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If you’re serious about the environment you’ll do things like: Having fewer kids, having housemates, eating less food, buying fewer things, not driving a car,

If you’re serious about the environment you’ll do things like: Having fewer kids, having housemates, eating less food, buying fewer things, not driving a car, not inducing demand for services that require cars, etc

protontypes 4y ago
Every action you take first creates emissions. Doing nothing often seems to be the safest way to reduce your own emissions. This gives you a good feeling that you are at least not part of the problem. An open source / open science strategy at least prevents greenwashing and allows to at least focus on measures that actually save emissions. However, as long as the systemic / economic problem behind climate change is not solved, someone else will simply create the emissions for you. Find more about this under the term "Climate Shadow": https://www.mic.com/impact/forget-your-carbon-footprint-lets-talk-about-your-climate-shadow https://www.mic.com/impact/forget-your-carbon-footprint-lets....
konschubert 4y ago
If you’re serious about the environment you work to make sure we get lots of cheap clean energy and that’s it.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  historically cheap energy has lead to - surprise - more energy being used. use less energy, period. ideally yes, the energy should be renewable and not cause harm to the environment as well.
  - erddfre3423 4y ago
    I would argue that it's easier to switch energy completely to renewables than to significantly cut global energy usage. It's also more ethical solution than forcing people to live in tiny apartments and preventing them from traveling.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      I'd argue that it's easier to increase energy consumption and not to worry about pollution at all, but it's not about what's easier unless you're holding the consequences constant. > It's also more ethical solution than forcing people to live in tiny apartments and preventing them from traveling. What does this have to do with ethics? Is "more ethical" when you bother people less?
  - konschubert 4y ago
    There is nothing wrong with using lots of energy if it’s green! We should be using more energy, not less! Energy is amazing. We just have to make it from non fossile sources.
- jka 4y ago
  Promoting clean energy isn't mutually exclusive with reducing consumption (at least in the short-term, until clean energy is both the norm and in surplus).
goodpoint 4y ago
> eating less food You can't significantly reduce food intake, but switching to a plant-based diet is more beneficial than many other changes.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  there's plenty of obesity and plenty of food waste, implying there's much you can do without changing the type of food you eat.
  - Majestic121 4y ago
    The fact that there's plenty to do does not mean the ratio effort/impact on the environment is worth it. Switching to a plant based diet is almost equivalent to eating half as much of an omnivorous diet : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 However, dividing omnivorous food intake by two would probably not be possible in the long term, unless your diet is way oversized. And it's easier to switch to a plant based diet than to be constantly hungry. Reducing environmental impact is a marathon, not a sprint : it s much better to take actions that can be sustained in the long term than very impressive actions that are marginally more effective, but abandoned after 2 month
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      no one is talking about being hungry. I'm talking about reducing food waste and eating less in light of the massive obesity endemic. eating plant based can be a part of that, sure, but isn't directly related to my point.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      > Switching to a plant based diet is almost equivalent to eating half as much of an omnivorous diet : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 The improvement is way bigger than that for most meat-intensive (e.g. American) diets. See https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
dmitriid 4y ago
What you're advocating for is being poor. There's only so much that a person can do to reduce emissions. And this is the big lie that big corps PR sold you: that you as individual is main person responsible. According to this article from The Guardian, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10... Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have as big an impact as fixing just one of those companies.
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  > What you're advocating for is being poor. I don't see it. Saying "consume less/differently" is not the same as saying "be poor". > There's only so much that a person can do to reduce emissions. And this is the big lie that big corps PR sold you: that you as individual is main person responsible. > According to this article from The Guardian, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10... > Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have as big an impact as fixing just one of those companies. It seem that you read nothing past the title of that article. Those are fossil fuel companies. The study contains data on GHGs that come from direct operational emissions and emissions from the use of sold products. That means that if you use a car the emissions that are produced by that usage are counted towards the emissions of one of those companies that extracted/refined your fuel.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > Saying "consume less/differently" is not the same as saying "be poor". To have significant impact all these "eat less, have fewer kids, don't use services that demand the use of cars" is more or less "be poor". > It seem that you read nothing past the title of that article. Those are fossil fuel companies. Does it matter? The number matters. 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions. Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have any significant impact compared to this 100 hundred. And we haven't talked about the long tail of companies. Individuals have been sold a lie that only they are responsible for fighting the climate change.
erddfre3423 4y ago
Those are good things to do, but voting for people who support stricter climate action is at least equally important. Most important decisions (taxation, building clean energy...) are ultimately done on society/government level, not by individuals. If we get enough renewable power, electric cars and start building houses from wood (excellent way of storing carbon), then there's no fundamental reason why people couldn't still drive cars, live in fairly large apartments and so on. Reasonable amount of consumption wouldn't be a problem in such world.
nivenkos 4y ago
And yet a lot of so-called "progressive" countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany) punish child-free workers with extremely high income tax to give handouts to parents (Barnbidrag + Kindergeld). It's not even means-tested so they're literally taxing struggling workers to pay rich parents just for knocking out more babies.
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  > It's not even means-tested so they're literally taxing struggling workers to pay rich parents just for knocking out more babies. I'm glad to inform you that besides struggling (child-free) workers there are also rich (child-free) workers. I'm sorry to inform you that besides rich parents there are also struggling parents.
birktj 4y ago
It is presumably more effective to spend your time trying to solve the hard problems of science, politics and economics that lead to the problems we have today. You probably won't be very successful, but if enough people try we will hopefully have some progress.
usrn 4y ago
The developed world needs domestic population growth to continue. If you have fewer children you're handing the future off to other countries (either via immigration or competition via trade or military conquest) which do not share your views on sustainability or the environment. Some of your ideas here make sense but not having children does not. You certainly save a great deal of energy in the short term for both you and the state. Long term this is extremely destructive. If you want to see how it ends look at former/current communist countries like Russia and China.

protontypes 4y ago

Every action you take first creates emissions. Doing nothing often seems to be the safest way to reduce your own emissions. This gives you a good feeling that you are at least not part of the problem. An open source / open science strategy at least prevents greenwashing and allows to at least focus on measures that actually save emissions. However, as long as the systemic / economic problem behind climate change is not solved, someone else will simply create the emissions for you. Find more about this under the term "Climate Shadow": https://www.mic.com/impact/forget-your-carbon-footprint-lets-talk-about-your-climate-shadow https://www.mic.com/impact/forget-your-carbon-footprint-lets....

konschubert 4y ago

If you’re serious about the environment you work to make sure we get lots of cheap clean energy and that’s it.

endisneigh 4y ago
historically cheap energy has lead to - surprise - more energy being used. use less energy, period. ideally yes, the energy should be renewable and not cause harm to the environment as well.
- erddfre3423 4y ago
  I would argue that it's easier to switch energy completely to renewables than to significantly cut global energy usage. It's also more ethical solution than forcing people to live in tiny apartments and preventing them from traveling.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I'd argue that it's easier to increase energy consumption and not to worry about pollution at all, but it's not about what's easier unless you're holding the consequences constant. > It's also more ethical solution than forcing people to live in tiny apartments and preventing them from traveling. What does this have to do with ethics? Is "more ethical" when you bother people less?
- konschubert 4y ago
  There is nothing wrong with using lots of energy if it’s green! We should be using more energy, not less! Energy is amazing. We just have to make it from non fossile sources.
jka 4y ago
Promoting clean energy isn't mutually exclusive with reducing consumption (at least in the short-term, until clean energy is both the norm and in surplus).

goodpoint 4y ago

> eating less food You can't significantly reduce food intake, but switching to a plant-based diet is more beneficial than many other changes.

endisneigh 4y ago
there's plenty of obesity and plenty of food waste, implying there's much you can do without changing the type of food you eat.
- Majestic121 4y ago
  The fact that there's plenty to do does not mean the ratio effort/impact on the environment is worth it. Switching to a plant based diet is almost equivalent to eating half as much of an omnivorous diet : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 However, dividing omnivorous food intake by two would probably not be possible in the long term, unless your diet is way oversized. And it's easier to switch to a plant based diet than to be constantly hungry. Reducing environmental impact is a marathon, not a sprint : it s much better to take actions that can be sustained in the long term than very impressive actions that are marginally more effective, but abandoned after 2 month
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    no one is talking about being hungry. I'm talking about reducing food waste and eating less in light of the massive obesity endemic. eating plant based can be a part of that, sure, but isn't directly related to my point.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > Switching to a plant based diet is almost equivalent to eating half as much of an omnivorous diet : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8 The improvement is way bigger than that for most meat-intensive (e.g. American) diets. See https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

dmitriid 4y ago

What you're advocating for is being poor. There's only so much that a person can do to reduce emissions. And this is the big lie that big corps PR sold you: that you as individual is main person responsible. According to this article from The Guardian, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10... Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have as big an impact as fixing just one of those companies.

Kbelicius 4y ago
> What you're advocating for is being poor. I don't see it. Saying "consume less/differently" is not the same as saying "be poor". > There's only so much that a person can do to reduce emissions. And this is the big lie that big corps PR sold you: that you as individual is main person responsible. > According to this article from The Guardian, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10... > Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have as big an impact as fixing just one of those companies. It seem that you read nothing past the title of that article. Those are fossil fuel companies. The study contains data on GHGs that come from direct operational emissions and emissions from the use of sold products. That means that if you use a car the emissions that are produced by that usage are counted towards the emissions of one of those companies that extracted/refined your fuel.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > Saying "consume less/differently" is not the same as saying "be poor". To have significant impact all these "eat less, have fewer kids, don't use services that demand the use of cars" is more or less "be poor". > It seem that you read nothing past the title of that article. Those are fossil fuel companies. Does it matter? The number matters. 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions. Literally nothing you or I can do in our entire lifetime will have any significant impact compared to this 100 hundred. And we haven't talked about the long tail of companies. Individuals have been sold a lie that only they are responsible for fighting the climate change.

erddfre3423 4y ago

Those are good things to do, but voting for people who support stricter climate action is at least equally important. Most important decisions (taxation, building clean energy...) are ultimately done on society/government level, not by individuals. If we get enough renewable power, electric cars and start building houses from wood (excellent way of storing carbon), then there's no fundamental reason why people couldn't still drive cars, live in fairly large apartments and so on. Reasonable amount of consumption wouldn't be a problem in such world.

nivenkos 4y ago

And yet a lot of so-called "progressive" countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany) punish child-free workers with extremely high income tax to give handouts to parents (Barnbidrag + Kindergeld). It's not even means-tested so they're literally taxing struggling workers to pay rich parents just for knocking out more babies.

Kbelicius 4y ago
> It's not even means-tested so they're literally taxing struggling workers to pay rich parents just for knocking out more babies. I'm glad to inform you that besides struggling (child-free) workers there are also rich (child-free) workers. I'm sorry to inform you that besides rich parents there are also struggling parents.

birktj 4y ago

It is presumably more effective to spend your time trying to solve the hard problems of science, politics and economics that lead to the problems we have today. You probably won't be very successful, but if enough people try we will hopefully have some progress.

usrn 4y ago

The developed world needs domestic population growth to continue. If you have fewer children you're handing the future off to other countries (either via immigration or competition via trade or military conquest) which do not share your views on sustainability or the environment. Some of your ideas here make sense but not having children does not. You certainly save a great deal of energy in the short term for both you and the state. Long term this is extremely destructive. If you want to see how it ends look at former/current communist countries like Russia and China.