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It depends on how you want to attribute carbon emissions. If Brits want to hear a Taylor Swift concert, and Swift's private jet crosses the Atlantic twice emit

It depends on how you want to attribute carbon emissions. If Brits want to hear a Taylor Swift concert, and Swift's private jet crosses the Atlantic twice emitting 700 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the process - are those Swift's emissions? Or have 900,000 concertgoers each emitted 7kg of CO2, equivalent to driving 2 miles? What about if, instead of Taylor Swift tickets, we consider electricity? More consumption directly increases the power plant's emissions - but consumers can't control whether coal, gas, nuclear or solar supplies their power. If you take the view that corporations' emissions are attributable to the corporation, not their customers - then corporations are much, much less green than consumers. And we'd need to focus more on emissions by giant corporations, and less on plastic straw bans.

solardev 3y ago
I get what you're saying, but I think it's less about assigning blame in a "us vs them" situation and more of a "how can we clean up the whole system lifecycle" question. The CAFE model seems to work for that. It doesn't really matter whether it's the driver or the car manufacturer, taxpayers front the regulatory research and costs, manufacturers moan and whine then eventually comply to some degree, consumers buy cars with slightly better mileage each year, over time things get better. Then Tesla comes around and makes electrification a reality, etc. Similarly with the solar market, subsidies spurred investment and research and deployment and helped foster growth, until there is so much of it that (say) California's grid can hardly keep up, China saw the market and took it over, etc. These days it's a commodity. Government carrots do work, is all I'm saying. You can create demands and markets through planned public investments. Sometimes, though, we do blame fossil fuels companies, whether they're using tankers or oil rigs or pipelines. Sometimes those controversies can help spur better protections and safety regulations and whatnot, but at the end of the day your point stands: from a climatic standpoint the emissions are there whether we attribute it to a single company or a million individuals. Maybe the accounting is different and helps different political players, but the atmosphere doesn't care how we divvy it up. IMO Taylor Swift flying in a private jet isn't that different than, say, OpenAI making a bunch of CO2 for a product that millions of people end up using, or Larian spending a bazillion CPU and GPU hours to make Baldur's Gate, or some politico flying back and forth to attend climate meetings. At the other extreme, Greta sails low impact and has great marketing, but that only goes so far. We still need everyday solutions that mid size companies and governments can implement on actionable timescales. That typically means low hanging fruits like more solar, more batteries, occasionally nuclear, incremental standards, etc. Is it enough? No, not nearly. But I think it's more than we've gotten from, say, Greenpeace or PETA. People generally respond better and faster to carrots than disciplinary punishments...
- michaelt 3y ago
  > IMO Taylor Swift flying in a private jet isn't that different than, say, OpenAI making a bunch of CO2 for a product that millions of people end up using I actually chose that example partly because there's an immediately actionable lower-carbon substitute: flying first-class on a normal commercial flight.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Sure. If you can convince her, awesome :) But that same logic can apply for many people and our lifestyles... why not take the train across the country instead of flying? Why not arrange carpools to/from work, or take the bus and subway? Why not stop eating meat? Ride your bike more often? Turn up the AC by 5 degrees? It's just a losing battle... imo we're genetically disinclined to do things that may vaguely benefit the species as a whole over a period of 20 years when the alternative benefits ourselves in the here and now. Maybe we celebrate that sort of altruism precisely because it's so rare and difficult for most people to do. That's why I think steering the market towards better alternatives using a not-so-invisible hand works better than trying to coerce (or even convince) people into behavior change.
    - michaelt 3y ago
      > But that same logic can apply for many people and our lifestyles... why not take the train across the country instead of flying? Why not arrange carpools to/from work, or take the bus and subway? Why not stop eating meat? Ride your bike more often? Some people feel the whole "why not stop eating meat and ride a bike" narrative is PR by huge polluters like coal power plants and private jet owners, hoping to shift responsibility away from themselves.
      - solardev 3y ago
        Even if that's true, what does it change? We can't just regulate fossil fuels away without alternative infrastructure and markets in place. If we shut down all the coal tomorrow (or even just the private jets), whichever government forces that through is going to get voted out ASAP if they're lucky, murdered in their sleep if they're not. The laws would never survive more than a few months. I don't disagree that big fossil fuel companies and billionaires are evil. But their evil has the tacit (and often explicit) approval and support of millions, if not billions, of average individuals who value their own comforts and convenience more than our collective well-being. Sure, not everyone's like that, but enough are such that unpopular punitive climate programs don't really have a chance of surviving long enough to matter. That's not a matter of blame accounting, just humans being humans, a much harder problem to solve...
Dylan16807 3y ago
> Or have 900,000 concertgoers each emitted 7kg of CO2, equivalent to driving 2 miles? The real answer for this situation is that it doesn't matter. For the 70 (not 700) tons, flip a coin between assigning Swift an extra $14000 on her already expensive flight, or assigning each concertgoer a pence. Either way it's a trivial amount.

solardev 3y ago

I get what you're saying, but I think it's less about assigning blame in a "us vs them" situation and more of a "how can we clean up the whole system lifecycle" question. The CAFE model seems to work for that. It doesn't really matter whether it's the driver or the car manufacturer, taxpayers front the regulatory research and costs, manufacturers moan and whine then eventually comply to some degree, consumers buy cars with slightly better mileage each year, over time things get better. Then Tesla comes around and makes electrification a reality, etc. Similarly with the solar market, subsidies spurred investment and research and deployment and helped foster growth, until there is so much of it that (say) California's grid can hardly keep up, China saw the market and took it over, etc. These days it's a commodity. Government carrots do work, is all I'm saying. You can create demands and markets through planned public investments. Sometimes, though, we do blame fossil fuels companies, whether they're using tankers or oil rigs or pipelines. Sometimes those controversies can help spur better protections and safety regulations and whatnot, but at the end of the day your point stands: from a climatic standpoint the emissions are there whether we attribute it to a single company or a million individuals. Maybe the accounting is different and helps different political players, but the atmosphere doesn't care how we divvy it up. IMO Taylor Swift flying in a private jet isn't that different than, say, OpenAI making a bunch of CO2 for a product that millions of people end up using, or Larian spending a bazillion CPU and GPU hours to make Baldur's Gate, or some politico flying back and forth to attend climate meetings. At the other extreme, Greta sails low impact and has great marketing, but that only goes so far. We still need everyday solutions that mid size companies and governments can implement on actionable timescales. That typically means low hanging fruits like more solar, more batteries, occasionally nuclear, incremental standards, etc. Is it enough? No, not nearly. But I think it's more than we've gotten from, say, Greenpeace or PETA. People generally respond better and faster to carrots than disciplinary punishments...

michaelt 3y ago
> IMO Taylor Swift flying in a private jet isn't that different than, say, OpenAI making a bunch of CO2 for a product that millions of people end up using I actually chose that example partly because there's an immediately actionable lower-carbon substitute: flying first-class on a normal commercial flight.
- solardev 3y ago
  Sure. If you can convince her, awesome :) But that same logic can apply for many people and our lifestyles... why not take the train across the country instead of flying? Why not arrange carpools to/from work, or take the bus and subway? Why not stop eating meat? Ride your bike more often? Turn up the AC by 5 degrees? It's just a losing battle... imo we're genetically disinclined to do things that may vaguely benefit the species as a whole over a period of 20 years when the alternative benefits ourselves in the here and now. Maybe we celebrate that sort of altruism precisely because it's so rare and difficult for most people to do. That's why I think steering the market towards better alternatives using a not-so-invisible hand works better than trying to coerce (or even convince) people into behavior change.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > But that same logic can apply for many people and our lifestyles... why not take the train across the country instead of flying? Why not arrange carpools to/from work, or take the bus and subway? Why not stop eating meat? Ride your bike more often? Some people feel the whole "why not stop eating meat and ride a bike" narrative is PR by huge polluters like coal power plants and private jet owners, hoping to shift responsibility away from themselves.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Even if that's true, what does it change? We can't just regulate fossil fuels away without alternative infrastructure and markets in place. If we shut down all the coal tomorrow (or even just the private jets), whichever government forces that through is going to get voted out ASAP if they're lucky, murdered in their sleep if they're not. The laws would never survive more than a few months. I don't disagree that big fossil fuel companies and billionaires are evil. But their evil has the tacit (and often explicit) approval and support of millions, if not billions, of average individuals who value their own comforts and convenience more than our collective well-being. Sure, not everyone's like that, but enough are such that unpopular punitive climate programs don't really have a chance of surviving long enough to matter. That's not a matter of blame accounting, just humans being humans, a much harder problem to solve...

Dylan16807 3y ago

> Or have 900,000 concertgoers each emitted 7kg of CO2, equivalent to driving 2 miles? The real answer for this situation is that it doesn't matter. For the 70 (not 700) tons, flip a coin between assigning Swift an extra $14000 on her already expensive flight, or assigning each concertgoer a pence. Either way it's a trivial amount.