Cont: Global warming discussion V

[icerat]

But that's the thing. Not only does everyone have to contribute (which as Roger points out is a problem), even if everyone does, the measurable difference will be tiny compared to the big industrial polluters. Not nothing, sure, but tiny.

No, it won't. If everyone say, became vegan, bought an EV, stopped flying - then there would be a very significant effect.

Obviously that's not going to happen in any near time frame, but to claim it would be a tiny effect is simply wrong.

Food production alone generates at least 37% of our CO2 emissions.

One study found that phasing out animal agriculture over 15 years ears would have the same effect as a 68 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the year 2100.

 

[Stout]

But that's the thing. Not only does everyone have to contribute (which as Roger points out is a problem), even if everyone does, the measurable difference will be tiny compared to the big industrial polluters. Not nothing, sure, but tiny.

Unless the oil and gas industry can be shut down, unless we can find new ways of producing steel and concrete (which our civilisation absolutely depends upon) that don't dump billions of tons of CO2, unless we can develop new unpolluting ways of sustaining the global travel and distribution industries that we have become accustomed to, the problem will not go away.

Do your personal bit, absolutely. It will make you feel better. But it won't solve the problem.

Which is fine and closer to the reality of how things will shake out on the ground however waiting for all that to happens dumps a big bucket of ice water on the Paris Accords.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Ivor was arguing that anybody who isn't practicing personal austerity is a hypocrite. My counterargument is that austerity on an individual basis has very close to zero impact when compared to the industries driving global climate change. Including transport, agriculture, energy and infrastructure.

So yes, practice personal austerity if it makes you feel better, but don't think that by doing so you are affecting the global climate in any meaningful way. Because individual emissions aren't the problem.

Wow, you really keep on just giving examples to demonstrate why humanity is screwed, don't you?

Where do you think the energy the fossil fuelled power station produces goes to? It goes to power the electrical devices in individual homes. It goes to companies that make products that individual consumers buy.

We live in a consumerist society and either individual consumers can make a choice to consume less, or it will be imposed by governments (unlikely) or nature (probable).

The problem of environmental degradation is the integral of individual choices.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

It can be, certainly. But it appeared to me that Ivor was saying that when everybody stops consuming, the problem will go away. And that just is not true.

Yes, personal austerity on an individual level is a good idea. It has benefits. But it's not going to save the world.

I don't see why the answer has to be austerity.
For example: if more people buy electric cars, more electric cars will be built, and thus fewer fossil fuel-driven cars will be made. Each and every purchasing decision moulds a business: it's called marketing. There's no need to give up cars: just make greener ones.
The same is true of almost every area of life. Governments can regulate the industry conforms to sustainable standards, so it's a push-pull effect. Governments push, consumers pull.
Saying that one person's decisions make no difference is ignoring the enormous power to effect change that multiple individuals acting together have. What we do steers and shapes our economies: if we change what we want companies to make or provide, they will adapt to that.

 

[Stout]

We live in a consumerist society and either individual consumers can make a choice to consume less, or it will be imposed by governments (unlikely) or nature (probable).

The problem of environmental degradation is the integral of individual choices.

There's a lot of reluctance to acknowledge the scale of the social changes and the timeline those changes need to be made on in order to meet current climate targets. We know we're pretty safe from government imposing changes that are really nothing more than cosmetic because they (the elected governments) know that any meaningful reductions in emissions will result in a best-case scenario of them not getting reelected.

It's been a while since we looked at the climate clock.

5 years 165 days till doomsday.

Loss and damage owed by the G20 countries, $33.6 trillion.

 

[The Atheist]

Food production alone generates at least 37% of our CO2 emissions.

Food production is a red herring.

For starters, pets alone eat more meat than most countries, and if you think people are going to give up their pets, you're just wrong. Why would people even consider going vegan for the sake of the planet when people own dogs for the sake of owning a dog that creates more emissions than my car?

While it's true a change to diets would help, it's idiotic to raise it when this kind of crap is going on: https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/

Build a time machine, go back in time and kill Milton Friedman's mother before she bred, then you might stand a chance.

 

[The Atheist]

For example: if more people buy electric cars, more electric cars will be built, and thus fewer fossil fuel-driven cars will be made. Each and every purchasing decision moulds a business: it's called marketing.

Yeah, right.

NZ just removed clean car discounts.

EV sales have fallen by 80%: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/07/ev-sales-plummet-after-clean-car-discount-scrapped/

People buy EVs when they're cheaper than ICEs.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

One of the many, many things that annoys me is the life of GU10 LED lightbulbs. Supposedly 15-25k hours. That's 5-8 years. I've yet to find one that lasts 3 years. I suspect the lightbulb manufacturers are just lying to consumers about the longevity and doing what they did with incandescent bulbs to keep their profits healthy.

I take them to the small item electrical recycling, but I suspect many people just bin them. If so, that's yet more plastics and other chemicals put into the ground or incinerated.

 

[arthwollipot]

Saying that one person's decisions make no difference...

I went out of my way to not say that.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Yeah, right.

NZ just removed clean car discounts.

EV sales have fallen by 80%: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/07/ev-sales-plummet-after-clean-car-discount-scrapped/

People buy EVs when they're cheaper than ICEs.

No, what actually happened was a big rush to buy EVs before the Clean Car Discount was removed. Most of those vehicles were not cheaper than the equivalent gas car.

EV sales were exceptional at the end of last year partly due to impending removal of the Clean Car Discount. The other sticking point is road user charges, which originally were not going to be applied to EVs until the proportion of the fleet reached 2%. Signals like that do have a psychological effect even if financially they aren't that important (even when paying more than twice as much per km an EV is still much cheaper to run than a gas car).

But monthly sales numbers go up and down a lot anyway. In the chart below you can see that the proportion of plug-in sales was very high towards the end of last year (peaking at 51%), but dipped from 3909 vehicles in June to 1118 in July. We will probably see similar variations this year.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

One of the many, many things that annoys me is the life of GU10 LED lightbulbs. Supposedly 15-25k hours. That's 5-8 years. I've yet to find one that lasts 3 years. I suspect the lightbulb manufacturers are just lying to consumers about the longevity and doing what they did with incandescent bulbs to keep their profits healthy.

LED bulbs don't get as hot as incandescents so the fittings last longer, but like most electronic devices their reliability goes down at higher temperature.

In 20 years I've only had one LED bulb go bad. It was a 13 watt A60 in a ceiling fitting with poor ventilation. I have a G10 on my workbench that is 7 years old and still going strong.

The estimated lifespan of LED bulbs is mostly based on light output reduction, not component failures. If you are buying cheap brands their reliability may be poor. But even lasting only 3 years they should be much cheaper than incandescents. GU10 halogens have a service life of ~1000 hours, or ~4 months if run 8 hours per day.

I take them to the small item electrical recycling, but I suspect many people just bin them. If so, that's yet more plastics and other chemicals put into the ground or incinerated.

That's people for you. Everybody knows that all electronic devices should be recycled. But LEDs last a long time so the amount of waste is small. It takes a long time to collect enough to justify a trip to the recycling depot. Plastic bags and drink bottles etc. are a much bigger issue. Unlike LED bulbs they don't just sit in landfills.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Food production is a red herring.

For starters, pets alone eat more meat than most countries, and if you think people are going to give up their pets, you're just wrong. Why would people even consider going vegan for the sake of the planet when people own dogs for the sake of owning a dog that creates more emissions than my car?

Not the same people? I would never have a dog as a pet. My neighbor had a small one which died and she didn't replace it. People don't own cats, they only think they do. But I wouldn't 'have' a cat either. They don't need as much food but you get emotionally attached to them.

While it's true a change to diets would help, it's idiotic to raise it when this kind of crap is going on: https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/

No, it isn't. What's idiotic as that crypto currency isn't regulated out of existence.

Build a time machine, go back in time and kill Milton Friedman's mother before she bred, then you might stand a chance.

[qimg]http://charman.co.nz/genius.jpg[/qimg]

No need to do that - and it wouldn't work anyway. The real solution is simple - lead by example. If you don't that then you can't complain that too little is being done.

 

[icerat]

Food production is a red herring.

No it's not.

For starters, pets alone eat more meat than most countries, and if you think people are going to give up their pets, you're just wrong.

That article states -
"In the US alone, our pets’ diet contributes to 25-30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption"

In other words, 70-75% is human meat consumption. The pet claim is the red herring. Aside from which, many vegans are well aware of the issue and are explicitly against pet ownership.

While it's true a change to diets would help, it's idiotic to raise it when this kind of crap is going on: https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/

Some of us are able to consider more than one factor at a time. I have an EV. I have 14kW of solar panels. I'm a vegetarian. I own wild forest. While I have pets, they're all rescue animals, I don't support breeding. And I don't support bitcoin.

More than one thing at a time!

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I went out of my way to not say that.

This is what you said:

But that's the thing. Not only does everyone have to contribute (which as Roger points out is a problem), even if everyone does, the measurable difference will be tiny compared to the big industrial polluters. Not nothing, sure, but tiny.

Unless the oil and gas industry can be shut down, unless we can find new ways of producing steel and concrete (which our civilisation absolutely depends upon) that don't dump billions of tons of CO2, unless we can develop new unpolluting ways of sustaining the global travel and distribution industries that we have become accustomed to, the problem will not go away.

Do your personal bit, absolutely. It will make you feel better. But it won't solve the problem.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

No it's not.



That article states -
"In the US alone, our pets’ diet contributes to 25-30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption"

In other words, 70-75% is human meat consumption. The pet claim is the red herring. Aside from which, many vegans are well aware of the issue and are explicitly against pet ownership.

Also, the article mentions more sustainable alternatives to current pet foods. Plus, dogs can be vegetarian anyway.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I don't see why the answer has to be austerity.
For example: if more people buy electric cars, more electric cars will be built, and thus fewer fossil fuel-driven cars will be made. Each and every purchasing decision moulds a business: it's called marketing. There's no need to give up cars: just make greener ones.
The same is true of almost every area of life. Governments can regulate the industry conforms to sustainable standards, so it's a push-pull effect. Governments push, consumers pull.Saying that one person's decisions make no difference is ignoring the enormous power to effect change that multiple individuals acting together have. What we do steers and shapes our economies: if we change what we want companies to make or provide, they will adapt to that.

Yeah, right.

NZ just removed clean car discounts.

EV sales have fallen by 80%: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/07/ev-sales-plummet-after-clean-car-discount-scrapped/

People buy EVs when they're cheaper than ICEs.

You are making my point for me. The NZ government removes subsidies, and EV sales fall. There is a straightforward solution to that...

 

[Roger Ramjets]

You are making my point for me. The NZ government removes subsidies, and EV sales fall. There is a straightforward solution to that...

Incentives work, but tend to distort the market and get people's back up. I would rather just put a carbon tax on gas that represents its true cost. I hope they revisit Road User charges to make it more equitable for EVs. They have said that eventually all vehicles will pay the RUC, but I bet they will kick that can way down the road.

This year should be good for EVs as cheaper Chinese brands come in and Western manufacturers drop their prices to compete. The really good news is that gas prices are staying high. Hope those wars in Ukraine and Middle East keep going!

 

[arthwollipot]

This is what you said:

You literally just quoted the part where I went out of my way to not say what you said I said.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

You literally just quoted the part where I went out of my way to not say what you said I said.

You said that, even if everyone adopts austerity, the difference will be tiny. The effect for one person, then, will be a tiny part of a tiny effect- i.e. the actions of one person make no effective difference.
Maybe I've got you wrong- perhaps you could clarify.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Incentives work, but tend to distort the market and get people's back up. I would rather just put a carbon tax on gas that represents its true cost. I hope they revisit Road User charges to make it more equitable for EVs. They have said that eventually all vehicles will pay the RUC, but I bet they will kick that can way down the road.

This year should be good for EVs as cheaper Chinese brands come in and Western manufacturers drop their prices to compete. The really good news is that gas prices are staying high. Hope those wars in Ukraine and Middle East keep going!

A carbon tax is still an incentive, in that it is a disincentive to go for fossil fuels, which equates to an incentive to opt for the alternative.
My view is that the market needs push/pull measures from government, in order to steer it in the right direction. The market is currently distorted in favour of petrol-powered cars, in the form of subsidies for fuel. Switching that to subsidies for electric- or even hybrid cars- would still skew the market, but in a more sustainable direction.
I don't know that much about road user charges in NZ, but ULEZ schemes in the UK target older, more polluting cars: EVs are exempt from charges in those zones.