So now we can get rid of fast fashion, mandate reusability for products, reintroduce basic woodworking, metalcrafting and sewing/repair work in school and with that get rid of a huge chunk of the needless shipping?
Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food while thought leaders fly across the globe in private jets (no kidding) telling us we need to change our diet?
PS: I'm already a enthusiastic carbon cutter even if it historically has been because it correlated very well with cost cutting and self sufficiency.
Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on. Reducing energy use at the individual level is good, but insufficient if the energy used comes from fossil fuels.
I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production. There has to come a global moratorium on fossil fuel production and the wells that exist need to be capped. If it comes out of the ground it will be used somewhere and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere. The more low carbon our lifestyle the cheaper fossil fuels will get and someone somewhere will always buy and use them. Regrettably politicians dare not talk about this elephant in the room.
"Individual action" is a euphemism for changing your lifestyle in the slightest, even if imposed from outside through tariffs/taxes or other regulation. What people want is their exact same lifestyle, except eveything bad has been spraypainted green. It's understandable, I want my wishes to turn things into gold.
Action against companies is an extension of action against consumption, not an alternative.
I'd say many are ready for individual action but are discouraged on a daily basis especially by
- hypocritical politicians and environmentalists traveling the world on first class/private jets
- negativity like yours and the one I originally answered
- misinformation/information overload/infighting: whatever good someone tries to do someone will pop up to explain why it is bad: nuclear, organic, frugality, you name it, someone will magically pop up to tell you how worthless exactly your contribution is.
I say: almost every effort is worthwhile as long as one doesn't actively destroy. At least spread enthusiasm and knowledge.
> Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on.
The covid shutdown should have put this myth to bed forever.
Hundreds of millions stuck at home and no longer commuting took a massive dent out of carbon emissions and sent shock waves through the oil industry.
Individual action can save the planet; we have to be drops in the flood.
> I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production.
There's no way we can continue to works as we do and plan cities as we do and stem the oncoming catastrophe with any alacrity.
In what world is hundreds of millions of people drastically changing their lifestyle because they've been instructed to stay home by their governments "individual action"? That's a collective response to a crisis mandated by government.
Yes, the individuals were coerced to take action. Note that what many intend when referring to individual action is not that the individual _chose_ to take action, but that the individual _does_ take action. When claiming that individual action won't make a difference they're claiming that changing how we live as collective individuals won't make a difference; it doesn't matter what motivated that change for their thesis to be considered.
IMHO, Governments ought to _heavily_ tax commercial office space to coerce companies to support WFH. Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
I don't think I've ever heard an argument that defines individual action in the way you do. Most "individual action" arguments tend to lean towards pushing people to make individual choices to reduce emissions, and many are not substantive – take shorter showers! bike instead of driving to the gym! Even the actions that are reasonable – "give up air travel" – only become significant in aggregate.
> IMHO, Governments ought to _heavily_ tax commercial office space to coerce companies to support WFH. Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
I think that's absolutely reasonable and something that should happen now. But "I now work from home because my company told me to because the tax on the office/parking increased to push a shift in behavior" is absolutely not an individual choice.
> I don't think I've ever heard an argument that defines individual action in the way you do. [...] Even the actions that are reasonable – "give up air travel" – only become significant in aggregate.
One person making a change has never been a reasonable solution for global climate change; advocating for individual action has always meant making changes in the aggregate behaviour of individuals.
> But "I now work from home because my company told me to because the tax on the office/parking increased to push a shift in behavior" is absolutely not an individual choice.
Correct, it is not an individual choice. It is an individual action.
> Correct, it is not an individual choice. It is an individual action.
Every world government has passed a law, rigorously enforced, that says each person can drive no more than 20 miles a week. dleslie drives 20 miles a week. Has dleslie performed an individual action to address climate change?
> Apparently I've done the opposite, because that's more than I drive in a week now. ;)
Ha! Pandemics, eh? :)
> But not to be trite, yes I would have
This feels to me like over-egging the pudding - but getting into this discussion is really more of a question of philosophy than climate science, so it's a bit of a distraction.
It seems that, beyond the semantics of what constitutes "individual action", we seem to agree with what's needed:
> advocating for individual action has always meant making changes in the aggregate behaviour of individuals.
> Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
> but getting into this discussion is really more of a question of philosophy than climate science, so it's a bit of a distraction.
Ah, but the politics of it are important to causing change to happen. If we can't get voters to buy-in to changing their behaviour then Governments are unlikely to create such policies.
The important concept for the opposition to individual action, I think, is that the opposition is rooted in two ideas:
1. Individuals shouldn't be burdened with having to change the way they live
2. The burden should be on the big evil capitalist corporations
Neither of which hold much water, I think; the data behind carbon reduction due to covid restrictions shows that changing the lives of individuals is an important and necessary part of the solution.
And those big evil corps are mostly serving consumer demand. They're not pumping carbon into the atmosphere just because they're evil, right? Moreover, some of the largest polluters are in China, and China has been a major polluter for generations; it's not a strictly capitalist concern.
> Global CO2 emissions declined by 5.8% in 2020, or almost 2 Gt CO2 – the largest ever decline and almost five times greater than the 2009 decline that followed the global financial crisis. CO2 emissions fell further than energy demand in 2020 owing to the pandemic hitting demand for oil and coal harder than other energy sources while renewables increased. Despite the decline in 2020, global energy-related CO2 emissions remained at 31.5 Gt, which contributed to CO2 reaching its highest ever average annual concentration in the atmosphere of 412.5 parts per million in 2020 – around 50% higher than when the industrial revolution began.
> What if "safe for the environment" isn't just another brand that you can choose to buy if you're willing to pay the extra dollar?
But "safe for the environment" is a brand that you can choose to buy. Every environmental damage can be offset.
I'd reverse the question: what if solving global warming is something that can be achieved without outlawing anything, including SUVs, plastic garbage and wasteful lawns? Certain people perceive global warming as an opportunity to reshape society in their preferred image; (visibly) ecologically conscious, "green", friendly, local, low power, low consumption, etc. This can be seen in the discourse around technological megaengineering solutions to global warming, such as a space sunshade - usually you will find in the comments someone saying "but then we'll just keep burning fossil fuels!" Yeah, so? I thought this was about warming?
> Loss of biodiversity? Sea level change? Loss of ice sheets? You can't pay a tax somewhere and unshatter that glass.
Sea level change and ice sheets are a result of climate change and thus can be offset with carbon offsets; they're the poster child for the concept.
I don't recognize loss of biodiversity as damage.
> Oh, not even close, not if even if there were less than 1 billion humans on Earth. None of those things is sustainable in the long run.
Those things are negligible footnotes in the long run. And all of those things, including the plastic bags, can be run off solar. All it needs are the right incentives.
Individuals can and should reduce their direct CO2 footprint. Most of personal energy budget goes for transportation and heating and/or cooling the living spaces. Two solutions enable you to stop directly burning stuff: EVs and heatpumps.
Beyond that, cap-and-trade scheme has worked to reduce SO2 emissions and it will work to reduce CO2 emissions.
Am EV over a fuel burning car is huge improvement, however EV’s alone are not a sustainable solution to our transport needs. There needs to be mass transit and wider adoption of cycling/walking in more towns and cities. EV’s are still burning fuel if they’re not charged using 100% renewable energy, which clearly we are not at yet, and at the end of the day they’re _still_ an inefficient means of transporting people over any distance.
To reduce transportation emissions worldwide, there needs to be greater emphasis on alternative modes of transports to cars, electric or not.
- Long distances should be covered by train/bus.
- Medium distances by metro/bus/tram/whatever works in a given city’s geography and layout.
One issue with individual action, in the absence of a market incentive such as cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, is that reducing your use of power/fossil fuels reduces demand, thus ever so slightly reducing prices, which will give others licence to use more. It doesn't 100% cancel out your efforts, but it does reduce the effect.
One issue with EVs is that they aren't necessarily a feasible option for a lot of households due to their cost. Putting a market incentive in place would lead to a hundred different ways of reducing our CO2 emissions from driving, not limited by the ingenuity of one person or organization. More people working from home, more carpooling, distributed co-working spaces, more use of public transportation, even shifting how we design and zone our towns and cities, are a few things I can think of.
I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to take a very direct, immediate, simple action to move the USA toward having a carbon fee and dividend policy* take a look at this (or at the very least, send it to your environmentally concerned friends and family): https://citizensclimatelobby.org/senate/
(*a tax on carbon, where, that get returned to all citizens so as to reduce or even eliminate impact on lower income families)
Individual actions help, they aren't sufficient alone but if every citizen went vegan and didn't vacation, it would probably buy us a couple more years to transition our energy system. Every little bit helps, but I do agree industry is the low hanging and greater emitting fruit that must change first. For instance air conditioning, there are very potent greenhouse gasses in ACs, companies would do well to phase those out fully and quickly and dispose of them properly. A little government incentive there would be a massive win, much easier than telling humans not to travel.
> which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on
I'm not sure how it is in the US or around the world, but in Germany switching to 100% renewable energy for your home takes about 10 minutes online, by changing contract or company. Sure - if everyone did it there would not be enough supply, but apparently the majority does not despite being able to.
I'll just mention though that I think there is some double dipping going on here:
"Every" Norwegian seems to be happily thinking that they are using green hydropower, while at the same time the green certificates are sold to Germany.
Not saying this to discourage you guys, what you do makes green power more viable. Edit: The problem is Norwegians are living happy lives thinking they aren't contributing from power at least and nobody is telling.
I only want to help lit a fire under the feet of Norwegians :-)
And personally I could accept a small extra fee to get certified nuclear power ;-)
This argument is the problem. If we stopped producing fossil fuels right now, there would be an economic collapse, and starvation, and probably a few wars.
In 50-75 years we will probably be looking back in horror at the missed opportunity to avoid the ongoing economic collapse, the massive famine, starvation, and plagues that will follow on COVID, and the continuous wars as refugees flood from the front lines of climate collapse to places where the impacts aren't as severe and immediate.
I went to school in the 90s and we were learning about climate change then. The argument of "we can't stop now" seemed good enough 25 years ago, but we've still not actually made any progress towards making it easier to stop. We need to do that right now.
This is true. But if large portions of the electorate start living like GP, they'll have no problem with voting for carbon taxes and other measures that'll cost money. They won't be swayed by talking heads on TV shouting "environmental Marxism!".
Since I am GP: I really hope I'd not fall for anything so stupid :-)
That said I am also a conservative and I think I know a bit about conservatives; if one want conservatives to change as fast as possible phrase it in a way that sounds reasonable to the conservative mind:
- it is economically smart on individual level
- "repairing things is the traditional thing to do" and "it feels good to be in control"
- "industry should look for ways to save resources to stay competitive and increase yield on investment for shareholders" (sorry, English is not my first language, if this reads as a parody it is not meant as)
- "take advantage of the green wave". Competitive advantage: Point out that wealthy consumers will, on average, choose the greener product if they are otherwise equal. (Maybe poor ones will too, but we are here to sell this idea, aren't we ;-)
- On a national level: we need to get independence from China
- "reach individual monetary independence faster by making smart choices"
Doing this instead of continuing to make a partisan issue about it should go a long way I think. That is, if getting the results is more important than "being right".
People are already making money this way: just yesterday I heard a close friend explaining enthusiastically (I'll translate it on the fly from my native language as well as adding my explanation of why I think this was potent):
- a US jeans company had gotten hold of "the last real loom that wasn't sent to China" (local business argument)
- "hired the old operators to teach the how to use it" (traditional argument),
- "picked it apart - about a million pieces - and restored it" (self sufficient etc argument)
- and are now selling expensive pants - but it is real jeans (the actual sales argument)
There are different ways to reach different sections of the electorate, and we should use all of them. I'm in total agreement with you that those are the talking points to use with people on the conservative side of the political spectrum.
> Doing this instead of continuing to make a partisan issue
Unfortunately, making it (doesn't matter what "it" is) a partisan issue has been shown to work, over and over and over. It's depressingly predictable at this point. People go into all sorts of mental contortions and doublethink to explain why the stance "their" side has taken is the "right" one.
People and industries who have more to lose from a greener economy have no hesitation in employing these tactics to stall or block change, and influence people.
> Unfortunately, making it (doesn't matter what "it" is) a partisan issue has been shown to work, over and over and over. It's depressingly predictable at this point. People go into all sorts of mental contortions and doublethink to explain why the stance "their" side has taken is the "right" one.
You are of course right.
But since this issue is already owned by democrats/progressives/whatever and since conservative thought leaders have painted themselves into a corner maybe I should say: we shouldn't say anything that makes it an even more partisan issue.
The more we can avoid the soreness of doing what "the other side want" and focus on "this is beneficial for me/us/"our country" - right here and now, next quarter etc the better.
> People and industries who have more to lose from a greener economy have no hesitation in employing these tactics to stall or block change, and influence people.
Of course, which is why we need to outsmart them :-)
The problem is that for many people climate change adaptation boils down to that dichotomy. It'd be nice if there would be people teaching us there are other ways. Of course, we won't escape the fact we use a lot of energy and that, for the time being, most of it produces CO2.
A carbon tax that would be high enough to force changes quickly enough would also be devastating for the poorer segment of the population and hence very hard to pass in a democracy. I mixture of a carbon price and other measures can be easier to sell to the voters.
> Using X costs you Y Using XX costs you YYY Using XXX costs you YYYYYY
And instead of one company or person using XXX, you will have a three small companies using X or one person having three cars in his garage that just happen to each be registered under a different person.
Exponential taxes are a hell of a lot of an incentive to avoid them and you see how far people go to just avoid linear ones. Also, managing the company tax depending on how much the consumer used so far is going to be bureaucracy hell. It's a nice idea, but I highly doubt it will be possible to implement, especially when far easier and straight-forward measures already fail to get through legislation.
I'm well aware of that. I remember reading a story about one of the cities in Asia which forbidden car traffic with driver only. Soon there were passengers for hire standing by the road.
If AWS can charge their clients by milliseconds then I'm pretty sure an airline can add a zero to a 10th ticket booked on the same passenger's name.
The number of products/services taxed progressively wouldn't have to be huge to make a difference. You don't need to progressively tax an electric toothbrush just energy consumption, but all products should be taxed based on their production externalities.
> taxes on usage/consumption could be progressive.
Ideally the poor part of the population should be able to use the roads in the same proportion as the wealthy part of the population. Putting taxes on road usage (which what fuel taxes actually represent) will hit the poor part of the population way harder than the wealthy (or even the middle-class) part of said population.
> You could still get a cheap flight once a year, but you won't be able to fly every weekend.
That used to be one of the few remaining "pleasures of life" for a big part of the lower and lower-middle-classes from Western Europe. It was actually cheaper to fly with your lads from Luton Airport to somewhere in Eastern Europe on Friday afternoon and come back late on Sunday, all this while having lots of fun (from said lads' perspective). Taking this away from them will mean them having to hit the very expensive pubs/bars of Manchester or Oslo and not having the same amounts of fun because the money for purchasing said fun (i.e. alcohol) will just not be there. Unhappy lads may mean an unhappy populace ready to throw stones at the powers that be.
As such, the upcoming football matches from the next few months in the European big leagues will be a very good litmus test, it will be the first time in one year and a half when we'll have lots of young people together ready to scream at things (the opposing teams' players or the said powers that be). We've already had one game suspended this weekend in Montpellier (Southern France) because of fans throwing bottles at the opposing team's players.
> Ideally the poor part of the population should be able to use the roads in the same proportion as the wealthy
Yeah unless you want to give everyone the same income or have some other way of not needing money to travel anymore, that's just not going to be the case. Also today, the wealthy could do road trips much more often than the poor could. That much won't change, I think the best we can hope for is either a slight improvement or not make it worse, for example by taxing heavy use more significantly like GP proposes. I consider myself wealthy but if using 3x the average adds 5x the tax, it's not as if I have unlimited money just like the vast majority of people.
If we want to be carbon neutral in twenty years, poorer people need pretty strong incentives too. I don't see that working out if the carbon tax is mostly cost neutral for them.
They'll have a choice between two similar products. One is $10 because of a $5 carbon charge, the other is $6 with a $0 carbon charge. What will they choose?
They'll choose the $6 one, and keep their carbon tax dividend in their pocket too.
They won't really be worse off.
On the other hand, the rich will be worse off because they take more flights, consume more resources, and generally cause more carbon emissions anyway from their day-to-day lives.
Eh, many poor people don't have a choice when it comes to two their biggest carbon sources: transportation and heating. They're forced to use an old ICE to get to work, because biking and public transport is not practical for them, and they live in a rented apartment that is heated with oil or gas.
True, but we generally waste a lot of our emissions because fossil fuel energy is so cheap. People don't realize that you can save a ton of energy by, say, reducing the thermostat set point on your hot water heater, or putting plastic film over your windows and searching for and blocking drafts when it gets cold (or hot!) A lot of energy use is just habit that can be changed with very little cost, if the incentive is in place.
Granted, that won't get us to net zero, but there are a lot of high-impact, low investment changes we can all make.
Longer term, if fossil fuel energy places rise, I expect a lot more pressure put on local governments to make public transportation more accessible, and to remove legislation that blocks the building of walkable neighborhoods and cities. I'm convinced that the vast majority of driving we do is completely unnecessary, and is just the result of myopic laws about how we can build cities and suburbs that tend not to get challenged, which lead to us just building in a really dumb way that ensures everyone needs to drive.
Unless you are a factory putting out metric tons of CO2 I don't think the tax is going to be much to sneeze at for most people. Gas going up another 50 cents a gallon doesn't actually make that big of a dent to your pocket book at the end of the day, especially in cities where rent is already like $2000 a month for a single. If you fill up your car once a week, even if the tax at the pump was a full dollar, you are throwing down like $48 extra a month, or 2.4% your rent. Seems reasonable to me.
Investments into public transport and bike infrastructure is relatively cheap and improves streets for everyone.
Taking a car lane and/or parking and making a dedicated bus and bike lane out of it will reduce congestion and increase the mobility of nearly everyone.
Yes, I think the point still stands. A carbon tax is an efficient measure that will reduce emissions and not harm poor demographics.
However there are other things we can do as well to reduce emissions as well as increase life quality at the same time (improve public transport and bicycle infrastructure) where poor people benefit especially.
needs to be coupled with subsidies for alternatives, transport (public, electric vehicles, etc) and with the knowledge that a poor person will drive that old diesel car into the ground, so give them an incentive to switch.
Why not a carbon tax that's used to pull carbon out of the atmosphere? It's pretty much inevitable that we have to pull carbon out of the atmosphere at scale at some point.
Yes. Bury it, put it into use for hundreds of years. Anything that stores the carbon in the long-term. It's inevitable that we have to do this one way or another.
Will that help though? Capitalism and "letting the market figure it out" is how we got here. None of the systems in place work and are completely skippable by those with cash.
> Impose a co2 emissions tax and let the market figure it out.
Aka those who are rich will simply buy their way out of having to change, and the poor masses will have to bear the load. Neo-feudalism is not the answer to climate change - the problem starts with capitalism.
I live in the countryside in Norway - a famously long and sparsely populated country - and I either work close enough to home to go by bike or I work far enough away that I can manage to pick up my laptop and get some work done while in public transit. And yes: I get to the train station by bike, bus or by feet, if necessary it is just 30 minutes brisk walk.
Edit: not every Norwegian can do this, but far more than today. I guess this is true for a number of other countries as well.
I'm curious what kind of town you live in. I grew up in a rural area, in which google claims its a 50 minute bike ride to the nearest grocery store, along curvy & hilly country roads with absolutely no sidewalks, let alone bike lanes, and where monstrous pickup trucks are liable to sideswipe you out of spite as much as accident.
My sister lives in a suburb in Florida: better, but the weather is unbearable for half the year. She also has three children, making carrying sufficient groceries in a bike pretty much impossible.
If people can bike, they should. But a lot of people live in these sorts of conditions that are not conducive to biking, enough that "just bike to the grocery store" is not a realistic or achievable goal.
All I hear is excuses. Excuses why someone "needs" to drive a 2 ton truck, excuses why someone "needs" to fly across the Atlantic, excuses why someone "needs" a house with more bathrooms than people, excuses why it's too cold/hot to cycle.
I'm not talking about buying a 2 ton truck or flying across the Atlantic, or owning a big house. I'm talking about people needing to get groceries.
I would prefer that infrastructure in the U.S. were more dense, that less people were not required to drive everywhere. But the reality is that, as life in many parts of the U.S. is currently set up, people cannot rely on bicycling as a safe, efficient, and effective means of transportation in their daily lives. Biking, if you live in a place that supports it, is good, but telling people to "just bike" remains a useless and naive plan for addressing climate change. Your energy will be better spent elsewhere.
If you had to make that ride to eat, you would. If you did it regularly you wouldn't think anything of it. I have a hard time believing motorists are out there hitting cyclists out of spite.
People enjoy cycling on country roads with hills and no bike lanes. Some also enjoy cycling in all weather conditions. If you haven't tried it, it is a bit much to call it impossible.
That said, I think people should be able to consume energy however they choose, even drivers of "monstrous pickup trucks". If it makes them happy or they otherwise find utility in it, it is their money to spend.
If a motorists injures someone with their vehicle, they should pay damages.
Even if I accepted the premise of climate apocalypse, which I don't, the idea of allowing technocrats control over what the public can and cannot consume seems like a more dangerous precedent. Especially when we are talking about something as essential to modern life as energy consumption.
"...If you can’t justify your existence; if you’re not pulling your weight in the social boat; if you are not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself." George Bernard Shaw, on eugenics.
Nothing can be consumed without some form of "externality" and the negativity of someone's consumption is purely subjective. Consider the first principles of the proposal and where they lead.
You'll note that the above poster invoked "monstrous pickup trucks", a clear indicator of tribal, if not political affiliation. Ultimately it amounts to nothing more than a partisan condemnation of the 'other' and their culture. The scientism rationalizing it is nothing more than a thinly veiled window dressing over intolerance.
Of course, entertaining this flavor of intolerance and rationalizations for central planning could be considered a negative outcome. The threat of tyranny, the fallibility of man and his predilection towards corruption should be well understood by now. Just as two parallel lines will never meet, these are axiomatic truths of human nature. Whereas climate doomsaying is the latest in a long history of failed predictions of apocalypse. Nobody should be surprised that the fear is used to centralize control over energy resources, but here we are...
Close inspection indeed. You've misread the comment entirely.
I can assure you that I'm opposed to death panels and eugenics. Consumption is essential to living one's life. Under a laissez-faire system, one cannot consume more than he produces in terms of subjective market valuations.
Shaw's proposal is not libertarian, but illustrative of where the logic of subjectively determined "negative externalities" leads. Sorry that wasn't clearer for you.
As an American expat, I know what you mean, but the problem is this simply isn’t true. Americans think this way because they have never seen an alternative. What it does mean is that the cost of consumption goes way up, which is exactly what’s needed.
The problem is, you simply cannot tell people to drop their cars when there is no public transport. No matter the country.
If you want to change the behavior of people, you have to build out public transport and bike lanes first or you'll (and it ashames me to say it as a leftie, rightfully) get laughed out of the door.
Yes. Also, in my country, there are alternatives, but it is so much faster and time efficient to use car. I would gladly used any alternative that would not cost me additional time than car.
OK? I live not that far from an airport and I can say I have noticed a significant decrease in traffic, so much that I pointed at a passenger plane the other day to show one of my younger kids. Until COVID-19 that would have been just funny, now it was informative.
> Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food
I mean, yes, we should continue doing that. Our relationship with food is unhealthy and also a massive contributor to environmental decline. I'm not sure why you contrast this with other improvements we can make, many of which, individually, would be less impactful than a transition to a more sustainable diet.
Meat is unhealthy? You may want to take a deeper look at where that notion stems from. I recommend the book The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz for a history primer. Or just look at the lifespan in Hong Kong which is one of the top meat consumers in the world per capita.
I think it's suspect that the USA, the number one polluter and the unhealthiest country in the world now wants to dictate what other people should eat while consuming 10x the gasoline per capita as others. For environmental and health reasons of course.
Between us, there is indeed room for improvements, but when we are discussing this topic with our fellow Americans, we must put things into perspective. Compared to them we are perfectly fine, as their meat production and consumption is an absolute shitshow!
Farming is a small contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and the recent attacks on red meat for example are nonsensical if you look at the math that is used to justify it.
>Farming is a small contributor to greenhouse gas emissions
This is soo wrong:
>The AFOLU sector is responsible for just under a quarter (~10 – 12 GtCO2eq / yr) of anthropogenic GHG emissions mainly from deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil and nutrient management (robust evidence; high agreement)[11.2]. Anthropogenic forest degradation and biomass burning (forest fires and agricultural burning) also represent relevant contributions.
>
>Annual GHG emissions from agricultural production in 2000 – 2010 were estimated at 5.0 – 5.8 GtCO2eq / yr while annual GHG flux from land use and land-use change activities accounted for approximately 4.3 – 5.5 GtCO2eq / yr.
>
>Leveraging the mitigation potential in the sector is extremely important in meeting emission reduction targets (robust evidence; high agreement) [11.9].
>According to the August 8 Carbon Brief in-depth article on the SRCCL, Chapter 2 provides data on livestock methane emissions, about 66% is agricultural methane" and "about 33% of global methane emissions" come from livestock.[22][23]:38
Attacking our own food supply over a supposed 25% of emissions should be lower priority than for example taxing actual emissions so that the food suppliers can adapt, and people can stop going on vacations to Bali twice a year. Doing it this way will push farmers towards e.g. regenerative agriculture which can actually be carbon negative. Waging war on certain foods will accomplish relatively little and also alienate huge parts of the people we need to cooperate with us.
>and people can stop going on vacations to Bali twice a year.
Who goes to Bali twice a year? Those aren't representative at all, and why count on people who destroy so much to save our planet? We can ignore them and simply ban such spending. There are so many things I cannot buy (e.g explosive) because we know it's too dangerous for society. Why not prevent the very few from neutralizing all the efforts of millions? A Paris-Bali flight emits more than one year of heating and cooling for a whole family!
>taxing actual emissions so that the food suppliers can adapt
Wait. The only way this could have an impact is you make meat/fish so expensive that people stop buying it. Then, what's the point of adding taxes if you just want people to stop buying it? I bet you simply want to have the freedom to continue to do whatever you want only because you expect to have the means to pay this tax. So you'd only want others to change... and you argue that we cannot expect people to change (e.g become vegetarian versus to having the resources to eat meat/fish). But I understand why you don't believe you can get people to change since you start by excluding yourself from this possibility...
Also, can you explain why I've become vegetarian after I heard facts about the impact of agriculture? Facts that are now more and more spread (see OP's story). The money I save from meat and fish goes to farmers (I've since joined a cropsharing group, which is organic, of much better quality than what can be found in markets, and provide far more support to farmers than just paying more for the same quantity). I'm not pushing farmers to be carbon negative, I'm pulling them because I accepted to change and inviting others to do the same. There's really nothing preventing anyone to be vegetarian (or almost veggie) except ignorance and misconceptions.
> The AFOLU sector is responsible for just under a quarter
1/4 of world-wide emissions. In developed nations it isn't nearly that large of a fraction. The US agriculture industry is responsible for a little less than 1/10 of our emissions.
Does that chart separate out the transportation that's involved in agriculture, though? It has transportation at nearly 30%. If the answer to my question is "yes", then the question is how much of the transportation slice is part of the agricultural process (transportation of raw materials, to processing facilities, to packaging facilities, to grocery stores, etc).
And a further question, regardless of the answer to the above question, is: how much does this change depending on the type of agriculture? For example, I would imagine the supply chain for beef would have much more transportation involved than that for beans or soy (think of all the steps that go into making animal feed alone, and that is step 0).
I'm not sure what exactly is a 'healthy' relationship with food, or when the last time any significant fraction of the human population had attained this. Maybe before agriculture, but even that is dubious.
I'm not convinced it is possible at current population levels.
The point I got from the OP was that traditional culture was low-carbon from day 0, and that at least Britain's climate change minister was jetting about an AWFUL lot, and there are plenty of jet-setters pushing a vegan diet upon the world when home-kept chickens are obviously a net plus, both in terms of food waste (accounts for a significant carbon and other pollution footprint, as we pay to produce it) and in terms of proteins that don't require killing your chickens over (eggs).
Contrast that with having a cat or dog (look at amount of animals slaughtered for pet foods)
I agree that our systems need revamping in a large-scale way, particularly agriculture, as you imply.
The only way you comment makes sense to me is if you talk about male chickens and even then it is not necessary:
When keeping chickens at home like GP suggest you can keep the around and it would still be a net plus in the carbon calculations since you are just using food that would have been thrown away otherwise.
That sides, unless we are going to bring veganism into this there is no reason to do that.
Again, if you feed them from food scraps you can keep them alive as long as you fancy or until they die from old age and still be carbon negative compared to throwing the food to waste.
It is just a choice. If you are OK with keeping livestock but don't want to kill animals, keep them around.
If reducing CO2 emissions is more important, kill off male chickens as well as old ones and instead keep more of the productive ones and share some eggs (and some knowledge - if possible) with friends.
Unless you use artificial insemination to only produce hens, you’ll run into a problem. You will end up with many roosters who won’t produce eggs and you have to feed and care for them as well. Unless you have a gigantic yard or want wild roosters everywhere, you’ll end up killing a lot of them.
The hens you’ll have will produce eggs, but maybe only one a day and they’ll skip laying quite often. You can avoid that if you get modern hens who were selectively bred to lay excess eggs, but they will require more food than “table scraps” (they really need calcium supplements) and their bodies will be destroyed within two years. At that point you either kill them or let them suffer - neither us a good outcome for them.
There are plenty of scalable alternatives to raising chickens for their eggs. Plant-based options do require mono cropping, but it can feed the world and kill fewer animals.
> Unless you have a gigantic yard or want wild roosters everywhere, you’ll end up killing a lot of them.
Exactly what I tried to say above.
It is a choice: you can keep them and as long as you feed them mostly with grass and kitchen scraps you still reduce environmental impact by not consuming eggs from grain-fed chicken - even when you feed some roosters.
Choose a quiet breed though or be prepared to make some significant peace offerings towards your neighbors if you want to keep every rooster around until they die from old age ;-)
Personally I'd rather (rot13, blunt speak): pubc fbzr puvpxra arpxf. V terj hc ba n snez naq juvyr V qba'g gbyrengr navzny nohfr gurve yvirf nera'g fnperq gb zr. V jnag gurz gb yvir unccl yvirf jura va zl phfgbql naq n fjvsg, harkcrpgrq naq cnvayrff qrngu nsgrejneqf.
Even at the current level of population demand on resources is too great and will be massively too great if poverty is eradicated (as it should).
The long term solution for both the environment and people's quality of life (I don't think that not being able to travel, not being able to eat what one wants, having to live in a small flat in a dense city with mass transit only is a good life) is not only to have an objective to cut emission but to also have an objective to cut population.
Now, that is a very sensitive topic and so everyone prefers to ignore it.
>The long term solution for both the environment and people's quality of life is not only to have an objective to cut emission but to have an objective to cut population.
>
>Now, that is a very sensitive topic and so everyone prefers to ignore it.
No. You are ignoring that countries whose population is increasing are, per capita, not emitting much. Please compare the eqCO2 per capita in Africa vs Europe or USA. If we ask a minority to curb their pollution, we can easily fix the climate problem. But those who emit the most ask everyone to not have children... because they refuse to change their behavior. This is a sensitive topic only to the minority that is responsible for the catastrophe.
Again, I beg your to research who are polluting more that what our ecosystems can endure and tell me why we should block human beings from procreating vs asking the culprits to curb their crazy consumption/pollution and leave the rest of the world alone.
> You are ignoring that countries whose population is increasing are, per capita, not emitting much
No I'm not and this is what makes the situation worse.
When people get richer they consume more. This is not only about CO2 per se but all resources. Global population growth has been a driver for both CO2 emissions and demand on all resources, but this is also compounded by reduction in poverty.
Imagine a world where all humans consumed as much as a Western European, or even worse an American, today: This would be much, much worse than our current situation.
So unless we want to live in 1984 meets The Matrix in order to drastically limit consumption of resources then we need to get the population down so that every human can enjoy a good life in a thriving environment.
I must say I don't understand why there seems to be a taboo on this.
> asking the culprits to curb their crazy consumption/pollution and leave the rest of the world alone.
It's not "us vs them". We are all on the same boat. The poorest do not want to remain poor, and rightly so. Everyone should have the right to reach highest living standard possible.
>When people get richer they consume more. This is not only about CO2 per se but all resources.
Why would that be inevitable? I mean, you're asking to prevent people from having children! I bet it's easier to ask people to not pollute (even as they get richer) than not to have the family they want.
I, for one, I've become multimillionaire in the last decade (thank you, neoliberalism /s) while cutting my carbon footprint in more than 3. It was much easier to do that than changing my family's plans. By the way, going vegetarian makes you richer but also not flying too, not buying a bigger house and a bigger car, etc.
Being richer does not require to pollute more even if this has been the case until now, but again, we're also having more children so why would you want fewer people polluting more when we could be free to have the family we want and be responsible?
So you're becoming richer but sacrifice yourself and stash the money under your bed? Because if you're spending the money you're consuming and thereby contributing to the pressure on the environment. That does not make much sense to me as a way of life.
You also do not seem to realise how much more you're already consuming compared to the poor on this planet. If everyone was consuming as much as your family is then the environment would be in even worse shape than it is now.
If we want poverty eradicated and everyone to enjoy a high standard of living then consumption per capita has to increase globally. My belief is that everyone has the right to have a high standard of living and to enjoy greenery, nature, living space. The only way this is sustainable is if the number of people decreases to compensate.
There is a massive difference between spending my money taking my kids to the local open farm with shows, animals to pet etc or if I spend the same money hosting a party with lots of junk decorations that gets thrown away afterwards.
Same with spending my money creating a house that is well insulated and built to last vs skipping on quality and adding lots of high maintenance luxuries.
Even just keeping the money and investing it you can do something right just by vetting and prioritizing funds with a proven good profile.
> There is a massive difference between spending my money taking my kids to the local open farm with shows, animals to pet etc or if I spend the same money hosting a party with lots of junk decorations that gets thrown away afterwards.
This strikes me as a very "first world problems" view of things.
What I meant is that there is a massive difference in consumption levels (both in term of energy and resources) between you and I living our comfy Western lives and the life of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of human beings on the poorest end of the scale.
Just a drive to the supermarket for our weekly shop probably consumes more energy and resources than months of consumption for some people on this planet.
Those people have the right to be lifted out of poverty and to enjoy a high standard of living, like we have the right to enjoy those standards but this is not realistic with 8 billion people. It's simply wrong IMHO to condemn humanity to restrictions and sacrifices, so if we want everyone to be 'rich' and save the planet at the same time the only solution is to aim at cutting population significantly.
This starts by a paradigm shift, we must accept that population cannot keep growing and should in fact decrease. Then adapt to that as it has fundamental impacts on the economy and social fabric.
Start with the entirely unnessecary carniverous apex predators (aka pets) people insist on keeping. If people cant get rid of pets, then asking them to avoid replicating their own DNA is going to be a challenge.
I upvoted you, but do keep in mind that there is a lot of loneliness and some of those animals probably save us from lots of healthcare expenses. Not everything can be brought down to simple economics.
That said I have said no to dogs myself - mostly because of cost and the constant need to be looled after - and the animal we do have is a rodent that we got second hand, meaning that food cost is leftover carrot shavings etc + a bit of hay
Have you considered that for many people have pets because they don't have/can't have/don't want children? Compared to an actual human child, the footprint of a pet is quite minimal and their lifespans are short.
Well, if we need to change our diet, give up pets, give up travelling, give up individual travel in general, etc. then I think that proves the point I'm trying to make.
Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food while thought leaders fly across the globe in private jets (no kidding) telling us we need to change our diet?
PS: I'm already a enthusiastic carbon cutter even if it historically has been because it correlated very well with cost cutting and self sufficiency.