the same category. >Nest, Echo, Homepod... Just get up and turn off the damn lights yourself. >Drones How many people bought one or two, flew it around for a while and crashed it. Very few are making videos or doing something interesting with them. >Starbucks Do we really need separate stores, trucks shipping product all over for someone to have the convenience of a cup of coffee? >TV/Netflix If we want to talk about the utility of something, this one is amazing. How much money, time and energy has been spent so that someone can watch a 30 minute show on demand. And we have to keep spending money and energy because the novelty of the old stuff has worn off.
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Yet the net result of all this "waste" is to employ billions, to incentivize productivity to the point of surplus bringing much of civilization into a luxurious life - rather than scrimping bare sustenance. Remove the smart speakers, entertainment UAEs, luxury drinks, screen time, etc and the economic ripple effects will stop funding essentials that near all currently enjoy. We've driven world abject poverty from >90% to <10% in half a century. End the products you mention (and the like), and those buying them won't themselves have customers enough to fund their own work. End Starbucks etc, and coffee farms worldwide will crash. Money is the ultimate arbiter of value. Many deride whatever as "trinkets and gadgets" etc, but they're not putting up the sustenance calories to support life otherwise.

ctdonath 5y ago

Yet here we are, having achieved what so many claim to want yet fret when achieved: capitalism has increased productivity so high, and costs so low, that we can literally "clothe Africa for free". Why the imperative to take from the productive, when they will freely give generously from their surplus?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]