7 ms·

That is a very common screed that probably feels good but has no tangible effect. Can you be more specific? Which lifestyles need to be reduced? What specific

That is a very common screed that probably feels good but has no tangible effect. Can you be more specific? Which lifestyles need to be reduced? What specific action are you demanding specific individuals take?

djbusby 5y ago
Stop buying out of season fruit/veg for your area. That stuff gets shipped 1/2 way around the world to get to your table. Some dietitians also claim the seasonality of edible plants helps our gut biome (but I can't find that source again) Also, local-in-season is, IME, lower cost. One small, kinda easy, step
- wingworks 5y ago
  It would have a bigger effect of the Govt set these things up, to increase incentives for local produce etc. Doing it on the individual level is a losing battle. Most people don't care (or don't understand the implications), so long as they get there xyz to eat.
- ehnto 5y ago
  It won't help. The majority of emissions are industrial and commercial. If you want to look at actions like that I would see them through the lens of local sustainability which is a fantastic goal. Unfortunately a single cargo ship idling in the dock would probably erase the carbon savings of every good willed vegetable purchase. What you as an individual can actually do is contact your delegates, your ministers, your officials, your industry partners, whoever you have access to, and tell them exactly why it's their problem to solve. You not buying bananas is a good gesture, but a carbon tax that makes out of season bananas unprofitable is where we need to implement the change.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    Downvote first paragraph, upvote second :) Those things are still worth doing because en masse it has an effect, and if the single cargo ship is idling in the dock, then that doubles the negative effect, so offsetting counts for... something, at least.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      That's fair, I am a little bashful in this regard sorry. We are decades beyond the pail at this point is why. There is of course reason to change your own behavior, but we need rock solid actionables from industry to change emissions at the scale we need.
  - titzer 5y ago
    > It won't help. If I've learned one thing from plugging holes in my insulation, is that leaks are cumulative. A crack here, a hole there, a bad seal there, a gap in the insulation there; it all adds up. CO2 emissions, the primary driver of climate change, is a "leaky" situation. We've got a huge distributed system here. We need to plug holes at every level. We're not one CPU or one core. We can do multiple things at once. If anything, people doing local things are viral, cathartic, and set the tone for change. Despite my doomerish top comment (I still think we are screwed), but I compost, I recycle, I reduce waste as much as possible, and these effects "won't help". Whatever.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      It's true, "it won't help" is not true I suppose. It will certainly help. But we need much greater scale, and I am cynical toward the motivations of the global community. We can't even get one of the wealthiest nations in the world, Australia, to stop digging up coal in 2022, when it's citizens are busy installing enough solar to power whole cities. We the people need to wield our power to get the people up top to do the right thing, else it's for nothing.
  - acdha 5y ago
    Your first sentence is flat-out wrong for two reasons: the most obvious is that while not sufficient to solve the problem, it clearly does help but the second is the psychological benefits. Telling people things they can do right now don't matter is depressing; getting them in the habit of thinking about ways to reduce their personal impact is part of helping build the social inertia which is needed to get the various people you mentioned in your second paragraph to listen. Someone who feels good and – far more importantly – gets positive feedback towards making a change rather than a cynical “it won't help” is probably going to keep doing things like that (drop beef next!), and probably explore ways to make their commute less expensive too. One way to think about it which might be helpful is to triage your targets: have a short-term goal which you could do today with no real barriers (e.g. pick a protein other than beef), a mid-term goal which you can do on your own but might take some planning (bike / transit to work or shop, use a clothesline instead of a drier, replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones, buy your electricity from a renewables supplier, etc.), and a long-term goal with more dependencies which you can't do quickly or on your own (get involved in local politics to reduce car usage, hound your elected representatives, etc.).
    - Bancakes 5y ago
      Telling people to rile up against climate change let's industrialism get away with it. If I'm to downgrade my life, it better be from trickle down ecology rather than frugality.
    - landemva 5y ago
      ' replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones ' I have a functional can opener in my kitchen which I crank by hand. The suggestion to replace it with an electric version is stupid virtue signalling. My toilet runs on water pressure, gravity, and me pressing the lever. Should I get a model with wifi actuated electric flush handle? I have not had a TV in a couple decades. What TV with wifi and always-on do you recommend to virtue signal? My car has a cassette tape deck. Should I replace the car for a new model with a built-in 20" dashboard TV to signal that I save the planet?
      - 5y ago
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > Stop buying out of season fruit/veg for your area. Nope, its just piggy-backing on existing trade routes. Wont change anything.
esalman 5y ago
It very much depends on personal experience. I lived in SE Asia for the first 30 years of my life, then moved to the US. There are so many things that Americans and first world people take for granted what would be considered luxury in the other side of the world- and you have to live through that experience to come to that realization.
- Wiseacre 5y ago
  So you're saying the western world needs to experience something drastic like third world poverty in order to actually change?
  - djbusby 5y ago
    No but the "West" would need to give up a good bunch of luxurious wants. Less trips to the bowling alley, less meat, less drive to the store to get just one thing.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Maybe start thinking type of consumption. A bowling alley where you walk or bike might not be too bad. I don't think they have very massive carbon footprint. On other hand car trips to skiing, or nature should be right out. And tourism in general outside immediate local vicinity. And then in general consume less, like electronics. Do we really need to replace them every other year or should once in five to ten be enough? And what do we serve with them? Could we start spending more effort to optimize energy consumption and transfer of data?
  - esalman 5y ago
    Not change your whole like in a drastic manner, but maybe at least live in the 3rd world for a significant amount of time- should be enough of an eye-opener for a lot of people.
amusedcyclist 5y ago
Stop eating meat, stop flying, stop driving, stop buying new clothes (for starters). Its not "feel good", its reality.
- Wiseacre 5y ago
  As we have already seen this pandemic, you can't always guilt or shame people into action.
  - amusedcyclist 5y ago
    Sure thats why the commenter said we're going to fry the world for our comfort. There are lots of straightforward steps we can take to reduce emissions, the issue is a lack of willingness
    - Wiseacre 5y ago
      Again a non-answer. What exact steps should be taken and by whom?
      - amusedcyclist 5y ago
        I gave you a very precise set of actions that you personally can take, it can also function as a set of broad goals for governments to set tax policies (tax meat). I'm sorry that you don't like them
- Bancakes 5y ago
  Stop producing meat, stop international flights, stop selling cars, stop producing clothes. That's the only way people will abide these policies. What's the point of saving the planet if you destroy your life?
  - amusedcyclist 5y ago
    Instead of "stop", the more realistic approach is tax those things to reflect their damage to the environment and watch consumption patterns change. Unfortunately most governments won't do that either
disambiguation 5y ago
Pretty much every person on earth has to start living like the Amish.

djbusby 5y ago

Stop buying out of season fruit/veg for your area. That stuff gets shipped 1/2 way around the world to get to your table. Some dietitians also claim the seasonality of edible plants helps our gut biome (but I can't find that source again) Also, local-in-season is, IME, lower cost. One small, kinda easy, step

wingworks 5y ago
It would have a bigger effect of the Govt set these things up, to increase incentives for local produce etc. Doing it on the individual level is a losing battle. Most people don't care (or don't understand the implications), so long as they get there xyz to eat.
ehnto 5y ago
It won't help. The majority of emissions are industrial and commercial. If you want to look at actions like that I would see them through the lens of local sustainability which is a fantastic goal. Unfortunately a single cargo ship idling in the dock would probably erase the carbon savings of every good willed vegetable purchase. What you as an individual can actually do is contact your delegates, your ministers, your officials, your industry partners, whoever you have access to, and tell them exactly why it's their problem to solve. You not buying bananas is a good gesture, but a carbon tax that makes out of season bananas unprofitable is where we need to implement the change.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Downvote first paragraph, upvote second :) Those things are still worth doing because en masse it has an effect, and if the single cargo ship is idling in the dock, then that doubles the negative effect, so offsetting counts for... something, at least.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    That's fair, I am a little bashful in this regard sorry. We are decades beyond the pail at this point is why. There is of course reason to change your own behavior, but we need rock solid actionables from industry to change emissions at the scale we need.
- titzer 5y ago
  > It won't help. If I've learned one thing from plugging holes in my insulation, is that leaks are cumulative. A crack here, a hole there, a bad seal there, a gap in the insulation there; it all adds up. CO2 emissions, the primary driver of climate change, is a "leaky" situation. We've got a huge distributed system here. We need to plug holes at every level. We're not one CPU or one core. We can do multiple things at once. If anything, people doing local things are viral, cathartic, and set the tone for change. Despite my doomerish top comment (I still think we are screwed), but I compost, I recycle, I reduce waste as much as possible, and these effects "won't help". Whatever.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    It's true, "it won't help" is not true I suppose. It will certainly help. But we need much greater scale, and I am cynical toward the motivations of the global community. We can't even get one of the wealthiest nations in the world, Australia, to stop digging up coal in 2022, when it's citizens are busy installing enough solar to power whole cities. We the people need to wield our power to get the people up top to do the right thing, else it's for nothing.
- acdha 5y ago
  Your first sentence is flat-out wrong for two reasons: the most obvious is that while not sufficient to solve the problem, it clearly does help but the second is the psychological benefits. Telling people things they can do right now don't matter is depressing; getting them in the habit of thinking about ways to reduce their personal impact is part of helping build the social inertia which is needed to get the various people you mentioned in your second paragraph to listen. Someone who feels good and – far more importantly – gets positive feedback towards making a change rather than a cynical “it won't help” is probably going to keep doing things like that (drop beef next!), and probably explore ways to make their commute less expensive too. One way to think about it which might be helpful is to triage your targets: have a short-term goal which you could do today with no real barriers (e.g. pick a protein other than beef), a mid-term goal which you can do on your own but might take some planning (bike / transit to work or shop, use a clothesline instead of a drier, replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones, buy your electricity from a renewables supplier, etc.), and a long-term goal with more dependencies which you can't do quickly or on your own (get involved in local politics to reduce car usage, hound your elected representatives, etc.).
  - Bancakes 5y ago
    Telling people to rile up against climate change let's industrialism get away with it. If I'm to downgrade my life, it better be from trickle down ecology rather than frugality.
  - landemva 5y ago
    ' replace old non-electric appliances in your house with electric ones ' I have a functional can opener in my kitchen which I crank by hand. The suggestion to replace it with an electric version is stupid virtue signalling. My toilet runs on water pressure, gravity, and me pressing the lever. Should I get a model with wifi actuated electric flush handle? I have not had a TV in a couple decades. What TV with wifi and always-on do you recommend to virtue signal? My car has a cassette tape deck. Should I replace the car for a new model with a built-in 20" dashboard TV to signal that I save the planet?
    - 5y ago
ekianjo 5y ago
> Stop buying out of season fruit/veg for your area. Nope, its just piggy-backing on existing trade routes. Wont change anything.

esalman 5y ago

It very much depends on personal experience. I lived in SE Asia for the first 30 years of my life, then moved to the US. There are so many things that Americans and first world people take for granted what would be considered luxury in the other side of the world- and you have to live through that experience to come to that realization.

Wiseacre 5y ago
So you're saying the western world needs to experience something drastic like third world poverty in order to actually change?
- djbusby 5y ago
  No but the "West" would need to give up a good bunch of luxurious wants. Less trips to the bowling alley, less meat, less drive to the store to get just one thing.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Maybe start thinking type of consumption. A bowling alley where you walk or bike might not be too bad. I don't think they have very massive carbon footprint. On other hand car trips to skiing, or nature should be right out. And tourism in general outside immediate local vicinity. And then in general consume less, like electronics. Do we really need to replace them every other year or should once in five to ten be enough? And what do we serve with them? Could we start spending more effort to optimize energy consumption and transfer of data?
- esalman 5y ago
  Not change your whole like in a drastic manner, but maybe at least live in the 3rd world for a significant amount of time- should be enough of an eye-opener for a lot of people.

amusedcyclist 5y ago

Stop eating meat, stop flying, stop driving, stop buying new clothes (for starters). Its not "feel good", its reality.

Wiseacre 5y ago
As we have already seen this pandemic, you can't always guilt or shame people into action.
- amusedcyclist 5y ago
  Sure thats why the commenter said we're going to fry the world for our comfort. There are lots of straightforward steps we can take to reduce emissions, the issue is a lack of willingness
  - Wiseacre 5y ago
    Again a non-answer. What exact steps should be taken and by whom?
    - amusedcyclist 5y ago
      I gave you a very precise set of actions that you personally can take, it can also function as a set of broad goals for governments to set tax policies (tax meat). I'm sorry that you don't like them
Bancakes 5y ago
Stop producing meat, stop international flights, stop selling cars, stop producing clothes. That's the only way people will abide these policies. What's the point of saving the planet if you destroy your life?
- amusedcyclist 5y ago
  Instead of "stop", the more realistic approach is tax those things to reflect their damage to the environment and watch consumption patterns change. Unfortunately most governments won't do that either

disambiguation 5y ago

Pretty much every person on earth has to start living like the Amish.