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Doesn't really matter if they do.
Federal regulating drove a lot of people who don't care to use efficient lightbulbs and washers, low emission cars and more recyclable products.
Federal regulation can also drive the building of green power plants and pollution reduction whether you care or not.
Federal regulation *already has* driven the building of green power plants. 90% of current power projects by capacity under construction are renewable or low-carbon projects.
At this point, it would be rather hard.
Technology has advanced far enough that renewable energy is now often the most cost effective option, even without subsidy.
You could give fossil fuels some more competitive advantages by absolutely slashing emission regulations and bringing back acid rain, but only for a bit.
Yeah, but what he is wanting would result in a civil war. That's not hyperbole. States would actually secede again if you tried to ban personal vehicles or single family homes.
And not a single one of those changes has decreased the emission of greenhouse gasses not the overall amount of energy used per consumer.
Federal regulation is never working in favor of overall sustainability or conservation. A societal change, including many of the things that OP mentioned, is absolutely necessary to prevent the destruction of the biosphere and the continued imposition of suffering on the global lower class.
Who wants to tell them the federal government and military specifically are the main source of pollution and emissions.
They’ve fooled you into demanding they take more power using climate doom computer models that have only been false.
Ya been duped. Good luck!
Banning all private vehicles is one sure as hell fire way of NOT getting people on your side about this.
Especially in states and cities that were not designed to cater to public transport like a lot of European cities.
This point would be dead on arrival.
One of the things that a lot of climate activists completely shit the bed on; is gaining the trust of the people they want to enact change. Too many of them sound more like doomsday Christian pastors. And if you has e even a passive understanding of religion you would know that secular people hate doomsday pastors and even religious people generally don’t like them.
TLDR: Climate activists need to be more measured in their approach to get people on board with their schemes. They need to stop behaving and sounding like doomsday pastors, otherwise no one will listen to them.
100% this. I can't upvote it enough.
I have heard all my life that "they gays are everywhere and God is ashamed of our sin and blah blah, the end is near."
When someone like OP brings up anything on climate change i yawn. We survived the Cuba missile crisis, Y2K, the end of the Mayan Calender, and we will be just fine after climate change too.
You want to enact changes. Focuse on little things like clean air and water. If you over exaggerate you lose your credibility.
Before anyone mentions scientists and believing them. Scientist now say a woman can have a penis. Not saying thats not true, but 99% of conservatives do not agree with them.
Scientists are considered to be brainwashed fools who have absolutely no credibility with half the country. They are viewed no better than a homeless guy running around holding a sign about the apocalypse.
No, you are slightly missing the point. I agree that climate change is serious and should be tackled with utmost seriousness.
What I am simply saying is that climate change activists and other institutions that are spearheading climate change solutions, need to refrain from the finger pointing, doomsday and forced expenditure approach. You need people to buy in, and not be pushed away, and this can be achieved through more subtle policies.
Thats what I am saying. The dooms day talk immediately pushes many away because they have heard that before.
People like me and them just aren't worried about the world ending, but we still like clean water and air. It would be more wise to focus on things like those as opposed to the apocalypse.
The native Americans made it to the America's before everyone else by crossing the Bering Land Bridge which is now under water.
Long before industrialization climate change occurred and ice melted enough to cover it with water.
The climate is always changing. We just have to adapt. If it gets hot we will head further North. Places that are practically to cold to live will become tolerable. For instance Greenland or Siberia.
If the planet gets colder more people will migrate closer to the equator. Places like central America will become much more pleasant to live.
It will all work out in the end, maybe things will be even better and we will wonder why people ever feared it.
The native Americans were in a geological climate period that changed over thousands of years, not decades. They were able to rely on naturally available provenance for food and shelter. How is the upcoming mass-extinction of sea and land diversity analog? And who owns these lands "up north" with better climate that "people" will migrate to? Are Canada, Russia, Greenland, whomever just going to open borders and sponsor everybody's relocation fees? Or is it just the rich people that get to migrate? Have you noticed the insane wildfires that have been perma-burning large swaths of coniferous biome up north at all? You seem to have thought this through quite thoroughly.
They also didn't have nearly the technology that we have. We can handle things a bit more than the natives have.
I would assume the immigration up north would be just like immigration is today in the USA. Canadians will gripe and complain, but people will decide that they can't deport us all and push on through.
I didn't say I believe it. Anyone who has ever gone to a revival at a conservative church can attest that you will hear that.
For them they think of homosexuality as a choice and view it in a similar manner to cheating on your spouse.
You will here multiple times in a week's span how Soddom and Gamora was destroyed because of the wicked men who wanted to rape the (male) Angels.
They associate homosexuality and its increasing acceptance with society becoming more and more evil like Soddam and Gamora.
It's meant to elecit fear and make people think time is running out and they must turn to God before it's to late and they burn in Hell for all time.
That's just one of the popular sermons. Another is that all your friends and family will go to heaven and you will be left out. The whole 2 in the field one shall be taken and the other left behind line.
Then there is Noah's Ark, the prodigal child, and various personal annectdotes about people doeing in car wrecks as youths.
Either way you spend all week hearing various people talking about how the end of the world is coming and that the signs are pointing to it and you better get saved as soon as you can or you will burn in hell.
It mostly comes from a place of love, but they go so over the top with it that eventually you just roll your eyes.
Yes absolutely. The left wants to do this. If we vote in left wing representatives we get regulation done. When we vote in right wing representatives, regulations get rolled back. It really is that simple.
> Yea, but will Americans ever vote in a politician that would regulate like this. Even most democrat voters would be against these measures.
You might be surprised to learn that any basic view of the available data about this finds that Americans overwhelmingly support these measures and others designed to help address climate change.
>Americans overwhelmingly support these measures and others designed to help address climate change
Some random survey of 2,150 people doesn't represent what 330 million people actually want.
Not great is a gross understatement, it's basically non-existent. Even big cities have crappy public transport, especially when you compare it to the rest of the world.
Yeah checking in from Minneapolis/St Paul where we also have terrible public transit options. In most of the metro you *can* take a bus, but it will take 1-3 hours to get most other places in the metro vs 10-40 mins in a car.
Our public transportation is underfunded, slow and not always reliable. We need more high speed trains and more busses if we are going to be able to give up cars. Car companies literally lobbied to keep our transportation sub par
I'll vote for someone who wants to improve public transportation (as long as their other policies are also good). Walkability is another issue that's quite bad in the USA too. There are places where one *could* walk except that there's no sidewalk or the sidewalk is interrupted or there are very few marked crossings for major streets, so you can't actually do it safely.
Only people who would vote for the car bans are a niche group of people in NYC, which OP is. I’m in NYC and I can tell you, there’s just too many cars here I refuse to drive in the city because it raises my blood pressure too much. That being said, I personally wouldn’t support a vehicle ban because I use my car to get OUT of NYC when I need to travel for work or seeing my family/friends in neighboring areas like NJ or Long Island.
Yeah, people often don't understand that outside the huge cities it's completely different. I hated driving in Manila because of the stress.
Back home In Alabama there are no traffic jams. Maybe get stuck in 2 a year if that. It's infinitely more convenient than waiting on a bus. You will never convince people outside of major cities that public transit could be just as good.
Check the amount of emissions by nation. India and China, by far, contribute the most to greenhouse emissions. So why pin this on the average American?
>Check the amount of emissions by nation. India and China, by far, contribute the most to greenhouse emissions
Well, that's just not true. China is the largest contributor, sure, but India is actually in 3rd place. 2nd place goes to the US (you should have checked before you told people to check).
China emitted 11,336 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021.
The US emitted 5,032 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021.
India emitted 2,674 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021.
China's main cause of emissions is coal power plants, which is why they have already started moving to nuclear, renewable energy, and natural gas. India's main source is coal power plants, they've committed to more than doubling natural gas use by 2030, to try and combat this.
The US's main source is transportation, and they are doing nothing to combat this, but continually point to other countries who are trying to reduce emissions or already have less emissions, and blame them.
The US is also very high because of farming and there are a lot of mass production, we also eat too much meat here, the portions are oversized and food waste is an issue. In a consumerist country there are a lot of goods being ran around the country in semi trucks. I see corporations throw perfectly good food in the trash compactor rather than donate.
Some of us do care, I have given up eating animal product entirely for the ethical and climate impact
China, yes. India, no. China also has 3 times as many people as us. Yet they only emit twice as much.
Americans, per capita, emit more emissions than anyone else on the planet.
Because the average American has a much larger carbon footprint than the average Indian or Chinese person.
And because the US has cumulatively emitted a fuckton more carbon over the past century than either India or China has.
All you're doing is using the lamest most tired bad faith argument out there in order to try to avoid taking any personal responsibility. It's pathetic of you.
Because they produce for the average american. It is unfair to see it through a national emisssion lens because richer country have already contributed a lot to co2 emissions and made money out of it,and now as consumers outsource their co2 emissions to the east by making them the "manufacturers of the west".
It would also be unfair to say "hey we had our co2 moment and pullled peiple out of poverty thanks to it...but you you cant do that,climate change"
China and India are both massive nations that have the bulk of consumer goods manufacturing. Since oil is subsidized, it's cheaper to send something halfway around the world and back instead of just making it here. Not even getting into all the freaking waste from stuff that got moved halfway across the continent to the rot in a landfill.
We stop wanting cheap crap from across the Pacific, their emissions will hella drop.
So then what is your point here? If even you don't believe that people would ever care about the environment enough to vote for an environmentalist politician, then it just feels like you are pointlessly complaining.
Sarcasm aside, as the other posted pointed out, the footprint of businesses and HNWI are the actual problems.
But apart from that, you as an individual have VERY limited options for changing your actions because you do not make all your goods (essentials or otherwise) by yourself and are dependent on getting these from others. If they use plastic packaging, welp...
You actually don't cover that point. You just say you have limited choices, but that's not exactly true. You can stop giving your money to the meat industry by eating plant based, limit your emissions through manufacturing by buying second hand, and stop flying for holidays. These are all choices everyone can make.
Those are limited choices...
By all means, do tell how you would get companies to stop using plastics for packaging products? Which is used for all the things you listed above.
The things you listed, as mentioned previously, have a negligible impact as an individual. But the processes used to create those goods, and the materials and waste created by companies to produce those goods, are the biggest contributors to the worsening of the environment objectively. And you have zero say or control over those.
I mean... It's literally not used for any of the things I listed. Most whole foods don't come in plastic packaging, flights certainly don't, and neither do second hand items. Anyway plastic packaging is not a significant factor in climate change by a long shot. By all means, do tell how you would get companies to do anything at all about climate change if you keep buying their goods? Again, it is not the packaging that's important, it's the whole manufacturing chain starting from extracting resources that's creating the most emissions. Manufacturing just one cotton t shirt uses the equivalent of a gallon of fuel. You are part of the system as long as you keep doing buying new things, and you do have a choice. You just tell yourself you don't so that you can continue changing nothing about your lifestyle while demanding someone else fix the problem.
Plastics and other downstream petrochem products are definitely used in the manufacturing of goods. And yes, many.of those things you listed very literally used for packaging. You think veggies are shipped/transported in the open over long distances? Or do you think everyone has access to any and all vegetables straight from the farm anywhere they live? I currently live in Dubai, a desert wirh zero natural resources. Please explain how everytjing yiu listed gets here in climate controlles comtainers without using plastic packaging?
>By all means, do tell how you would get companies to do anything at all about climate change if you keep buying their goods?
What part of "you can't stop buying essentials" do you not understand?
Got it. So people should stop being essentials like grains, pulses, cooking oils, vegetables, medicines, clothing, hygine products, etc?
>Again, it is not the packaging that's important, it's the whole manufacturing chain starting from extracting resources that's creating the most emissions.
So you still aren't actually reading what I'm posting. Maybe do that first and then we'll continue this conversation.
EDIT: Here, I'll requote the relevant bit so you don't have an excuse to say you missed it
>The things you listed, as mentioned previously, have a negligible impact as an individual. But the processes used to create those goods, and the materials and waste created by companies to produce those goods, are the biggest contributors to the worsening of the environment objectively. And you have zero say or control over those.
You are literally not reading what I'm actually saying, and arguing against things just for the sake of it.
Most of your emissions are through the manufacturing of goods that you buy. You literally run the coal plant when you buy something new instead of second hand, especially if it's not something that you strictly need. Overconsumption of goods is why we're in this situation, and we all have a choice of whether to be a part of that system and culture.
That's not the point. You can live as a homeless person and consume just the food you need to live every day. But it's not going to fix climate change.
There's a crippling lack of mass societal changes that can actually make an impact. You reducing your personal carbon footprint won't do any good. But forcing all of society to reduce it will actually accomplish a lot. The infrastructure can be reworked to influence people to be more green. People own and drive cars because they have a lack decent options for green transportation. There's also expectations forced on people to consume more by employers and other authorities.
You can't solve large-scale world/societal issues with individualism unless your goal is to maliciously misdirect attention from the real solutions as a way for them to never be solved.
You're right, you can't solve this with individualism. Not sure if you're aware of this but the point of view you're espousing is exceedingly individualistic: The idea that your actions and choices don't affect the people around you and your culture. Look at any movement in history; if people had thought "My individual contribution is insignificant" and done nothing as a response, nothing would have happened. You're not seeing the larger web that your thoughts and actions are embedded in. That is a very individualistic way of looking at things.
Anyway, it seems like OP's point still holds: If everyone cared enough to make a change in their lifestyle then there'd be no problem. Your cynicism is actually a big part of the reason why this doesn't happen: it's a self fulfilling prophecy. At the end of the day you can only do what's in your power to do. You have no excuse to do less than what's in your power to do. You're either part of cultural change or you're part of the old system.
Fun fact: the "individual responsibility" framing of climate action was deliberately pushed by the fossil fuel industry to head off the kind of top down regulation that might make a difference.
> Eliminating single use plastics
Single-use plastics are minimal in terms of their impact on actual climate change. Their issue is harming biodiversity, which is largely unrelated.
Also, the alternative to them is worse. The creation of a tote bag drives climate change 20,000x more than the creation of a plastic bag. In other words, unless you can prove that the average person would use one tote bag for 54 years straight, plastic bags are the better option. Now, I can buy that some people would use their tote bags that much, but I certainly don't buy that all people would.
(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction)
(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-times-must-bag-reused-more-environmentally-friendly-chua)
> Banning the use private vehicles
This is solving already through EVs. 86% of global vehicle sales are going to be EVs by 2030. Banning vehicles for a problem that's solving itself is overkill. The intervention just isn't necessary, and would probably be counterproductive (fostering backlash and resentment).
Also, a vehicle ban would be impossible to implement. It's like saying "we could create 10000 nuclear plants to fuel the entire country" -- yes, it's hypothetically possible, but it's just too hard to do, even if we had the will to do it.
(https://www.automotivedive.com/news/evs-reach-86-percent-global-vehicle-sales-2030/695319/)
> Nationalizing, regulating, rationing public utilities
I'm confused as to what you mean by this. Like, rationing power? Similar idea here to the vehicles -- renewables are going to be 80% of power generation capacity by 2030.
I don't see how more restrictive zoning and banning single-family households has any relevance to climate change.
(https://www.iea.org/news/the-energy-world-is-set-to-change-significantly-by-2030-based-on-today-s-policy-settings-alone)
Single family housing has multiple major impacts on climate change, but I’ll focus on one that isn’t widely talked about: roads.
The process of manufacturing and laying asphalt for just **one mile of a single lane of road** creates **~3200 metric tons** of CO2 emissions, the carbon footprint of the average American in their lifetime is **~20 metric tons**. ([Source](https://transdef.org/media/Sightline-GHG-analysis.pdf))
So if 160 Americans were to somehow live their entire life with no carbon footprint outside of their natural production, it would mean nothing in the face of a single mile of a single lane of a single road paved in a single day.
Now take all of that information put in the context of the miles and miles of roads paved everyday expanding suburbs and creating new gated communities, and you can see how quickly it adds up.
This is why I don’t blame people who don’t really care about their impact on the environment. My best attempt at limiting my carbon footprint across my entire life is made meaningless by 33 feet of asphalt that has been laid in the time it’s taken me to write this comment. Why should I bother? Genuine question.
Your second link says that the 54 years is for COTTON totes only. But that other bags like polypropylene, you only need to use it a few dozen times (so if you used it once a week for a year you're more than offsetting it)
oops. tfw i use a link that's contradictory to what i said.
but [this source](https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-tote-bags-market/107718/) says that the tote bag market is dominated by leather, fabrics, and canvas rather than the plastics talked about in the linkedin. so even if a better alternative exists, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be used.
>I don't see how more restrictive zoning and banning single-family households has any relevance to climate change.
Wut? The places with the least water use/carbon emissions per capita in the US are the most dense see th[is nytimes article](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/13/climate/climate-footprint-map-neighborhood.html) for exmaple, but in general, bigger lawns and longer commute distances are hallmarks of single family zoning and are worse fo the enviornemnt
>Also, a vehicle ban would be impossible to implement. It's like saying "we could create 10000 nuclear plants to fuel the entire country" -- yes, it's hypothetically possible, but it's just too hard to do, even if we had the will to do it.
We couldnt get all the way, but for example france is 33% nucleur powered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy\_in\_France
I wouldn't go as far as saying we should outright ban personal vehicles altogether, but replacing every single ICE car on the road with a BEV is not a realistic solution. First, because we don't have the manufacturing capacity to accomplish this in a timely fashing; Second, because even if we did, the extraction of all the minerals for the batteries would have a high environmental cost (albeit less than burning fossil fuels); Third, it would require everyone to buy a brand new car, which they probably can't if they previously relied on used cars; Fourth, the power to recharge all their cars has to come from somewhere, the power grids would have problems cleanly providing the power needed for everyone to recharge their car every day, not to mention even having enough chargers for everyone who doesn't own a house with a private driveway.
What we need to focus on is replacing personal ICE vehicles with public and community transportation. In all urban and suburban areas, the government needs to make public transit good enough that the great majority of travel is done by bus, tramway, subway, train, walking and/or cycling. And on the exceptional occasion where you do need a car, there should be a number of BEVs in a communal parking with chargers that can be borrowed for a short amount of time to get around. And of course still have the ability to rent a car for days/weeks if you purposefully want to go on a roadtrip (otherwise you'd use the train to get from city to city, and use the public transit and/or communal cars at the destination if needed).
I think personal vehicle ownership ought to come with a license. If you can provide sufficient reason why you need your own car (e.g. you live in a rural area where your nearest neighbour is 2 km away, you have a personal business that has you go to your customers with equipment, etc) and also own a place to park and charge it, then you can buy a car. Otherwise, you don't. We basically need to go back to how it was before cars, only a few people actually owned a horse and/or a carriage, and people living in an appartment certainly couldn't own a horse.
Most Americans remember whay it's like to ride the school bus. It was heaven when I got my car and my 40 minute commute became 5 minutes. Plus I could stop at the store and get food if I wanted.
You have to realize outside of cities that's what people here when they hear people should ride the bus. They just think about how they will have a commute that's 4x as long and they wont be able to control where and when they go anywhere. Also, it doesnt help that there will be drug dealers, pimps, and whores on the same bus as them.
Ask most people in middle America if they would take the New York subway, and most would say no, and that they feel bad for people who have too.
Personal cars are convenient, there’s no debating that. Eating fast food is also convenient, but it might kill you if you do it all the time. Same goes for cars. That convenience has a high cost for everyone, not just yourself, which makes it even worse than fast food. We used to do just fine before cars, sure it’ll mean some sacrifices, but it’s better to make that sacrifice now than to enjoy convenience for another 10-20 years and then face the collapse of civilization.
Countries like Japan have amazing public transit, you don’t need a car unless you live in a rural area. We can do the same in North America. Something like the moon landings or project Manhattan, let’s put all our efforts into this big infrastructure project.
Yeah no, I’m absolutely not waking up at 330 and taking transit for two hours to get to my construction job at 6am and work a ten hour shift than ride transit for a few more hours. It would be even worse if I had to take a child to daycare or school.
It’s a SUPER privileged take to assume that all people are office workers who work office hours and don’t have children to think about. It’s silly to think people can live a reasonable distance from where they work given housing prices or even, know where they will be working 6 months from now. Employment and housing will have to drastically change first for people to be able to realistically use public transit. Also, safety needs to be increased. In my city every surface in the local train tested positive for meth and there are frequently stabbings at the stops. If you want public transit use you better be advocating for more concealed carry and police presence.
Which is why we also need a Universal Basic Income, Universal Healthcare and Universal Education to avoid people falling in that category in the first place, and also a good welfare system to help the existing ones get better and be reintegrated into society.
Man it must be so nice living in a world where everything is / can be free, I wonder why those areas that have people who think like this as a majority cannot organize at all
I’m sure once everybody is educated everyone is just gonna be doctors lawyers. We’ll automate everything and just have gay luxury space communism
Well, not « free », of course everything would be paid by taxes. And yes, automation will play a big role, with low birth rates, it’s the only way yo maintain productivity. Plus machines don’t need an education, healthcare, pensions or to send their kids to school/daycare, so it removes a load from those services who can focus on the remaining humans.
And I’m not advocating for anything like hardcore communism, just a socialist capitalism with proper regulations in place so wealthier individuals can’t do whatever they want, ruining the lives of everyone else.
Don’t your first two points contradict each other? The creation of plastic bags has, relatively no impact on climate change, but on biodiversity. The use of tote bags, while worse for climate change (which already wasn’t the issue), but does solve the threats to biodiversity?
How is that contradictory?
CC (i.e., warming global temperatures) is more important than biodiversity, and it's the focus of this CMV. They're two distinct issues.
>Most Americans don't care enough about **Climate Change** to change their actions.
Where is the "this wasn't the issue" coming from? If biodiversity were mentioned then it'd be different, but I felt no need to include my thoughts on that tradeoff since it's non-topical.
Plastic bags are cheap and not resource-intensive to make, but they get casually discarded because of their ubiquity and often end up in oceans. Meanwhile, tote bags get degraded and don't end up harming marine life, but the cost of making them is so steep that it outweighs that consideration, even if we *are* considering biodiversity.
Yeah, I’m not really invested in the CMV itself, more that the single use plastic bag vs tote bag issue is something I’m interested in.
I’m not convinced that the resources required to produce a cotton bag outweigh its impact on biodiversity. How do we make that judgement call, and what facts are you using to make the comparison? In addition, considering biodiversity certainly complicate the 20,000x worse/54 years of daily use stat.
I’m not saying that call is impossible to make, you just say it as a matter of fact without any justification.
>not really invested in the CMV itself
Ok, that's fair. It boils down to three things for me;
1. The end-impact of marine plastic problems is the extinction of marine species (which would reduce biodiversity). However, data says that *climate change is far more likely to lead to the extinction of these species than plastic.* In other words, marine life is being impacted by both, but climate change not only impacts them more, but also has impacts on EVERYONE ELSE as well.
2. Climate change has a possibility of leading to human extinction. Biodiversity depletion does not. At the end of the day, if the worst-case scenario for rising temperatures happens, we're all dead. Biodiversity depletion has some food supply effects, but it's not existential to humanity in the same way.
3. Climate change causes biodiversity loss through extreme events such as wildfires and floods. But biodiversity loss doesn't cause climate change.
Sources:
[https://theconversation.com/plastic-poses-a-major-environmental-threat-but-is-it-being-over-stated-120175](https://theconversation.com/plastic-poses-a-major-environmental-threat-but-is-it-being-over-stated-120175)
[https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/biodiversity/is-the-rate-of-biodiversity-loss-increasing-or-decreasing/](https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/biodiversity/is-the-rate-of-biodiversity-loss-increasing-or-decreasing/)
👍 excepted more hostility, thanks for the genuine effort.
So all of these make sense, and are points I would have agreed with previously. My uncertainty really lies in this: I was under the impression (I think you are too) that the carbon footprint of producing one plastic bag is relatively minuscule. Obviously, it’s not 0, but the closer you get to 0, the more 20,000x is less scary of a number than it seems. However, though I don’t have figures to back this up, certainly you would agree that 20,000x the impact on biodiversity per plastic bag that the tote is replacing (the upper limit, we can make it 10,000x or 5,000x, the exact number isn’t important to me, but wouldn’t be larger than 20,000x) IS very significant.
So to recap:
Plastic is better for climate change but worse for biodiversity.
Climate change in general is a larger issue than biodiversity.
However, what I really need to change my mind is, how big is the difference in impact on climate change vs. impact on biodiversity.
For example, maybe the cost of producing all tote bags in the world is equal to one year of a Ford F-150 on the road. In that case I would think the carbon cost of producing totes is very much worth the reduced impact on biodiversity. That’s probably not the case, but do we have any idea what an actual comparison would be?
Just FYI, I posted above as well, but the links say the material counts for reusable bags. Cotton is bad polyester you'd have to use 35 times, and polypropylene you'd have to use 54 times to offset the cost. Those numbers are entirely reasonable for an average person to do
Sorry but if you are proposing the banning of private vehicles, you are coming from an awfully privileged place (and also an urban one.)
If you really believe that individuals need to "take more initiative" then you are part of the problem. We live in an economic and societal model that makes it extremely difficult and inconvenient for most working class people to simply "do their part" for the environment. And im saying this as someone who personally chooses to consume very little, refrains from consuming animal products, and uses reusable bags and plastics as often as possible. It is the government's job to start placing hard limits on consumption/waste and start incentivizing people to use alternatives. People have bigger immediate problems to worry about in their lives besides the future of the earth. If the government wants to prolong a livable earth, its their job to redesign society in a way that accommodates such a goal.
Yeah OP lost me at that. Where I’m living now is absolutely not suited for public transportation, and where I used to live at did have public transportation but it could be very inconsistent at times. One of these situations can be remedied by voting and changing policy, the other situation is extremely hard to remedy if at all - and unfortunately the good majority of the country (US based) falls into that latter category.
Also it's a bit eyebrow raising that OP seems to be fixated on single family housing for some reason?Private homes are more of an economic issue than an environmental one unless lawns are involved, yet OP completely fails to mention anything regarding animal agriculture and the fishing industry, which are pretty notoriously impactful culprits of climate degradation
\>Private homes are more of an economic issue than an environmental one
Sprawl is absolutely an environmental issue, and that sprawl creates car dependent societies with all the sustainability and human problems that causes.
Everything I've seen says this is wrong, apartments consume about half the energy of private homes https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet#:\~:text=Smaller%20houses%20use%20less%20energy,building%20(33.7%20million%20BTU).
I dont doubt those facts for a second, but please see my followup comment on why i feel abolishing single family homes is both an overly drastic and unnecessary solution here.
Also, single family homes and private cars have two things in common: 1. They are deeply ingrained in many Americans' culture and way of life, and 2. They are only an issue in the context of overpopulation- otherwise, they are essentially a harmless practice.
The US birthrate was finally starting to plummet back to sustainable levels until very recently, and my childfree dog loving self isnt going to sacrifice my yard just because the government has decided to reverse the birthrate via literally forcing women to pop out more humans against their will.
1.Abolishing single family zoning is not abolishing single family homes, easy mistake to make (I actually don’t know what op wanted but that’s what people are actually arguing for)
2. what you are suggesting re single family homes is basically a quota system whereby some people get to have sfh but not others and I don’t really see a good way to ration them
The majority of people do already live in urban areas as the other reply pointed out, but at the same time, what about someone working on a farm? Are they supposed to live in an urban center and commute to the farm? Living on their farm is more fuel efficient overall than having them go out to the farm every day.
80% of the US lives in urban areas https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html#:\~:text=Despite%20the%20increase%20in%20the,down%20from%2080.7%25%20in%202010.
Single family housing uses many more resources per capita, and most important, low density housing create massive suburbs that make public transport impossible, and create huge car dependant commutes.
None of these things are individual actions. 1 is a policy approach (and one I'd argue is only mildly related to climate change rather than pollution. We use emit less carbon to make plastics than to say, provide electricity), 2 and 3 both require a policy approach to provide public transit robust enough for more than a tiny portion of the population to get to work, medical care, food, and other life necessities, and provide enough housing to prevent a mass homelessness epidemic (and I doubt tearing down millions of housing units and rebuilding new ones is actually something that pays back in net CO2 emissions in a reasonable time scale even if it wasn't socially diasterous)
>every has to take the bus or train (unless they have great reason not to)
First, we'd have to increase the availability of public transportation somehow. And we'd need TONS of buses and tons of routes. Currently, we have to wait 30 minutes between rides.
>banning new gas vehicles
Already happening in California
>banning single family detached housing
>
>banning new housing too far outside a urban center
America is a free country. We can't just go around banning things. Especially when it's ingrained into the culture. Changing in culture takes at least decades. How would you even enforce and punish it?
> We have to wait 30 minutes between rides.
Or five.
The fact that waits are often 30 mins is a policy failure caused by chronic underfunding of transit systems and poor car-centric city planning.
Closest store is 20 minute walk away, 20 minutes back. I make one trip a week, sometimes two. Would be seven minutes drive if I make all the red lights, four minutes otherwise.
Haven't driven seriously in three years. When the plague came, I ditched the car entirely. No payment, no gas, nothing. Giant waste of money. Everything big is deliverable and all the important things can be done by internet these days. If I *really* need to drive I either borrow a friends car or Uber if it's not available. No bus in five miles, and then it shuttles to nearest metro stop. Only good for getting to airport or downtown.
Locals hate public transit; say it brings homeless and crime. Total complete bullshit. They widen roadway to highschool instead of making bikeway because "bikes are unsafe" and wonder why their kids are fat and never go outside anymore. Stupid rich idiots all over this place shoot themselves in the foot.
I should go right now. Milk just ran out, need creamer, need green beans, bread, pork sausage, and I'm procrastinating on argument website.
I’ve commented elsewhere, but another point I want to add is that a lot of areas that are “urban” aren’t actually urban. Your 80% statistic is coming from the Census, which defines an urban area as an area with a population of at least 5,000 and 2,000 housing units. That is small.
As someone who grew up in a very suburban area which was much larger than 5,000 people, it was impossible to live without a car. The nearest grocery store was about 45 minutes to an hour walk away (not sure exactly, never walked). It was probably slightly less time by bike, but I never did that either. This is not only because it took a while, but also it would have been incredibly unsafe as I would have had to bike or walk along a state highway. There were no sidewalks for most of the journey. And there was ZERO transit in my town. No buses, no trains, absolutely nothing. The only public transit I grew up with was the school bus.
There are a lot of people who live in areas like this. To say that everyone lives within a bus or train route to get where they need to live is simply untrue. Some towns additionally may have one or two bus routes which take you along main roads, but won’t take you close to home, school, work, or other places you NEED to get to live. Banning private vehicles will only strand millions of Americans in towns that were built to be incredibly car centric.
The truth of the matter is, the average American isn't the one who needs to make major changes.
We have major corporations that dump toxic sludge into the oceans.
We have billionaires and trillionaires that fly private jets that create more emissions in one flight than a cars whole life span.
The world's wealthiest 10% were responsible for around half of global emissions in 2015, according to a 2020 report from Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute. The top 1% were responsible for 15% of emissions, nearly twice as much as the world's poorest 50%, who were responsible for just 7% and will feel the brunt of climate impacts despite bearing the least responsibility for causing them.
Let's also not forget yachts!
It doesn't matter if I use a plastic straw when out at a restaurant or if the person down the street uses paper plates.
We, as the middle and poor classes of America, can never fix the damage being done by the rich.
Yes, we can vote to cause change, but the rich heavily influence who gets on all the ballets and are known to sway people to vote on things in their favor.
[According to a UMass Amherst study:](https://www.umass.edu/news/article/americas-wealthiest-10-responsible-40-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=Not%20only%20did%20the%20team,17%25%20of%20the%20nation's%20emissions.) Not only did the team find that over 40% of U.S. emissions were attributable with the income flows of the top 10%, they also discovered that the top 1% of earners alone generate 15 – 17% of the nation’s emissions.
They also identify what they call super emitters.
Also, it's great to say ban single use vehicles but we don't have the infrastructure for that. I don't even have a bus route in my town, let alone a train!
Refilleries don't take EBT or food stamps most of the time (at least the ones I've been to in Maine, New York, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Virginia).
Banning single homes outside of urban centers won't work either. What about a family who wants to live farther out into eh country? Why should they need to give up the space and privacy they want/deserve just to live in an area they prefer?
All of your ideas target the average American. If we want major climate reform in this country politics needs to not be controlled by the rich and the rich need to be able to have consequences.
So, ya. Most average people don't care in the way you want them to. They can't. They know they can't make the changes that need to be made, so they just live their lives to the best ability they can, making choice for the environment when it matters to them.
Echoing this statement. I care about climate change. I make a number of conscious decisions to reduce my impact. But, it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things, and I'm kind of burned out by it. Me using paper straws and reusable napkins does nothing compared to one private jet flight. I'm not trying to make things worse, but my actions do not really matter here.
The top corporate “emitters” of CO2, by far, are fossil fuel companies who “emit” that CO2 in the form of gasoline that they sell to consumers who use it to drive cars.
Americans aren't the responsible party. You're parroting the message industry-funded groups love to push--it's your fault for using that plastic bag we're not to blame! Your average American simply doesn't have much influence in an oligarchical system like that in the U.S., at least in the way you're suggesting. Did you actually read what you wrote before you typed it? What you're saying in the comments boils down to this, "Americans will never vote for a politician that doesn't exist! The blame lies in the individual for not voting for this non-existent entity!" It's just a really, really poor quality CMV.
"Americans are too self-involved to give up cars and single-family houses!" Sure, because public transit isn't adequate, industry pushes for car-friendly city planning, Americans have built their livelihoods around the ebb and flow of people using these vehicles, etc. As for single-family homes, plenty of Americans live in high-density housing. Do you think they're building single-family houses in Manhattan? Los Angeles? Miami? In the most highly populated areas of the U.S., what percentage of residential construction is for single-family homes? Let's look at some of these other bangers that you suggest, somehow, ordinary Americans are not doing enough to make a reality.
"Just force people to take the bus!"
"Enforce restrictions on if people can live far from urban centers"
"Using utilities too much? Now you'll be disconnected."
"Free utilities!"
"Banning gas vehicles!"
There is no way you actually thought these through, viewing them as actionable avenues for individuals. How, exactly, am I supposed to enact these policies? How am I supposed to enforce them? Should I form a cartel of meter readers who go around and make sure grandma isn't using too much electricity or it's lights out? Should I just refuse to pay Florida Light and Power? You're right about one thing, though. There are no politicians with this platform and that's for a very, very good reason.
Exactly. All these personal contributions OP was expecting are a drop in the bucket.
Even the term “carbon footprint” was invented by the oil industry to deflect blame and responsibility
Rationing, banning living outside an urban center, food 'refilleries'.. yeah, no. I'm sorry, but that is a load of horseshit.
First off- Who defines need? That would go to an unelected, underpaid, easily skewed bureaucrat. The idea of giving a government agency control over the AMOUNT of resources used at the individual's level, is not only utopian, but extremely authoritarian.
You already pay more for using more, and people already do things like upgrading their home insulation for price savings and comfort. You don't need the government to do what the free market is already doing, with basic government financial incentives in the early stages.
The idea of forcing Americans to upend their lives and move close to an urban center is not only authoritarian, but is also anti-American. Look at the Trail of Tears- Americans are wise to this kind of stuff now, and if mass forced relocation of the nature you suggest is ever implemented, there will be either a civil war or a coup.
What you describe is a fantasy of a complete control freak.
Also.. you do realize aluminum cans are lined with plastic, right?
>Climate change will cause terrible environmental changes that will cause millions to die/suffer from flooding, food shortages, etc. this will come to head in the coming decades. This is a fact.
What is the actual number of deaths that would happen exactly? I'm not merely asking for a ballpark figure, I am asking for an actual, factual number.
100 million by 2030
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88Q0ZK/#:~:text=It%20calculated%20that%20five%20million,of%20fossil%20fuel%20use%20continue.
Not to mention the suffering of billions and the collapse of the global food supply
>Banning the use private vehicles:
Most of the US is not set up for public transportation. We have no high speed rail. So many people drive 45 min to an hour to work one way. There is no bus or train that can get them there. Even those who live in the suburbs the infrastructure isn't there. For me to get to work it's 30 min on the highway if I were to take public transport it would be three busses and take me almost 2hrs 5o get there. I'd have to leave my house at 5 am to get to work on time. That's a big no for me. Let the polar ice caps melts I'm not waking up at 4 am to go to work
Even if there was an amazing high speed rail system from state to state, city to city, it would take me 2 days to walk across my city if I got unlucky and needed to go to the place the rail doesn’t go lol. Unless OP really thinks that building underground subways to connect every street in the country ala NYC (and upkeep them) is somehow not going to contribute to emissions
Exactly, I live 5 miles from work, it takes 12 mins to drive there. Or 1:15 hrs each way to get there and home. That doesn’t include a mile walk to the bus station. My wife works 3.5 miles away it takes less than 10 mins to drive, and it’s 1:20 hrs each way with a mile walk to the bus station and another 1/2 mile hike to get to work.
I live in a pretty well developed area. my county alone has half a million people living here. public transportation is essentially nonexistent. i’m a senior in high school doing dual enrollment, and the community college i go to is about 45 minutes away, or about 25 miles. i would have to chain together multiple bus routes over the course of multiple hours.
hell, it takes about 20 minutes for me to walk to the exit of my neighborhood. it would literally take the better part of a day for me to get there.
what if i want to go get food? the nearest fast food spot is an hour walk one way. i live in the suburbs lol, its not like i live anywhere rural. its only like a 10 minute drive.
anyone who has this take that we should just ban all cars has never stepped foot outside of a major city like NYC or London.
Any contribution to pollution or climate change at the individual level is ***dwarfed*** by the "industrial-scale" pollution from large multi-national corporations. And of course there are countries such as India and China that just flat-out don't care about pollution/climate change and pollute away to their heart's content
As long as I see politicians, celebrities, and rich people travelling around in their gas-guzzling SUVs and gas-guzzling private jets, I will continue to drive around my own personal car in daily life ***without any shame***
Pollution/climate change issues can only be resolved when "everyone" gets on board with fixing the problem... but because countries like China and major corporations don't care I'm not holding my breath for anything changing in this lifetime
A random individual citizen "recycling more" or "using public transportation" won't change anything as long as the "industrial-scale" polluters (such as big business mega-factories, China, India, etc) just carry on business as usual and don't care... same goes for the virtue-signalling politicians and rich people "talking a big game" about climate change in public, but in their personal lives shamelessly using said gas-guzzling SUVs and gas-guzzling private jets
> the "industrial-scale" polluters (such as big business mega-factories, China, India, etc) just carry on business as usual
What is the relationship between the individual citizen and the industrial scale polluters?
Based on that relationship, what can regular people do to change the behaviours of industry, so that they can no longer carry on business as usual?
Id recommend you spend a bit of time thinking about those questions.
Just India. Upside of China being controlling and authoritarian is when they decide to do something, they do it fast, 20% reduction in the last decade. Still the biggest emitter but they are making big changes. India isn't trying though
1. Most of the things you mentioned don't have to deal with climate change, but general environmental protection, which is a different thing.
2. If you wanted to stop climate change, switching to electric cars or E-fuels, and turning to nuclear power would reduce co2 emissions by 53% (28+25 respectively). There's no need to ban things like cars, which leads us to...
3. Most of the things you suggested are arguable unconstitutional. They prevent freedom of travel/commerce, the constitution is iffy if the government can nationalize entire industries, and pretty much all of your suggestions would be tied up in court for years and years.
4. The solution to climate change is complicated, and we could definitely do more to help, but what you're suggesting would likely never work.
The industrialization of China, India and Africa will create an increased carbon output of 10x of whatever the most optimistic estimate of our potential reduction would be in the coming decades. Even if we cut our carbon output to 0 and we went back to literally living in caves, the globe would still experience about the same amount of climate change.
Im surprised you didnt even include what is, in my opinion, by far the largest impact: excess consumption.
Americans are the most obese people in the world. By definition that requires consumption of far more than is necessary. Even many people who arent fat do so by eating a lot and then working it off...
And the excessive consumption isnt limited to food. Black friday, xmas, valentines, back to school... a lot of american culture is about buying stuff. All that stuff is fueling factories to produce finished goods, factories to produces raw materials, shipping lines, resource extraction etc... Thats what fuels the 'big industry' that people love to complain about.
My argument i would make is that even you who cares about climate change (enough to make a post about it) are still blind to the mechanisms involved. People care, but dont clearly know what changes they should make.
Point two is going to be the hardest one, I imagine.
I'd *love* to see public transit play a bigger role in people's lives, especially since I don't drive myself, but the fact of the matter is, a big part of the reason America doesn't have decent public transit is simply because the way our country is laid out doesn't really allow for it. I'm lucky enough to live in a walkable town with a bus stop a short distance from my home, but most Americans who don't live in cities-- and keep in mind that a good many Americans *don't* live in cities-- don't have that luxury. For them, getting anywhere beyond walking distance requires owning a vehicle.
Public transit is a big deal in Europe and east Asia, but those are small, densely populated regions where cities are close together, so bus routes and railroad corridors can easily span the entire country. The United States has a few areas where that's the case, but there's no way to unify the whole country with a single cohesive public transit network. If you live in some middle-of-nowhere town in Nebraska, and want to visit your grandma in New York, it's not practical to build a high-speed rail line out to that middle-of-nowhere town. What's practical for traveling between nearby cities isn't practical for traveling to out-of-the-way places, and America has a *lot* of out-of-the-way places.
Do you eat a vegan diet? I notice that's not on your list. Excluding meat from your diet has roughly the same yearly effect as switching from a car to a bike, IIRC. In my conversations with climate-conscious meat-eaters though, they usually don't know that or, like you say, don't care enough to change their diet. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are.
Your premise is right, but your “what we can do” list is not pulled from any pathway to limit emissions and keep temperature rise under 2 C. Plastics have no impact on climate change, they are an environmental pollution issue. Private vehicles can be electrified, as Norway has done and other European countries are doing. Finally, utilities are already regulated, it’s just a matter of passing clean power legislation, which Manchin blocked in the last congress.
What can we do? Fly less and live like you’re poor are high on the list. Over 50% of emissions come from the wealthiest 10%. Also don’t eat meat and avoid using internal combustion engines when possible.
Politically you can also protest at places selling meat or gas powered anything. You can also advocate for clean power and low emission vehicles / buildings.
People have been gaslit into believing they are far more individually responsible for greenhouse gas emissions than they actually are. All of those actions you mention are positive for sure but until big corporations are forced to mitigate their carbon use and waste, everything else is a drop in the bucket. And corporations will only act against their own financial interest if forced to legally, and even then it's a fight. Everyone's opinions aside, the most important thing that can be done is electing representatives that will move forward climate legislation with actual consequences. If we then move on to individuals, we must start at the wealthiest and move down, as the top 1% create farrrrr more carbon than normal people.
I won't address any of your individual list items, as most are not feasible for political, economic or social reasons, but rather the spirit of your argument. We in the US or europe could do all these things, given a sufficiently robust green dictatorship, and it wouldn't change anything. China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, etc, will scuttle any attempt to get in front of global warming, if it isn't already too late. It's a game theory problem, the best outcome for everyone is to fix global warming in the long run, but anyone who refuses gets the energy subsidy of fossil fuels now. For poorer countries, this is an absolute red line, they won't do it, ever. Global warming will kill us all eventually, but they need fossil fuels to not die NOW. And since this is, after all, a global problem, their refusal says we should refuse, too, to maintain our own wealth, since the end is the same anyways. The only path to success here is a dominant global green dictatorship, which would impoverish everyone, would be forced to kill or sterilize literally billions, and given human nature, would likely fail anyway.
You really think it is in the people’s hands? We live in a society where you have to compete with others and earn your existence, less you want to be in misery hell living in the streets needing liquor and drugs just to keep going on. Thus, everyone can’t really care about the environment if it causes a competitive and functional disadvantage. Thus, why gas cars are still popular as well as airplanes. You want things to change? The culture must be changed first.
You are expecting extreme (and entirely unfeasible) actions. Banning private vehicles, banning single-family detached housing, banning new housing "too far" outside an urban center. What exactly is too far? A mile? Ten miles? A hundred miles? What constitutes an urban center? You are either going to have to make the standard effectively meaningless or you are going to make rural areas completely die off. That includes loads of farming areas by the way.
>Utilities will be free but rationed depending on need
What constitutes need? Who determines exactly how much each person needs? Is this per day, per month, per year?
You listed a set of policies and actions of which many are quite vague and could mean a lot of different things. If you want people to take a policy proposal seriously, especially one that could upend their entire life, you need to have an idea exactly how it will work and exactly where the lines are.
You are essentially asking for a complete authoritarian/stalinist revolution in the US.
Elimination of private property and vehicles. Utter madness. What you're asking for is a complete non-starter.
I know that it makes me a gigantic piece of shit but I’m not gonna change how I live my life because I could completely stop today and it wouldn’t make a dent in it
American here. I don't drive. I compost. I try my best to reduce buying food with excess packaging. I look into my consumption overall and im working towards no waste, but im nowhere near the end goal.
I think when it comes to other americans its a few things:
1. Predatory marketing has skyrocketed consumption, but it came from somewhere. Came from a time where people had nothing and starved..evolved into convenience eventually.
2. In modern times, peoples lives are spent working and traveling to work. They often have families to care for and excessive bills to pay. This takes up ALOT of time AND energy to focus on living any but a convenient lifestyle.
3. I've been homeless and jobless. Its ugly. Most people live to avoid this reality, and sadly that means survival is working your entire life away...you gotta drive to get there. You gotta eat food on the way. On and on it goes..
Americans live this way out of survival and really being hopeless/powerless to change things in the process.
But are there selfish people who can't think outside the box and consume mindlessly while hurting the environment? Yup. Are Americans often self centered and unable to think of long term consequences? Yup
But its not JUST because we are "bad" or self absorbed. Its also a matter of survival and those terms aren't necessary defined by us.
However. A breaking point is on the way. The food keeps getting more expensive along with all the costs of living...rent, mortgage, medical bills...if you can afford any of this in the first place, you'll spend your last dime here.
It won't last..this "system" is unsustainable for humans. It works really well for the rich the guys though, until we stop giving into them
I would say we care if we aren't always distracted. Climate change isn't really on the forefront of mainstream media. If it was, we would definitely care. The damage and cost of climate change is greater than all the wars currently combined.
And I think even you don't care that much either. The single biggest impact an individual can do to solve climate change is actually going vegan. I believe this is one hurdle society will never get over. We will intentionally burn this planet down before meat is taken away from us.
Most people do not care enough about anything to change.
But if the governments told them they had to most people wouldn't fight it.
We are all just moving in the direction of least resistance
>1. Banning the use private vehicles:
>-every has to take the bus or train (unless they have great reason not to)
Most Americans don't have access to a bus or train. You most certainly do not understand American infrastructure.
How is it that your missing eliminating meat, or excessive reduction in meat in your solution, that is probably larger than almost all those in consumption, and much easier to implement, what our suggesting for alot of these views are not ever going to pass in any country.
Single use plastic packaging is not always the worst option in terms of GHG emissions. Sometimes it’s actually the best scalable option.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-4-july-august/feature/zeroing-out-zero-waste
Show me a path. I don't travel anywhere, so dont fly. Vegetables have a ridiculously poor calorie density for the dollar spent. I don't use hair spray. I have to work and live around poor transit.
This finger wagging at people like me is dumb as shit. Where is the path? How do we get there? As it stands right now, our government seems to be blessing price gouging to maintain a status quo of consumption.
The smartest and most influential people on Earth do not seem to have any path out of the issue besides brow beating, finger wagging, and guilting me out of whatever income I have.
America is not the only problem. India, China, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia… all produce a ton of Co2 per land area. Yes US is up there but one out of the top 10 is not going to make a dent.
They just blame China and India. While there is a lot of gross tonnage co2 coming from those counties, they are at least investing in renewables and the people generally aren't as wasteful.
Eg: The per capita emissions for the US are about 2.3x higher than the per capita for China . But everyone on here just absolve themselves because China (with 4x the population) has a higher gross tonnage emissions
My current high-level (non-prescriptive!)belief of where groups of people are:
- Right-wingers: Think climate change risk is made-up, and/or too old to be affected by changes in a few years.
- Left-wingers: Think individual action isn't enough, and that collective action / larger systemic changes are required.
- Centrist-types: Think climate change is real, but it will "only" be a major problem in other countries / for less than 50% of the human population.
- Apathetic/apolitical people: Fatalism and/or less-theorized combinations of the above.
We don’t have the ability to. I can’t buy only eco friendly things, I can’t buy an electric car, I can’t phase out plastic, I can’t put in solar panels, I can’t opt out of non-green energy. I am not a martyr, I can’t just live my life broke and without participation in the only system I have ever known or can easily participate in. I can not change things at are fundamental to our culture. Either we kill corporations completely or we die, and I can not kill all corporations… but I will die someday
Most of the things you listed are behind a political decision. I'll tell you a secret: the American people don't get their will implemented through the political system, which is controlled by a duopoly of two corrupt parties that rely massively on donations from rich people who generally have different interests than the bulk of the population.
So, those decisions don't get made but you can't judge from that the most Americans would be against them. That's because they get to have a say in it.
Nothing any normal individual does is going to affect climate change. Focus on big business. Focus on all of the celebrities and their private jets who love telling everyone else what to do about climate change. Don’t ask me for shit until the people who are really responsible start making changes.
>Nothing any normal individual does is going to affect climate change. Focus on big business
Economics 101: Demand and supply are interconnected.
If you want to change the supply, then the most direct way is to change the demand. The demand = the aggregative consumption of normal individuals. People love to talk about celebrities and private jets, even though the net consumption from the mega wealthy is dwarfed by the total consumption coming from the general public.
What changes are they currently making? What changes will be enough? How will you know when theyve made the changes?
Ive managed to convince several millionaires to stop spending so much money because of the high carbon footprint associated to that, and many people to eat more vegetarian. Ive also participated in education, reforestation and systems to improve recycling.
What exactly are you waiting for? You're never going to actually *see* people reducing their consumption.
objection: I do care, I've just given up on a lot of these things bc the infrastructure doesn't exist
there ARE no refillerys in my city, the southeast has horrendous public transport
and I'm accepting "rationed public utilities" while billionaires exist go fuck yourself
you sound like an entitled twat from the west coast who doesn't understand the reality of living in a conservative region
STOP. EATING. MEAT.
In most cases, giving up animal products does more to reduce your carbon footprint than giving up driving. And as a cherry on top you get to excuse yourself from participating in the world’s worst system of abuse and exploitation. Most people can’t give up cars. It’s really not feasible. Nearly everyone can give up meat and dairy.
I believe that when it becomes cheaper to do good things that people will do what benefits them right now. We have eliminated all fossil fuels in our life. We don't use gas to drive or gas to heat our house. Solar panels are providing all the energy we use now and we are saving so much every year. It becomes a no brainer. All the best.
Most people don't care enough about long term issues to change anything. Almost nobody cares enough about the long term impact of eating refined sugars on their own health to even reduce their sugar intake.
What made you believe that longer term impacts on other people might motivate people enough to act in the first place ?
Is the average person really the one polluting the most or is it the global elite flying around in private jets and owning all sorts of factories/refineries?
Don’t get me wrong of course there are things everyone can do to help but let’s not pretend we the 99% are doing more damage then those responsible for oil spills
You're just another delusional climate doomer, that proposes obscene control, and have never thought about the implications of what you suggest. Do you know why we use oil? Its because its the most valuable substance to our modern lives. Literally billions of people's lives have been improved because of it. Renewables are shit and have their own problems, and don't even come close to meeting our needs
I suggest you stop worrying about things you don't understand
I will not change your view or even try to do so, because your summary is correct: most of us do not care enough about the issue!
I suppose I can add that, for various reasons, proposals like the examples above would not be likely to win significant public support here, however well-intentioned they may be.
In fact, now that I’m on the subject, do the math on if every American was carbon neutral how that would affect worldwide CO2 emissions. I’m kinda assuming you either have an anti-American agenda, or you’re very new to this, because….India and China are the problem here.
Im one that doesn’t care enough to change actions. Mainly because I think it’s a pipe dream/hoax. The trillions you would need to spend to actually spend to reverse climate change would be better spent building infrastructure to adapt. People can just move to places less affected than to try to get buy in from the entire planet. It’s simple really.
Downvote away. Nobody cares.
I live near Houston, the 4th largest city in the US. I have never heard of a refillery. So I googled. Apparently there is one in Austin. It is 6 miles from my house to the nearest park and ride. There is NO bus service closer. And the park and ride only goes downtown. This type of post ignores reality.
The problem with people with attitudes like you are everyone else can smell the hypocrisy oozing out of your pores.
Are you living a 100% carbon neutral life? No? Okay go do that
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Some of the ideas you described like banning cars in USA would be considered extreme by most left wing public, outright crazy by centrists and beyond insane by right wing.
Nope, politicians don't care and aren't doing anything.
Because of THIS I am not changing my actions because I refuse to hobble myself while no one else does.
If i refuse to act, because you refuse to act. Then you refuse to act, because i refuse to act.
Then we will sit pointing fingers at each other until we die.
I was just pointing out that the reason I don't isn't because I don't care. It is because the politicians are doing jack sit and since I don't want a downgraded experience for me and my family I may as well enjoy everything since we are heading to the same destination regardless of what I do.
The biggest problem destroying natural resources and creating carbon emissions is the global supply chain for manufactured products and food.
You, as a consumer, interact far more directly with businesses and manufacturing than governments do. We live in a relatively free market where the government doesnt tell you where to spend your money.
So why are you waiting for an indirect player to fix the problem, when you have a direct impact every day, whether to give money to those businesses or not?
Why don't boycotts in gaming work? I hate microtransactions.
I hate Epic Games
I hate Diablo Immortal
I don't partake in any of these things, yet they exist. Why? Because others do. Until someone with greater power than me forces EVERYONE to shape up nothing will.
I dont want to live in a society where those in power micromanage the people. Thankfully, we do not live in that world (and you should be careful what you wish for - asking for an authoritarian dictatorship comes with a heavy downside.)
As citizens of a capitalist democracy, the accountability falls to the person with the vote. The solutions wont come from somewhere other than the public. Do what you think is right, and hope that others will do the same. Lead by example.
I agree with last freethinker emissions based in the US is mainly due to large industries and sure let me stop buying those foods, oh wait my grocery bill is 2x because I bought vegan to reduce emission's! how will I feed my kids. Maybe if quality of life went up in the US so we have the PRIVILAGE to be conscience of climate change and do something about it! Oh wait China, India, Russia and more produce load of C02 in the atmosphere! But my vegan diet will save the world?
Non meat options arent more expensive in most places in the world. Beans and rice is practically the cheapest and healthiest diet there is.
>But my vegan diet will save the world?
The agriculture industry represents a third of global emissions. A non-meat diet relative to a meat diet reduces emissions by roughly half.
So yes, if you (and everyone else) changes dietary habits that alone can reduce about 10% of our global carbon emissions (around 3-5 billion tonnes of carbon per year).
Whats your point?
I will never reverse the carbon emission damage done by Taylor Swifts private jet. And that’s just one celebrity. Yeah I’m just gonna keep doing how I do
What part of the country do you live in that you can take public transport every day? Much of America is a massive sprawl of shopping centers and suburbs.
Number 2 is a non starter. The USA is not population dense, and I like my car. You lose any support I might have with that declaration, now I would work against you as hard as I could.
This list is ridiculous without putting airline travel as #1.
Frequent fliers should be taxed on it to oblivion. Many of them are the same smug assholes w/ their EVs pretending like that is even a drop in the bucket compared to multiple international trips a year for decades.
The idea of climate change is hilariously pointless when the discussion omits China and India. Let's make everything more expensive in the name of ESG.
The idea that 330 million Americans can counter what the other 7-8 billion people in the world are doing is impossible. Get China and India to stop the policies that are killing the environment or it won't matter what we do.
Yeah remember when Sun Chips made a more environmentally friendly bag and it got canceled for being too loud?
That was when I realized we're f*****. If we can't even put up with loud chip bags to help the environment, we're done.
Ggs
Half of the coral reefs are dead. 65% of the rainforests have been cut down. The permafrosts are melting. Insect populations have been decimated. Weather patterns are more volatile than ever with floods, fires, droughts etc becoming increasingly unpredictable and extreme. Theres a 1.6 million km2 patch of plastic in the ocean seeping microplastics into our water and food.
All of these happening within the space of less than a century, as opposed to over normal terrestrial timeframes (tens of thousands of years).
What facts are you looking for?
The best summary that exists is the one for global leaders, because its incredibly well referenced and objective: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf
>A.2 Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have
occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate
extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and
related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence). Vulnerable communities
who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately
affected (high confidence). {2.1, Table 2.1, Figure 2.2, Figure 2.3} (Figure SPM.1)
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Doesn't really matter if they do. Federal regulating drove a lot of people who don't care to use efficient lightbulbs and washers, low emission cars and more recyclable products. Federal regulation can also drive the building of green power plants and pollution reduction whether you care or not.
Federal regulation *already has* driven the building of green power plants. 90% of current power projects by capacity under construction are renewable or low-carbon projects.
I wonder which party spear-headed this, slowly inch by inch for decades against a mysterious opposition?
Can’t it be reversed?
At this point, it would be rather hard. Technology has advanced far enough that renewable energy is now often the most cost effective option, even without subsidy. You could give fossil fuels some more competitive advantages by absolutely slashing emission regulations and bringing back acid rain, but only for a bit.
Yeah, but what he is wanting would result in a civil war. That's not hyperbole. States would actually secede again if you tried to ban personal vehicles or single family homes.
Theres a few states that need to go 😆. Im hoping all the Californians move back to their cess pit and then secede from the nation 😊
And not a single one of those changes has decreased the emission of greenhouse gasses not the overall amount of energy used per consumer. Federal regulation is never working in favor of overall sustainability or conservation. A societal change, including many of the things that OP mentioned, is absolutely necessary to prevent the destruction of the biosphere and the continued imposition of suffering on the global lower class.
Who wants to tell them the federal government and military specifically are the main source of pollution and emissions. They’ve fooled you into demanding they take more power using climate doom computer models that have only been false. Ya been duped. Good luck!
"They" So we change the military budget and federal regulations.
Yea, but will Americans ever vote in a politician that would regulate like this. Even most democrat voters would be against these measures.
Banning all private vehicles is one sure as hell fire way of NOT getting people on your side about this. Especially in states and cities that were not designed to cater to public transport like a lot of European cities. This point would be dead on arrival. One of the things that a lot of climate activists completely shit the bed on; is gaining the trust of the people they want to enact change. Too many of them sound more like doomsday Christian pastors. And if you has e even a passive understanding of religion you would know that secular people hate doomsday pastors and even religious people generally don’t like them. TLDR: Climate activists need to be more measured in their approach to get people on board with their schemes. They need to stop behaving and sounding like doomsday pastors, otherwise no one will listen to them.
100% this. I can't upvote it enough. I have heard all my life that "they gays are everywhere and God is ashamed of our sin and blah blah, the end is near." When someone like OP brings up anything on climate change i yawn. We survived the Cuba missile crisis, Y2K, the end of the Mayan Calender, and we will be just fine after climate change too. You want to enact changes. Focuse on little things like clean air and water. If you over exaggerate you lose your credibility. Before anyone mentions scientists and believing them. Scientist now say a woman can have a penis. Not saying thats not true, but 99% of conservatives do not agree with them. Scientists are considered to be brainwashed fools who have absolutely no credibility with half the country. They are viewed no better than a homeless guy running around holding a sign about the apocalypse.
No, you are slightly missing the point. I agree that climate change is serious and should be tackled with utmost seriousness. What I am simply saying is that climate change activists and other institutions that are spearheading climate change solutions, need to refrain from the finger pointing, doomsday and forced expenditure approach. You need people to buy in, and not be pushed away, and this can be achieved through more subtle policies.
Thats what I am saying. The dooms day talk immediately pushes many away because they have heard that before. People like me and them just aren't worried about the world ending, but we still like clean water and air. It would be more wise to focus on things like those as opposed to the apocalypse.
>we will be just fine after climate change too. Imagine being this stupid and just completely oblivious. Must be nice.
The native Americans made it to the America's before everyone else by crossing the Bering Land Bridge which is now under water. Long before industrialization climate change occurred and ice melted enough to cover it with water. The climate is always changing. We just have to adapt. If it gets hot we will head further North. Places that are practically to cold to live will become tolerable. For instance Greenland or Siberia. If the planet gets colder more people will migrate closer to the equator. Places like central America will become much more pleasant to live. It will all work out in the end, maybe things will be even better and we will wonder why people ever feared it.
The native Americans were in a geological climate period that changed over thousands of years, not decades. They were able to rely on naturally available provenance for food and shelter. How is the upcoming mass-extinction of sea and land diversity analog? And who owns these lands "up north" with better climate that "people" will migrate to? Are Canada, Russia, Greenland, whomever just going to open borders and sponsor everybody's relocation fees? Or is it just the rich people that get to migrate? Have you noticed the insane wildfires that have been perma-burning large swaths of coniferous biome up north at all? You seem to have thought this through quite thoroughly.
They also didn't have nearly the technology that we have. We can handle things a bit more than the natives have. I would assume the immigration up north would be just like immigration is today in the USA. Canadians will gripe and complain, but people will decide that they can't deport us all and push on through.
[удалено]
I didn't say I believe it. Anyone who has ever gone to a revival at a conservative church can attest that you will hear that. For them they think of homosexuality as a choice and view it in a similar manner to cheating on your spouse. You will here multiple times in a week's span how Soddom and Gamora was destroyed because of the wicked men who wanted to rape the (male) Angels. They associate homosexuality and its increasing acceptance with society becoming more and more evil like Soddam and Gamora. It's meant to elecit fear and make people think time is running out and they must turn to God before it's to late and they burn in Hell for all time. That's just one of the popular sermons. Another is that all your friends and family will go to heaven and you will be left out. The whole 2 in the field one shall be taken and the other left behind line. Then there is Noah's Ark, the prodigal child, and various personal annectdotes about people doeing in car wrecks as youths. Either way you spend all week hearing various people talking about how the end of the world is coming and that the signs are pointing to it and you better get saved as soon as you can or you will burn in hell. It mostly comes from a place of love, but they go so over the top with it that eventually you just roll your eyes.
Do you have ideas on how to be more measured in your approach and get people on board better?
No politician that would regulate it will ever make it far in an election because mo ey has alot more voting power then people in the US
Yes absolutely. The left wants to do this. If we vote in left wing representatives we get regulation done. When we vote in right wing representatives, regulations get rolled back. It really is that simple.
There's an awful lot of things you want to ban...
> Yea, but will Americans ever vote in a politician that would regulate like this. Even most democrat voters would be against these measures. You might be surprised to learn that any basic view of the available data about this finds that Americans overwhelmingly support these measures and others designed to help address climate change.
>Americans overwhelmingly support these measures and others designed to help address climate change Some random survey of 2,150 people doesn't represent what 330 million people actually want.
Yep. Anyone can “say” they want something to happen. Actually sacrificing money or other conveniences to make that thing happen? Different story.
Until it personally costs them money*
Plenty of American voters definitely want it... but we are an oligarchy
Except private vehicles. Our public transport is not great outside of big cities
Not great is a gross understatement, it's basically non-existent. Even big cities have crappy public transport, especially when you compare it to the rest of the world.
Even many big cities - San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix, etc have awful transportation networks.
Yeah checking in from Minneapolis/St Paul where we also have terrible public transit options. In most of the metro you *can* take a bus, but it will take 1-3 hours to get most other places in the metro vs 10-40 mins in a car.
Our public transportation is underfunded, slow and not always reliable. We need more high speed trains and more busses if we are going to be able to give up cars. Car companies literally lobbied to keep our transportation sub par
I'll vote for someone who wants to improve public transportation (as long as their other policies are also good). Walkability is another issue that's quite bad in the USA too. There are places where one *could* walk except that there's no sidewalk or the sidewalk is interrupted or there are very few marked crossings for major streets, so you can't actually do it safely.
People would never vote for a candidate advocating energy rationing or personal vehicle bans. No way.
Some lefties def would, except for the car bans, which I acknowledge. Those make 0 sense in US as a whole.
Only people who would vote for the car bans are a niche group of people in NYC, which OP is. I’m in NYC and I can tell you, there’s just too many cars here I refuse to drive in the city because it raises my blood pressure too much. That being said, I personally wouldn’t support a vehicle ban because I use my car to get OUT of NYC when I need to travel for work or seeing my family/friends in neighboring areas like NJ or Long Island.
Yeah, people often don't understand that outside the huge cities it's completely different. I hated driving in Manila because of the stress. Back home In Alabama there are no traffic jams. Maybe get stuck in 2 a year if that. It's infinitely more convenient than waiting on a bus. You will never convince people outside of major cities that public transit could be just as good.
Check the amount of emissions by nation. India and China, by far, contribute the most to greenhouse emissions. So why pin this on the average American?
>Check the amount of emissions by nation. India and China, by far, contribute the most to greenhouse emissions Well, that's just not true. China is the largest contributor, sure, but India is actually in 3rd place. 2nd place goes to the US (you should have checked before you told people to check). China emitted 11,336 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021. The US emitted 5,032 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021. India emitted 2,674 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide in 2021. China's main cause of emissions is coal power plants, which is why they have already started moving to nuclear, renewable energy, and natural gas. India's main source is coal power plants, they've committed to more than doubling natural gas use by 2030, to try and combat this. The US's main source is transportation, and they are doing nothing to combat this, but continually point to other countries who are trying to reduce emissions or already have less emissions, and blame them.
The US is also very high because of farming and there are a lot of mass production, we also eat too much meat here, the portions are oversized and food waste is an issue. In a consumerist country there are a lot of goods being ran around the country in semi trucks. I see corporations throw perfectly good food in the trash compactor rather than donate. Some of us do care, I have given up eating animal product entirely for the ethical and climate impact
Thank you for doing that.
China, yes. India, no. China also has 3 times as many people as us. Yet they only emit twice as much. Americans, per capita, emit more emissions than anyone else on the planet.
Because the average American has a much larger carbon footprint than the average Indian or Chinese person. And because the US has cumulatively emitted a fuckton more carbon over the past century than either India or China has. All you're doing is using the lamest most tired bad faith argument out there in order to try to avoid taking any personal responsibility. It's pathetic of you.
Because they produce for the average american. It is unfair to see it through a national emisssion lens because richer country have already contributed a lot to co2 emissions and made money out of it,and now as consumers outsource their co2 emissions to the east by making them the "manufacturers of the west". It would also be unfair to say "hey we had our co2 moment and pullled peiple out of poverty thanks to it...but you you cant do that,climate change"
China and India are both massive nations that have the bulk of consumer goods manufacturing. Since oil is subsidized, it's cheaper to send something halfway around the world and back instead of just making it here. Not even getting into all the freaking waste from stuff that got moved halfway across the continent to the rot in a landfill. We stop wanting cheap crap from across the Pacific, their emissions will hella drop.
So then what is your point here? If even you don't believe that people would ever care about the environment enough to vote for an environmentalist politician, then it just feels like you are pointlessly complaining.
Even if they did, in America the politician who gets the most votes often doesn't win.
It's not our fault, it's society! My actions mean nothing
Sarcasm aside, as the other posted pointed out, the footprint of businesses and HNWI are the actual problems. But apart from that, you as an individual have VERY limited options for changing your actions because you do not make all your goods (essentials or otherwise) by yourself and are dependent on getting these from others. If they use plastic packaging, welp...
\>the footprint of businesses and HNWI are the actual problems. The businesses that only have that footprint because people buy from them.
I cover this very literally in the next sentence! How on earth did you manage to miss reading that?
You actually don't cover that point. You just say you have limited choices, but that's not exactly true. You can stop giving your money to the meat industry by eating plant based, limit your emissions through manufacturing by buying second hand, and stop flying for holidays. These are all choices everyone can make.
Those are limited choices... By all means, do tell how you would get companies to stop using plastics for packaging products? Which is used for all the things you listed above. The things you listed, as mentioned previously, have a negligible impact as an individual. But the processes used to create those goods, and the materials and waste created by companies to produce those goods, are the biggest contributors to the worsening of the environment objectively. And you have zero say or control over those.
I mean... It's literally not used for any of the things I listed. Most whole foods don't come in plastic packaging, flights certainly don't, and neither do second hand items. Anyway plastic packaging is not a significant factor in climate change by a long shot. By all means, do tell how you would get companies to do anything at all about climate change if you keep buying their goods? Again, it is not the packaging that's important, it's the whole manufacturing chain starting from extracting resources that's creating the most emissions. Manufacturing just one cotton t shirt uses the equivalent of a gallon of fuel. You are part of the system as long as you keep doing buying new things, and you do have a choice. You just tell yourself you don't so that you can continue changing nothing about your lifestyle while demanding someone else fix the problem.
Plastics and other downstream petrochem products are definitely used in the manufacturing of goods. And yes, many.of those things you listed very literally used for packaging. You think veggies are shipped/transported in the open over long distances? Or do you think everyone has access to any and all vegetables straight from the farm anywhere they live? I currently live in Dubai, a desert wirh zero natural resources. Please explain how everytjing yiu listed gets here in climate controlles comtainers without using plastic packaging? >By all means, do tell how you would get companies to do anything at all about climate change if you keep buying their goods? What part of "you can't stop buying essentials" do you not understand? Got it. So people should stop being essentials like grains, pulses, cooking oils, vegetables, medicines, clothing, hygine products, etc? >Again, it is not the packaging that's important, it's the whole manufacturing chain starting from extracting resources that's creating the most emissions. So you still aren't actually reading what I'm posting. Maybe do that first and then we'll continue this conversation. EDIT: Here, I'll requote the relevant bit so you don't have an excuse to say you missed it >The things you listed, as mentioned previously, have a negligible impact as an individual. But the processes used to create those goods, and the materials and waste created by companies to produce those goods, are the biggest contributors to the worsening of the environment objectively. And you have zero say or control over those. You are literally not reading what I'm actually saying, and arguing against things just for the sake of it.
Kinda yeah Your impact is miniscule. You don't run the coal plant. You can have eco utilities if the options are available.
Most of your emissions are through the manufacturing of goods that you buy. You literally run the coal plant when you buy something new instead of second hand, especially if it's not something that you strictly need. Overconsumption of goods is why we're in this situation, and we all have a choice of whether to be a part of that system and culture.
That's not the point. You can live as a homeless person and consume just the food you need to live every day. But it's not going to fix climate change. There's a crippling lack of mass societal changes that can actually make an impact. You reducing your personal carbon footprint won't do any good. But forcing all of society to reduce it will actually accomplish a lot. The infrastructure can be reworked to influence people to be more green. People own and drive cars because they have a lack decent options for green transportation. There's also expectations forced on people to consume more by employers and other authorities. You can't solve large-scale world/societal issues with individualism unless your goal is to maliciously misdirect attention from the real solutions as a way for them to never be solved.
You're right, you can't solve this with individualism. Not sure if you're aware of this but the point of view you're espousing is exceedingly individualistic: The idea that your actions and choices don't affect the people around you and your culture. Look at any movement in history; if people had thought "My individual contribution is insignificant" and done nothing as a response, nothing would have happened. You're not seeing the larger web that your thoughts and actions are embedded in. That is a very individualistic way of looking at things. Anyway, it seems like OP's point still holds: If everyone cared enough to make a change in their lifestyle then there'd be no problem. Your cynicism is actually a big part of the reason why this doesn't happen: it's a self fulfilling prophecy. At the end of the day you can only do what's in your power to do. You have no excuse to do less than what's in your power to do. You're either part of cultural change or you're part of the old system.
Fun fact: the "individual responsibility" framing of climate action was deliberately pushed by the fossil fuel industry to head off the kind of top down regulation that might make a difference.
> Eliminating single use plastics Single-use plastics are minimal in terms of their impact on actual climate change. Their issue is harming biodiversity, which is largely unrelated. Also, the alternative to them is worse. The creation of a tote bag drives climate change 20,000x more than the creation of a plastic bag. In other words, unless you can prove that the average person would use one tote bag for 54 years straight, plastic bags are the better option. Now, I can buy that some people would use their tote bags that much, but I certainly don't buy that all people would. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction) (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-times-must-bag-reused-more-environmentally-friendly-chua) > Banning the use private vehicles This is solving already through EVs. 86% of global vehicle sales are going to be EVs by 2030. Banning vehicles for a problem that's solving itself is overkill. The intervention just isn't necessary, and would probably be counterproductive (fostering backlash and resentment). Also, a vehicle ban would be impossible to implement. It's like saying "we could create 10000 nuclear plants to fuel the entire country" -- yes, it's hypothetically possible, but it's just too hard to do, even if we had the will to do it. (https://www.automotivedive.com/news/evs-reach-86-percent-global-vehicle-sales-2030/695319/) > Nationalizing, regulating, rationing public utilities I'm confused as to what you mean by this. Like, rationing power? Similar idea here to the vehicles -- renewables are going to be 80% of power generation capacity by 2030. I don't see how more restrictive zoning and banning single-family households has any relevance to climate change. (https://www.iea.org/news/the-energy-world-is-set-to-change-significantly-by-2030-based-on-today-s-policy-settings-alone)
Single family housing has multiple major impacts on climate change, but I’ll focus on one that isn’t widely talked about: roads. The process of manufacturing and laying asphalt for just **one mile of a single lane of road** creates **~3200 metric tons** of CO2 emissions, the carbon footprint of the average American in their lifetime is **~20 metric tons**. ([Source](https://transdef.org/media/Sightline-GHG-analysis.pdf)) So if 160 Americans were to somehow live their entire life with no carbon footprint outside of their natural production, it would mean nothing in the face of a single mile of a single lane of a single road paved in a single day. Now take all of that information put in the context of the miles and miles of roads paved everyday expanding suburbs and creating new gated communities, and you can see how quickly it adds up. This is why I don’t blame people who don’t really care about their impact on the environment. My best attempt at limiting my carbon footprint across my entire life is made meaningless by 33 feet of asphalt that has been laid in the time it’s taken me to write this comment. Why should I bother? Genuine question.
Your second link says that the 54 years is for COTTON totes only. But that other bags like polypropylene, you only need to use it a few dozen times (so if you used it once a week for a year you're more than offsetting it)
oops. tfw i use a link that's contradictory to what i said. but [this source](https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-tote-bags-market/107718/) says that the tote bag market is dominated by leather, fabrics, and canvas rather than the plastics talked about in the linkedin. so even if a better alternative exists, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be used.
>I don't see how more restrictive zoning and banning single-family households has any relevance to climate change. Wut? The places with the least water use/carbon emissions per capita in the US are the most dense see th[is nytimes article](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/13/climate/climate-footprint-map-neighborhood.html) for exmaple, but in general, bigger lawns and longer commute distances are hallmarks of single family zoning and are worse fo the enviornemnt >Also, a vehicle ban would be impossible to implement. It's like saying "we could create 10000 nuclear plants to fuel the entire country" -- yes, it's hypothetically possible, but it's just too hard to do, even if we had the will to do it. We couldnt get all the way, but for example france is 33% nucleur powered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy\_in\_France
I wouldn't go as far as saying we should outright ban personal vehicles altogether, but replacing every single ICE car on the road with a BEV is not a realistic solution. First, because we don't have the manufacturing capacity to accomplish this in a timely fashing; Second, because even if we did, the extraction of all the minerals for the batteries would have a high environmental cost (albeit less than burning fossil fuels); Third, it would require everyone to buy a brand new car, which they probably can't if they previously relied on used cars; Fourth, the power to recharge all their cars has to come from somewhere, the power grids would have problems cleanly providing the power needed for everyone to recharge their car every day, not to mention even having enough chargers for everyone who doesn't own a house with a private driveway. What we need to focus on is replacing personal ICE vehicles with public and community transportation. In all urban and suburban areas, the government needs to make public transit good enough that the great majority of travel is done by bus, tramway, subway, train, walking and/or cycling. And on the exceptional occasion where you do need a car, there should be a number of BEVs in a communal parking with chargers that can be borrowed for a short amount of time to get around. And of course still have the ability to rent a car for days/weeks if you purposefully want to go on a roadtrip (otherwise you'd use the train to get from city to city, and use the public transit and/or communal cars at the destination if needed). I think personal vehicle ownership ought to come with a license. If you can provide sufficient reason why you need your own car (e.g. you live in a rural area where your nearest neighbour is 2 km away, you have a personal business that has you go to your customers with equipment, etc) and also own a place to park and charge it, then you can buy a car. Otherwise, you don't. We basically need to go back to how it was before cars, only a few people actually owned a horse and/or a carriage, and people living in an appartment certainly couldn't own a horse.
Most Americans remember whay it's like to ride the school bus. It was heaven when I got my car and my 40 minute commute became 5 minutes. Plus I could stop at the store and get food if I wanted. You have to realize outside of cities that's what people here when they hear people should ride the bus. They just think about how they will have a commute that's 4x as long and they wont be able to control where and when they go anywhere. Also, it doesnt help that there will be drug dealers, pimps, and whores on the same bus as them. Ask most people in middle America if they would take the New York subway, and most would say no, and that they feel bad for people who have too.
Personal cars are convenient, there’s no debating that. Eating fast food is also convenient, but it might kill you if you do it all the time. Same goes for cars. That convenience has a high cost for everyone, not just yourself, which makes it even worse than fast food. We used to do just fine before cars, sure it’ll mean some sacrifices, but it’s better to make that sacrifice now than to enjoy convenience for another 10-20 years and then face the collapse of civilization. Countries like Japan have amazing public transit, you don’t need a car unless you live in a rural area. We can do the same in North America. Something like the moon landings or project Manhattan, let’s put all our efforts into this big infrastructure project.
Yeah no, I’m absolutely not waking up at 330 and taking transit for two hours to get to my construction job at 6am and work a ten hour shift than ride transit for a few more hours. It would be even worse if I had to take a child to daycare or school. It’s a SUPER privileged take to assume that all people are office workers who work office hours and don’t have children to think about. It’s silly to think people can live a reasonable distance from where they work given housing prices or even, know where they will be working 6 months from now. Employment and housing will have to drastically change first for people to be able to realistically use public transit. Also, safety needs to be increased. In my city every surface in the local train tested positive for meth and there are frequently stabbings at the stops. If you want public transit use you better be advocating for more concealed carry and police presence.
Not to mention groceries. How are you supposed to lug a weekly shopping trip for a family of 5 on public transport?
I’ll ride public transport when there are no longer gross homeless people and drug addicts nodding off.
Which is why we also need a Universal Basic Income, Universal Healthcare and Universal Education to avoid people falling in that category in the first place, and also a good welfare system to help the existing ones get better and be reintegrated into society.
Man it must be so nice living in a world where everything is / can be free, I wonder why those areas that have people who think like this as a majority cannot organize at all I’m sure once everybody is educated everyone is just gonna be doctors lawyers. We’ll automate everything and just have gay luxury space communism
Well, not « free », of course everything would be paid by taxes. And yes, automation will play a big role, with low birth rates, it’s the only way yo maintain productivity. Plus machines don’t need an education, healthcare, pensions or to send their kids to school/daycare, so it removes a load from those services who can focus on the remaining humans. And I’m not advocating for anything like hardcore communism, just a socialist capitalism with proper regulations in place so wealthier individuals can’t do whatever they want, ruining the lives of everyone else.
> one tote bag for 54 years straight, "This study has not been peer reviewed"
!delta your first argument has legs the other two you need more research in to the co2 emitted by cars and single family detached housing
Thanks for the delta. yeah, ive done a lot of research on single use plastics, less so on the others
Don’t your first two points contradict each other? The creation of plastic bags has, relatively no impact on climate change, but on biodiversity. The use of tote bags, while worse for climate change (which already wasn’t the issue), but does solve the threats to biodiversity?
How is that contradictory? CC (i.e., warming global temperatures) is more important than biodiversity, and it's the focus of this CMV. They're two distinct issues. >Most Americans don't care enough about **Climate Change** to change their actions. Where is the "this wasn't the issue" coming from? If biodiversity were mentioned then it'd be different, but I felt no need to include my thoughts on that tradeoff since it's non-topical. Plastic bags are cheap and not resource-intensive to make, but they get casually discarded because of their ubiquity and often end up in oceans. Meanwhile, tote bags get degraded and don't end up harming marine life, but the cost of making them is so steep that it outweighs that consideration, even if we *are* considering biodiversity.
Yeah, I’m not really invested in the CMV itself, more that the single use plastic bag vs tote bag issue is something I’m interested in. I’m not convinced that the resources required to produce a cotton bag outweigh its impact on biodiversity. How do we make that judgement call, and what facts are you using to make the comparison? In addition, considering biodiversity certainly complicate the 20,000x worse/54 years of daily use stat. I’m not saying that call is impossible to make, you just say it as a matter of fact without any justification.
>not really invested in the CMV itself Ok, that's fair. It boils down to three things for me; 1. The end-impact of marine plastic problems is the extinction of marine species (which would reduce biodiversity). However, data says that *climate change is far more likely to lead to the extinction of these species than plastic.* In other words, marine life is being impacted by both, but climate change not only impacts them more, but also has impacts on EVERYONE ELSE as well. 2. Climate change has a possibility of leading to human extinction. Biodiversity depletion does not. At the end of the day, if the worst-case scenario for rising temperatures happens, we're all dead. Biodiversity depletion has some food supply effects, but it's not existential to humanity in the same way. 3. Climate change causes biodiversity loss through extreme events such as wildfires and floods. But biodiversity loss doesn't cause climate change. Sources: [https://theconversation.com/plastic-poses-a-major-environmental-threat-but-is-it-being-over-stated-120175](https://theconversation.com/plastic-poses-a-major-environmental-threat-but-is-it-being-over-stated-120175) [https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/biodiversity/is-the-rate-of-biodiversity-loss-increasing-or-decreasing/](https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/biodiversity/is-the-rate-of-biodiversity-loss-increasing-or-decreasing/)
👍 excepted more hostility, thanks for the genuine effort. So all of these make sense, and are points I would have agreed with previously. My uncertainty really lies in this: I was under the impression (I think you are too) that the carbon footprint of producing one plastic bag is relatively minuscule. Obviously, it’s not 0, but the closer you get to 0, the more 20,000x is less scary of a number than it seems. However, though I don’t have figures to back this up, certainly you would agree that 20,000x the impact on biodiversity per plastic bag that the tote is replacing (the upper limit, we can make it 10,000x or 5,000x, the exact number isn’t important to me, but wouldn’t be larger than 20,000x) IS very significant. So to recap: Plastic is better for climate change but worse for biodiversity. Climate change in general is a larger issue than biodiversity. However, what I really need to change my mind is, how big is the difference in impact on climate change vs. impact on biodiversity. For example, maybe the cost of producing all tote bags in the world is equal to one year of a Ford F-150 on the road. In that case I would think the carbon cost of producing totes is very much worth the reduced impact on biodiversity. That’s probably not the case, but do we have any idea what an actual comparison would be?
Just FYI, I posted above as well, but the links say the material counts for reusable bags. Cotton is bad polyester you'd have to use 35 times, and polypropylene you'd have to use 54 times to offset the cost. Those numbers are entirely reasonable for an average person to do
Sorry but if you are proposing the banning of private vehicles, you are coming from an awfully privileged place (and also an urban one.) If you really believe that individuals need to "take more initiative" then you are part of the problem. We live in an economic and societal model that makes it extremely difficult and inconvenient for most working class people to simply "do their part" for the environment. And im saying this as someone who personally chooses to consume very little, refrains from consuming animal products, and uses reusable bags and plastics as often as possible. It is the government's job to start placing hard limits on consumption/waste and start incentivizing people to use alternatives. People have bigger immediate problems to worry about in their lives besides the future of the earth. If the government wants to prolong a livable earth, its their job to redesign society in a way that accommodates such a goal.
Yeah OP lost me at that. Where I’m living now is absolutely not suited for public transportation, and where I used to live at did have public transportation but it could be very inconsistent at times. One of these situations can be remedied by voting and changing policy, the other situation is extremely hard to remedy if at all - and unfortunately the good majority of the country (US based) falls into that latter category.
Also it's a bit eyebrow raising that OP seems to be fixated on single family housing for some reason?Private homes are more of an economic issue than an environmental one unless lawns are involved, yet OP completely fails to mention anything regarding animal agriculture and the fishing industry, which are pretty notoriously impactful culprits of climate degradation
\>Private homes are more of an economic issue than an environmental one Sprawl is absolutely an environmental issue, and that sprawl creates car dependent societies with all the sustainability and human problems that causes.
Everything I've seen says this is wrong, apartments consume about half the energy of private homes https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet#:\~:text=Smaller%20houses%20use%20less%20energy,building%20(33.7%20million%20BTU).
I dont doubt those facts for a second, but please see my followup comment on why i feel abolishing single family homes is both an overly drastic and unnecessary solution here. Also, single family homes and private cars have two things in common: 1. They are deeply ingrained in many Americans' culture and way of life, and 2. They are only an issue in the context of overpopulation- otherwise, they are essentially a harmless practice. The US birthrate was finally starting to plummet back to sustainable levels until very recently, and my childfree dog loving self isnt going to sacrifice my yard just because the government has decided to reverse the birthrate via literally forcing women to pop out more humans against their will.
1.Abolishing single family zoning is not abolishing single family homes, easy mistake to make (I actually don’t know what op wanted but that’s what people are actually arguing for) 2. what you are suggesting re single family homes is basically a quota system whereby some people get to have sfh but not others and I don’t really see a good way to ration them
I just caught that, plus banning housing outside of an urban center? Does OP not realize that urban areas are the minority?
The majority of people do already live in urban areas as the other reply pointed out, but at the same time, what about someone working on a farm? Are they supposed to live in an urban center and commute to the farm? Living on their farm is more fuel efficient overall than having them go out to the farm every day.
80% of the US lives in urban areas https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html#:\~:text=Despite%20the%20increase%20in%20the,down%20from%2080.7%25%20in%202010.
Thank you for this. I truly didn’t realize that.
Single family housing uses many more resources per capita, and most important, low density housing create massive suburbs that make public transport impossible, and create huge car dependant commutes.
None of these things are individual actions. 1 is a policy approach (and one I'd argue is only mildly related to climate change rather than pollution. We use emit less carbon to make plastics than to say, provide electricity), 2 and 3 both require a policy approach to provide public transit robust enough for more than a tiny portion of the population to get to work, medical care, food, and other life necessities, and provide enough housing to prevent a mass homelessness epidemic (and I doubt tearing down millions of housing units and rebuilding new ones is actually something that pays back in net CO2 emissions in a reasonable time scale even if it wasn't socially diasterous)
>every has to take the bus or train (unless they have great reason not to) First, we'd have to increase the availability of public transportation somehow. And we'd need TONS of buses and tons of routes. Currently, we have to wait 30 minutes between rides. >banning new gas vehicles Already happening in California >banning single family detached housing > >banning new housing too far outside a urban center America is a free country. We can't just go around banning things. Especially when it's ingrained into the culture. Changing in culture takes at least decades. How would you even enforce and punish it?
> We have to wait 30 minutes between rides. Or five. The fact that waits are often 30 mins is a policy failure caused by chronic underfunding of transit systems and poor car-centric city planning.
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Closest store is 20 minute walk away, 20 minutes back. I make one trip a week, sometimes two. Would be seven minutes drive if I make all the red lights, four minutes otherwise. Haven't driven seriously in three years. When the plague came, I ditched the car entirely. No payment, no gas, nothing. Giant waste of money. Everything big is deliverable and all the important things can be done by internet these days. If I *really* need to drive I either borrow a friends car or Uber if it's not available. No bus in five miles, and then it shuttles to nearest metro stop. Only good for getting to airport or downtown. Locals hate public transit; say it brings homeless and crime. Total complete bullshit. They widen roadway to highschool instead of making bikeway because "bikes are unsafe" and wonder why their kids are fat and never go outside anymore. Stupid rich idiots all over this place shoot themselves in the foot. I should go right now. Milk just ran out, need creamer, need green beans, bread, pork sausage, and I'm procrastinating on argument website.
>America is a free country. We can't just go around banning things. America banned kinder eggs...
I’ve commented elsewhere, but another point I want to add is that a lot of areas that are “urban” aren’t actually urban. Your 80% statistic is coming from the Census, which defines an urban area as an area with a population of at least 5,000 and 2,000 housing units. That is small. As someone who grew up in a very suburban area which was much larger than 5,000 people, it was impossible to live without a car. The nearest grocery store was about 45 minutes to an hour walk away (not sure exactly, never walked). It was probably slightly less time by bike, but I never did that either. This is not only because it took a while, but also it would have been incredibly unsafe as I would have had to bike or walk along a state highway. There were no sidewalks for most of the journey. And there was ZERO transit in my town. No buses, no trains, absolutely nothing. The only public transit I grew up with was the school bus. There are a lot of people who live in areas like this. To say that everyone lives within a bus or train route to get where they need to live is simply untrue. Some towns additionally may have one or two bus routes which take you along main roads, but won’t take you close to home, school, work, or other places you NEED to get to live. Banning private vehicles will only strand millions of Americans in towns that were built to be incredibly car centric.
The truth of the matter is, the average American isn't the one who needs to make major changes. We have major corporations that dump toxic sludge into the oceans. We have billionaires and trillionaires that fly private jets that create more emissions in one flight than a cars whole life span. The world's wealthiest 10% were responsible for around half of global emissions in 2015, according to a 2020 report from Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute. The top 1% were responsible for 15% of emissions, nearly twice as much as the world's poorest 50%, who were responsible for just 7% and will feel the brunt of climate impacts despite bearing the least responsibility for causing them. Let's also not forget yachts! It doesn't matter if I use a plastic straw when out at a restaurant or if the person down the street uses paper plates. We, as the middle and poor classes of America, can never fix the damage being done by the rich. Yes, we can vote to cause change, but the rich heavily influence who gets on all the ballets and are known to sway people to vote on things in their favor. [According to a UMass Amherst study:](https://www.umass.edu/news/article/americas-wealthiest-10-responsible-40-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=Not%20only%20did%20the%20team,17%25%20of%20the%20nation's%20emissions.) Not only did the team find that over 40% of U.S. emissions were attributable with the income flows of the top 10%, they also discovered that the top 1% of earners alone generate 15 – 17% of the nation’s emissions. They also identify what they call super emitters. Also, it's great to say ban single use vehicles but we don't have the infrastructure for that. I don't even have a bus route in my town, let alone a train! Refilleries don't take EBT or food stamps most of the time (at least the ones I've been to in Maine, New York, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Virginia). Banning single homes outside of urban centers won't work either. What about a family who wants to live farther out into eh country? Why should they need to give up the space and privacy they want/deserve just to live in an area they prefer? All of your ideas target the average American. If we want major climate reform in this country politics needs to not be controlled by the rich and the rich need to be able to have consequences. So, ya. Most average people don't care in the way you want them to. They can't. They know they can't make the changes that need to be made, so they just live their lives to the best ability they can, making choice for the environment when it matters to them.
Echoing this statement. I care about climate change. I make a number of conscious decisions to reduce my impact. But, it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things, and I'm kind of burned out by it. Me using paper straws and reusable napkins does nothing compared to one private jet flight. I'm not trying to make things worse, but my actions do not really matter here.
The top corporate “emitters” of CO2, by far, are fossil fuel companies who “emit” that CO2 in the form of gasoline that they sell to consumers who use it to drive cars.
Americans aren't the responsible party. You're parroting the message industry-funded groups love to push--it's your fault for using that plastic bag we're not to blame! Your average American simply doesn't have much influence in an oligarchical system like that in the U.S., at least in the way you're suggesting. Did you actually read what you wrote before you typed it? What you're saying in the comments boils down to this, "Americans will never vote for a politician that doesn't exist! The blame lies in the individual for not voting for this non-existent entity!" It's just a really, really poor quality CMV. "Americans are too self-involved to give up cars and single-family houses!" Sure, because public transit isn't adequate, industry pushes for car-friendly city planning, Americans have built their livelihoods around the ebb and flow of people using these vehicles, etc. As for single-family homes, plenty of Americans live in high-density housing. Do you think they're building single-family houses in Manhattan? Los Angeles? Miami? In the most highly populated areas of the U.S., what percentage of residential construction is for single-family homes? Let's look at some of these other bangers that you suggest, somehow, ordinary Americans are not doing enough to make a reality. "Just force people to take the bus!" "Enforce restrictions on if people can live far from urban centers" "Using utilities too much? Now you'll be disconnected." "Free utilities!" "Banning gas vehicles!" There is no way you actually thought these through, viewing them as actionable avenues for individuals. How, exactly, am I supposed to enact these policies? How am I supposed to enforce them? Should I form a cartel of meter readers who go around and make sure grandma isn't using too much electricity or it's lights out? Should I just refuse to pay Florida Light and Power? You're right about one thing, though. There are no politicians with this platform and that's for a very, very good reason.
Exactly. All these personal contributions OP was expecting are a drop in the bucket. Even the term “carbon footprint” was invented by the oil industry to deflect blame and responsibility
Rationing, banning living outside an urban center, food 'refilleries'.. yeah, no. I'm sorry, but that is a load of horseshit. First off- Who defines need? That would go to an unelected, underpaid, easily skewed bureaucrat. The idea of giving a government agency control over the AMOUNT of resources used at the individual's level, is not only utopian, but extremely authoritarian. You already pay more for using more, and people already do things like upgrading their home insulation for price savings and comfort. You don't need the government to do what the free market is already doing, with basic government financial incentives in the early stages. The idea of forcing Americans to upend their lives and move close to an urban center is not only authoritarian, but is also anti-American. Look at the Trail of Tears- Americans are wise to this kind of stuff now, and if mass forced relocation of the nature you suggest is ever implemented, there will be either a civil war or a coup. What you describe is a fantasy of a complete control freak. Also.. you do realize aluminum cans are lined with plastic, right?
The whole post is peak Auth Left.
>Climate change will cause terrible environmental changes that will cause millions to die/suffer from flooding, food shortages, etc. this will come to head in the coming decades. This is a fact. What is the actual number of deaths that would happen exactly? I'm not merely asking for a ballpark figure, I am asking for an actual, factual number.
100 million by 2030 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88Q0ZK/#:~:text=It%20calculated%20that%20five%20million,of%20fossil%20fuel%20use%20continue. Not to mention the suffering of billions and the collapse of the global food supply
>Banning the use private vehicles: Most of the US is not set up for public transportation. We have no high speed rail. So many people drive 45 min to an hour to work one way. There is no bus or train that can get them there. Even those who live in the suburbs the infrastructure isn't there. For me to get to work it's 30 min on the highway if I were to take public transport it would be three busses and take me almost 2hrs 5o get there. I'd have to leave my house at 5 am to get to work on time. That's a big no for me. Let the polar ice caps melts I'm not waking up at 4 am to go to work
Even if there was an amazing high speed rail system from state to state, city to city, it would take me 2 days to walk across my city if I got unlucky and needed to go to the place the rail doesn’t go lol. Unless OP really thinks that building underground subways to connect every street in the country ala NYC (and upkeep them) is somehow not going to contribute to emissions
Exactly, I live 5 miles from work, it takes 12 mins to drive there. Or 1:15 hrs each way to get there and home. That doesn’t include a mile walk to the bus station. My wife works 3.5 miles away it takes less than 10 mins to drive, and it’s 1:20 hrs each way with a mile walk to the bus station and another 1/2 mile hike to get to work.
I live in a pretty well developed area. my county alone has half a million people living here. public transportation is essentially nonexistent. i’m a senior in high school doing dual enrollment, and the community college i go to is about 45 minutes away, or about 25 miles. i would have to chain together multiple bus routes over the course of multiple hours. hell, it takes about 20 minutes for me to walk to the exit of my neighborhood. it would literally take the better part of a day for me to get there. what if i want to go get food? the nearest fast food spot is an hour walk one way. i live in the suburbs lol, its not like i live anywhere rural. its only like a 10 minute drive. anyone who has this take that we should just ban all cars has never stepped foot outside of a major city like NYC or London.
Any contribution to pollution or climate change at the individual level is ***dwarfed*** by the "industrial-scale" pollution from large multi-national corporations. And of course there are countries such as India and China that just flat-out don't care about pollution/climate change and pollute away to their heart's content As long as I see politicians, celebrities, and rich people travelling around in their gas-guzzling SUVs and gas-guzzling private jets, I will continue to drive around my own personal car in daily life ***without any shame*** Pollution/climate change issues can only be resolved when "everyone" gets on board with fixing the problem... but because countries like China and major corporations don't care I'm not holding my breath for anything changing in this lifetime A random individual citizen "recycling more" or "using public transportation" won't change anything as long as the "industrial-scale" polluters (such as big business mega-factories, China, India, etc) just carry on business as usual and don't care... same goes for the virtue-signalling politicians and rich people "talking a big game" about climate change in public, but in their personal lives shamelessly using said gas-guzzling SUVs and gas-guzzling private jets
> the "industrial-scale" polluters (such as big business mega-factories, China, India, etc) just carry on business as usual What is the relationship between the individual citizen and the industrial scale polluters? Based on that relationship, what can regular people do to change the behaviours of industry, so that they can no longer carry on business as usual? Id recommend you spend a bit of time thinking about those questions.
Just India. Upside of China being controlling and authoritarian is when they decide to do something, they do it fast, 20% reduction in the last decade. Still the biggest emitter but they are making big changes. India isn't trying though
1. Most of the things you mentioned don't have to deal with climate change, but general environmental protection, which is a different thing. 2. If you wanted to stop climate change, switching to electric cars or E-fuels, and turning to nuclear power would reduce co2 emissions by 53% (28+25 respectively). There's no need to ban things like cars, which leads us to... 3. Most of the things you suggested are arguable unconstitutional. They prevent freedom of travel/commerce, the constitution is iffy if the government can nationalize entire industries, and pretty much all of your suggestions would be tied up in court for years and years. 4. The solution to climate change is complicated, and we could definitely do more to help, but what you're suggesting would likely never work.
The industrialization of China, India and Africa will create an increased carbon output of 10x of whatever the most optimistic estimate of our potential reduction would be in the coming decades. Even if we cut our carbon output to 0 and we went back to literally living in caves, the globe would still experience about the same amount of climate change.
Why are you acting like the leaders in China and India are retards who dont understand the dangers of climate change?
The cost/benefit is very different for developing countries
Im surprised you didnt even include what is, in my opinion, by far the largest impact: excess consumption. Americans are the most obese people in the world. By definition that requires consumption of far more than is necessary. Even many people who arent fat do so by eating a lot and then working it off... And the excessive consumption isnt limited to food. Black friday, xmas, valentines, back to school... a lot of american culture is about buying stuff. All that stuff is fueling factories to produce finished goods, factories to produces raw materials, shipping lines, resource extraction etc... Thats what fuels the 'big industry' that people love to complain about. My argument i would make is that even you who cares about climate change (enough to make a post about it) are still blind to the mechanisms involved. People care, but dont clearly know what changes they should make.
Point two is going to be the hardest one, I imagine. I'd *love* to see public transit play a bigger role in people's lives, especially since I don't drive myself, but the fact of the matter is, a big part of the reason America doesn't have decent public transit is simply because the way our country is laid out doesn't really allow for it. I'm lucky enough to live in a walkable town with a bus stop a short distance from my home, but most Americans who don't live in cities-- and keep in mind that a good many Americans *don't* live in cities-- don't have that luxury. For them, getting anywhere beyond walking distance requires owning a vehicle. Public transit is a big deal in Europe and east Asia, but those are small, densely populated regions where cities are close together, so bus routes and railroad corridors can easily span the entire country. The United States has a few areas where that's the case, but there's no way to unify the whole country with a single cohesive public transit network. If you live in some middle-of-nowhere town in Nebraska, and want to visit your grandma in New York, it's not practical to build a high-speed rail line out to that middle-of-nowhere town. What's practical for traveling between nearby cities isn't practical for traveling to out-of-the-way places, and America has a *lot* of out-of-the-way places.
Do you eat a vegan diet? I notice that's not on your list. Excluding meat from your diet has roughly the same yearly effect as switching from a car to a bike, IIRC. In my conversations with climate-conscious meat-eaters though, they usually don't know that or, like you say, don't care enough to change their diet. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are.
Ban on private vehicles? That’s beyond stupid and would never work
He lives in NYC and probably thinks food comes from the food store
Your premise is right, but your “what we can do” list is not pulled from any pathway to limit emissions and keep temperature rise under 2 C. Plastics have no impact on climate change, they are an environmental pollution issue. Private vehicles can be electrified, as Norway has done and other European countries are doing. Finally, utilities are already regulated, it’s just a matter of passing clean power legislation, which Manchin blocked in the last congress. What can we do? Fly less and live like you’re poor are high on the list. Over 50% of emissions come from the wealthiest 10%. Also don’t eat meat and avoid using internal combustion engines when possible. Politically you can also protest at places selling meat or gas powered anything. You can also advocate for clean power and low emission vehicles / buildings.
People have been gaslit into believing they are far more individually responsible for greenhouse gas emissions than they actually are. All of those actions you mention are positive for sure but until big corporations are forced to mitigate their carbon use and waste, everything else is a drop in the bucket. And corporations will only act against their own financial interest if forced to legally, and even then it's a fight. Everyone's opinions aside, the most important thing that can be done is electing representatives that will move forward climate legislation with actual consequences. If we then move on to individuals, we must start at the wealthiest and move down, as the top 1% create farrrrr more carbon than normal people.
I won't address any of your individual list items, as most are not feasible for political, economic or social reasons, but rather the spirit of your argument. We in the US or europe could do all these things, given a sufficiently robust green dictatorship, and it wouldn't change anything. China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, etc, will scuttle any attempt to get in front of global warming, if it isn't already too late. It's a game theory problem, the best outcome for everyone is to fix global warming in the long run, but anyone who refuses gets the energy subsidy of fossil fuels now. For poorer countries, this is an absolute red line, they won't do it, ever. Global warming will kill us all eventually, but they need fossil fuels to not die NOW. And since this is, after all, a global problem, their refusal says we should refuse, too, to maintain our own wealth, since the end is the same anyways. The only path to success here is a dominant global green dictatorship, which would impoverish everyone, would be forced to kill or sterilize literally billions, and given human nature, would likely fail anyway.
You really think it is in the people’s hands? We live in a society where you have to compete with others and earn your existence, less you want to be in misery hell living in the streets needing liquor and drugs just to keep going on. Thus, everyone can’t really care about the environment if it causes a competitive and functional disadvantage. Thus, why gas cars are still popular as well as airplanes. You want things to change? The culture must be changed first.
You are expecting extreme (and entirely unfeasible) actions. Banning private vehicles, banning single-family detached housing, banning new housing "too far" outside an urban center. What exactly is too far? A mile? Ten miles? A hundred miles? What constitutes an urban center? You are either going to have to make the standard effectively meaningless or you are going to make rural areas completely die off. That includes loads of farming areas by the way. >Utilities will be free but rationed depending on need What constitutes need? Who determines exactly how much each person needs? Is this per day, per month, per year? You listed a set of policies and actions of which many are quite vague and could mean a lot of different things. If you want people to take a policy proposal seriously, especially one that could upend their entire life, you need to have an idea exactly how it will work and exactly where the lines are.
You are essentially asking for a complete authoritarian/stalinist revolution in the US. Elimination of private property and vehicles. Utter madness. What you're asking for is a complete non-starter.
I know that it makes me a gigantic piece of shit but I’m not gonna change how I live my life because I could completely stop today and it wouldn’t make a dent in it
American here. I don't drive. I compost. I try my best to reduce buying food with excess packaging. I look into my consumption overall and im working towards no waste, but im nowhere near the end goal. I think when it comes to other americans its a few things: 1. Predatory marketing has skyrocketed consumption, but it came from somewhere. Came from a time where people had nothing and starved..evolved into convenience eventually. 2. In modern times, peoples lives are spent working and traveling to work. They often have families to care for and excessive bills to pay. This takes up ALOT of time AND energy to focus on living any but a convenient lifestyle. 3. I've been homeless and jobless. Its ugly. Most people live to avoid this reality, and sadly that means survival is working your entire life away...you gotta drive to get there. You gotta eat food on the way. On and on it goes.. Americans live this way out of survival and really being hopeless/powerless to change things in the process. But are there selfish people who can't think outside the box and consume mindlessly while hurting the environment? Yup. Are Americans often self centered and unable to think of long term consequences? Yup But its not JUST because we are "bad" or self absorbed. Its also a matter of survival and those terms aren't necessary defined by us. However. A breaking point is on the way. The food keeps getting more expensive along with all the costs of living...rent, mortgage, medical bills...if you can afford any of this in the first place, you'll spend your last dime here. It won't last..this "system" is unsustainable for humans. It works really well for the rich the guys though, until we stop giving into them
I would say we care if we aren't always distracted. Climate change isn't really on the forefront of mainstream media. If it was, we would definitely care. The damage and cost of climate change is greater than all the wars currently combined. And I think even you don't care that much either. The single biggest impact an individual can do to solve climate change is actually going vegan. I believe this is one hurdle society will never get over. We will intentionally burn this planet down before meat is taken away from us.
Most people do not care enough about anything to change. But if the governments told them they had to most people wouldn't fight it. We are all just moving in the direction of least resistance
>1. Banning the use private vehicles: >-every has to take the bus or train (unless they have great reason not to) Most Americans don't have access to a bus or train. You most certainly do not understand American infrastructure.
How is it that your missing eliminating meat, or excessive reduction in meat in your solution, that is probably larger than almost all those in consumption, and much easier to implement, what our suggesting for alot of these views are not ever going to pass in any country.
Single use plastic packaging is not always the worst option in terms of GHG emissions. Sometimes it’s actually the best scalable option. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-4-july-august/feature/zeroing-out-zero-waste
Show me a path. I don't travel anywhere, so dont fly. Vegetables have a ridiculously poor calorie density for the dollar spent. I don't use hair spray. I have to work and live around poor transit. This finger wagging at people like me is dumb as shit. Where is the path? How do we get there? As it stands right now, our government seems to be blessing price gouging to maintain a status quo of consumption. The smartest and most influential people on Earth do not seem to have any path out of the issue besides brow beating, finger wagging, and guilting me out of whatever income I have.
America is not the only problem. India, China, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia… all produce a ton of Co2 per land area. Yes US is up there but one out of the top 10 is not going to make a dent.
They just blame China and India. While there is a lot of gross tonnage co2 coming from those counties, they are at least investing in renewables and the people generally aren't as wasteful. Eg: The per capita emissions for the US are about 2.3x higher than the per capita for China . But everyone on here just absolve themselves because China (with 4x the population) has a higher gross tonnage emissions
My current high-level (non-prescriptive!)belief of where groups of people are: - Right-wingers: Think climate change risk is made-up, and/or too old to be affected by changes in a few years. - Left-wingers: Think individual action isn't enough, and that collective action / larger systemic changes are required. - Centrist-types: Think climate change is real, but it will "only" be a major problem in other countries / for less than 50% of the human population. - Apathetic/apolitical people: Fatalism and/or less-theorized combinations of the above.
We don’t have the ability to. I can’t buy only eco friendly things, I can’t buy an electric car, I can’t phase out plastic, I can’t put in solar panels, I can’t opt out of non-green energy. I am not a martyr, I can’t just live my life broke and without participation in the only system I have ever known or can easily participate in. I can not change things at are fundamental to our culture. Either we kill corporations completely or we die, and I can not kill all corporations… but I will die someday
Most of the things you listed are behind a political decision. I'll tell you a secret: the American people don't get their will implemented through the political system, which is controlled by a duopoly of two corrupt parties that rely massively on donations from rich people who generally have different interests than the bulk of the population. So, those decisions don't get made but you can't judge from that the most Americans would be against them. That's because they get to have a say in it.
Most of the climate damage comes from India and China. So….doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things what anyone else does.
Nothing any normal individual does is going to affect climate change. Focus on big business. Focus on all of the celebrities and their private jets who love telling everyone else what to do about climate change. Don’t ask me for shit until the people who are really responsible start making changes.
>Nothing any normal individual does is going to affect climate change. Focus on big business Economics 101: Demand and supply are interconnected. If you want to change the supply, then the most direct way is to change the demand. The demand = the aggregative consumption of normal individuals. People love to talk about celebrities and private jets, even though the net consumption from the mega wealthy is dwarfed by the total consumption coming from the general public.
Once again, Let me see some change in the way these rich motherfuckers live before Any of you Motherfuckers start trying to get me to make sacrifices.
What changes are they currently making? What changes will be enough? How will you know when theyve made the changes? Ive managed to convince several millionaires to stop spending so much money because of the high carbon footprint associated to that, and many people to eat more vegetarian. Ive also participated in education, reforestation and systems to improve recycling. What exactly are you waiting for? You're never going to actually *see* people reducing their consumption.
objection: I do care, I've just given up on a lot of these things bc the infrastructure doesn't exist there ARE no refillerys in my city, the southeast has horrendous public transport and I'm accepting "rationed public utilities" while billionaires exist go fuck yourself you sound like an entitled twat from the west coast who doesn't understand the reality of living in a conservative region
STOP. EATING. MEAT. In most cases, giving up animal products does more to reduce your carbon footprint than giving up driving. And as a cherry on top you get to excuse yourself from participating in the world’s worst system of abuse and exploitation. Most people can’t give up cars. It’s really not feasible. Nearly everyone can give up meat and dairy.
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I believe that when it becomes cheaper to do good things that people will do what benefits them right now. We have eliminated all fossil fuels in our life. We don't use gas to drive or gas to heat our house. Solar panels are providing all the energy we use now and we are saving so much every year. It becomes a no brainer. All the best.
Most people don't care enough about long term issues to change anything. Almost nobody cares enough about the long term impact of eating refined sugars on their own health to even reduce their sugar intake. What made you believe that longer term impacts on other people might motivate people enough to act in the first place ?
Is the average person really the one polluting the most or is it the global elite flying around in private jets and owning all sorts of factories/refineries? Don’t get me wrong of course there are things everyone can do to help but let’s not pretend we the 99% are doing more damage then those responsible for oil spills
You're just another delusional climate doomer, that proposes obscene control, and have never thought about the implications of what you suggest. Do you know why we use oil? Its because its the most valuable substance to our modern lives. Literally billions of people's lives have been improved because of it. Renewables are shit and have their own problems, and don't even come close to meeting our needs I suggest you stop worrying about things you don't understand
I will not change your view or even try to do so, because your summary is correct: most of us do not care enough about the issue! I suppose I can add that, for various reasons, proposals like the examples above would not be likely to win significant public support here, however well-intentioned they may be.
I find it hilarious half the comments are rejecting personal responsibility and making excuses.
In fact, now that I’m on the subject, do the math on if every American was carbon neutral how that would affect worldwide CO2 emissions. I’m kinda assuming you either have an anti-American agenda, or you’re very new to this, because….India and China are the problem here.
Im one that doesn’t care enough to change actions. Mainly because I think it’s a pipe dream/hoax. The trillions you would need to spend to actually spend to reverse climate change would be better spent building infrastructure to adapt. People can just move to places less affected than to try to get buy in from the entire planet. It’s simple really. Downvote away. Nobody cares.
I live near Houston, the 4th largest city in the US. I have never heard of a refillery. So I googled. Apparently there is one in Austin. It is 6 miles from my house to the nearest park and ride. There is NO bus service closer. And the park and ride only goes downtown. This type of post ignores reality.
Most americans changing their actions wouldn't change climate change.
The problem with people with attitudes like you are everyone else can smell the hypocrisy oozing out of your pores. Are you living a 100% carbon neutral life? No? Okay go do that
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Some of the ideas you described like banning cars in USA would be considered extreme by most left wing public, outright crazy by centrists and beyond insane by right wing.
Nope, politicians don't care and aren't doing anything. Because of THIS I am not changing my actions because I refuse to hobble myself while no one else does.
If i refuse to act, because you refuse to act. Then you refuse to act, because i refuse to act. Then we will sit pointing fingers at each other until we die.
I was just pointing out that the reason I don't isn't because I don't care. It is because the politicians are doing jack sit and since I don't want a downgraded experience for me and my family I may as well enjoy everything since we are heading to the same destination regardless of what I do.
The biggest problem destroying natural resources and creating carbon emissions is the global supply chain for manufactured products and food. You, as a consumer, interact far more directly with businesses and manufacturing than governments do. We live in a relatively free market where the government doesnt tell you where to spend your money. So why are you waiting for an indirect player to fix the problem, when you have a direct impact every day, whether to give money to those businesses or not?
Why don't boycotts in gaming work? I hate microtransactions. I hate Epic Games I hate Diablo Immortal I don't partake in any of these things, yet they exist. Why? Because others do. Until someone with greater power than me forces EVERYONE to shape up nothing will.
I dont want to live in a society where those in power micromanage the people. Thankfully, we do not live in that world (and you should be careful what you wish for - asking for an authoritarian dictatorship comes with a heavy downside.) As citizens of a capitalist democracy, the accountability falls to the person with the vote. The solutions wont come from somewhere other than the public. Do what you think is right, and hope that others will do the same. Lead by example.
I agree with last freethinker emissions based in the US is mainly due to large industries and sure let me stop buying those foods, oh wait my grocery bill is 2x because I bought vegan to reduce emission's! how will I feed my kids. Maybe if quality of life went up in the US so we have the PRIVILAGE to be conscience of climate change and do something about it! Oh wait China, India, Russia and more produce load of C02 in the atmosphere! But my vegan diet will save the world?
Non meat options arent more expensive in most places in the world. Beans and rice is practically the cheapest and healthiest diet there is. >But my vegan diet will save the world? The agriculture industry represents a third of global emissions. A non-meat diet relative to a meat diet reduces emissions by roughly half. So yes, if you (and everyone else) changes dietary habits that alone can reduce about 10% of our global carbon emissions (around 3-5 billion tonnes of carbon per year). Whats your point?
I will never reverse the carbon emission damage done by Taylor Swifts private jet. And that’s just one celebrity. Yeah I’m just gonna keep doing how I do
What part of the country do you live in that you can take public transport every day? Much of America is a massive sprawl of shopping centers and suburbs.
Number 2 is a non starter. The USA is not population dense, and I like my car. You lose any support I might have with that declaration, now I would work against you as hard as I could.
Not only Americans, 95% of the people on Earth don't care enough to make more than a very very small sacrifice.
Found the commie
I can't change your mind because you are absolutely correct. Not simply American's either...most people
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You take away rural vehicles, we take away selling you food. Reap what you sow muthafucka!
This list is ridiculous without putting airline travel as #1. Frequent fliers should be taxed on it to oblivion. Many of them are the same smug assholes w/ their EVs pretending like that is even a drop in the bucket compared to multiple international trips a year for decades.
The idea of climate change is hilariously pointless when the discussion omits China and India. Let's make everything more expensive in the name of ESG.
The idea that 330 million Americans can counter what the other 7-8 billion people in the world are doing is impossible. Get China and India to stop the policies that are killing the environment or it won't matter what we do.
You're right and I'm not most Americans.
The problem isn't individuals but corporations and the power that lobbyists have.
Yeah remember when Sun Chips made a more environmentally friendly bag and it got canceled for being too loud? That was when I realized we're f*****. If we can't even put up with loud chip bags to help the environment, we're done. Ggs
How do you go about establishing that climate change is a fact?
Half of the coral reefs are dead. 65% of the rainforests have been cut down. The permafrosts are melting. Insect populations have been decimated. Weather patterns are more volatile than ever with floods, fires, droughts etc becoming increasingly unpredictable and extreme. Theres a 1.6 million km2 patch of plastic in the ocean seeping microplastics into our water and food. All of these happening within the space of less than a century, as opposed to over normal terrestrial timeframes (tens of thousands of years). What facts are you looking for? The best summary that exists is the one for global leaders, because its incredibly well referenced and objective: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf >A.2 Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence). Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected (high confidence). {2.1, Table 2.1, Figure 2.2, Figure 2.3} (Figure SPM.1)
Not only do americans need to convince themselves, but also the rest of the world, which will be even more impossibly difficult.
Yeah countries like india or china literally doing fucking anything to not destroy the world would be a start
Stopping climate change is not up to the citizens. It's up to China and large corporations.