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I don't think anyone is arguing whether or not they are more efficient. Yet, in practice: >Heat pumps Most governments seem awfully eager on pushing the costs

I don't think anyone is arguing whether or not they are more efficient. Yet, in practice: >Heat pumps Most governments seem awfully eager on pushing the costs onto individuals. With big inflations and a breakeven point anywhere between 5 and 20 years case-by-case, that's a hard sell for individuals and causes no end of political pressure. In practice, a lot of people are not eager to move to heat pumps in older houses, while (re)building is still severely hampered. >Similar numbers for electric cars and many other usages. Same as above. Electric car subsidies are incredibly limited, used electric cars still have to flow to the market at a rate they become affordable for the less fortunate. At the same time, there's not a whole lot being done about the short duration of generations which is part of what causes environmental issues (goes for everything, not just cars). Of course, combatting that means products have to become more expensive to keep the current cashflow alive, something most stakeholders aren't willing to bet on. Alternatives are cheaper public transit (which would beat out EV altogether, especially if the used vehicles become electric themselves), but again, governments don't seem too eager to invest into it beyond some token experiments. And you can say this for anything. We already have solutions. We have tons of solutions, some for individuals, some for entire communities, some for the rich, etc. We're just not implementing them or trying to implement them without hurting the status quo (or pushing the pain onto specific groups). Which makes everything just not work in practice and we're waiting for the theory to magically solve our disputes, instead of adapting to the theory. Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion.

_ph_ 4y ago
I am not sure about the point you are trying to make. Yes, politics makes a lot of mistakes and those deserve to be critisized. And the efficiency point I made was about countering the previous posters numbers - which were plain wrong. And of course the end user pays the costs. But if heat pumps are cheaper over the life time than gas, they are cheaper. And they were already pre-war and now are drastically so. By the way there are huge subsidies for heat-pumps in Germany, the state really helped there. Not sure how remote work fits into the discussion about which are our energy sources. Obviously, we should also try to not waste energy - at least until we have a surplus of renewables. Doing more remote work can certainly help with that. Less traffic would be beneficial beyond carbon emissions. Remote work is one thing we should do more, but it isn't applicable in all case and only a part of the solution.
danhor 4y ago
> Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion. You'd think so, but the evidence is less than clear with some pre-corona studies suggesting WFH resulting in more emissions: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5 And some people involved in the transit space think that corona didn't change that: https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834 https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834 The basic gist is, the best way to reduce carbon emissions from transport is to drive less. This is most easily accomplished by being poor/expensive fuel (slightly unpopular) or living somewhere central with short distances and good alternatives (like walking, biking or transit). People switching to remote work tend to move out of dense locations, increasing the distance they need to drive for non-work activities and to the time they do drive for work.

_ph_ 4y ago

I am not sure about the point you are trying to make. Yes, politics makes a lot of mistakes and those deserve to be critisized. And the efficiency point I made was about countering the previous posters numbers - which were plain wrong. And of course the end user pays the costs. But if heat pumps are cheaper over the life time than gas, they are cheaper. And they were already pre-war and now are drastically so. By the way there are huge subsidies for heat-pumps in Germany, the state really helped there. Not sure how remote work fits into the discussion about which are our energy sources. Obviously, we should also try to not waste energy - at least until we have a surplus of renewables. Doing more remote work can certainly help with that. Less traffic would be beneficial beyond carbon emissions. Remote work is one thing we should do more, but it isn't applicable in all case and only a part of the solution.

danhor 4y ago

> Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion. You'd think so, but the evidence is less than clear with some pre-corona studies suggesting WFH resulting in more emissions: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5 And some people involved in the transit space think that corona didn't change that: https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834 https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834 The basic gist is, the best way to reduce carbon emissions from transport is to drive less. This is most easily accomplished by being poor/expensive fuel (slightly unpopular) or living somewhere central with short distances and good alternatives (like walking, biking or transit). People switching to remote work tend to move out of dense locations, increasing the distance they need to drive for non-work activities and to the time they do drive for work.