8 ms·

Most jobs are on-site. The software industry, and things similar to it, like finance, certainly are suitable to work-from-home answers. But construction, serv

Most jobs are on-site. The software industry, and things similar to it, like finance, certainly are suitable to work-from-home answers. But construction, service trades (plumbing, electrical, roofing...), transportation, factory work, retail, restaurant work, farming, janitorial, and more, require people to show up for work at specific places. How do you mandate that the work most people do, that can't be done from home, should be done from home. Yes the lock-down reduced carbon emissions. But those bounced right back, except for those few "tech" jobs that stayed remote. Maybe require tech workers to stay home? Maybe the tech-worker shuttles could be electric? I don't think government is particularly good at nuanced rule-making. Let's solve the problem some other way.

bcrosby95 4y ago
Any office job is suitable to work from home.
mshake2 4y ago
The point is that people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death, but we're not being told to continue stay home if our job can be done from home, we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!). It's doublethink.
- epgui 4y ago
  > It’s doublethink. Yes. If humans were any good at thinking, we’d be trying a little harder to stop pooping where we eat. We’d have been decarbonizing everything a whole lot sooner. But we’re not all that good at thinking, so here we are and this is how it’s going.
- BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
  If we could wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that the currently-externalized costs to everything that we do (e.g. the costs of correcting all the downstream impacts of things like driving a mile down the road, manufacturing a plastic bottle, ordering meat, disposing of waste items, etc.) became rolled into the up-front costs of these activities paid by companies and consumers, we'd have correct incentives informing every aspect of society and cities/commutes would look much different (out of necessity).
  - mshake2 4y ago
    That's like saying making drugs illegal produces the correct incentives to stop the drug trade. Companies and consumers will break the law to bypass any artificial market inefficiency, and it will produce a thriving black market. Why would I pay $50 for a pack of hamburgers when I can get it for $10 from a black market butcher?
    - BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
      Having waved my magic wand, the black market butcher can't afford to sell his meat that cheaply without losing money on the sale—and besides, why undercut the going retail rate by so much more than he needs to?
- guelo 4y ago
  > we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!) Who is saying this? There are some businesses types saying to go back to the office. There are some environmentalists saying drive an EV. They are different people. There are hundreds of different view points from people with an opinon of what you should do. The generic "they" that are supposedly controlling your life is just lazy victim thinking
  - mshake2 4y ago
    Yeah ok. Find a CEO who publicly says "return to the office in a gas-guzzling SUV" and I'll buy you an ice cream.
    - slowmovintarget 4y ago
      Which CEO is mandating return to the office in an EV? They're just saying "return to the office."
      - mshake2 4y ago
        It seems you're also taking the "(in a EV!)" pedantically as a literal mandate. Nobody is saying "you must return to the office in an electric vehicle now" and I should be surprised that I have to spell that out. The messages are "return to the office" and "drive a climate-conscious vehicle" and people do the vast majority of their driving to and from work.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death Some people are saying that, but if you rationally think about the actual claims, it's clearly not like that. The goal of net zero by 2050 was clearly set by some rounding. If we achieve net zero by 2060, it does not mean that in 2050 we are at 100% and boom, in 2060 we are at 0%. It means we are somewhere at 10-15% in 2050. It won't change that much the trajectory of the climate change. We will clearly get to net zero. My bet is that in the US we will get there by 2040. It's going to take longer in China and India. But working from home will not make the difference between apocalypse and paradise.
  - mshake2 4y ago
    >But working from home will not make the difference between apocalypse and paradise. Ah, the old "it doesn't matter if we do X, so long as we do Y" where "X" keeps shifting to whatever the arguer wants it to be in that moment. In this case "X" is the 860,000 US office workers driving fossil fuel cars back and forth to work every day for their entire working life, which I was told was a bad thing, but now it actually doesn't really matter.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      > which I was told was a bad thing, but now it actually doesn't really matter. The average car in the US emits 350 g CO2 per mile [1]. The average American commute is 40 miles [2]. That's 14 kg of CO2 per commuter, or 14 million kilograms per 1 million commuters. So, about 14000 tons of CO2 per day, or about 5 million tons per year. 5 MT. Every year the US emits about 5 GT of CO2 equivalent [3]. If a million people stop commuting right now, the US will reduce its emissions by 0.1%. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1223-january-31-2022-average-carbon-dioxide-emissions-2021-model-year https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1223-janu... [2] https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistic... [3] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas...
      - 4y ago
faeriechangling 4y ago
Governments worldwide are generally forcing public servants to commute and pollute, while also taxing their commutes in the form of carbon pricing. We can’t solve the problem by ignoring the government and government regulations. The government not only is failing to protect the planet from the employers destroying it, they are such an employer. The public is MORE environmentalist than the government will tolerate. It is the stultifying nature of the government you allude to that’s causing the issue, the government is actively resisting the environmentalism of its own staff by threatening their jobs. Work from home will let us get more gas vehicles off the road than EVs ever will. Government and legal reform can disempower those forcing others to pollute.

bcrosby95 4y ago

Any office job is suitable to work from home.

mshake2 4y ago

The point is that people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death, but we're not being told to continue stay home if our job can be done from home, we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!). It's doublethink.

epgui 4y ago
> It’s doublethink. Yes. If humans were any good at thinking, we’d be trying a little harder to stop pooping where we eat. We’d have been decarbonizing everything a whole lot sooner. But we’re not all that good at thinking, so here we are and this is how it’s going.
BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
If we could wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that the currently-externalized costs to everything that we do (e.g. the costs of correcting all the downstream impacts of things like driving a mile down the road, manufacturing a plastic bottle, ordering meat, disposing of waste items, etc.) became rolled into the up-front costs of these activities paid by companies and consumers, we'd have correct incentives informing every aspect of society and cities/commutes would look much different (out of necessity).
- mshake2 4y ago
  That's like saying making drugs illegal produces the correct incentives to stop the drug trade. Companies and consumers will break the law to bypass any artificial market inefficiency, and it will produce a thriving black market. Why would I pay $50 for a pack of hamburgers when I can get it for $10 from a black market butcher?
  - BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
    Having waved my magic wand, the black market butcher can't afford to sell his meat that cheaply without losing money on the sale—and besides, why undercut the going retail rate by so much more than he needs to?
guelo 4y ago
> we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!) Who is saying this? There are some businesses types saying to go back to the office. There are some environmentalists saying drive an EV. They are different people. There are hundreds of different view points from people with an opinon of what you should do. The generic "they" that are supposedly controlling your life is just lazy victim thinking
- mshake2 4y ago
  Yeah ok. Find a CEO who publicly says "return to the office in a gas-guzzling SUV" and I'll buy you an ice cream.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Which CEO is mandating return to the office in an EV? They're just saying "return to the office."
    - mshake2 4y ago
      It seems you're also taking the "(in a EV!)" pedantically as a literal mandate. Nobody is saying "you must return to the office in an electric vehicle now" and I should be surprised that I have to spell that out. The messages are "return to the office" and "drive a climate-conscious vehicle" and people do the vast majority of their driving to and from work.
credit_guy 4y ago
> people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death Some people are saying that, but if you rationally think about the actual claims, it's clearly not like that. The goal of net zero by 2050 was clearly set by some rounding. If we achieve net zero by 2060, it does not mean that in 2050 we are at 100% and boom, in 2060 we are at 0%. It means we are somewhere at 10-15% in 2050. It won't change that much the trajectory of the climate change. We will clearly get to net zero. My bet is that in the US we will get there by 2040. It's going to take longer in China and India. But working from home will not make the difference between apocalypse and paradise.
- mshake2 4y ago
  >But working from home will not make the difference between apocalypse and paradise. Ah, the old "it doesn't matter if we do X, so long as we do Y" where "X" keeps shifting to whatever the arguer wants it to be in that moment. In this case "X" is the 860,000 US office workers driving fossil fuel cars back and forth to work every day for their entire working life, which I was told was a bad thing, but now it actually doesn't really matter.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > which I was told was a bad thing, but now it actually doesn't really matter. The average car in the US emits 350 g CO2 per mile [1]. The average American commute is 40 miles [2]. That's 14 kg of CO2 per commuter, or 14 million kilograms per 1 million commuters. So, about 14000 tons of CO2 per day, or about 5 million tons per year. 5 MT. Every year the US emits about 5 GT of CO2 equivalent [3]. If a million people stop commuting right now, the US will reduce its emissions by 0.1%. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1223-january-31-2022-average-carbon-dioxide-emissions-2021-model-year https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1223-janu... [2] https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistic... [3] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas...
    - 4y ago

faeriechangling 4y ago

Governments worldwide are generally forcing public servants to commute and pollute, while also taxing their commutes in the form of carbon pricing. We can’t solve the problem by ignoring the government and government regulations. The government not only is failing to protect the planet from the employers destroying it, they are such an employer. The public is MORE environmentalist than the government will tolerate. It is the stultifying nature of the government you allude to that’s causing the issue, the government is actively resisting the environmentalism of its own staff by threatening their jobs. Work from home will let us get more gas vehicles off the road than EVs ever will. Government and legal reform can disempower those forcing others to pollute.