5 ms·

> It seems we will do anything to avoid the obvious - we need to reduce energy use and transition to green generation. Most of the world is doing just that. I

> It seems we will do anything to avoid the obvious - we need to reduce energy use and transition to green generation. Most of the world is doing just that. It's much, much easier said than done.

xmprt 3y ago
It's pretty easily done too. It's just that it's not a very fun thing to do. Like eating vegetables. It's pretty easily done but that doesn't mean everyone does it.
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  Are you implying that living a life without fun is easy?
  - xmprt 3y ago
    Maybe I should have rephrased it. There are fun ways to live a life without emitting a bunch of carbon just as there are tasty ways to cook vegetables. It's just that people don't want to and more importantly, governments don't want to.
    - bheadmaster 3y ago
      So, it's easy, but people don't want to do it because... they're evil?
      - NumberWangMan 3y ago
        It’s multipolar trap/ coordination problem. The costs of carbon emissions are diffuse and borne by everyone, while the costs of changing your behavior are mostly borne by you. It’s just a sad fact of life, and to solve it the only feasible way is to change the rules to making decarbonizing cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels.
        gruez 3y ago
        This has nothing to do with what the parent and grandparent comment was talking about, which is that carbon emissions can somehow be made without sacrificing lifestyle quality. Your comment implicitly admit that sacrifices have to be made.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      I used to live in LA, spend tons of money on my car, not be able to do things because they were on the wrong side of the 405, and eat tons of low quality meat. Now I live in the Netherlands, bike or take the train everywhere, and occasionally eat high quality meat. My emissions are much, much, much lower here. I'm tired of being told how great my quality of life would be with cheaper gas and a bigger house.
- harimau777 3y ago
  Most people's lives suck and the only thing that they have going for them is consumerism. So it's reasonable that they are unwilling to give up consumerism. Therefore, the hard part is changing the structure of society so that people's lives don't suck.
  - carapace 3y ago
    The solution there is the same thing: living in harmony with nature. It's carbon-neutral or -negative and very fun and fulfilling.
    - gruez 3y ago
      This is as realistic as peace in the Middle East by getting both sides to sit on a beach and sing kumbya
      - carapace 3y ago
        I mean, we will eventually live in harmony with Nature one way or another. Shall we cooperate consciously in the process of life and evolution, or let everything crash and burn and hope the survivors do better next time?
    - jl6 3y ago
      Very fun, up to the point you get ill and start wishing industrial society still existed to manufacture modern medicines.
      - carapace 3y ago
        Why not both? In some cases micro-gassifier rocket heater/stoves (just because you can make one out of mud doesn't mean it's not high technology!) & coppicing and pollarding will make more sense. In other cases clean atomic power and induction heaters/stoves will be the way to go. Some times willow bark tea, and sometimes morphine.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  That's a very rich world perspective. Fossil fuels have - at the same time as the pollution - caused a huge improvement of living standards. A substantial part of the human population tripling in size comes from that, and huge number of people would die if fossil fuels magically disappeared.
  - te_chris 3y ago
    Living standards increases right the way to extinction. Ultimate tragedy of the commons.
  - drekk 3y ago
    The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. The poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of emissions. It's really disingenuous to act like most of our CO2 emissions are being spent lifting people out of poverty rather than on luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068...
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > "The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. [...] luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion" How many megatons of meat do you think Musk eats a month? Does Bezos put a billion burgers into his belly? The vast majority of meat is consumed by people in that bottom 99%. For that matter, how many fast-fashion trendy patterned stockings do you think these men wear? It's really disingenuous to act like you're against luxuries for the 1% and then use meat and cheap clothing as your examples of great evils to be eliminated. Who would be sacrificing if large scale production of these cheap goods were banned? Not the 1%. What you are proposing is not to tear down the 1%, but to suppress the standard of living for the 99%. Maybe you just chose bad examples by accident though, do you have any proposals that would actually limit emissions from the 1% instead of capping the quality of life for the other 99%?
      - oivey 3y ago
- tacocataco 3y ago
  Vegetables are delicious if you cook them right. Maybe the solutions we have on how to cut on emissions is canned.
codr7 3y ago
There's no profit in saving the planet. Dig deep enough into any initiative that claims to be doing that and you'll find that it has far reaching consequences that negate whatever positive impact it has on the planet, and dealing with them would reduce profits.
- gibolt 3y ago
  Not true. True green technologies are already profit drivers. EVs, solar, wind, heat pumps... are becoming so cheap and efficient that not switching for industrial use (and often personal) costs more.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    For heating use only, heat pumps are more expensive than natural gas in my area (MA, with ~$0.25/kWh electricity and $0.85/therm gas supply plus ~$1.13/therm delivery). I tried to make a heat pump make sense for heating here. I couldn't make it economically pencil out. I hope I'm around and I hope the economics are different in 20 years when it comes time to replace the heat source in my house again.
- NumberWangMan 3y ago
  There absolutely could be (profit I mean), if we taxed fossil fuels enough.
- hex4def6 3y ago
  That's not (automatically) true. If you change the rules of the game, you change the winning strategies. By extension, you're changing which industries may be in competition with each other (or end up being completely obsolete), and which companies may end up having an advantage. If you ban (say) natural gas water heating, the losers will be gas supplier companies, perhaps all the peripheral industry dedicated to creating gas pipes and fittings, the pipe fitters, companies that specialize / have IP around efficient gas heat exchangers, etc. On the other hand, the winners may now be companies that have IP / manufacturing capabilities for heat-pump technology, electricity producers, copper mines (increased load on the grid), etc etc. Each rule change may have a net positive or negative on the greater economy in general both in the near term and far term. In my example, heat pump water heaters are $$$ compared with conventional ones and would increase the demand on electricity (increasing its price). These hit people's pocket books, and reduce discretionary income to spend on other stuff. On the other hand, the significant increases in complexity might result in a higher-skilled workforce requirement (with increased wages), fewer deaths due to carbon monoxide / gas explosions, fewer nitrous oxide related illnesses (decrease in healthcare costs), and maybe a hundred other knock-on effects.
oldbbsnickname 3y ago
Exactly. There is little-or-no desire to eliminate animal agriculture despite the obvious data that it is killing us as much as FF private vehicles. There are many luxuries and senses of entitlements that cannot be curtailed politically short of authoritarian decree.

> It seems we will do anything to avoid the obvious - we need to reduce energy use and transition to green generation. Most of the world is doing just that. It's much, much easier said than done.

xmprt 3y ago

It's pretty easily done too. It's just that it's not a very fun thing to do. Like eating vegetables. It's pretty easily done but that doesn't mean everyone does it.

bheadmaster 3y ago
Are you implying that living a life without fun is easy?
- xmprt 3y ago
  Maybe I should have rephrased it. There are fun ways to live a life without emitting a bunch of carbon just as there are tasty ways to cook vegetables. It's just that people don't want to and more importantly, governments don't want to.
  - bheadmaster 3y ago
    So, it's easy, but people don't want to do it because... they're evil?
    - NumberWangMan 3y ago
      It’s multipolar trap/ coordination problem. The costs of carbon emissions are diffuse and borne by everyone, while the costs of changing your behavior are mostly borne by you. It’s just a sad fact of life, and to solve it the only feasible way is to change the rules to making decarbonizing cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels.
      - gruez 3y ago
        This has nothing to do with what the parent and grandparent comment was talking about, which is that carbon emissions can somehow be made without sacrificing lifestyle quality. Your comment implicitly admit that sacrifices have to be made.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    I used to live in LA, spend tons of money on my car, not be able to do things because they were on the wrong side of the 405, and eat tons of low quality meat. Now I live in the Netherlands, bike or take the train everywhere, and occasionally eat high quality meat. My emissions are much, much, much lower here. I'm tired of being told how great my quality of life would be with cheaper gas and a bigger house.
harimau777 3y ago
Most people's lives suck and the only thing that they have going for them is consumerism. So it's reasonable that they are unwilling to give up consumerism. Therefore, the hard part is changing the structure of society so that people's lives don't suck.
- carapace 3y ago
  The solution there is the same thing: living in harmony with nature. It's carbon-neutral or -negative and very fun and fulfilling.
  - gruez 3y ago
    This is as realistic as peace in the Middle East by getting both sides to sit on a beach and sing kumbya
    - carapace 3y ago
      I mean, we will eventually live in harmony with Nature one way or another. Shall we cooperate consciously in the process of life and evolution, or let everything crash and burn and hope the survivors do better next time?
  - jl6 3y ago
    Very fun, up to the point you get ill and start wishing industrial society still existed to manufacture modern medicines.
    - carapace 3y ago
      Why not both? In some cases micro-gassifier rocket heater/stoves (just because you can make one out of mud doesn't mean it's not high technology!) & coppicing and pollarding will make more sense. In other cases clean atomic power and induction heaters/stoves will be the way to go. Some times willow bark tea, and sometimes morphine.
BurningFrog 3y ago
That's a very rich world perspective. Fossil fuels have - at the same time as the pollution - caused a huge improvement of living standards. A substantial part of the human population tripling in size comes from that, and huge number of people would die if fossil fuels magically disappeared.
- te_chris 3y ago
  Living standards increases right the way to extinction. Ultimate tragedy of the commons.
- drekk 3y ago
  The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. The poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of emissions. It's really disingenuous to act like most of our CO2 emissions are being spent lifting people out of poverty rather than on luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068...
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > "The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. [...] luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion" How many megatons of meat do you think Musk eats a month? Does Bezos put a billion burgers into his belly? The vast majority of meat is consumed by people in that bottom 99%. For that matter, how many fast-fashion trendy patterned stockings do you think these men wear? It's really disingenuous to act like you're against luxuries for the 1% and then use meat and cheap clothing as your examples of great evils to be eliminated. Who would be sacrificing if large scale production of these cheap goods were banned? Not the 1%. What you are proposing is not to tear down the 1%, but to suppress the standard of living for the 99%. Maybe you just chose bad examples by accident though, do you have any proposals that would actually limit emissions from the 1% instead of capping the quality of life for the other 99%?
    - oivey 3y ago
tacocataco 3y ago
Vegetables are delicious if you cook them right. Maybe the solutions we have on how to cut on emissions is canned.

codr7 3y ago

There's no profit in saving the planet. Dig deep enough into any initiative that claims to be doing that and you'll find that it has far reaching consequences that negate whatever positive impact it has on the planet, and dealing with them would reduce profits.

gibolt 3y ago
Not true. True green technologies are already profit drivers. EVs, solar, wind, heat pumps... are becoming so cheap and efficient that not switching for industrial use (and often personal) costs more.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  For heating use only, heat pumps are more expensive than natural gas in my area (MA, with ~$0.25/kWh electricity and $0.85/therm gas supply plus ~$1.13/therm delivery). I tried to make a heat pump make sense for heating here. I couldn't make it economically pencil out. I hope I'm around and I hope the economics are different in 20 years when it comes time to replace the heat source in my house again.
NumberWangMan 3y ago
There absolutely could be (profit I mean), if we taxed fossil fuels enough.
hex4def6 3y ago
That's not (automatically) true. If you change the rules of the game, you change the winning strategies. By extension, you're changing which industries may be in competition with each other (or end up being completely obsolete), and which companies may end up having an advantage. If you ban (say) natural gas water heating, the losers will be gas supplier companies, perhaps all the peripheral industry dedicated to creating gas pipes and fittings, the pipe fitters, companies that specialize / have IP around efficient gas heat exchangers, etc. On the other hand, the winners may now be companies that have IP / manufacturing capabilities for heat-pump technology, electricity producers, copper mines (increased load on the grid), etc etc. Each rule change may have a net positive or negative on the greater economy in general both in the near term and far term. In my example, heat pump water heaters are $$$ compared with conventional ones and would increase the demand on electricity (increasing its price). These hit people's pocket books, and reduce discretionary income to spend on other stuff. On the other hand, the significant increases in complexity might result in a higher-skilled workforce requirement (with increased wages), fewer deaths due to carbon monoxide / gas explosions, fewer nitrous oxide related illnesses (decrease in healthcare costs), and maybe a hundred other knock-on effects.

oldbbsnickname 3y ago

Exactly. There is little-or-no desire to eliminate animal agriculture despite the obvious data that it is killing us as much as FF private vehicles. There are many luxuries and senses of entitlements that cannot be curtailed politically short of authoritarian decree.