The difference between these is that stopping smoking and losing weight make your life overall better. Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here.
It's also not enough. We will have to start sucking up that carbon from the atmosphere whether we cut emissions or not.
> Reducing carbon emissions will make life worse for everyone who's already on the lower rungs of humanity. No realistic amount of resource redistribution is going to work here.
The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut.
>The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut.
I see this argument frequently and it annoys me.
Poor people emit less carbon because they are poor. Do you want them to stay poor?!? I want a future where everyone can at least live a life as wealthy as mine. But my carbon emissions are much higher than that of the global poor.
If we can provide everyone with at least a quality of life like mine, then we're going to massively increase carbon emissions globally. Sure, better technology will help us here, but it is completely unrealistic to expect this to cancel out the increases of emissions and for this not to increases prices. This would, again, put my kind of life out of reach for many.
Look at China for a realistic example. China has had one of the highest reductions in poverty in history - from 88% in extreme poverty in 1981 to 0.7% by 2015.[0] At the same time China's carbon emissions per capita went from 1.46 tons in 1981 to 7.169 tons in 2015.[1] That's a 391% increase in emissions per capita, but it's worth it, because people are better off as a result.
Climate change is a problem, but it won't ruin tomorrow. It will slowly get worse, but this means that there's time. I believe that technological (engineering) solutions are the only way we can realistically deal with it. Cutting emissions is not going to be enough and it will come with a whole boatload of side effects.
What engineering solutions are you envisioning solving this? Short of a deus ex machina like fusion coming out of the wings and decreasing the cost of clean energy by a huge degree, this seems like it's going to be the hardest thing humanity has had to deal with in recorded history, and make the misery of extreme poverty in China seem nice in comparison.
>this seems like it's going to be the hardest thing humanity has had to deal with in recorded history, and make the misery of extreme poverty in China seem nice in comparison.
I don't see how. There aren't going to be major effects for most people for a very long time. This gives us plenty of time to try various things like carbon capture, putting a shade into space etc.
At $600 per ton of CO2 it's not insurmountable. We emit about 36 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Napkin math:
36 billion * $600 = $21.6 trillion
Global GDP is at around $84 trillion, which means that this carbon capture technology is within our reach. Obviously an enormous amount of work would need to be done, but it's at least in the right ballpark.
The US emits about 4.8 billion tons of CO2. That would cost $2.88 trillion. Considering the US GDP is $21 trillion that's even more reasonable.
Technological advancement is likely going to cut this cost further. However, I'm also sure that there are some emissions that haven't been factored in here, but we would still be at numbers where society can work.
Also, "extreme poverty" is subsistence farming. About $2-3 worth of goods per day of work.
I’m actually in the middle of studying carbon capture right now (via AirMiners Bootup, free, worth checking out the next batch if you’re interested). Direct air capture like Climeworks requires a lot of energy to free the CO2 from the sorbent, and it needs to be near a geological formation that can accept the CO2. We’d need a massive build-out of excess power generation, you can’t just extrapolate out from current numbers. And good luck convincing the people of the world that this is worth spending 1/4 of GDP (not existing government budgets, but all GDP) on this before we’re well past the scenarios we’re looking at and playing serious catch-up. If fusion comes along and energy becomes a fraction of the cost, then this becomes cheaper/easier, but the scale would still need to be extreme.
The foremost experts in DAC are emphatic that it’s not a silver bullet that will magically save us, and that the heavy lifting needs to be done by reducing new emissions.
And at this point, going eventually carbon neutral isn’t enough to avoid the 2 degree C scenario, we need to be going negative eventually.
The major effects seem likely to be deadly heatwaves, crop failure in hotter areas, mass migration, and political strain from all of that.
No. Maybe if our population wasn't leveling off I'd take it seriously, but it is. And even then a larger population isn't bad, because more people = more engineering and technological advancement. And some of that will help us solve this problem.
you can't easily force 7B people to act individually. you have to regulate at the source (the mfgs). we are far beyond individual action as a viable solution.
I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle.
The problem with this is that it means not only are they not doing anything to help, they're much less likely to vote for people who would too because they're unwilling to accept inconveniences. Instead they'll vote for people who's policies would only inconvenience others, or make performative gestures while accomplishing nothing.
I'm afraid I have come to agree with others who believe this is a problem that society simple can't solve because it lacks any mechanism to make the necessary choices.
There's only so much you can do as an individual. Yes we can do something but so much of the emissions we see are just cranked out as 'externalities' by global systems built over the last century.
If I want a house made of sustainable materials, that's irrelevant if no builders near me are using them (or in the last 50 years when the houses were built).
If I want an appliance that lasts for 50 years, who is selling them? There's more profit in shipping cheap junk that you replace often
If I want to ride a bike to work, what do I do if there's no bike lane and I live really far away due to low density zoning and urban sprawl?
If I want to use renewable energy, which grid can I plug into that isn't powered by coal?
If I need medicine, which manufacturer will use biodegradable plastics for their containers? Should I factor that in and weigh it against the effectiveness of the medicine itself as a consumer? I'm supposed to vote with my dollars, right?
There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference.
> There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference.
I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that this narrative of no one's individual choices mattering in the grand scheme leads people to just stop doing anything, not only personally, but also on a political level.
> I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle.
i would be happy to only use glass bottles and no more plastic even if it means i have to wash them before taking them to get refilled. except there is nowhere i can do this. all i have the option of doing is buying and landfilling more single use plastic.
people need to be given no cheaper choice than to do the right thing. but capitalism isnt about to stop maximizing profits and disregarding externalities. they would much rather cheer you on to "recycle" (landfill) rather than reduce or reuse.
it's a race to the bottom. i've heard it called environmental arbitrage. regulations too harsh in US? outsource to china where it's cheaper and simply gets dumped into rivers/oceans over there.
the "individual action makes a difference" is fairy tale. for every 1 person who tries individual action, 999 will discard 3000 plastic containers that cost them ~$0 to acquire but made the container mfg $3,000 profit.
> the "individual action makes a difference" is fairy tale. for every 1 person who tries individual action, 999 will discard 3000 plastic containers that cost them ~$0 to acquire but made the container mfg $3,000 profit.
Unless of course all 1000 of them decided to do something. Can't you see how this narrative is self-fulfilling?
the typical consumer and business doesnt give much shit about more than their bottom line and nimby. if half the amazon rainforest gets clearcut for palm oil farming, most people in this generation wont be affected by it, why would they stop buying products made with palm oil? they won't.
until everyone's houses start burning down or flooding due to climate change, or they see empty grocery stores, no one will care/act. at that point it is far too late to _start_ making changes. people with the means to make lifestyle changes are far too removed from the externalities and timescales to affect their behavior.
Exactly, and that's my point: the individual's unwillingness to sacrifice is directly correlated with the government's unwillingness to force them to. Why would people who don't care vote for people who would take their conveniences from them?
Interesting analogy but I don't think it holds up. Both of these are stereotypical examples of failure of willpower. Climate change does not require personal willpower when we have laws available to create carrots and sticks.
My point was that im worried society doesnt have the willpower to create those laws just like many obese people dont have the will power to lose weight.
As much as I dislike smoking or obesity, those aren't the main causes of climate change. If we eliminated both of those entirely, today, we'd still have a crisis.
That being said, I'll absolutely agree with the sentiment that "humans will always be human". We're not going to collectively try to fix this until it's too late. That's the saddest part.
Are you suggesting the average American got fat off environmentally friendly low-carbon-impact food products? Because I suspect they got fat off Oreos and Coca-Cola.
> I'm suggesting exactly what I said. Would you like me to repeat it?
You're being aggressive and condescending for no reason. To quote you, "I thought HN was better than this."
> When beef has the 30x the environmental impact of plant based food per calorie, it would be hard to make the statement that fat people are automatically to blame for climate change.
This isn't what anybody suggested. As obesity rises, people eat more, creating the food to sustain those people causes a greater environmental impact. If more people drive cars, we need more gas, right?
> The whole argument is just completely ignorant on its face.
You're angry for no reason.
> Dispute what I said instead of making glib replies.
Done.
> Do you think every calorie has the same environmental impact? No? Because OF COURSE NOT. So what are you even disagreeing with?
More net calories is more net carbon. Basic math, friend.
