8 ms·

Most smokers are unable to quit. Most fat people are unable to lose weight. I worry that most civilizations are unable to cut carbon emissions.

junon 5y ago
As much as I dislike smoking or obesity, those aren't the main causes of climate change. If we eliminated both of those entirely, today, we'd still have a crisis. That being said, I'll absolutely agree with the sentiment that "humans will always be human". We're not going to collectively try to fix this until it's too late. That's the saddest part.
- vmception 5y ago
  So you understood the sentiment clearly but missed how those were analogies? Weird audience
  - junon 5y ago
    Yes, exactly. It's 3am, I misread the comment. Sorry.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  His point is more that humans can’t easily change, even if they know the solution.
  - junon 5y ago
    Yes, hence my second paragraph.
- gorwell 5y ago
  Obesity isn't the main cause, but it is a growing contributor to climate change.
  - chillwaves 5y ago
    Not true. Calories are not created equally in terms of environmental impact.
    - void_mint 5y ago
      If the food obese people are eating has a large environmental impact, obesity definitely contributes.
      - chillwaves 5y ago
        That's a pretty big "if" in your statement. I thought HN was better than this.
        void_mint 5y ago
        From my previous HN post: > Message boards are message boards. You can't take them seriously, including this one.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - Apes 5y ago
      Are you suggesting the average American got fat off environmentally friendly low-carbon-impact food products? Because I suspect they got fat off Oreos and Coca-Cola.
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        Those have a lower carbon impact than meat.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
latortuga 5y ago
Interesting analogy but I don't think it holds up. Both of these are stereotypical examples of failure of willpower. Climate change does not require personal willpower when we have laws available to create carrots and sticks.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- changoplatanero 5y ago
  My point was that im worried society doesnt have the willpower to create those laws just like many obese people dont have the will power to lose weight.
leeoniya 5y ago
you can't easily force 7B people to act individually. you have to regulate at the source (the mfgs). we are far beyond individual action as a viable solution.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle. The problem with this is that it means not only are they not doing anything to help, they're much less likely to vote for people who would too because they're unwilling to accept inconveniences. Instead they'll vote for people who's policies would only inconvenience others, or make performative gestures while accomplishing nothing. I'm afraid I have come to agree with others who believe this is a problem that society simple can't solve because it lacks any mechanism to make the necessary choices.
  - over_bridge 5y ago
    There's only so much you can do as an individual. Yes we can do something but so much of the emissions we see are just cranked out as 'externalities' by global systems built over the last century. If I want a house made of sustainable materials, that's irrelevant if no builders near me are using them (or in the last 50 years when the houses were built). If I want an appliance that lasts for 50 years, who is selling them? There's more profit in shipping cheap junk that you replace often If I want to ride a bike to work, what do I do if there's no bike lane and I live really far away due to low density zoning and urban sprawl? If I want to use renewable energy, which grid can I plug into that isn't powered by coal? If I need medicine, which manufacturer will use biodegradable plastics for their containers? Should I factor that in and weigh it against the effectiveness of the medicine itself as a consumer? I'm supposed to vote with my dollars, right? There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference. I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that this narrative of no one's individual choices mattering in the grand scheme leads people to just stop doing anything, not only personally, but also on a political level.
Aerroon 5y ago
The difference between these is that stopping smoking and losing weight make your life overall better. Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here. It's also not enough. We will have to start sucking up that carbon from the atmosphere whether we cut emissions or not.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here. The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    >The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut. I see this argument frequently and it annoys me. Poor people emit less carbon because they are poor. Do you want them to stay poor?!? I want a future where everyone can at least live a life as wealthy as mine. But my carbon emissions are much higher than that of the global poor. If we can provide everyone with at least a quality of life like mine, then we're going to massively increase carbon emissions globally. Sure, better technology will help us here, but it is completely unrealistic to expect this to cancel out the increases of emissions and for this not to increases prices. This would, again, put my kind of life out of reach for many. Look at China for a realistic example. China has had one of the highest reductions in poverty in history - from 88% in extreme poverty in 1981 to 0.7% by 2015.[0] At the same time China's carbon emissions per capita went from 1.46 tons in 1981 to 7.169 tons in 2015.[1] That's a 391% increase in emissions per capita, but it's worth it, because people are better off as a result. Climate change is a problem, but it won't ruin tomorrow. It will slowly get worse, but this means that there's time. I believe that technological (engineering) solutions are the only way we can realistically deal with it. Cutting emissions is not going to be enough and it will come with a whole boatload of side effects. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/the-global-decline-of-extreme-poverty-was-it-only-china https://ourworldindata.org/the-global-decline-of-extreme-pov... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
sentinel 5y ago
It’s already happening, a lot of countries are cutting down carbon emissions.

junon 5y ago

As much as I dislike smoking or obesity, those aren't the main causes of climate change. If we eliminated both of those entirely, today, we'd still have a crisis. That being said, I'll absolutely agree with the sentiment that "humans will always be human". We're not going to collectively try to fix this until it's too late. That's the saddest part.

vmception 5y ago
So you understood the sentiment clearly but missed how those were analogies? Weird audience
- junon 5y ago
  Yes, exactly. It's 3am, I misread the comment. Sorry.
MattGaiser 5y ago
His point is more that humans can’t easily change, even if they know the solution.
- junon 5y ago
  Yes, hence my second paragraph.
gorwell 5y ago
Obesity isn't the main cause, but it is a growing contributor to climate change.
- chillwaves 5y ago
  Not true. Calories are not created equally in terms of environmental impact.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    If the food obese people are eating has a large environmental impact, obesity definitely contributes.
    - chillwaves 5y ago
      That's a pretty big "if" in your statement. I thought HN was better than this.
      - void_mint 5y ago
        From my previous HN post: > Message boards are message boards. You can't take them seriously, including this one.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - Apes 5y ago
    Are you suggesting the average American got fat off environmentally friendly low-carbon-impact food products? Because I suspect they got fat off Oreos and Coca-Cola.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      Those have a lower carbon impact than meat.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

latortuga 5y ago

Interesting analogy but I don't think it holds up. Both of these are stereotypical examples of failure of willpower. Climate change does not require personal willpower when we have laws available to create carrots and sticks.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
changoplatanero 5y ago
My point was that im worried society doesnt have the willpower to create those laws just like many obese people dont have the will power to lose weight.

leeoniya 5y ago

you can't easily force 7B people to act individually. you have to regulate at the source (the mfgs). we are far beyond individual action as a viable solution.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle. The problem with this is that it means not only are they not doing anything to help, they're much less likely to vote for people who would too because they're unwilling to accept inconveniences. Instead they'll vote for people who's policies would only inconvenience others, or make performative gestures while accomplishing nothing. I'm afraid I have come to agree with others who believe this is a problem that society simple can't solve because it lacks any mechanism to make the necessary choices.
- over_bridge 5y ago
  There's only so much you can do as an individual. Yes we can do something but so much of the emissions we see are just cranked out as 'externalities' by global systems built over the last century. If I want a house made of sustainable materials, that's irrelevant if no builders near me are using them (or in the last 50 years when the houses were built). If I want an appliance that lasts for 50 years, who is selling them? There's more profit in shipping cheap junk that you replace often If I want to ride a bike to work, what do I do if there's no bike lane and I live really far away due to low density zoning and urban sprawl? If I want to use renewable energy, which grid can I plug into that isn't powered by coal? If I need medicine, which manufacturer will use biodegradable plastics for their containers? Should I factor that in and weigh it against the effectiveness of the medicine itself as a consumer? I'm supposed to vote with my dollars, right? There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference. I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that this narrative of no one's individual choices mattering in the grand scheme leads people to just stop doing anything, not only personally, but also on a political level.

Aerroon 5y ago

The difference between these is that stopping smoking and losing weight make your life overall better. Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here. It's also not enough. We will have to start sucking up that carbon from the atmosphere whether we cut emissions or not.

pessimizer 5y ago
> Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here. The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  >The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut. I see this argument frequently and it annoys me. Poor people emit less carbon because they are poor. Do you want them to stay poor?!? I want a future where everyone can at least live a life as wealthy as mine. But my carbon emissions are much higher than that of the global poor. If we can provide everyone with at least a quality of life like mine, then we're going to massively increase carbon emissions globally. Sure, better technology will help us here, but it is completely unrealistic to expect this to cancel out the increases of emissions and for this not to increases prices. This would, again, put my kind of life out of reach for many. Look at China for a realistic example. China has had one of the highest reductions in poverty in history - from 88% in extreme poverty in 1981 to 0.7% by 2015.[0] At the same time China's carbon emissions per capita went from 1.46 tons in 1981 to 7.169 tons in 2015.[1] That's a 391% increase in emissions per capita, but it's worth it, because people are better off as a result. Climate change is a problem, but it won't ruin tomorrow. It will slowly get worse, but this means that there's time. I believe that technological (engineering) solutions are the only way we can realistically deal with it. Cutting emissions is not going to be enough and it will come with a whole boatload of side effects. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/the-global-decline-of-extreme-poverty-was-it-only-china https://ourworldindata.org/the-global-decline-of-extreme-pov... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

sentinel 5y ago

It’s already happening, a lot of countries are cutting down carbon emissions.