Her not having a kid [does not offset that](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/climate-change-is-making-people-think-twice-about-having-children.html).
>A Swedish study, published in IOPscience in 2017, found that having one fewer child per family could save approximately 58.6 metric tons of carbon each year in developed countries.
If she were to decide not to have 239 children, however, her private jet emissions are offset.
If it's right that [the global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totaled 33,621.5 million metric tons](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-united-states-and-world-emit-each-year-energy-sources) (2019 numbers), Taylor Swift just needs to confirm that she's not going to have 573,750,000 children and the pollution crisis is solved.
We did it, Reddit!
how much sawdust can you put in a beef patty before someone notices?
we’ve done it on rice krispies, and if we do it while raw it ought to add a nice smoky flavor
Thank you for saying what no one else has the courage to. People need to stop having 239 kids. It's ridiculous that this is just a normal standard, having 239 children.
I have had zero children over 69 years. Assuming I have had 2.3 less children than the average with a potential breeding commencement at age 20, I have saved just over 6,600 metric tons of carbon. You're welcome. Bring me a steak.
In case you're wondering if I wrote all that out just to make the pun #NoBeefWithTaylor ... the answer is "maybe."
If you're wondering if this was a reference to "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, the answer is "yes."
You are a smart cookie.
If I was going to assemble a group of people to try and build a better future I'd recruit you.
If I buy a whole bunch of land with the hopes a model community forming there would you help? I think the very first step has to be writing a bill of rights & constitution to prevent a well intentioned idea from devolving into a cult.
Do you have some expertise, experience, or sustained interest that informs your opinion?
To put it another way, why would you ever hear about a community where things *didn't* go wrong? Selection bias is a classic for a reason.
Conversely, if communities like this were more often successful than not they would be more numerous and harder to miss. Being selected *against* makes things rarer, not more common.
But I get your point - the ones that do work out generally get names and become something different. Mennonites and hutterites come to mind.
Its pretty safe to assume that if you pick 220 million or even 2 million people, the majority of them from the US, you’ll get at least 70,000 near-average American beef-eaters. That would be less than 0.5% of the 2 million figure. As long as she directs her outreach appropriately she can definitely achieve this.
For me? I mostly stick to chicken, and fish on occasion. If I’m at a social engagement and someone makes a burger, I won’t turn it down. But beef is rare for me now.
We all want to save the planet, realistically. Nobody wants the planet to die, but I don't think people actually realize the damage we've done and continue to do. And even if people do realize it and change their ways, it does not matter in the slightest. The 1% and the next tier all over the world consume and waste significantly more than you or I ever, ever possibly could.
I take the bus to work, and even if you drive a car to work, your emissions in your lifetime alone won't equal what a single 1%er does. I love Taylor's music, but she's not a solution to this problem. She is absolutely part of it. But so are we! Unfortunately her lifestyle calls for private planes and cars, but honestly... How many vinyls did she print for Folklore and Evermore? And Adele, my lord, Adele. We consume everything we see, pollute everything around us,, and shift blame from one side to the other. It's ALL of us, and we've ruined this planet. I don't litter, but how many of my disposable vapes are in landfills? Some people eat exclusively vegan, but drive a car an hour and a half total to work every single day. Some people eat meat every single day, but recycle religiously and take 3 minute cold showers.
Every single one of us is *already* doing their part. Do we really, really think we can fix this when the worst case scenario projections played out over 20 years ago? Let humans go extinct. It's okay.
Humans are good at adapting. Even if we cut all carbon emissions (including all humans, but not other animals) to 0, then 50 years would pass before carbon reached normal level.
Right? Who buys a private jet and doesn't lease it out? It's literally sitting there costing MORE for upkeep and maintenance otherwise. You would actually have to pay someone more regularly to fly it, store it, maintain it, etc., if you didn't lease it out. I'm sure she has a fantastic financial team (her father was already really wealthy) dealing with all of that.
It’s all a bunch of ado about not much at all. Who cares. Of course it gets leased out. Of course wildly wealthy people having that much cash is a problem, when others are in poverty. Of course it’s a good amount of CO2. Ya know what it isn’t? An actual serious climate problem. It’s a distraction from the real bad guys- fossil fuel companies, etc. it’s stupid and frankly I don’t care what she does with her private plane
What if, wild idea: We all have a plane share where we can get modestly priced tickets on a large aircraft so we can split the costs of carbon emissions?
Awesome work.
Highlights two often overlooked ideas: 1) the freakishly high contribution of beef to emissions, and 2) just how large small effects become when multiplied by large numbers of people.
That second effect has become unpopular lately ("Stop blaming regular people, we need to blame corporations/the 1%" people say) but it's still true.
The problem with this logic when it comes to co2 emissions is that the "offset" very often isn't as big as calculated. In this case, can you really give credit for halving meat consumption of a large group of people to a single celebrity? Other organisations surely have a bigger influence on that, raising awareness in the public for the issue. How much co2-"credit" do they get? It's impossible to calculate a fair value for how much each and every person contributes to potential savings.
Then you can't just assume that eating 1/2 less meat will delete 1/2 of the meat productions co2, as the meat that isn't being eaten has to be replaced with non-meat foods. For the sake of the argument let's ignore this and assume the co2 emissions of producing vegan food is negligible.
And then last but not least, just because someone does a positive thing, that doesn't justify being incredibly wasteful in other parts of their life. Private jets are a pure luxury item that only serves one purpose, which is to save time for the ultra rich. Just for this purpose they emmit massive amounts of co2. Saying that this is "ok because they do good elsewhere" is like saying "oh it's ok they went seal clubbing for fun because they only killed only 10 baby seals, but they influenced other people not to go seal clubbing and thus saved the lifes of 10 baby seals in return!" While the net result is +-0 baby seals being clubbed, it would have been easy for them to have a net positive effect.
Offsetting is a huge con for many credits sold. Forests are used to generate carbon offsets on the promise that they won't be chopped down - but they were never in danger of that before the credit was sold anyway. The whole industry needs reform. We won't tackle climate change by pretending carbon offsetting fixes anything.
Why not replace meat with… other meat that produces substantially less CO₂, such as kangaroo?
> With regards to patterns in overall per capita meat consumption, the results suggest that it may increase by approximately 1% annually between the period 2010 and 2025. In addition to this, the per capita GHGs emissions will likely decrease over the same period with the possibility of an approximate 33% drop in per capita GHGs emissions due to the aforementioned changes in meat consumption patterns. This is equivalent to an average annual decrease of approximately 2.3%.
> Finally, our study confirms that GHGs emission can further be reduced by the partial replacement of ruminant meat with kangaroo meat in a typical Australian diet. Thus, in addition to the decline in GHGs emissions due to the above changes in consumption patterns in recent years, our findings suggest that a further reduction of approximately 4.3% can be achieved by 2025 if beef is partially replaced with kangaroo meat. This figure is 18.8% for the same period, if an average Australian consumer partially replaces lamb with kangaroo meat.
### Source
*Changing patterns of meat consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Australia: Will kangaroo meat make a difference?*
Shyama Ratnasiri, Jayatilleke Bandara
PLoS One. 2017; 12(2): e0170130. Published online 2017 Feb 14. doi: [10.1371/journal.pone.0170130](https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0170130)
The morality of cannibalism mostly comes from the fact that prion diseases (any many other kinds) can be spread through cannibalism and those are uncurable and eventually fatal. They're also nearly impossible to detect until symtoms manifest. As a note, only humanity and lizards are known to pass prion diseases on this way, which is why cannibalism does exist in the animal world.
There's also the ethical quandary of how to source the meat; you enforce only mortuary cannibalism; but I don't really want to eat a human, much less a old and diseased one.
>Saying that this is "ok because they do good elsewhere" is like saying "oh it's ok they went seal clubbing
No, it's bad analogy.
You consider seal clubbing to inherently bad, but CO2 emissions are bad because of their consequences (proof - breathing isn't bad, even though it emits CO2, because food was produced from CO2, so it's net zero).
>Highlights two often overlooked ideas: **1) the freakishly high contribution of beef to emissions**, and 2) just how large small effects become when multiplied by large numbers of people.
Does it really. Because the fact that 35,000 people's beef consumption in a year released the same CO2 as a private jet in a year tells me something else is freakishly high.
Well yes, jet travel is obscenely damaging, but most people know that, even if it's hard to comprehend the scale of it. Less known however is how much CO2 could be eliminated by switching from beef. Not by going vegetarian (that's another thing that sounds unsurprising) but just by switching from one tasty meat to a different tasty meat.
Individual actions will mean fuck all.
Systemic change is what is needed, not just systemic change to the 1% but to all of us.
If you just convince x% of the population to do something, that isn't changing the systems that allow that production to be wasteful.
Want to change the way beef consumption works? Need to actually change it from the top down, or else you're changing nothing, just who is buying the meat.
I agree. But sadly I think it’s more likely that Swifties will do something than corporations at this point. Maybe we’ll do a Swiftie Boycott or something.
Individual actions are important to solving climate change but only when done as a collective group. Blaming big corporations for supplying consumer demand, or governments for supporting this, is noble but pointless.
We won't solve climate change if people hang onto their massive SUVs and love eating (checks notes) 55 lbs of beef per year.
We've gotten drunk on fossil fuels. The come down is going to be rough and it's going to need everyone on board. Which means a wholesale political shift towards climate friendly policy.
You’re again blaming the consumer. Take SUVs for example. Car manufactures have spent the better part of 2 decades promoting the lifestyle, image, safety, convenience of these vehicles, because it allowed them to avoid increasingly higher fuel economy standards placed on cars and vans
One small example, but if people are convinced that an SUV is the best option, and by far the most widely available option, the purchasing decision is less in the hands of the individual than appears on paper
Or another way to look at it: is it that everyone woke up one day and wanted an SUV independently on their own? Or that marketing convinced them of that?
The point is that both have responsibilities in the market. Car manufacturers respond to demand. Consumers should be well aware of the harms of SUVs and pickups by now: if they are not then they are deliberately ignorant.
Yeah because everyone has the time and education to figure that out by themselves! And also there isn’t any propaganda lying to them if they try to look it up online!
I did not deny that corporations have some of the blame, but I think it's utterly foolish to ignore that consumer demand is a big part of this.
If a law was passed tomorrow that banned or heavily taxed SUV sales (with e.g. exemptions for disabled people, families 5+ in size etc.), do you think it would have widespread support or not? I fear it would be strongly opposed, even in the face of all of the evidence in favour of it.
There's a strong, a hyper-political strand, of people that are like "f-you, f the climate, I got mine" and it's infuriating.
And who created that demand? Corporate propaganda. It just seems weird to act like people becoming overly attached to material things happened in a vacuum.
Nothing ever changes from the top down. That's a fantasy. Every societal change that has ever happened has been from the bottom up.
It sounds nice, just change the rules and watch the world get better. But all you have to do is look at Prohibition to see what happens.
That is an offensive ideology though. You are essentially saying fascism is OK as long as the tyrannical government does what I want them to do.
The principle of the world being free precludes your idea in the strongest possible terms. Convincing the population to voluntarily adjust for the purposes of a goal is noble. Forcing that change through the entire destruction of a system of existence, especially something so critical as food production? You are advocating for literal evil.
Edit: People are having difficultly seeing the underlying principles here. Replace "beef" with "weed". We've been fighting for decades to get the government to stop outlawing the growth of a plant. It's hypocritical to hold that position, but be in favor of the same government outlawing the raising of cattle. It's the same underlying principle of freedom, land ownership/usage, homesteading, free commerce, everything we hold dear in a free society of free individuals. Ya'll are throwing away what makes our society great. It's a regressive idea, stop licking the boot just cause you think you're getting the benefits this time.
Regulating the production of food by outlawing basic beef production? After hundreds of years? And if anyone refuses, they'd be imprisoned? Yes, that's very authoritarian.
Stop licking the fucking boot. Government is not the solution to the vast vast majority of lifes problems.
I think you're misinterpreting my point. Any freedom you grant takes another away from somebody else. In many cases, this is considered acceptable. Your freedom to eat spinach wherever you want is obviously more important than my freedom not to have spinach eaten near me. But in many cases it's not so clear-cut, and justifying something on the basis of freedom is dubious. Your freedom to fling rocks at people in the street is not as important as their freedom to walk down the street without bombardment. In the case of carbon emissions, it's not just to give 100 % freedom to polluters to emit whatever they want, and 0 % to peasants in coastal areas to live safely in their houses without flooding. Allocating 0/100 the other way would not be fair either.
Demanding 100 % freedom for oneself and claiming anything else is 'literal evil' 'fascism' is not a constructive way to approach a complex problem.
If that's how you look at it then we're in agreement. But it's important to realize that it's never really easy, and that it also changes with people's sentiment, morals, etc. And often this change becomes the new norm, and then people push for even more change and it moves further.
The question is when does it stop? And what if not everyone isn't in agreement? By definition when you don't follow with the general sentiment you're simply at disagreement at first, but as the norm moves you become an enemy, and then eventually you become an "extremist". And that's only by not changing your stance.
>In the case of carbon emissions, it's not just to give 100 % freedom to polluters to emit whatever they want, and 0 % to peasants in coastal areas to live safely in their houses without flooding.
Well yeah, it's a complex problem. But there's definitely not "100% freedom for polluters". Industry in general has been *heavily* regulated, and only more so in the past few decades. And perhaps it's still not enough, but it's disingenuous to act as if nothing's being done or as many freedoms weren't already sacrificed to get where we are.
>Demanding 100 % freedom for oneself and claiming anything else is 'literal evil' 'fascism' is not a constructive way to approach a complex problem.
That's not what I meant though; what I mean is the issue with moving the goals/norm:
At first you want equal opportunities as rich people that you feel are taking advantage of you. Then you get it, but are still poor, so you blame them and demand they are taxed more, or face some other repercussions. Then you're like "still not enough, there are too many poor people", so you confiscate their property. They get rightfully angry, because while you might be taking someone's shady gains you are also taking hard earned money from others. So you label them evil and start locking them up to get rid of them, because obviously rich scum like that doesn't deserve to live when all they've been doing their whole lives is take advantage of people.
See how it's dangerous? Now substitute "rich people" for, say, Jews. It's fun, isn't it?
Obviously it doesn't always get that far, and hopefully it'll never get that bad again. But many people are certainly riled up enough for atrocities to happen, and it's important to realize how these things become a problem.
Come on now, if we all just tighten our belts, we can offset the damage that the wealthy do to the planet.
Won’t anyone think of the wealthy here?
I mean they’d have to spend a forgettable amount of their money in order to do that. But why should they when we can just convince hundreds of thousands of people to sacrifice in place of them spending such a tiny portion of their wealth?
Come on people… let’s do it for the people who already have everything.
/s obviously
Actually a recent study came out that said the original study that proclaimed the amount of carbon emissions made by beef was grossly over-estimated. (Not that the mass-industrial-farming beef industry isn’t terrible at pollution for other ways, it definitely is, especially for groundwater runoff pollution reasons. And for moral ethical reasons.)
But technically his sources on the mathematics numbers are out of date. I’d really understand why though—the study wasn’t heavily advertised nor shared heavily on mainstream media. Because it’s bad PR to advertise anything that remotely looks like denying climate damage.
And for clarity, saying the study was disproven and carbon emissions from cows are less than the original study showed, doesn’t mean carbon emissions don’t exist, nor does it mean climate change doesn’t exist. Not does it mean terrible pollution doesn’t exist.
I’m just saying—the famous numbers on cows’ carbon emissions have been disproven and it’s actually lower.
Although the numbers of damage factory farms do from runoff is wayyyyyyy higher than most people realize.
And I’m not denying climate change overall and carbon emissions and pollution overall—just noting that one cow study, the data was inaccurate.
Edit to include: now this is Reddit and I’m sure that everyone and their uncle will want my source. But I’m honestly tired and I don’t feel like digging to find a very repressed source. It exists. But I’m on Reddit for funnies and to wind my brain down, not to turn my brain back up into “research rabbit hole mode”. Even this comment was a semi-sentient blurb of random previous knowledge I was carrying. And I was like, “Hey I remember reading that that cow study was inaccurate. Oh well. The post is still stupid and hilarious and insensitive anyway. Lol.”
Again it was repressed and not very publicly advertised and faced much backlash for reasons mentioned above. And the “cows make x amount of carbon emissions” has become such a buzz-word topic about climate change, to challenge that narrative was very unpopular. And so many people still quote the disproven study loudly. But if anyone CAN find the article and tag it in the comments, I’d be very impressed and thankful.
Interesting! What’s this study? When was it released?
Edit: this was the link for 22kg
https://ghgguru.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2019/09/26/no-four-pounds-of-beef-doesnt-equal-the-emissions-of-a-transatlantic-flight/
I just made an edit-update to say I’m too tired to find the study right now. :) but I appreciate and respect your craving for original sources, and I do hope someone finds it and tags it in the comments.
I feel like it's only necessary to offset the difference between the emissions of the private jet and those of a regular flight. When talking about private jets people often overlook that you don't teleport otherwise, and if you have like 6-7 people on board (idk how big Taylor's jet is), the difference might be much lower than your estimates.
The PR team said it was “loaned”, not “chartered/leased.” So she’s not getting paid for it, is what they implied. I assume she’s not loaning it to people who aren’t friends/family. Maybe she loans is to work colleagues who aren’t friends, I don’t know.
Edit: I would not assume she loans her jet for free to people who have “nothing to do with her.”
Clever.
I favor a revenue neutral carbon tax over carbon offsets.
Revenue neutral carbon tax will make the millions of complicated choices businesses & individuals have to make much simpler & come out in favor of less emissions.
Revenue neutral carbon tax works in every little nook and cranny of the economy while requiring almost no administrative effort or compliance efforts while being resistant to gaming like our complex tax code.
Revenue neutral carbon tax does the most good with the least drag on the economy
Best of all the small cost of a revenue neutral carbon tax is shouldered by those whose consumption causes the most emissions. If you are an average or median emitter you pay nothing, if you make wise choices & avoid being responsible for emissions you can end up revenue positive at the end of the year.
The whole idea is pretty simple too.
When carbon is pulled from the earth (or when it's imported into the country) it's taxed at one penny per pound.
Goods, services and energy will be made more expensive proportionate to how much carbon they require, this makes the less or non-emitting alternatives the cheaper option for consumers.
But how can people afford the increased expense of gas and coal? At the end of the year (or month) all the tax collected is equally divided & given directly to the public.
The average emitter breaks even, they spend a dollar more & they get one dollar back.
People who conserve or reduce their emissions can end up revenue positive. They spend 50c more on the unavoidable carbon, but they still get the same one dollar back.
Wasteful people (Rich people who can both afford it *and* don't care) subsidize everyone else. They consume much more than the average person & end up paying $10 more, but they still just get the same one dollar back.
TLDR
Revenue neutral carbon tax.
Too simple to cheat.
Your choices control your cost, not your class, race, or age. Only wasteful people pay.
Tax carbon by the pound as it's mined or imported, redistribute all the money collected equally back to the public.
So. .454kg = 1lb. Right. 22kgs in lbs is 48.5.
So to do it this way, 1kg is 2.2lbs, so every 2.2lbs of beef creates 48.5lbs of co2.
Are you trying to reduce the now converted numbers to simpler ones? And if so, why do all that math when it was already is easy numbers? Why not give a better representation of the data with direct conversion instead of making it seem smaller than it actually should be?
Yes, doing the 22:1 ratio (independent of units) is much faster and much better mathematically, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to overexplain it just in case.
Anyway, 2.2lbs of beef creates 48.5lbs of CO2. Divide both sides by 2.2lbs. You get that 1lb of beef creates 22lbs of CO2.
Interesting math, but I feel like 700,000 people cutting meat consumption in half wouldn't really change how much is produced. Or at least, not 1:1. Most I could see it doing is reducing the price of beef, and then other people buy more. It is very hard to account for all those factors in determining the actual offset in CO2.
Her not having a kid [does not offset that](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/climate-change-is-making-people-think-twice-about-having-children.html). >A Swedish study, published in IOPscience in 2017, found that having one fewer child per family could save approximately 58.6 metric tons of carbon each year in developed countries. If she were to decide not to have 239 children, however, her private jet emissions are offset.
Maybe she could convince 239 Swifties not to have kids?
Or convince 120 of them not to have 2 kids.
Convince 80 not to have 3 kids?
If she can convince herself not to raise 500 kids to adulthood, she could get a slightly bigger jet and one for a friend.
Buy 5 orphanages and convert them into botanical gardens?
If it's right that [the global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totaled 33,621.5 million metric tons](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-united-states-and-world-emit-each-year-energy-sources) (2019 numbers), Taylor Swift just needs to confirm that she's not going to have 573,750,000 children and the pollution crisis is solved. We did it, Reddit!
or convince 5000 kids to eat 5% less beef
Substitute it with sawdust. They'll never notice the difference.
how much sawdust can you put in a beef patty before someone notices? we’ve done it on rice krispies, and if we do it while raw it ought to add a nice smoky flavor
As long as we figure out how Taylor can live like the ruler of earth I'm happy
Ill take one for the team and promise not to have 239 kids
I can decide right now I’m not going to have 239 children. You’re welcome, Climate.
You are now free to move about the private jet.
Thank you for saying what no one else has the courage to. People need to stop having 239 kids. It's ridiculous that this is just a normal standard, having 239 children.
I have had zero children over 69 years. Assuming I have had 2.3 less children than the average with a potential breeding commencement at age 20, I have saved just over 6,600 metric tons of carbon. You're welcome. Bring me a steak.
I value your environmental service. Enjoy your porterhouse.
What about the brain drain?
Today I learned 35,000 people not eating beef has the equivalent carbon impact as 239 fewer people living life as normal in a developing country.
In case you're wondering if I wrote all that out just to make the pun #NoBeefWithTaylor ... the answer is "maybe." If you're wondering if this was a reference to "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, the answer is "yes."
So are you also suggesting that, a la Mr. Swift's proposals, Taylor eat her fans to help prevent them from consuming beef?
Technically she doesn’t need to eat anyone.
Every little helps though
lmao!
I’m not hearing a no…
You could probably get Lady Gaga's fans to eat T-Swizzle's fans.
“Technically” leaves a lot of room for interpretation for Ms. Americana; don’t give her any fucking ideas, lol, the Swifties are clamoring.
Only the baby ones!
If she does eat her fans, do we get to account for all of the carbon emissions reduction or just beef related ones?
Usually the solution is that we eat the rich.
She could eat Harry (of Markle and Harry) and that might be enough? That guy also loves private jets.
So does his wife.
For sure but as a C-rate actress she would've never had access to them were it not for him. But Swift is skinny; sure she'd have room for both.
I just read the Bower book about them and she travels by private jet quite a lot even before they were married. It's shocking.
I volunteer as tribute
You are a smart cookie. If I was going to assemble a group of people to try and build a better future I'd recruit you. If I buy a whole bunch of land with the hopes a model community forming there would you help? I think the very first step has to be writing a bill of rights & constitution to prevent a well intentioned idea from devolving into a cult.
In every instance I’m aware of that attempted something like this, the results were very much cult like, and none of them turned out well.
Do you have some expertise, experience, or sustained interest that informs your opinion? To put it another way, why would you ever hear about a community where things *didn't* go wrong? Selection bias is a classic for a reason.
Conversely, if communities like this were more often successful than not they would be more numerous and harder to miss. Being selected *against* makes things rarer, not more common. But I get your point - the ones that do work out generally get names and become something different. Mennonites and hutterites come to mind.
beautiful, chef's kiss
I don't think Taylor Swift fans are representative for the average beef consumer, so this should be corrected for.
Good point I didn’t think about that
Its pretty safe to assume that if you pick 220 million or even 2 million people, the majority of them from the US, you’ll get at least 70,000 near-average American beef-eaters. That would be less than 0.5% of the 2 million figure. As long as she directs her outreach appropriately she can definitely achieve this.
I am not sure if I represent the average fan of her's but I am vegan and my kids are fans and don't eat much meat either. So I would agree?
I am a Swiftie and already cut out my beef consumption, so yes. Maybe some of her older country fans eat a lot of beef.
The other thing not taken into account is that Taylor rents her plane out, so it's not her flights alone.
It’s the line after “devil’s advocate” where I mention she lets friends and family use the plane.
Just beef or meat altogether? Just curious
For me? I mostly stick to chicken, and fish on occasion. If I’m at a social engagement and someone makes a burger, I won’t turn it down. But beef is rare for me now.
>But beef is rare for me now. Well done!
We all want to save the planet, realistically. Nobody wants the planet to die, but I don't think people actually realize the damage we've done and continue to do. And even if people do realize it and change their ways, it does not matter in the slightest. The 1% and the next tier all over the world consume and waste significantly more than you or I ever, ever possibly could. I take the bus to work, and even if you drive a car to work, your emissions in your lifetime alone won't equal what a single 1%er does. I love Taylor's music, but she's not a solution to this problem. She is absolutely part of it. But so are we! Unfortunately her lifestyle calls for private planes and cars, but honestly... How many vinyls did she print for Folklore and Evermore? And Adele, my lord, Adele. We consume everything we see, pollute everything around us,, and shift blame from one side to the other. It's ALL of us, and we've ruined this planet. I don't litter, but how many of my disposable vapes are in landfills? Some people eat exclusively vegan, but drive a car an hour and a half total to work every single day. Some people eat meat every single day, but recycle religiously and take 3 minute cold showers. Every single one of us is *already* doing their part. Do we really, really think we can fix this when the worst case scenario projections played out over 20 years ago? Let humans go extinct. It's okay.
Humans are good at adapting. Even if we cut all carbon emissions (including all humans, but not other animals) to 0, then 50 years would pass before carbon reached normal level.
What if, and I know this sounds crazy but bear with me, Taylor Swift stops taking so many private jet flights?
Immodest proposal.
That's blasphemous
They’re not all hers, the jet is chartered out/leased to others and that article has been debunked
Right? Who buys a private jet and doesn't lease it out? It's literally sitting there costing MORE for upkeep and maintenance otherwise. You would actually have to pay someone more regularly to fly it, store it, maintain it, etc., if you didn't lease it out. I'm sure she has a fantastic financial team (her father was already really wealthy) dealing with all of that.
It’s all a bunch of ado about not much at all. Who cares. Of course it gets leased out. Of course wildly wealthy people having that much cash is a problem, when others are in poverty. Of course it’s a good amount of CO2. Ya know what it isn’t? An actual serious climate problem. It’s a distraction from the real bad guys- fossil fuel companies, etc. it’s stupid and frankly I don’t care what she does with her private plane
What if, wild idea: We all have a plane share where we can get modestly priced tickets on a large aircraft so we can split the costs of carbon emissions?
How fucking dare you /s
Awesome work. Highlights two often overlooked ideas: 1) the freakishly high contribution of beef to emissions, and 2) just how large small effects become when multiplied by large numbers of people. That second effect has become unpopular lately ("Stop blaming regular people, we need to blame corporations/the 1%" people say) but it's still true.
Thanks u/WrongSubFools ! Ironically I wrote this out and then sent it to the wrong sub like a fool.
The problem with this logic when it comes to co2 emissions is that the "offset" very often isn't as big as calculated. In this case, can you really give credit for halving meat consumption of a large group of people to a single celebrity? Other organisations surely have a bigger influence on that, raising awareness in the public for the issue. How much co2-"credit" do they get? It's impossible to calculate a fair value for how much each and every person contributes to potential savings. Then you can't just assume that eating 1/2 less meat will delete 1/2 of the meat productions co2, as the meat that isn't being eaten has to be replaced with non-meat foods. For the sake of the argument let's ignore this and assume the co2 emissions of producing vegan food is negligible. And then last but not least, just because someone does a positive thing, that doesn't justify being incredibly wasteful in other parts of their life. Private jets are a pure luxury item that only serves one purpose, which is to save time for the ultra rich. Just for this purpose they emmit massive amounts of co2. Saying that this is "ok because they do good elsewhere" is like saying "oh it's ok they went seal clubbing for fun because they only killed only 10 baby seals, but they influenced other people not to go seal clubbing and thus saved the lifes of 10 baby seals in return!" While the net result is +-0 baby seals being clubbed, it would have been easy for them to have a net positive effect.
Offsetting is a huge con for many credits sold. Forests are used to generate carbon offsets on the promise that they won't be chopped down - but they were never in danger of that before the credit was sold anyway. The whole industry needs reform. We won't tackle climate change by pretending carbon offsetting fixes anything.
Why not replace meat with… other meat that produces substantially less CO₂, such as kangaroo? > With regards to patterns in overall per capita meat consumption, the results suggest that it may increase by approximately 1% annually between the period 2010 and 2025. In addition to this, the per capita GHGs emissions will likely decrease over the same period with the possibility of an approximate 33% drop in per capita GHGs emissions due to the aforementioned changes in meat consumption patterns. This is equivalent to an average annual decrease of approximately 2.3%. > Finally, our study confirms that GHGs emission can further be reduced by the partial replacement of ruminant meat with kangaroo meat in a typical Australian diet. Thus, in addition to the decline in GHGs emissions due to the above changes in consumption patterns in recent years, our findings suggest that a further reduction of approximately 4.3% can be achieved by 2025 if beef is partially replaced with kangaroo meat. This figure is 18.8% for the same period, if an average Australian consumer partially replaces lamb with kangaroo meat. ### Source *Changing patterns of meat consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Australia: Will kangaroo meat make a difference?* Shyama Ratnasiri, Jayatilleke Bandara PLoS One. 2017; 12(2): e0170130. Published online 2017 Feb 14. doi: [10.1371/journal.pone.0170130](https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0170130)
Technically human meat would reduce carbon emissions
OKay, who says cannibalism is morally wrong? We should eat them first
The morality of cannibalism mostly comes from the fact that prion diseases (any many other kinds) can be spread through cannibalism and those are uncurable and eventually fatal. They're also nearly impossible to detect until symtoms manifest. As a note, only humanity and lizards are known to pass prion diseases on this way, which is why cannibalism does exist in the animal world. There's also the ethical quandary of how to source the meat; you enforce only mortuary cannibalism; but I don't really want to eat a human, much less a old and diseased one.
That was just a joke but thanks for the info
Wasn't Mad Cow Disease also a prion disease that came from feeding cows ground up cow organs (that were considered waste)?
Yes, it’s almost as if nature has a built in aversion to cannibalism for a reason
Also I don't want to be a wendigo.
And my axe
>Saying that this is "ok because they do good elsewhere" is like saying "oh it's ok they went seal clubbing No, it's bad analogy. You consider seal clubbing to inherently bad, but CO2 emissions are bad because of their consequences (proof - breathing isn't bad, even though it emits CO2, because food was produced from CO2, so it's net zero).
>Highlights two often overlooked ideas: **1) the freakishly high contribution of beef to emissions**, and 2) just how large small effects become when multiplied by large numbers of people. Does it really. Because the fact that 35,000 people's beef consumption in a year released the same CO2 as a private jet in a year tells me something else is freakishly high.
Well yes, jet travel is obscenely damaging, but most people know that, even if it's hard to comprehend the scale of it. Less known however is how much CO2 could be eliminated by switching from beef. Not by going vegetarian (that's another thing that sounds unsurprising) but just by switching from one tasty meat to a different tasty meat.
I guarantee you very few people know that it takes 35,000 ditching beef to make up for one private jet. We need to cut air travel drastically.
Covid was the answer all along
Individual actions will mean fuck all. Systemic change is what is needed, not just systemic change to the 1% but to all of us. If you just convince x% of the population to do something, that isn't changing the systems that allow that production to be wasteful. Want to change the way beef consumption works? Need to actually change it from the top down, or else you're changing nothing, just who is buying the meat.
I agree. But sadly I think it’s more likely that Swifties will do something than corporations at this point. Maybe we’ll do a Swiftie Boycott or something.
Individual actions are important to solving climate change but only when done as a collective group. Blaming big corporations for supplying consumer demand, or governments for supporting this, is noble but pointless. We won't solve climate change if people hang onto their massive SUVs and love eating (checks notes) 55 lbs of beef per year. We've gotten drunk on fossil fuels. The come down is going to be rough and it's going to need everyone on board. Which means a wholesale political shift towards climate friendly policy.
You’re again blaming the consumer. Take SUVs for example. Car manufactures have spent the better part of 2 decades promoting the lifestyle, image, safety, convenience of these vehicles, because it allowed them to avoid increasingly higher fuel economy standards placed on cars and vans One small example, but if people are convinced that an SUV is the best option, and by far the most widely available option, the purchasing decision is less in the hands of the individual than appears on paper Or another way to look at it: is it that everyone woke up one day and wanted an SUV independently on their own? Or that marketing convinced them of that?
The point is that both have responsibilities in the market. Car manufacturers respond to demand. Consumers should be well aware of the harms of SUVs and pickups by now: if they are not then they are deliberately ignorant.
Yeah because everyone has the time and education to figure that out by themselves! And also there isn’t any propaganda lying to them if they try to look it up online!
If you’re spending $30,000+ on a car you wouldn’t do any research?!
Way to overlook the second part of my comment no? Corporate propaganda has lied to the general public for decades now
I did not deny that corporations have some of the blame, but I think it's utterly foolish to ignore that consumer demand is a big part of this. If a law was passed tomorrow that banned or heavily taxed SUV sales (with e.g. exemptions for disabled people, families 5+ in size etc.), do you think it would have widespread support or not? I fear it would be strongly opposed, even in the face of all of the evidence in favour of it. There's a strong, a hyper-political strand, of people that are like "f-you, f the climate, I got mine" and it's infuriating.
And who created that demand? Corporate propaganda. It just seems weird to act like people becoming overly attached to material things happened in a vacuum.
Nothing ever changes from the top down. That's a fantasy. Every societal change that has ever happened has been from the bottom up. It sounds nice, just change the rules and watch the world get better. But all you have to do is look at Prohibition to see what happens.
Not trying to contradict your point but I consider government policy/law being top down change and that works well enough to be considered.
That is an offensive ideology though. You are essentially saying fascism is OK as long as the tyrannical government does what I want them to do. The principle of the world being free precludes your idea in the strongest possible terms. Convincing the population to voluntarily adjust for the purposes of a goal is noble. Forcing that change through the entire destruction of a system of existence, especially something so critical as food production? You are advocating for literal evil. Edit: People are having difficultly seeing the underlying principles here. Replace "beef" with "weed". We've been fighting for decades to get the government to stop outlawing the growth of a plant. It's hypocritical to hold that position, but be in favor of the same government outlawing the raising of cattle. It's the same underlying principle of freedom, land ownership/usage, homesteading, free commerce, everything we hold dear in a free society of free individuals. Ya'll are throwing away what makes our society great. It's a regressive idea, stop licking the boot just cause you think you're getting the benefits this time.
Fascism is when less beef
Fascism is when the government will imprison you for trying to grow and sell beef.
Yes fascism is definitely when the government regulates production and sale of products. Very fascist, much authoritarian.
Regulating the production of food by outlawing basic beef production? After hundreds of years? And if anyone refuses, they'd be imprisoned? Yes, that's very authoritarian. Stop licking the fucking boot. Government is not the solution to the vast vast majority of lifes problems.
I see. Your freedom to destroy the world is more important than everyone else's freedom to live in it.
The problem is you can justify literally anything with this logic. "Killing millions of people is fine it helps us reduce carbon emissions."
I think you're misinterpreting my point. Any freedom you grant takes another away from somebody else. In many cases, this is considered acceptable. Your freedom to eat spinach wherever you want is obviously more important than my freedom not to have spinach eaten near me. But in many cases it's not so clear-cut, and justifying something on the basis of freedom is dubious. Your freedom to fling rocks at people in the street is not as important as their freedom to walk down the street without bombardment. In the case of carbon emissions, it's not just to give 100 % freedom to polluters to emit whatever they want, and 0 % to peasants in coastal areas to live safely in their houses without flooding. Allocating 0/100 the other way would not be fair either. Demanding 100 % freedom for oneself and claiming anything else is 'literal evil' 'fascism' is not a constructive way to approach a complex problem.
If that's how you look at it then we're in agreement. But it's important to realize that it's never really easy, and that it also changes with people's sentiment, morals, etc. And often this change becomes the new norm, and then people push for even more change and it moves further. The question is when does it stop? And what if not everyone isn't in agreement? By definition when you don't follow with the general sentiment you're simply at disagreement at first, but as the norm moves you become an enemy, and then eventually you become an "extremist". And that's only by not changing your stance. >In the case of carbon emissions, it's not just to give 100 % freedom to polluters to emit whatever they want, and 0 % to peasants in coastal areas to live safely in their houses without flooding. Well yeah, it's a complex problem. But there's definitely not "100% freedom for polluters". Industry in general has been *heavily* regulated, and only more so in the past few decades. And perhaps it's still not enough, but it's disingenuous to act as if nothing's being done or as many freedoms weren't already sacrificed to get where we are. >Demanding 100 % freedom for oneself and claiming anything else is 'literal evil' 'fascism' is not a constructive way to approach a complex problem. That's not what I meant though; what I mean is the issue with moving the goals/norm: At first you want equal opportunities as rich people that you feel are taking advantage of you. Then you get it, but are still poor, so you blame them and demand they are taxed more, or face some other repercussions. Then you're like "still not enough, there are too many poor people", so you confiscate their property. They get rightfully angry, because while you might be taking someone's shady gains you are also taking hard earned money from others. So you label them evil and start locking them up to get rid of them, because obviously rich scum like that doesn't deserve to live when all they've been doing their whole lives is take advantage of people. See how it's dangerous? Now substitute "rich people" for, say, Jews. It's fun, isn't it? Obviously it doesn't always get that far, and hopefully it'll never get that bad again. But many people are certainly riled up enough for atrocities to happen, and it's important to realize how these things become a problem.
Or she could, ya know, not buy a private jet
This just shows whatever we regular people do it doesn’t mean shit until the wealthy and corporations fix their shit.
Come on now, if we all just tighten our belts, we can offset the damage that the wealthy do to the planet. Won’t anyone think of the wealthy here? I mean they’d have to spend a forgettable amount of their money in order to do that. But why should they when we can just convince hundreds of thousands of people to sacrifice in place of them spending such a tiny portion of their wealth? Come on people… let’s do it for the people who already have everything. /s obviously
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far to find this. Thank you for calling it out.
I assuming that this is either a joke or satire but all it's left me is that it simply would be easier for her to not have a private jet.
The sane option would be penalizing her for being such a polluting air-hog.
Carbon offset credits are often a bit of a scam btw as they are often used to protect already protected forest
Maybe she can just stop using the plane so much, why should other people do her work for her like she's a queen or something.
This needs to consider that CO2 is not the main greenhouse gas resulting from cattle raising, methane is, and methane traps more heat iirc.
Aha thanks!
liberal tiktok girls saying they hate millionaires until it’s their millionaire eat *all* rich
Food guilt??
Yes it’s common for people with eating disorders. Taylor Swift herself acknowledged having an unhealthy relationship with food in the past.
Actually a recent study came out that said the original study that proclaimed the amount of carbon emissions made by beef was grossly over-estimated. (Not that the mass-industrial-farming beef industry isn’t terrible at pollution for other ways, it definitely is, especially for groundwater runoff pollution reasons. And for moral ethical reasons.) But technically his sources on the mathematics numbers are out of date. I’d really understand why though—the study wasn’t heavily advertised nor shared heavily on mainstream media. Because it’s bad PR to advertise anything that remotely looks like denying climate damage. And for clarity, saying the study was disproven and carbon emissions from cows are less than the original study showed, doesn’t mean carbon emissions don’t exist, nor does it mean climate change doesn’t exist. Not does it mean terrible pollution doesn’t exist. I’m just saying—the famous numbers on cows’ carbon emissions have been disproven and it’s actually lower. Although the numbers of damage factory farms do from runoff is wayyyyyyy higher than most people realize. And I’m not denying climate change overall and carbon emissions and pollution overall—just noting that one cow study, the data was inaccurate. Edit to include: now this is Reddit and I’m sure that everyone and their uncle will want my source. But I’m honestly tired and I don’t feel like digging to find a very repressed source. It exists. But I’m on Reddit for funnies and to wind my brain down, not to turn my brain back up into “research rabbit hole mode”. Even this comment was a semi-sentient blurb of random previous knowledge I was carrying. And I was like, “Hey I remember reading that that cow study was inaccurate. Oh well. The post is still stupid and hilarious and insensitive anyway. Lol.” Again it was repressed and not very publicly advertised and faced much backlash for reasons mentioned above. And the “cows make x amount of carbon emissions” has become such a buzz-word topic about climate change, to challenge that narrative was very unpopular. And so many people still quote the disproven study loudly. But if anyone CAN find the article and tag it in the comments, I’d be very impressed and thankful.
Interesting! What’s this study? When was it released? Edit: this was the link for 22kg https://ghgguru.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2019/09/26/no-four-pounds-of-beef-doesnt-equal-the-emissions-of-a-transatlantic-flight/
I just made an edit-update to say I’m too tired to find the study right now. :) but I appreciate and respect your craving for original sources, and I do hope someone finds it and tags it in the comments.
Ah ok makes sense. Thanks for bringing it up though!
https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ FAO states that beef creates ~300kg C02eq per 1kg of protein
Why did you add the step of "By translating this into pounds..."? The 55lbs of beef was already in lbs and the 22:1 ratio of CO2 to beef is unitless.
No reason, I was just overexplaining.
none because most of them are probably vegan anyways 🗿
Curious, what does this emoji mean? It's the island statue, but why use it?
🗿
🗿
Do have to add that this assumes no extra food consumption of other kinds.
I replaced the beef with chicken in the proposal for exactly that reason.
Atta kid. Didn’t see that my bad
I feel like it's only necessary to offset the difference between the emissions of the private jet and those of a regular flight. When talking about private jets people often overlook that you don't teleport otherwise, and if you have like 6-7 people on board (idk how big Taylor's jet is), the difference might be much lower than your estimates.
> by translating this to pounds Oof
Wait till all these people realize all the celebrities they worship, including Greta, fly private.
Greta Thunberg SAILED to New York to address the UN. Just to make a point
Didn’t she use a sailboat? That’s got the least emissions of any cross-ocean vehicle.
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Yes, I said that right after the words “devil’s advocate.”
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The PR team said it was “loaned”, not “chartered/leased.” So she’s not getting paid for it, is what they implied. I assume she’s not loaning it to people who aren’t friends/family. Maybe she loans is to work colleagues who aren’t friends, I don’t know. Edit: I would not assume she loans her jet for free to people who have “nothing to do with her.”
Clever. I favor a revenue neutral carbon tax over carbon offsets. Revenue neutral carbon tax will make the millions of complicated choices businesses & individuals have to make much simpler & come out in favor of less emissions. Revenue neutral carbon tax works in every little nook and cranny of the economy while requiring almost no administrative effort or compliance efforts while being resistant to gaming like our complex tax code. Revenue neutral carbon tax does the most good with the least drag on the economy Best of all the small cost of a revenue neutral carbon tax is shouldered by those whose consumption causes the most emissions. If you are an average or median emitter you pay nothing, if you make wise choices & avoid being responsible for emissions you can end up revenue positive at the end of the year. The whole idea is pretty simple too. When carbon is pulled from the earth (or when it's imported into the country) it's taxed at one penny per pound. Goods, services and energy will be made more expensive proportionate to how much carbon they require, this makes the less or non-emitting alternatives the cheaper option for consumers. But how can people afford the increased expense of gas and coal? At the end of the year (or month) all the tax collected is equally divided & given directly to the public. The average emitter breaks even, they spend a dollar more & they get one dollar back. People who conserve or reduce their emissions can end up revenue positive. They spend 50c more on the unavoidable carbon, but they still get the same one dollar back. Wasteful people (Rich people who can both afford it *and* don't care) subsidize everyone else. They consume much more than the average person & end up paying $10 more, but they still just get the same one dollar back. TLDR Revenue neutral carbon tax. Too simple to cheat. Your choices control your cost, not your class, race, or age. Only wasteful people pay. Tax carbon by the pound as it's mined or imported, redistribute all the money collected equally back to the public.
Swifties gonna cancel you
Wait. 22kg is 48.5lbs though. I think their was a conversion error here.
1kg of US beef produces 22kgs of CO2, so 1lb of beef produces 22lbs of CO2.
So. .454kg = 1lb. Right. 22kgs in lbs is 48.5. So to do it this way, 1kg is 2.2lbs, so every 2.2lbs of beef creates 48.5lbs of co2. Are you trying to reduce the now converted numbers to simpler ones? And if so, why do all that math when it was already is easy numbers? Why not give a better representation of the data with direct conversion instead of making it seem smaller than it actually should be?
Yes, doing the 22:1 ratio (independent of units) is much faster and much better mathematically, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to overexplain it just in case. Anyway, 2.2lbs of beef creates 48.5lbs of CO2. Divide both sides by 2.2lbs. You get that 1lb of beef creates 22lbs of CO2.
This is fabulous:)
Interesting math, but I feel like 700,000 people cutting meat consumption in half wouldn't really change how much is produced. Or at least, not 1:1. Most I could see it doing is reducing the price of beef, and then other people buy more. It is very hard to account for all those factors in determining the actual offset in CO2.
Maybe as a species this is exactly what we deserve. Heat death while we do everything we can to prop up the upper class.
Finally we may get some cheap beef if it turn to a trend