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Ditching CFS is laudable. Ditching oil is a bit harder. I remember the hole in the ozone layer thing from start to not being quite finished (there are still a

Ditching CFS is laudable. Ditching oil is a bit harder. I remember the hole in the ozone layer thing from start to not being quite finished (there are still a few holdouts in some parts of the world) I remember the breathless announcements on the TV news and realizing that the underarm deodorant I was using was a wrong one and doing fuck all about it (I was a teenager.) The manufacturer of that deodorant switched chemicals. I remember fridges and freezers being dumped because they were using the "wrong" refrigerants by well meaning owners. Could they have been re-gassed up with a non CFC and continued to work? No idea but I suspect that a lot of waste was generated. Pollution is hard to deal with, it's so easy to emit and so hard to withdraw. At the risk of trivializing the issue: try farting in front of your parents-in-law or considering doing it in front of 'er Maj Queen Elizabeth and considering the consequences.

j_walter 5y ago
Cash for clunkers anyone? How much waste did that create...turn in a 20 year old Civic and get a bunch of money to buy a brand new vehicle that probably gets worse MPG.
- kreelman 5y ago
  Perhaps what you say is part of the problem, though usually MPG improves with newer vehichle versions? Change it over to "Cheap EV for clunkers", the government could/should cover most of the financials and it's a win for the car owner and the environment. I think it could be argued that it's the government's job to fund things like this. Vision is all that's required!
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    A lot of older cars had excellent MPG figures but actually polluted more than current cars, especially diesels. Also, cars have largely gotten bigger and heavier, which hurts efficiency.
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      > Also, cars have largely gotten bigger and heavier ... In the US/Canada. This is for the most part a self-contained cultural problem. SUVs/trucks numbers are a small percentage of the vehicles on the road elsewhere in the world, mostly because there is no space for them in the road/city infrastructure in most other places.
      - frosted-flakes 5y ago
        Size is only one factor of weight. Safety improvements have also increased weight, even if the car stayed roughly the same size.
YawningAngel 5y ago
Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff
- godshatter 5y ago
  Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. I agree about nuclear, though. We should have been doubling down on them years ago, if only as a stop-gap until the renewable power storage problem has been solved. Although I'm of the opinion that they should be a solid percentage of our power output until fusion plants are viable. Our energy needs are only going to go up in the future.
  - handol 5y ago
    > Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. That's part of the coordinating as a species problem.
  - coryrc 5y ago
    If only there were alternatives to personal cars to go from place to place. Oh well.
    - godshatter 5y ago
      Not where I live.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  > Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. I can't think of anything that is both expensive and easy to do. If something is very easy, why would it ever be expensive?

j_walter 5y ago

Cash for clunkers anyone? How much waste did that create...turn in a 20 year old Civic and get a bunch of money to buy a brand new vehicle that probably gets worse MPG.

kreelman 5y ago
Perhaps what you say is part of the problem, though usually MPG improves with newer vehichle versions? Change it over to "Cheap EV for clunkers", the government could/should cover most of the financials and it's a win for the car owner and the environment. I think it could be argued that it's the government's job to fund things like this. Vision is all that's required!
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  A lot of older cars had excellent MPG figures but actually polluted more than current cars, especially diesels. Also, cars have largely gotten bigger and heavier, which hurts efficiency.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    > Also, cars have largely gotten bigger and heavier ... In the US/Canada. This is for the most part a self-contained cultural problem. SUVs/trucks numbers are a small percentage of the vehicles on the road elsewhere in the world, mostly because there is no space for them in the road/city infrastructure in most other places.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      Size is only one factor of weight. Safety improvements have also increased weight, even if the car stayed roughly the same size.

YawningAngel 5y ago

Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff

godshatter 5y ago
Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. I agree about nuclear, though. We should have been doubling down on them years ago, if only as a stop-gap until the renewable power storage problem has been solved. Although I'm of the opinion that they should be a solid percentage of our power output until fusion plants are viable. Our energy needs are only going to go up in the future.
- handol 5y ago
  > Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. That's part of the coordinating as a species problem.
- coryrc 5y ago
  If only there were alternatives to personal cars to go from place to place. Oh well.
  - godshatter 5y ago
    Not where I live.
willcipriano 5y ago
> Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. I can't think of anything that is both expensive and easy to do. If something is very easy, why would it ever be expensive?