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I’m impressed at how many people coalesce to the same suggestions to save space: simple clothes, layers, etc. However, I’m surprised at how casually he mention

• bergenty 4y ago
  I only take long distance trains for fun. Flying is way more convenient at all other times. Show up 45 minutes before the domestic flight and get there at least 5 times faster.
  • alejoar 4y ago
    Maybe in the US. In Europe high speed train tends to be more convenient. I live in Madrid and I can travel to any major city in the country by train in less than 3 hours. I don't have to show up early. I depart from the city centre. I arrive at the city centre. 500% more convenient and (mostly) cheaper.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • bergenty 4y ago
      Yeah Europe is a small place compared to the US.
      • genera1 4y ago
        Europe has more both land area and population than the US, in what way is it "a small place compared to the US"?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• reidjs 4y ago
  If this is the Vitalik I am assuming he is, he is a bit of a celebrity, so he probably has to fly to conferences, talks, etc often.
  • cgeier 4y ago
    "has" in "chooses to"?
• dannymi 4y ago
  I don't know about the US, but in the EU, aviation only contributes 3% (that is not a typo. Three percent) of the total greenhouse gas emissions (measured just before corona--so there was a shitload of aviation going on). The major greenhouse gas emitters are electricity production (30% - mostly gas generators!), road transport (20%), industry (20%). Source: European Environment Agency So I wouldn't worry much about the climate impact of flying.
  • Bad_CRC 4y ago
    so that 3% of aviation is part of the 20% of transport or that transport is for cars?
    • dannymi 4y ago
      "Transport" is for road transport. Sorry. I edited it now to make it more clear. https://www.easa.europa.eu/eaer/system/files/usr_uploaded/219473_EASA_EAER_2019_WEB_LOW-RES.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/eaer/system/files/usr_uploaded/21... section 7.3 for the citation on aviation (gah, is the europa.eu website slow).
  • whimsicalism 4y ago
    HN, where marginal thinking comes to die.
    • smallpipe 4y ago
      Or even thinking in his case...
  • cma 4y ago
    Take the relevant population class of people that can afford to fly frequently, and it is a much larger % of emissions.
    • samatman 4y ago
      The climate doesn't care who benefits from emissions, only how much is emitted. Air travel is much harder to do without fossil fuels than ground transport or electrical generation, and is essential to civilization on the basis of cargo alone. It's simply not an efficient target for change right now.
• kemayo 4y ago
  Vitalik's one of the founders of Ethereum, so I'd guess that "minimizing carbon footprint" isn't one of his primary goals. (Yes, yes, proof-of-stake, claimed to finally be launching later this year. That's been "coming soon" for so many years that I'll believe it when it actually happens.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin
  • paulpauper 4y ago
    "coming soon" for the past 4 years
    • kemayo 4y ago
      More like 7, I think? They were laying groundwork in 2015, at least. https://ethereum.org/en/history/#frontier-thawing-summary https://ethereum.org/en/history/#frontier-thawing-summary
  • yownie 4y ago
    I was actually pleasantly suprised to discover this post was written by him afterwards. He's brilliant and still manages to be very approachable and down to earth. rare combo nowadays, especially in crypto.
• corrral 4y ago
  Minimalism as expressed on the web is mostly a well-off consumerist thing, oddly enough. It's largely about selling nice (or at least "premium-mediocre") stuff to people with money. Natural that it's tied up with expensive travel, too—that's the aspiration hook that gets people who really don't need the stuff to bust out the ol' credit card.
  • dubswithus 4y ago
    The products he seems to recommend look like knockoffs and incredibly cheap. But often if something breaks while you are abroad you pay 2-3x the price to replace it. And even then the replacement might be of horrible quality too but you're desperate and suck it up. Except his Anker brick. I love Anker.
  • mc32 4y ago
    This reminds me of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4755470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4755470 which has quite on-point comments roasting D Curtis.
  • bowsamic 4y ago
    Vitalik's post seems to be a counterexample against what you claim here
• the_third_wave 4y ago
  > I’d expect that to come with some comment about carbon footprint. What would you expect him to say? Apologise in some way? Spin a tale of "carbon compensation", the indulgence [1] of this non-theistic religion? I find it refreshing to hear people speak without constantly genuflecting towards The Current Issue. That does not mean I always (or even usually) agree but I prefer for people to be honest instead of hypocrites when it comes to their 'sins'. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence
  • whimsicalism 4y ago
    Is it just me or has the disdain/venom in how people discuss the notion that they have moral responsibility to anyone other than themselves increased in recent years?
    • the_third_wave 4y ago
      Where is the venom? As to disdain there is a core of truth which is easily explained by the large number of people who - though social media or otherwise - portray their affluent jet-setting life styles with a little bit of green-wash that just does not fit well with the current discourse which centres around the reduction of consumption and energy use. If you choose to fly around the world while simultaneously trying to convey your dedication to the "climate cause" you should expect to be chastised for it. If you just fly around the world without adding indulgences you will still be chastised but at least you're more honest about the fact that you simply care more about your own convenience.
    • jabl 4y ago
      Not just you. Selfish ME ME ME is the current zeitgeist. Heavily sponsored by today's robber barons who are taking the obvious action to deflect attention from their corporate empires towards identity politics.
• kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Maybe I need to get myself a more progressive social circle, but the number of people around me who non-performatively care about their carbon footprint when travelling (and back the concern with actions, not words) is very very low.
  • hombre_fatal 4y ago
    I don't think I've ever heard someone mention their carbon footprint ever in real life. Only on an internet message board would someone be surprised that a blog post didn't mention it. Quite a bubble. But I also think it's very performative which is why it doesn't show up in day to day convo. For example, even the HNer wanted to see a feel-good aside about saving the environment or at least some sort of atonement for their sins. It's one of those things where we don't have any central entity to blame, so we look for small payoffs by holding random individuals to the flame.
  • nicbou 4y ago
    I'd be one of those people, I guess. I silently make my own life difficult to reduce my carbon footprint. Less meat, less flying, less plastic. Many people in my social circle do the same. The environment became part of their decision-making process. In practice, it's a bit like dieting or budgeting: we cheat. We have lives to live. We care about the environment, but not enough to become ascetics.
    • igor47 4y ago
      It's not cheating, it's minimizing harm. In fact, becoming an ascetic would probably be counter-productive. I think a large benefit of publicly caring about the environment is the signaling. You show that (a) it matters (b) it's doable (c) it doesn't ruin your life. Then other people start to believe they can also do it. If you do let it ruin your life, that will serve to dissuade rather than persuade.
      • nicbou 4y ago
        That's a good point. I don't feel bad about cheating. I was always aiming for a reduction. If we all managed a 20-30% reduction, it would help. It would also become a lot easier as businesses would have to cater to these concerns. This is how Germany got so vegetarian-friendly.
• dubswithus 4y ago
  > I’m impressed at how many people coalesce to the same suggestions to save space: simple clothes, layers, etc. Buying toiletries locally can mean paying 2-3x the price in your home country. You actually save money by bringing more. For example, in the US the last time I checked I could buy a pack of floss for $0.99. In LATAM it's at least $3. The solution is to bring ~20 packs of floss.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    It's also one more thing to do. If you can trivially bring things with you, you've managed to avoid finding the appropriate store, finding what you're looking for among possibly unfamiliar brands, and potentially very different languages.
    • Rebelgecko 4y ago
      At least for me, walking into a grocery store that feels totally alien is part of the fun of traveling. It's a neat way to see some of the more blatant cultural differences, while also accomplishing a task.
      • ghaff 4y ago
        Yes, but in general I prefer I don't have errands I need to run. Other than picking up wine or whatever :-) I'm certainly fine with going into stores but I prefer to start out with some base-level stuff even if it adds a few pounds.
• nonameiguess 4y ago
  Given the stuff he's collected, he appears to be traveling all over the world. You can't take a train across oceans. I don't know why Europeans seem to want to derail every discussion of anything into "why can't the world be more like Europe," but have you looked at an equal area map of the whole globe lately? (https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/auwin19_equal_1.jpg https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/2019/...). The overwhelming majority of the world is not Europe. Vitalik is Canadian. All of continental Europe seems to fit roughly east of the Hudson Bay when shoved into Canada. Some other person in this comment string is talking about how easy it is to get around all the major cities in Spain by train. That's great. Spain is 2/3 the size of Texas. Getting around North America isn't nearly the same. Presumably, Vitalik flies more than he uses trains because he has a finite lifespan and wants to devote more of his time living as a nomad to being where he is going rather than in the act of getting there. As for carbon footprint, I'm not going to comment on the moral quality of his choices, but the dude founded a cryptocurrency. Once you've done that, I don't think much else you can do short of also founding an oil company is going to make your carbon footprint worse than it already is.
  • rhn_mk1 4y ago
    > All of continental Europe seems to fit roughly east of the Hudson Bay when shoved into Canada Your math does not quite check out. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe > Area 10,180,000 km2 From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada > Total land area 9,093,507 km2
    • cgh 4y ago
      So roughly the same size but Canada's entire population is just over half of the UK's. Europe's train system works because of how crowded it is.
• unixhero 4y ago
  Nobody cares about carbon footprint bro
  • hansword 4y ago
• topranks 4y ago
  This guy is responsible for a relatively significant proportion of the entire planets carbon footprint! His air travel is the least of our worries. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption
  • anony23 4y ago
    Relatively significant as in a fraction of a percent?
• salicideblock 4y ago
  I had the exact same immediate reaction. If you're out of sync with the times, that makes two of us...
• dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  The author mentions traveling to multiple continents in his post. Do you expect him to use a train/ferry everywhere? That would be incredibly slow and unfeasible in some situations. OTOH, you can fly everywhere. Not everyone deeply cares about their carbon footprint when by far the largest amount of CO2 generated is industrial.
  • cranekam 4y ago
    > Not everyone deeply cares about their carbon footprint when by far the largest amount of CO2 generated is industrial. Industry makes stuff that consumers demand, either directly or indirectly. It’s a bit of a meme to suggest that global warming is all down to companies emitting co2 just for lols. Of course, industry is sometime dirty because it’s cheaper, but it’s putting one’s head in the sand to pretend that consumers have no bearing on what companies do. This is not to say that the blame lays solely with consumers. People are acting rationally — they want to go on holiday and can afford it; what’s stopping them? The issue is one of regulation. If emitting actually had a cost (well, a cost now, to the emitter, rather than to the whole planet at some later date) people would make better decisions.
    • dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
      I did not suggest companies emit CO2 for lols -- it is quite obvious they are responding in an optimized way (for them) to consumer demands, since that is what a company is. But the onus to change is on the companies, and since they won't change themselves, it falls on the government. However, taxing the emitter will lead to companies passing on the cost to the consumer, which, while lowering the emissions, would end up locking away a large number of luxuries (air travel, different kinds of food like meat, etc.) from lower-middle class people. It is very easy to say "increase taxes!" when you have enough disposable income to be able to afford these luxuries anyway. I personally do not want to go back a hundred years where meat is rare luxury and the farthest one travels is to the nearest country, once a decade.
• franciscop 4y ago
  In Japan they use plug Type A, and most of SEAsia they have these plugs where you can put either type A, C or F in. Type A to Type C/F is a tiny piece not worth mentioning anyway.
• moistly 4y ago
  Amtrak appears to have excellent destination service, and they offer full-service circle tours, too, taking you to some of the most amazing sights in America. https://www.amtrakvacations.com/trips https://www.amtrakvacations.com/trips I’d love to hear from someone who’s tried an Amtrak tour. I’d love to see the National Parks.
  • dtagames 4y ago
    I haven't ridden Amtrak in years but folks I've talked to who have hated it. Trains here aren't at all comparable to the service that's available in Europe. Stations aren't conveniently located and schedules are spotty and make weird stops. Amtrak is a federal monopoly, created to take the failing passenger railroads off the hands of the freight carriers. It has succeeded in doing little more than that. I say this as a person who loves trains, especially French ones. But, as a pragmatist, I admit that our interstate road system and omnipresent airlines (crossing states which are themselves larger than European countries) make a lot of train travel less desirable in America than it is overseas.
• 1270018080 4y ago
  He said one of his interests was "blockchains" so he probably doesn't care, at all.
• cavisne 4y ago
  To be fair if it was anyone else in his position they would probably be flying private.