Why don't you just stop eating meat, stop driving, stop whatever else that you do and have a smaller carbon footprint naturally, instead of living a carbon lavish life and paying some money to be called carbon neutral.
Its like bribing your way out of jail after you have done the crime.
> Why don't you just stop eating meat, stop driving, stop whatever else that you do and have a smaller carbon footprint naturally, instead of living a carbon lavish life and paying some money to be called carbon neutral.
Why? Because I want to keep my standard of living, just like almost everyone else. What a silly question to even ask.
Any solution that asks people to practice austerity is obviously doomed to fail. Any solution that leverages a human's self-interested (even if it's just vanity) at least has a chance.
> Its like bribing your way out of jail after you have done the crime.
It's more like when faced between the choice of paying a fine or going to jail, you pay the fine. That money can be put to work and that time can be put to use, but if you just sit in jail nobody benefits, it just costs the public money to keep you there.
Except of course in reality there is no crime here that anybody could get prosecuted for, and the real victims haven't even been born yet.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
These things you classify as comfort may not be that essential and good for you and the others. Someone that eats animal products everyday and claims that it's their comfort, while it's affecting their health, the lives of 56 billion animals per year and the environment, is, to me, problematic.
I always, in my head, compare it to slavery. While it's not the same thing, of course, the pattern is the same. Something that's not ethical at all, but we, for a long time, did not care because of the comfort it brings us. Can we still live without it? Of course. And well.
I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time getting my point accross in these topics, but what I mean is that what you call "comfort" may not that critical to your well-being at all. You don't need to change eveything from day 1, but doing it a bit more everyday will make feel like a better human being, as you know you're living by respecting others and your environment, while giving money is kind of too easy and doesn't influence what's surrounding you. If you want things to change, you have to be this change. By being it you expose others to the issue you're fighting and make think about it in another way, up to a point they might understand it and join the fight, or at least acknowledge it. It's a very slow process but this is how sustainable change goes since the dawn of time. Actions matter, but ideas win. And ideas don't get seeded with money (well, in the long-term... because propaganda and stuff, but I hope you get the gist).
In another comment you mention you don't like walking. These likings are not by any means frozen in you. Maybe you never tried enjoying walking alone, with your thoughts drifting away in your mind and just living the present moment. Comfort is really subjective, I really think what we should all yearn for is the greater good, which, suprisingly doesn't cost that much in the end and gives you a real sentiment of fulfillment. It's just a matter of /being/ that change.
I actually live in a city a few blocks from work, don't own a car, and only eat poultry/eggs which have a lower carbon footprint than red meat. On the other hand I do order a lot of crap from Amazon.
It's not so much about offsetting my personal carbon emissions - it's more about supporting projects that could potentially slow down runaway global warming. There are a lot of feedback loops in the pipeline in the next 20 years that will accelerate climate change (arctic ice melts, more heat gets absorbed etc). Those feedback loops are going to kick in even if we stopped all human emissions today. So when that happens and drastic environmental changes start occurring, I'm hoping we'll have some demonstrated solutions like advanced weathering we could scale up.
After all, being carbon neutral is about punishing you for your self-indulgence, not anything to do with actually being neutral in terms of carbon emissions.
While I don't agree with the tone, $400 implies the average CO2 emission in the US (16 tons/capita/year) which is fairly high. I wonder how much an individual can lower their own contribution.
It takes a lot of mental bandwidth to think about lowering your own CO² emission. Still useful in terms of awareness though! Less driving and flying, less meat, low cost/high reward home energy efficiency improvements, ... are quite obvious ways.
It's important though not to overlook the effect of investing in other people's carbon efficiency instead.
A piece of anecdotal evidence. I willingly spent ~25000€ extra on my Belgium home's energy efficiency. One year later, I end up living in Latvia, where many places don't even have simple radiators valves. When their appartments with city heating get too hot in winter, they just open the window at -30°C! Imagine spending just 5000€ on my home, and the rest offering free radiator valves installations in Latvia -- or other even more efficient schemes of course!
It is useful to be aware and as such it is good to know the effectiveness of each action.
Going car-less for a year is similar to going vegan for three years or doing 3 crossing of the Atlantic by plane. Switching over to buy exclusively "green energy" is almost twice as effective in reducing CO² emission compared to a vegan diet per year. All those are high impact changes, while home energy efficiency improvements are medium to low impact changes, with wall insulation estimated to be about 50% compared to eating less meat and up to 10th compared to a vegan diet.
I saw a recent study that said everyone going veggie in the developed world would only have a couple of percentage points effects on emissions. Surprisingly ineffective.
I was under the impression that guy was paid by like the Belgium meat board or something. I can't find the reference to that right now so might be wrong. (I came across him in another thread where it was discussed)
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both? Why not more?
We don't know if the OP already has a fairly low carbon footprint, or has done all they can to reduce it.
Cumulative effort and reducing carbon footprints on many fronts is what we need.
Things like:
- Walk / Cycle where you can. Use public transport where you cant.
- Have your heating / AC lower.
- Stop using single use plastics.
- Eat less meat.
- Swap all your bulbs to low power equivalents.
- Take shorter showers.
- Turn off your work monitors / PC when you leave the office. (Assuming tech population here)
- Switch to a power provider that only uses 100% renewable power. (Like bulb in the UK)
- Support a charity that is planting trees or is fighting to save the rain forest.
- Donate/pay to have some charity/company do some carbon removal for you.
- Change your browsers default search engine to Ecosia (Bing results and they plant trees with the profits)
Lots of tiny things can be done now, with relatively little effort. In parallel with companies and researchers work on better carbon capture techniques.
> Lots of tiny things can be done now, with relatively little effort.
Those little things of "low effort" have just as little impact. Those things that are significant (transportation, meat consumption, heating) would also represent significant changes to my level of comfort. I like meat. I like being warm. I like not walking everywhere. I dislike public transport. I like long hot showers. I like to keep my PC running.
On the other hand, I can budget some money for the "luxury" of being carbon neutral. I can also not do that and keep on living the way do. The money is on the table, those changes to my lifestyle aren't.
>> And anyway recent studies show that the human body is unlikely to bear a trip to Mars, let alone the health issues caused by weightless environment.
That shows health effects (which we already know exist) - why does it support the claim that the human body is unlikely to reach mars?
My understanding is that without shielding about 5% of the voyagers will get cancer, and that many people consider this a reasonably acceptable risk. Does this make that number substantially worse?
It's also affecting nutrient absorption. I don't see any quantitative number about this in the paper but it's been mentioned several time as having an impact.
>> Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on.
I think the crisis will be contained to the poorest parts of the world. Especially the tropics. This area is going to be the first to bear the brunt of climate change related problems.
I dont foresee Global wars happening. The politicians are too smart for that. They will try to contain the damage to the extant that the richer countries ( US, Europe, Australia ) are not affected much. Ofcourse there will be shortages as global supply routes are going to be disrupted.
The most thought provoking scenario here is going to be what will happen with China. Maybe not being a democracy will prove to be a blessing in disguise for it. Having a pragmatic group of men leading the country is the best option in the face of upcoming doom. China may shed a lot of weight ( population), but it may just survive, because of its largely monoculture and more or less obedient population.
I see much of Africa, SouthEast Asia to completely gone by the next 100 years. They will be left alone by the rest of the world to fight the battle of survival, and the odds wont be great.
MiddleEast is already ravaged, but they may continue to survive because they have oil.
Most rich countries ( the leaders I mean ), may not be very displeased with the fate of the poorer nations. Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet.
Somehow I doubt that people in these countries will sit on their hands while dying off.
Mass migration will definitely happen, and might even be supported by their governments and armies. India, Pakistan and China have nuclear weapons to wave around.
US will likely be better off than Europe thanks to the oceans and a big army / navy. But it will not be a good time for anyone if it comes to this.
Seems like you're counting on poorer countries to die off so you in the the richer nations can survive when it's the richer folks causing the problem. Like the resource loss from these continents wasting away won't affect them.
A part of the climate change calculation is that the poorer countries are actively improving their standards of living, and that means rapidly increasing their energy demands.
People in regions bearing the brunt of the change aren't just going to stay there. There will be mass migrations of possibly hundreds of millions, and no wall is going to stop them.
Facebook is a great place to get that message out, but it's only an echo chamber for ideologies. I guarantee those who don't believe in climate change are only seeing articles about why the IPCC report is wrong (note: this is an example, NOT my personal feeling).
I would argue Facebook is making the problem worse by making it very easy spread misinformation.
Well, considering that the IPCC story is nowhere to be seen on the front page and this being at the top, shows how much general HN crowd worries about Climate change as compared to Facebook. Such Myopia is what has landed us in this crisis in the first place.
But you should not bother. Go worry about the useless photos that you first upload to facebook and then wonder what a for profit company is going to do with all that data.
There was an IPCC story in the top 5 about an hour ago which I can only assume was moderator filtered as it had disappeared entirely a minute or two later when I clicked back to homepage. It wasn't flagged, or further down the pages. Didn't even have chance to attract much in the way of controversy or deniers.
So it may not be that reflective of user sentiment. Very disappointing to see though.
Parent comment just states facts, why even bother suggesting they're affiliated somehow? Meanwhile I'm not affiliated with Zoho in any way, and can confirm their free service is awesome. I've got 2 custom domains on it and couldn't be happier
Does everyone who mentions iPhones work for Apple?
I'm not affiliated with Zoho in any way except being a customer. Yes, the topic of email hosting comes up from time to time and I mention the host I use.
Insomniacs have more wakeful hours available to them, so, statistically speaking, they're likely to be overrepresented amongst active HN users at any given moment, resulting in a boost to sleep and insomnia related articles.
Sleep is one of the three pillars of health. There are also many fitness and diet articles that gain traction.
As to why health is popular on HN, it's hard to be interested in the other stuff if you're dead! (I don't actually know why, I'm interested in these all personally, but nearly never upvote the articles myself)
Well, many developers probably aren't in the best health because the job requires sitting all day. Everyone wants to be healthy so there will be a natural demand for articles about it amongst developers.
That's a good question. Maybe its because we are so hungry for information here on HN. Reading HN articles is a mild addiction for me. Perhaps not as detrimental as other addictions but the one adverse thing it does affect is my sleep.
To me, writing software is primarily a research activity. It always has been, no matter how proficient I think I am at a language. That's probably why HN articles appeal to me so strongly; it's what I do all day long.
Why don't you just stop eating meat, stop driving, stop whatever else that you do and have a smaller carbon footprint naturally, instead of living a carbon lavish life and paying some money to be called carbon neutral.
Its like bribing your way out of jail after you have done the crime.
[EDIT]: removed expletives