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Not even that far. Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. As someone who is fairly new to adulthood I don

Not even that far. Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. As someone who is fairly new to adulthood I dont really see why we work so much - there just doesn't seem like there is much to "get". There should ve a greater focus on tending our environments around us, spending money on experiences and creating art (or even just having a hobby).

ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Yes, but like parent said, we're starved of time. I would love to bike or take public transport to work but that's over an hour of commute vs 20-25 minutes by car and I don't live in the middle of nowhere but in a medium sized European city. The problem is the employers who move to the sticks, far away from the cties, where office space is cheapest and assume their workers can afford cars and should commute. Not only that but they actively fight against remote work saying it destroys team effort. One huge step in the right direction would be governments incentivizing employers to accept remote work for office workers who's jobs are 100% digital. This way we won't all be clogging the streets at rush hour making commutes easier on those who have to drive. Heck, one friend of mine broke his leg skiing and his company, instead of allowing him to work remote, prefered to pay his taxi fares to and from work for 2 months saying WE DON'T DO REMOTE!. And the company is a top EV supplier that loves to boast how green they're making the world. You can't make this stuff up.
- teddyuk 7y ago
  In london commuter trains are over crowded and they spend millions (billions?) every year on upgrading and it costs me about £900 a month to use these trains. If governments incentivised companies to encourage remote work, this money would be unnecessary as many people wouldn't commute any more - saving money for everyone, saving the environment and allowing people to have a home life and see their kids/partner etc. Remote working is a massive win-win for everyone, I wish the government realised this.
  - dharma1 7y ago
    What would the right incentives be? I agree, btw
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      Lower taxes maybe since their employees aren't using fuel or infrastructure to commute.
    - jcadam 7y ago
      Probably in the form of a tax break like everything else. $X tax credit per remote worker, or some such. Whether or not that would be enough, who knows...
  - CalRobert 7y ago
    They could also make it easier for people to live near their jobs. It's surprising how quickly you hit low density areas, even near the train.
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      That would have worked in the days of a job for life but now, once you have a family, you can't keep moving every 2-3 years where your next job will be.
      - CalRobert 7y ago
        Sure, but if many good jobs are in the same city and dense, family-friendly housing near transit is available, you don't need to move.
  - tk75x 7y ago
    How is your monthly cost that high? Based on some quick googling, the daily cap for zone 1-6 travel tops out under 20 pounds which would come to 600 pounds for 30 days assuming you travel every day. The 7 day caps top out around 60 pounds which would be 240 pounds for 4 weeks of commuting. You could probably get a small, fuel-efficient car and the total costs of ownership would save you money over what you claim to pay currently.
- gvurrdon 7y ago
  I've got the opposite problem - office in the city centre, home out in the country where I can afford to live. So, 30 minutes from my house to the city outskirts, 30 more from there to the office, whether it's by car, bus, or a combination. Then, the same in reverse in the evening. These times can be higher and are often unpredictable. Working from home would be easy and save me a lot of time, but it's very much frowned upon, as you say.
lostjohnny 7y ago
> Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. No, it wouldn't. Look at pandas, they are bears (omnivores, like us), living on a primarily vegetarian diet. They sleep 16 hours a day and when they are awake they eat, because a vegetarian diet is not really energy efficient. If we are talking about a true vegetarian diet, environmental friendly. if we are talking about "I can be mostly vegetarian because I buy integrators from the drugstore" that's the same of eating fried chicken intensively farmed 4 times a day, in large quantities, for the environment. What most western cultures should aim for is eating raw food, completely avoid processed food and, most of all, EAT LESS.
- kchamplewski 7y ago
  Assuming you genuinely are trying to make a good faith argument (which I strongly feel you're not): Pandas eat bamboo. Bamboo has practically no nutritional value so, no, Pandas are not very energetic. None of the vegetarians I know need 16 hours of sleep per day, and I suspect that's because - They are not bears, and so do not have the metabolism of bears. - They don't subsist entirely off bamboo, or one foodstuff in general. Besides, the a primarily vegetarian diet doesn't necessarily mean no meat, it just means realising that meat production is so absurdly energy, land, and water intensive that eating it on a daily basis is simply unsustainable. The amount of energy that goes into cooking hour meat is negligible compared to the amount of energy needed to produce it in the first place.
  - lostjohnny 7y ago
    > Besides, the a primarily vegetarian diet doesn't necessarily mean no meat Just eat less. If you eat less, you automatically balance your diet. You could live of three pieces of beef junkie a day for a long time, that's not so bad for environment as well. They made you believe that "meat production is so absurdly energy, land, and water intensive" but that's because our information system is mainly based on the US lifestyle, the land of freedom (to destroy other people lives). I grew up in places like this, where meat production is almost a natural process. https://reportagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/pascolo-brado-sul-sirente-dopo-la-demonticazione-foto-maria-trozzi-report-age-com-12-11-1.jpg?w=1200 https://reportagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/pascolo-... The more you eat, the more the spectrum moves towards junk food. Beyond true hunger, it's only addiction. Addictions are never a good thing.
missosoup 7y ago
> Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. Changing diets yes. Changing driving habits, not really. Personal use of passenger vehicles accounts for a tiny fraction of transportation related CO2 emissions. The overwhelming majority comes from cargo ships and associated logistics. A typical cargo ship will burn about 30 liters of bunker fuel (far more polluting than diesel) to travel 1 meter. 15 typical cargo ships emit as much CO2 as all cars on the planet combined. There are about 15,000 such ships operating today, with a further 30,000 slightly smaller ones. A single cruise ship company like Carnival Cruise emits more CO2 than all of Europe's car's combined. Even if the entire world converted to zero-emission EVs overnight, it wouldn't make a meaningful dent in these numbers. The inconvenient truth is that in order to make a serious dent on transportation related CO2 emissions, the entire developed world would have to give up its lavish lifestyle of internationally shipped products and foods. Sadly a harder sell then 'drive an EV to save the planet lol', so our governments continue to focus on inconsequential but easily attainable measures. And that is nothing to say of the fact that cutting down international shipping is at odds with free market capitalism that's driving our civilisation. Fun fact: bulk carrier shipping is so cheap that in Australia, locally caught fish are shipped to China for processing and freezing and then shipped back here for retail. The pollution associated with this alone is more than the sum pollution of all Australian cars.
- exergy 7y ago
  Do you have a source for your claim? Here[1] is a link I found breaking down the fuel consumption by sector. Seems Motor Oil vastly outscores Residue Fuel Oil, which I believe is what tankers use. I may be wrong, though, and would be interested in being corrected. [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec3_23.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec3_23.pdf
  - missosoup 7y ago
    https://medium.com/@victoria27/heres-how-much-pollution-shipping-containers-and-freight-trucks-cause-b358cb034c70 https://medium.com/@victoria27/heres-how-much-pollution-ship... https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2 https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523... https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/ https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping... https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-australia-is-not-making-the-most-of-its-china-seafood-opportunity-20180626-h11wh8 https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-australia-is-not-maki... My actual job is in the shipping route optimisation space. Sub-percentile improvements in fuel consumption for a single route result in hundreds of millions of dollars of fuel savings. Of a fuel that's both cheaper and far more polluting than diesel. It's pretty obvious that shipping fuel consumption and associated emissions eclipse personal transportation.
sdoering 7y ago
Next to everyone doing things - we could also add some regulation for extremely polluting industries/companies. Like I remember that one European Cruise company's ships produced the same amount of CO2-equivalent than all European Cars combined last year (or was it the year before that?). All friggin EU cars? This is what I would call a lever. And for what? For the sake of one company making money by providing a kind of recreation that could at least be discussed as it provides recreation - but recreation could be provided in a more environmental friendly way as well. Just regulating this one industry would go a long way. And there are probably some other low hanging fruits still undiscussed. Sadly the whole discussion seems to revolve around what the individual should/could do. Often it seems to me especially to mask the fact that regulating some industries would be a faster and imho more efficient way.
- zajio1am 7y ago
  > Like I remember that one European Cruise company's ships produced the same amount of CO2-equivalent than all European Cars combined last year Seems like BS. Such propositions are sometimes claimed, but they are for SO2/NOx/particulates emissions, not for CO2. Then they got misinterpreted as CO2 emissions.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Regulation is crucial. I worry my original comment was "you should do this". Really it's "we need to build society such that doing this is the easiest option" When polled, people in Copenhagen don't say they ride a bike to save the planet, it's just the easiest way to get around. The city is also absolutely heavenly to walk in.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

Yes, but like parent said, we're starved of time. I would love to bike or take public transport to work but that's over an hour of commute vs 20-25 minutes by car and I don't live in the middle of nowhere but in a medium sized European city. The problem is the employers who move to the sticks, far away from the cties, where office space is cheapest and assume their workers can afford cars and should commute. Not only that but they actively fight against remote work saying it destroys team effort. One huge step in the right direction would be governments incentivizing employers to accept remote work for office workers who's jobs are 100% digital. This way we won't all be clogging the streets at rush hour making commutes easier on those who have to drive. Heck, one friend of mine broke his leg skiing and his company, instead of allowing him to work remote, prefered to pay his taxi fares to and from work for 2 months saying WE DON'T DO REMOTE!. And the company is a top EV supplier that loves to boast how green they're making the world. You can't make this stuff up.

teddyuk 7y ago
In london commuter trains are over crowded and they spend millions (billions?) every year on upgrading and it costs me about £900 a month to use these trains. If governments incentivised companies to encourage remote work, this money would be unnecessary as many people wouldn't commute any more - saving money for everyone, saving the environment and allowing people to have a home life and see their kids/partner etc. Remote working is a massive win-win for everyone, I wish the government realised this.
- dharma1 7y ago
  What would the right incentives be? I agree, btw
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Lower taxes maybe since their employees aren't using fuel or infrastructure to commute.
  - jcadam 7y ago
    Probably in the form of a tax break like everything else. $X tax credit per remote worker, or some such. Whether or not that would be enough, who knows...
- CalRobert 7y ago
  They could also make it easier for people to live near their jobs. It's surprising how quickly you hit low density areas, even near the train.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    That would have worked in the days of a job for life but now, once you have a family, you can't keep moving every 2-3 years where your next job will be.
    - CalRobert 7y ago
      Sure, but if many good jobs are in the same city and dense, family-friendly housing near transit is available, you don't need to move.
- tk75x 7y ago
  How is your monthly cost that high? Based on some quick googling, the daily cap for zone 1-6 travel tops out under 20 pounds which would come to 600 pounds for 30 days assuming you travel every day. The 7 day caps top out around 60 pounds which would be 240 pounds for 4 weeks of commuting. You could probably get a small, fuel-efficient car and the total costs of ownership would save you money over what you claim to pay currently.
gvurrdon 7y ago
I've got the opposite problem - office in the city centre, home out in the country where I can afford to live. So, 30 minutes from my house to the city outskirts, 30 more from there to the office, whether it's by car, bus, or a combination. Then, the same in reverse in the evening. These times can be higher and are often unpredictable. Working from home would be easy and save me a lot of time, but it's very much frowned upon, as you say.

lostjohnny 7y ago

> Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. No, it wouldn't. Look at pandas, they are bears (omnivores, like us), living on a primarily vegetarian diet. They sleep 16 hours a day and when they are awake they eat, because a vegetarian diet is not really energy efficient. If we are talking about a true vegetarian diet, environmental friendly. if we are talking about "I can be mostly vegetarian because I buy integrators from the drugstore" that's the same of eating fried chicken intensively farmed 4 times a day, in large quantities, for the environment. What most western cultures should aim for is eating raw food, completely avoid processed food and, most of all, EAT LESS.

kchamplewski 7y ago
Assuming you genuinely are trying to make a good faith argument (which I strongly feel you're not): Pandas eat bamboo. Bamboo has practically no nutritional value so, no, Pandas are not very energetic. None of the vegetarians I know need 16 hours of sleep per day, and I suspect that's because - They are not bears, and so do not have the metabolism of bears. - They don't subsist entirely off bamboo, or one foodstuff in general. Besides, the a primarily vegetarian diet doesn't necessarily mean no meat, it just means realising that meat production is so absurdly energy, land, and water intensive that eating it on a daily basis is simply unsustainable. The amount of energy that goes into cooking hour meat is negligible compared to the amount of energy needed to produce it in the first place.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  > Besides, the a primarily vegetarian diet doesn't necessarily mean no meat Just eat less. If you eat less, you automatically balance your diet. You could live of three pieces of beef junkie a day for a long time, that's not so bad for environment as well. They made you believe that "meat production is so absurdly energy, land, and water intensive" but that's because our information system is mainly based on the US lifestyle, the land of freedom (to destroy other people lives). I grew up in places like this, where meat production is almost a natural process. https://reportagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/pascolo-brado-sul-sirente-dopo-la-demonticazione-foto-maria-trozzi-report-age-com-12-11-1.jpg?w=1200 https://reportagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/pascolo-... The more you eat, the more the spectrum moves towards junk food. Beyond true hunger, it's only addiction. Addictions are never a good thing.

missosoup 7y ago

> Primarily vegetarian diets and less driving would make mountains of difference for the world. Changing diets yes. Changing driving habits, not really. Personal use of passenger vehicles accounts for a tiny fraction of transportation related CO2 emissions. The overwhelming majority comes from cargo ships and associated logistics. A typical cargo ship will burn about 30 liters of bunker fuel (far more polluting than diesel) to travel 1 meter. 15 typical cargo ships emit as much CO2 as all cars on the planet combined. There are about 15,000 such ships operating today, with a further 30,000 slightly smaller ones. A single cruise ship company like Carnival Cruise emits more CO2 than all of Europe's car's combined. Even if the entire world converted to zero-emission EVs overnight, it wouldn't make a meaningful dent in these numbers. The inconvenient truth is that in order to make a serious dent on transportation related CO2 emissions, the entire developed world would have to give up its lavish lifestyle of internationally shipped products and foods. Sadly a harder sell then 'drive an EV to save the planet lol', so our governments continue to focus on inconsequential but easily attainable measures. And that is nothing to say of the fact that cutting down international shipping is at odds with free market capitalism that's driving our civilisation. Fun fact: bulk carrier shipping is so cheap that in Australia, locally caught fish are shipped to China for processing and freezing and then shipped back here for retail. The pollution associated with this alone is more than the sum pollution of all Australian cars.

exergy 7y ago
Do you have a source for your claim? Here[1] is a link I found breaking down the fuel consumption by sector. Seems Motor Oil vastly outscores Residue Fuel Oil, which I believe is what tankers use. I may be wrong, though, and would be interested in being corrected. [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec3_23.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec3_23.pdf
- missosoup 7y ago
  https://medium.com/@victoria27/heres-how-much-pollution-shipping-containers-and-freight-trucks-cause-b358cb034c70 https://medium.com/@victoria27/heres-how-much-pollution-ship... https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2 https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523... https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/ https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping... https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-australia-is-not-making-the-most-of-its-china-seafood-opportunity-20180626-h11wh8 https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-australia-is-not-maki... My actual job is in the shipping route optimisation space. Sub-percentile improvements in fuel consumption for a single route result in hundreds of millions of dollars of fuel savings. Of a fuel that's both cheaper and far more polluting than diesel. It's pretty obvious that shipping fuel consumption and associated emissions eclipse personal transportation.

sdoering 7y ago

Next to everyone doing things - we could also add some regulation for extremely polluting industries/companies. Like I remember that one European Cruise company's ships produced the same amount of CO2-equivalent than all European Cars combined last year (or was it the year before that?). All friggin EU cars? This is what I would call a lever. And for what? For the sake of one company making money by providing a kind of recreation that could at least be discussed as it provides recreation - but recreation could be provided in a more environmental friendly way as well. Just regulating this one industry would go a long way. And there are probably some other low hanging fruits still undiscussed. Sadly the whole discussion seems to revolve around what the individual should/could do. Often it seems to me especially to mask the fact that regulating some industries would be a faster and imho more efficient way.

zajio1am 7y ago
> Like I remember that one European Cruise company's ships produced the same amount of CO2-equivalent than all European Cars combined last year Seems like BS. Such propositions are sometimes claimed, but they are for SO2/NOx/particulates emissions, not for CO2. Then they got misinterpreted as CO2 emissions.
CalRobert 7y ago
Regulation is crucial. I worry my original comment was "you should do this". Really it's "we need to build society such that doing this is the easiest option" When polled, people in Copenhagen don't say they ride a bike to save the planet, it's just the easiest way to get around. The city is also absolutely heavenly to walk in.