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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I think he means that doomsaying is going to make even more people not take it seriously.....
I think there are loads of people who take it seriously but can't do anything about it. The biggest CO2 polluters are mega corporations and things like airplanes and cargo ships. Ordinary people can't fight that. One family living off the grid and producing zero CO2 won't help anything.
Ergo, most people are apathetic, as they should be. You're not going to change the minds of governments and mega corps.
Exactly. At least 70% of emission are caused directly by corporate and military activity, and that's just the sanitized, conservative, government/corporate approved statistic. Realistically, the number probably much higher.
Using paper straws, sorting your recycling, and turning the hallway light off does fuck all for climate change, and it will never make a meaningful difference without a harsh crackdown on, if not a total overthrow of global corporate hegemony in this decade. We all know how likely that is...
The 70% that comes from corporations comes from people. The people who use the products that the corporations provide. So, if Exxon is one of those major polluters, that is based largely on the people who purchase Exxon products and use them.
This 70% number comes from a 2017 study that measured emissions from 1985-2015. So while those corporations are selling the product that pollutes, when we order some stupid shit from Amazon and it has to come from China on a ship to get here, we are responsible for using that product. When we get UberEats delivered, we are responsible. Ordinary people can fight that by not buying stupid shit we don't need from China and in so many other ways. Yes, the corporations produce those products, but it is US that consumes it and we are ultimately responsible for the emissions. It's a fun way to try to say "it's not me, it's them," but the fact is, it's all of us.
People buy the shit because corporations make it and, at best, tell us we want it, and at worst, design our entire infratstructure and society around it so that we more or less have to buy it.
Nobody was asking for cars, or at least very few were, until companies started pushing them on people. Same goes for the vast majority of shit we own.
Well if everyone is just buying shit because corporations tell them to and the world is that fucking stupid, then we deserve what's happening.
It's got nothing to do with stupidity. We were all born and raised in, and indoctrinated by a society that pushes intense consumerism in every aspect of our lives. That didn't happen overnight, and it's not the result of a person making astupid choice. It happened incrementally over centuries, slowly enough that most people take for granted as just the way things are and never really question it.
That's why only strong government regulation can fix this, and why "durr just stop buying stuff" is an ignorant, asinine take.
Probably because people give up
As opposed to what, Soviet style revolution? People today don't have the same mettle as their forebearers, it's not going to happen. Occupy Wall Street and the George Floyd protests showed to the powers at be that people aren't willing to embrace violent protest for change.
sounds like giving up to me
No, this is a misunderstanding. Cargo ships are a major source of sulphur pollution, not carbon. Cargo ships use the cheapest fuel they can. Cheap fuel is rich in sulphur. They can do this because there are no emission regulations on the open sea. A commonly cited figure is that a single cargo ship releases more sulphur than all the cars in North America.
This figure is then misinterpreted by people who failed basic chemistry to mean that cargo ships are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, the opposite is true; cargo ships are one of the most efficient ways to move stuff over large distances. Only electric trains are better, and only if the source of the electricity is not fossil.
Perhaps I too failed basic chemistry, but I do believe you are grossly incorrect -- maritime shipping is a massive contributor to CO2 emissions:
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/06/shipping-carbon-emissions-biden-climate/
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484722020261
What makes you think that? None of the sources you provide disagree with what I wrote.
Perhaps it's just poor word choice or phrasing, but it reads like you mean that "the opposite is true" in that they are NOT a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, when in fact they are a huge contributor, more than California and Texas combined.
Fair.
The point was not to imply that shipping is not a large source of CO2, but:
The reason so much stuff is shipped around the world is that it’s produced in low-income countries because it’s cheaper, not because it’s actually necessary to be produced there. Often, the raw materials come from somewhere else as well, so stuff is shipped around the world twice.
I dunno, maritime shipping producing more CO2 than California and Texas combined seems like a pretty big CO2 polluter to me, and we have to reduce where we can, ~4% is still a good start.
It actually is low hanging fruit. For 4000 years the human race engaged in maritime trade and commerce using solely wind powered vessels, and humanity thrived just fine without internal combustion engines. We could easily go back to clipper ships or design a wind-powered vessel based on shipping containers.
But efficiency will go down drastically! Transit times will increase massively! Yes, but these aren't existential threats. So people have to wait a bit longer to receive their shiny new laptops or Steam Decks, big deal. Maybe Norway won't have bananas anymore, not a big loss.
The real problem with climate change is that nobody wants to drastically inconvenience their modern lifestyle. Unfortunately, given the short window available to do something meaningful, drastic action is necessary which will result in large inconveniences and disruption for billions of people, but nobody wants that, and no politician will get elected selling that.
I think you and I have different definitions of that word.
Correct.
Perhaps we do. I meant "easily" in that the tech is already there, nothing needs to be invented. We could start building clipper ships again tomorrow, or design a clipper to hold TEUs. It's a much "easier" problem than converting all commercial lorries and personal autos to electric, across all countries, even 3rd world ones.
Who's "we"? You're referring to some kind of collective humanity, but so such collective exists in the real world. There is no grand effort to work together to solve common problems.
You're ignoring the fact that sailing ships cannot compete with fossil power. Any problem becomes easy if you're willing to ignore reality.
If you mean "compete" in a capitalist sense, then you're right. But sailing ships absolutely "compete" in that they can move goods and products from one port to another using zero fossil fuels. That's not ignoring any reality, they actually do work and sail using the wind. Open any history book for proof if you don't believe me.
But as we're already aware, relying in any way on capitalism or its definitions is going to do the exact opposite of saving us from climate change.
I suggest you get to work on implementing your solution, then. It's very easy, after all. Let me know how it goes.
Have you been accused of glibness before in your life by friends, family, or co-workers?
Once or twice.
Look, I don't think we really disagree with each other. I think it would be great if we switched to sail-based shipping. But for that to be viable the masses would have to be OK with the results of that, as you laid out above.
I'm not hopeful that will happen, not until supply chains start breaking under the strain of climate change its consequences. By then, it may be too late to switch.
I agree entirely, which I guess brings both of us back to the original OP in that people succumb to apathy and helplessness when dealing with climate change. The great unwashed masses will never agree to policies which curtail their economic prosperity or inconvenience them, and capitalism will never agree to anything which halts its self-serving pursuit of profits. So it's Waterworld or bust, and I'll end up as that old dude inside the bowels of the oil tanker.
This is why you don’t substitute social media for primary sources if you want to learn anything.
Ships and planes ARE NOT the biggest CO2 emitters. Random big corporations ARE NOT the biggest CO2 emitters.
Transport (I.e driving your car) and energy (I.e. running the AC) are the biggest CO2 polluters by far, with over 50% of emissions from those 2 sectors.
Everyone can make a difference very easily by driving less and using less power…with the happy side effect of sticking it to the corporations you say are the biggest polluters.
Because - no surprise - the biggest corporate polluters are almost all oil and energy companies.
My guess is you're quoting this? https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
The problem with your statement is fragmentation. Yes, "transportation" is the biggest single CO2 polluter followed by electricity, but there are billions of individual cars and lorries out there, across many different nations and laws, so the marginal effect of any single car is infinitesimal, and too difficult to go after. But things like maritime shipping, aviation, and railroads are monolithic, and transnationally regulated, so much easier to make an impact. Commercial transport also accounts for a way, way larger chunk of the 28% than residential transport.
In terms of most bang for buck, we should be targeting electricity generation and industry, as these are not nearly as fragmented, and easier to directly regulate and enforce regulation. If you immediately outlawed the top 100 corporations on the planet, you'd make a way bigger impact on CO2 than say, every residential house in America giving up their personal automobiles. Commercial lorries pollute far more than residential autos.
There's also another big reason why fixing energy generation is top priority: the way to fix maritime shipping, aviation and personal transportation is to move them to electric trains, which needs more electric power.
And heating, and cooking
My brother from a “red” state just relayed the latest conspiracy theory he heard: electrifying everything is just a way to trap us so “they” can raise rates and we have no options