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Work on local things to make your own city better. Plenty of stuff that's not too difficult, even if it won't fix everything: * Multifamily housing is much mor

by davidw 8mo ago

Work on local things to make your own city better. Plenty of stuff that's not too difficult, even if it won't fix everything: * Multifamily housing is much more energy efficient. Is it legal to build throughout your city, or does zoning prevent it? * Is there good bicycle infrastructure so people don't have to drive for everything? * Does your city still have expensive parking mandates that lock in car dependency? Get rid of those. They also get in the way of places becoming more walkable. * This one hurts, but: eat less beef. * Advocate for good transit as another way for people to get around without driving a personal vehicle. * What can be done in your city/region to electrify heating for homes and businesses? * What can your region do to build more renewable energy capacity? Those are all things where even a few voices can sometimes make a difference.

ericd 8mo ago
Great list! For those in the US, I'd add lobbying your congresspeople to support the revival of the Energy Permitting Reform Act. It's something that didn't make it across the line before the end of the last congress, but basically, making it easier to bring new generation capacity on the electrical grid disproportionately benefits renewables, because they make up the vast majority of wattage waiting in the queue. As we've seen by the explosion of deployment in less regulated grids (Texas, and most of the world), the economics now favor solar+storage and wind, we just have to let people build as much of it as they want to.
hackyhacky 8mo ago
Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. If you want to see real progress on the climate, a few thousand people changing their daily habits is not enough. Governments need to take action and hold industry to account. That looks to be an increasingly unlikely event, but that doesn't justify taking ineffective action instead as a placebo. It reminds me of the '90s when we are all told that recycling was necessary for saving the environment. Decades later, we'll still spending time sorting our garbage, despite evidence that no one wants recyclable waste, it still ends up dumped somewhere, and it costs more money to handle. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE
- maybelsyrup 8mo ago
  > these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. This can't be said enough. It simply cannot be said enough. It cuts right to the heart of how we view the world in the west: as autonomous, separate individuals, with no communal counterweight and certainly no model of power (some entities in the world have vastly more power than others) We assume that because our constitutions grant us equal rights or whatever, we all have equal responsibility and equal power. But polluters, the biggest sources of emissions, have way more power and way, way less responsibility. And yet we continue to tell ourselves to focus on our own individual behaviors to combat global heating. The effects are real, but tiny, and our elites continue getting away with our annihilation.
- jhrmnn 8mo ago
  But individual behavior is not about preventing climate change, it’s about doing what’s right. It’s wrong to pollute the environment, one way or another. A single person not stealing won’t reduce the crime rate in a country yet it is the right thing to do.
  - hackyhacky 8mo ago
    That's not a fair comparison. Everything we do affects the environment. The goal is to limit that effect where it matters. It's not ethical, it's practical.
- dbdr 8mo ago
  Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.
  - davidw 8mo ago
    And almost all of them have plenty of other benefits too: Multifamily housing is generally cheaper in high land cost areas. It helps solve the housing shortage. More bikes and transit and fewer cars means cleaner air and fewer traffic deaths. Less fossil fuel usage in general means less pollution. Cities that use land more efficiently tend to be more walkable, pleasant, and don't gobble up things like farmland or forests outside the city. Come to think of it, less beef is probably better for your health, too.
kawera 8mo ago
I would add: * Plant more trees

by davidw 8mo ago

ericd 8mo ago

Great list! For those in the US, I'd add lobbying your congresspeople to support the revival of the Energy Permitting Reform Act. It's something that didn't make it across the line before the end of the last congress, but basically, making it easier to bring new generation capacity on the electrical grid disproportionately benefits renewables, because they make up the vast majority of wattage waiting in the queue. As we've seen by the explosion of deployment in less regulated grids (Texas, and most of the world), the economics now favor solar+storage and wind, we just have to let people build as much of it as they want to.

hackyhacky 8mo ago

Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. If you want to see real progress on the climate, a few thousand people changing their daily habits is not enough. Governments need to take action and hold industry to account. That looks to be an increasingly unlikely event, but that doesn't justify taking ineffective action instead as a placebo. It reminds me of the '90s when we are all told that recycling was necessary for saving the environment. Decades later, we'll still spending time sorting our garbage, despite evidence that no one wants recyclable waste, it still ends up dumped somewhere, and it costs more money to handle. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE

maybelsyrup 8mo ago
> these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. This can't be said enough. It simply cannot be said enough. It cuts right to the heart of how we view the world in the west: as autonomous, separate individuals, with no communal counterweight and certainly no model of power (some entities in the world have vastly more power than others) We assume that because our constitutions grant us equal rights or whatever, we all have equal responsibility and equal power. But polluters, the biggest sources of emissions, have way more power and way, way less responsibility. And yet we continue to tell ourselves to focus on our own individual behaviors to combat global heating. The effects are real, but tiny, and our elites continue getting away with our annihilation.
jhrmnn 8mo ago
But individual behavior is not about preventing climate change, it’s about doing what’s right. It’s wrong to pollute the environment, one way or another. A single person not stealing won’t reduce the crime rate in a country yet it is the right thing to do.
- hackyhacky 8mo ago
  That's not a fair comparison. Everything we do affects the environment. The goal is to limit that effect where it matters. It's not ethical, it's practical.
dbdr 8mo ago
Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.
- davidw 8mo ago
  And almost all of them have plenty of other benefits too: Multifamily housing is generally cheaper in high land cost areas. It helps solve the housing shortage. More bikes and transit and fewer cars means cleaner air and fewer traffic deaths. Less fossil fuel usage in general means less pollution. Cities that use land more efficiently tend to be more walkable, pleasant, and don't gobble up things like farmland or forests outside the city. Come to think of it, less beef is probably better for your health, too.

kawera 8mo ago

I would add: * Plant more trees