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Consumption isn't a perfect knowledge game (although people are more educated now than they used to be). Individuals are never going to be perfectly equipped to
by have_faith 2y ago
Consumption isn't a perfect knowledge game (although people are more educated now than they used to be). Individuals are never going to be perfectly equipped to evaluate the ramifications of every purchase they make. Regulations on production and the impact of delivering certain goods are the only real solutions. Because production itself can induce demand, it has to take at least part of the responsibility.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoWe are well past being equipped to know the ramifications of using energy to move mass long distances. Using more space, traveling further distances, and moving more mass is all it comes down to. In order of impact, it means detached homes, individual huge car and air transport, animal food products, and shipping things across oceans (aka things stamped with made in China). Approximately no one is willing to give up these luxuries on a nation scale.
- dgacmu 2y agoYou're placing the blame on the wrong thing - The embodied energy of producing most of the things we consume is much higher than the energy of shipping. Shipping on a massive container ship is really impressively efficient. (Shipping by air is a very different matter, of course) You can see the same thing if you look at the energy cost of food shipping: perishable goods like asparagus are shipped in refrigerated planes, and the added energy of shipping is huge, whereas bananas are shipped on cargo ships. https://ourworldindata.org/food-transport-by-mode https://ourworldindata.org/food-transport-by-mode For example
- lotsofpulp 2y agoTrue, I should have replaced shipping with the mass of everything else we consume.