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Mitigating climate change is not solved by a single action. This is great news - it's something that is immediately actionable. Changing peoples diets can take

Mitigating climate change is not solved by a single action. This is great news - it's something that is immediately actionable. Changing peoples diets can take years and years of campaigning, and some will never change.

while1fork 5y ago
It's not "great news," it's a drop in the bucket. Only the end of FF extraction and large-scale bio oceanic carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) (phytoplankton and/or kelp, GMO possibly) can bring about a net negative carbon budget to get back to preindustrial levels soon enough before human civilization collapses. Another example is Iceland's direct air capture plant. It is immensely expensive, power-hungry, and unable to scale. Such approaches are doomed to fail because they are big engineering solutions that don't utilize life to do more of the work for us. If we don't solve the problem at scale, soon enough, in a cost-effective manner, then we die.
yboris 5y ago
Have you stopped eating meat? Or are you saying "my contribution is just a drop in the bucket, so I may as well continue eating meat?" Of course government action is better than individual action. But why not both? Signal your discontent by removing yourself from the meat market.
- anonymoushermit 5y ago
  > Have you stopped eating meat? No. > Or are you saying "my contribution is just a drop in the bucket, so I may as well continue eating meat?" Compared to, say, global shipping, meat itself is a drop in the bucket. > Of course government action is better than individual action. I wish this were sarcasm. > But why not both? Because the promoted alternative (soy) makes people docile and easier to control. No, thank you.
  - yboris 5y ago
    > Because the promoted alternative (soy) makes people docile and easier to control. This is a bold empirical claim. Do you have any credible reasons to believe this that you could share?
    - anonymoushermit 5y ago
      https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-that-lower-testosterone https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-that-lower-testos... https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/aggression-in-men-hormone-levels-are-a-key.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/aggression-in-men...
      - yboris 5y ago
        How do you conclude that people consuming soy are "easier to control"? Are women "easier to control"? Are you also saying that becoming more woman-like is problematic?
        EvilEy3 5y ago
        > Are you also saying that becoming more woman-like is problematic? As a man, yes.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    > Compared to, say, global shipping, meat itself is a drop in the bucket. According to this, livestock & manure are 5.8% of the total, while shipping is 1.7% of the total: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector IIRC the actual level of change we need to achieve long-term stability is something like 99%-99.9% reduction (depending on the gas, CH4 != CO2). If so, we’d have to eliminate about half of shipping emissions even if we eliminated 100% of the emissions in every other sector, but that’s even worse for your argument as it also means we have to eliminate 5/6ths of all livestock & manure emissions if we eliminated 100% of everything else.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      > IIRC the actual level of change we need to achieve long-term stability is something like 99%-99.9% reduction This is impossible to attain though.
      - convolvatron 5y ago
        not impossible at all. we just have to wait for the oncoming economic collapse, famine and mass migration. the great part of this whole thing is that the more we double down on the systems that brought us here, the more they will be undermined. I wish people would stop pretending we have a choice to do nothing because the whole thing is just going to be too inconvenient.
        EvilEy3 5y ago
        > we just have to wait for the oncoming economic collapse, famine and mass migration. the great part of this whole thing is that the more we double down on the systems that brought us here, the more they will be undermined Uhuh, we just need to wait until you stop reading dystopian books and will leave your basement.
        dang 5y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Not cool. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- ip26 5y ago
  The ascetics haven't made much progress in fifty-odd years of trying. I suspect going to extremes makes you less relatable, which makes it hard to influence others, limiting your impact. A flexitarian who eats a burger at a social event once in a while might model a more approachable lifestyle change for others...

while1fork 5y ago

It's not "great news," it's a drop in the bucket. Only the end of FF extraction and large-scale bio oceanic carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) (phytoplankton and/or kelp, GMO possibly) can bring about a net negative carbon budget to get back to preindustrial levels soon enough before human civilization collapses. Another example is Iceland's direct air capture plant. It is immensely expensive, power-hungry, and unable to scale. Such approaches are doomed to fail because they are big engineering solutions that don't utilize life to do more of the work for us. If we don't solve the problem at scale, soon enough, in a cost-effective manner, then we die.

yboris 5y ago

Have you stopped eating meat? Or are you saying "my contribution is just a drop in the bucket, so I may as well continue eating meat?" Of course government action is better than individual action. But why not both? Signal your discontent by removing yourself from the meat market.

anonymoushermit 5y ago
> Have you stopped eating meat? No. > Or are you saying "my contribution is just a drop in the bucket, so I may as well continue eating meat?" Compared to, say, global shipping, meat itself is a drop in the bucket. > Of course government action is better than individual action. I wish this were sarcasm. > But why not both? Because the promoted alternative (soy) makes people docile and easier to control. No, thank you.
- yboris 5y ago
  > Because the promoted alternative (soy) makes people docile and easier to control. This is a bold empirical claim. Do you have any credible reasons to believe this that you could share?
  - anonymoushermit 5y ago
    https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-that-lower-testosterone https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-that-lower-testos... https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/aggression-in-men-hormone-levels-are-a-key.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/aggression-in-men...
    - yboris 5y ago
      How do you conclude that people consuming soy are "easier to control"? Are women "easier to control"? Are you also saying that becoming more woman-like is problematic?
      - EvilEy3 5y ago
        > Are you also saying that becoming more woman-like is problematic? As a man, yes.
- ben_w 5y ago
  > Compared to, say, global shipping, meat itself is a drop in the bucket. According to this, livestock & manure are 5.8% of the total, while shipping is 1.7% of the total: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector IIRC the actual level of change we need to achieve long-term stability is something like 99%-99.9% reduction (depending on the gas, CH4 != CO2). If so, we’d have to eliminate about half of shipping emissions even if we eliminated 100% of the emissions in every other sector, but that’s even worse for your argument as it also means we have to eliminate 5/6ths of all livestock & manure emissions if we eliminated 100% of everything else.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > IIRC the actual level of change we need to achieve long-term stability is something like 99%-99.9% reduction This is impossible to attain though.
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      not impossible at all. we just have to wait for the oncoming economic collapse, famine and mass migration. the great part of this whole thing is that the more we double down on the systems that brought us here, the more they will be undermined. I wish people would stop pretending we have a choice to do nothing because the whole thing is just going to be too inconvenient.
      - EvilEy3 5y ago
        > we just have to wait for the oncoming economic collapse, famine and mass migration. the great part of this whole thing is that the more we double down on the systems that brought us here, the more they will be undermined Uhuh, we just need to wait until you stop reading dystopian books and will leave your basement.
        dang 5y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Not cool. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
ip26 5y ago
The ascetics haven't made much progress in fifty-odd years of trying. I suspect going to extremes makes you less relatable, which makes it hard to influence others, limiting your impact. A flexitarian who eats a burger at a social event once in a while might model a more approachable lifestyle change for others...