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Sure, the fossil fuel industry does pollute, but we are the culprits in this mess: the largest fraction of pollution actually comes from everyone that drives a

Sure, the fossil fuel industry does pollute, but we are the culprits in this mess: the largest fraction of pollution actually comes from everyone that drives a gas car, flies in commercial jets, eats a meat-rich diet, and uses electricity from fossil-fueled generation. Until people--all of us--radically change these behaviors, nothing will change.

xscott 2y ago
You missed a few: We also can't have anything new made out of steel, iron, or cement. And we can't have heating or cooling in our houses or businesses: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  Low carbon cement and steel are absolutely possible, as is low-carbon heating and cooling. But it requires major (governmental) technological investment and a commitment to deploying the technologies.
  - xscott 2y ago
    Lots of things are possible, but the person I replied to seems to think that driving, flying, meat, and electricity are the problem. If you could magically convince every person in every country to eliminate those, you'd get: Road Transport: 11.9% Aviation: 1.9% Livestock: 5.8% Building Electrical: 17.5% These numbers are taken from the chart I linked above, and that's aggressively rounding up in favor of their argument. I'm including things like trucks delivering food, all flights for any purpose, chicken and pork in addition to beef, and commercial buildings in addition to residential. Add it all up and it only comes to 37.1% of the total. In other words, the most charitable interpretation of their statements and it hits 1/3 of the problem. And again, that's assuming you got every person in every country to conform. It's absurd to believe this will happen, and I don't hear anyone knowledgeable saying that eliminating 1/3 of the problem is sufficient.
matthewdgreen 2y ago
Emissions in Europe and China are declining due to massive government-subsidized rollouts of renewables and massive investments (and subsidies) for EVs and charging. They are not declining because people “made and individual choice to generate lower-carbon electricity or drive EVs” which would have been pointless without the technological investments that made mass-scale EVs and renewable energy possible. This has always been a coordination problem and “people need to make individual choices that are better” has always been the worst possible solution to it.

xscott 2y ago

You missed a few: We also can't have anything new made out of steel, iron, or cement. And we can't have heating or cooling in our houses or businesses: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector

matthewdgreen 2y ago
Low carbon cement and steel are absolutely possible, as is low-carbon heating and cooling. But it requires major (governmental) technological investment and a commitment to deploying the technologies.
- xscott 2y ago
  Lots of things are possible, but the person I replied to seems to think that driving, flying, meat, and electricity are the problem. If you could magically convince every person in every country to eliminate those, you'd get: Road Transport: 11.9% Aviation: 1.9% Livestock: 5.8% Building Electrical: 17.5% These numbers are taken from the chart I linked above, and that's aggressively rounding up in favor of their argument. I'm including things like trucks delivering food, all flights for any purpose, chicken and pork in addition to beef, and commercial buildings in addition to residential. Add it all up and it only comes to 37.1% of the total. In other words, the most charitable interpretation of their statements and it hits 1/3 of the problem. And again, that's assuming you got every person in every country to conform. It's absurd to believe this will happen, and I don't hear anyone knowledgeable saying that eliminating 1/3 of the problem is sufficient.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

Emissions in Europe and China are declining due to massive government-subsidized rollouts of renewables and massive investments (and subsidies) for EVs and charging. They are not declining because people “made and individual choice to generate lower-carbon electricity or drive EVs” which would have been pointless without the technological investments that made mass-scale EVs and renewable energy possible. This has always been a coordination problem and “people need to make individual choices that are better” has always been the worst possible solution to it.