4 ms·

> 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,

> 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...
  - mshake2 4y ago
    How about the reduction in emissions for all of the office spaces for every office in the US?
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      Office buildings tend to be much more efficient than homes. People who are not in the office work from home, where they use heating, air conditioning, lights, you name it. They don't just disappear from the face of the Earth.
      - mshake2 4y ago
        What? Tons of people leave their HVAC on when they're at work, so that it's comfortable when they return. Now they're at home using it instead.
        credit_guy 4y ago
        So the climate argument for working from home is "let me work from home, otherwise I'll live my home HVAC on when I'm at work, and that's bad for climate"? Look, some people want to work from home, and it's good for a lot of reasons, but climate has nothing to do with that.
        acdha 4y ago
        It does: transportation is about twice as large a source of emissions as all non-industrial commercial and residential activity. There's just no way not to be wasting a lot of energy when you're moving multiple tons of metal to move one person. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Since car commuting also correlates with other negatives, that seems like a good thing to try to reduce since there are very few downsides — someone giving up their commute is _happy_ about it, unlike a business being asked to stop using an industrial furnace or a farm being told they shouldn't truck in feed. Every bit we save in one area gives us more time to work on the others.

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...
- mshake2 4y ago
  How about the reduction in emissions for all of the office spaces for every office in the US?
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    Office buildings tend to be much more efficient than homes. People who are not in the office work from home, where they use heating, air conditioning, lights, you name it. They don't just disappear from the face of the Earth.
    - mshake2 4y ago
      What? Tons of people leave their HVAC on when they're at work, so that it's comfortable when they return. Now they're at home using it instead.
      - credit_guy 4y ago
        So the climate argument for working from home is "let me work from home, otherwise I'll live my home HVAC on when I'm at work, and that's bad for climate"? Look, some people want to work from home, and it's good for a lot of reasons, but climate has nothing to do with that.
        acdha 4y ago
        It does: transportation is about twice as large a source of emissions as all non-industrial commercial and residential activity. There's just no way not to be wasting a lot of energy when you're moving multiple tons of metal to move one person. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Since car commuting also correlates with other negatives, that seems like a good thing to try to reduce since there are very few downsides — someone giving up their commute is _happy_ about it, unlike a business being asked to stop using an industrial furnace or a farm being told they shouldn't truck in feed. Every bit we save in one area gives us more time to work on the others.