It will keep you from enjoying anything. People believe they shouldn't have kids because "there's too many people". Or spend the $10 on a reusable bottle of water they are going to lose instead of buying the $1 and giving $9 to your cause of choice (charity, church, weed for the homeless).

The only way to really go zero-emissions, which would really benefit everyone (I guess, by this logic) is to just off yourself.

But I'd argue that you could do more good, have more potential to solve these problems you are concerned about, by exposing yourself to things outside your comfort zone. Other places, people, cultures, great works of art and engineering, and rich experiences.

All of the planes you ride on are going to fly anyway, get out there and get it!

Consider Nestle taking tens of millions of gallons of water from drought-struck California for $524 a year, even as residents are urged to cut back their water consumption.

Consider consumers buying millions of gallons of water from Nestle when they could just drink tap water...

I think what you mean to say is not enough people care about ethical consumption to reduce pollution to the level you think we need to be at. We should instead regulate industry so that it doesn't depend on individuals making ethical decisions with their consumption, because most of them won't. Perfectly reasonable position, but you don't have to say it like there's some vast evil conspiracy out there.

It feels gross to have a smart phone or computer built with conflict minerals (they all essentially are). It feels gross to have more than affordable clothes assembled in sweatshops. I'm not the one setting up these systems but it feels gross to benefit from them. Don't tell people to ignore those feelings, ignoring them is alienating.

Also, I think if you off yourself the carbon in your body will eventually be emitted? :P

This is just plain bad reasoning, for obvious reasons.

It is not “hypersensitive” to care about the CO2 impact of air travel. In fact it is a large blind spot for many otherwise progressive-minded people. These travel shows genuinely espouse progressive principles of learning from other cultures and yet almost never is there any mention of the significant CO2 impact. All the little things you might do throughout the year to lower your impact and get to where we need to be in 12 years are easily wiped out by just one plane trip. It’s good to talk about it.

Taking the bus instead of the car to work will "pay for" like 4 cross-continental trips a year. If you take a bike instead, it's closer to 10.

Only if you want to maintain the same levels of unsustainable CO2 output. That's totally unacceptable. We need to get to as close to zero emissions as we can as fast as we can, which means taking mass transit to work, living closer to work, and not flying so much.

> Driving the same trip is 2500 pounds - more than 4x.

Not if you do it in an electric, sustainably powered car (or better yet train).

This is true though. There are too many people on the planet, and you shouldn't have kids if it aligns with you beliefs.

Luckily, countries are already headed in that direction (fertility rates below replacement rate) [1]. But we should do more with carbon tax funds to further incentivize this outcome.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rates/

"According to the General Social Survey data, 41 percent of Democrats are without a steady partner, compared with only 29 percent of Republicans. Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to not have a steady partner: 51 percent vs. 32 percent, respectively."

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/lifestyle/article/It-s-not-just-you-N...

I saw one of Rick's show commentaries last week and he's very specifically on a crusade of "Travel defeats ignorance"

Are Republicans going to have more kids than Democrats? I have no idea, Paul Ryan has had three and says he's "doing his part" [2]. The trend downward in fertility rate across the board is still obvious.

[1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/number-2-in-2018-baby-bust-fertil... (Number 2 in 2018: Baby Bust—Fertility is Declining the Most Among Minority Women)

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/paul-ryan-wants-you-have-more-kids-... (Paul Ryan Wants You To Have More Kids)

From: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/05/17/explaining-why-mi...

"Results from the 2010 Census showed that racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 91.7% of the nation’s growth since 2000. Most of that increase from 2000 to 2010—56%—was due to Hispanics."

"The changing profile of the nation’s youngest residents also stems from the fact that some groups, especially Hispanics, have higher numbers of children than do non-Hispanic whites."

"Among Hispanics, the total fertility rate is 2.4. For non-Hispanic whites and for non-Hispanic Asians, it is 1.8."

From: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/09/baby-boom-bir...

"In 2014, blacks and Asians gave birth to almost 17 percent more children than the national average, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Hispanics gave birth to 32 percent more than the national average."

So, in summary, why are you posting obvious falsehoods? There's plenty of data showing that your assertions are plainly wrong. This was all from a very quick Google search, one of them being the government's own census site. There's tons more.

You're already here, stay for a bit.

Regarding nuclear, I'm not going to beat a dead horse in this thread.

As for nuclear, I'll beat the dead horse: we don't need it (at least fission). We need more renewable power, especially solar, since 1500W/m^3 hits the Earth's surface all day long. We just need to figure out how to make solar panels in a more environmentally-friendly manner (better recycling of their materials, etc.), and deploy them in more places, especially in places where they don't have negative effects, such as on rooftops, over highways, etc.

Then, we need to figure out how to have humans live in a more environmental manner, by increasing density. If most of the population lived at the density of Manhattan or Tokyo, we wouldn't have all these complaints about humans taking up too much land area.

The problems associated with overpopulation can be solved with technology and policy, if we really want to.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/21/amazon-air-expands-with-10...

If no, then I applaud your sacrifice; preach it, brother. Spreading awareness and sensitiivty is critical.

If yes, then we get into the nasty business of setting goals and priorities. Or, rather, the nasty business of having our priorities set for us. Or can you see an achievable path that doesn't lead to a green coat of paint on the status quo?

Your decomposing body will release nitrates, methane and all sorts of other toxic crap into the air and groundwater. Not to mention the resources consumed in building a casket and your permanent occupation of landspace even after death. Graveyards are all-around terrible for the environment.

Cremation is a little better but emits a ton of greenhouse gas. Burning formaldehyde and mercury is bad news, not to mention the environmental destruction involved in extracting the natural gas needed to do it.

Even going into space and launching yourself into the sun has a tremendous environmental cost.

Everything we do produces emissions. The closest one can come to a zero-emission death might be a sky burial.

Killing yourself is absolutely the best way to help the world if your biggest concern in life is global warming and the only way you know how to help is by limiting your own consumption / CO2 production.

Of course, you shouldn't kill yourself, because there are many other, much better ways to help the environment than limiting personal consumption.

Arguably the best way would be to help push for more nuclear power.

So for $111, you can fly once a year without a net carbon impact. That's so small relative to the cost of the flight you could do it every time you fly.

And one of the comments suggested that you can offset your carbon impact by paying someone to plant trees. I'm not seriously considering that for the next time my wife and I fly anywhere... And possibly just to offset our yearly carbon footprint anyhow.

Social investment (via government or other channels) into accelerating developments like this is why people need to get political to shift how the default decisions get made.

I did it for different reasons than you, but it sounds like it might be a nice fit. Although now that I've said that, there are admittedly another set of environmental problems from the anti-foul paint, so perhaps it's just trading one issue for another.

There are other things limiting travel is affecting, such as reducing the amount of income to the countries travelled to that otherwise really need it. But I can't really measure that to any significant degree either.

I'm not saying those are bad choices, or that there are not other ethical arguments for them. But let's be clear-eyed about the drastic level of structural change required to stabilize (let alone reduce, let alone get to net-negative) CO2 emissions.

(And anyone who chose to have children is automatically disqualified from talking about individual carbon impacts.)

Ultimately my problem is it is hypocritical to have concern for climate change while jetting around the world.

Eventually I would like to get into green and cleantech and hopefully contribute to a bigger impact on emissions than a single lifetimes worth of actions ever could.

You can also offset your footprint by buying land and planting trees. With some handkerchief math you'll be able to fly without any worries.

Still, planting 1000 trees and making sure they exist for 40 years makes your footprint invisible.

I believe economic forces and regulations will be the primary drivers of changing modes of transport, so if it makes economic sense to keep operating jet fuel aircraft, that will be an option for those who can afford it and don't have misgivings about it. But for planning and resilience, there's value in envisioning how a world with very limited jet fuel air travel would look like, and whether portions of its role ought to be taken over by other modes of travel, or if societies merely need to adjust to its loss.

Our world's globalized economy greatly depends on the movement of goods and sometimes people, but for goods, the pace of water transport is often good enough, coupled with its much lower cost per amount and time. Much of this transport uses some of the lowest grades of fuel you can get from fossil oil. To change this, the price of these fuels would have to soar or the fuel would need to be banned. Let's suppose this extreme case comes and fuel oil is no longer an option. A rapid migration to nuclear propulsion for merchant fleets is both politically untenable and economically improbable. Solar/battery propulsion doesn't have the energy density, which leaves wind-like propulsion as one of the only contenders, with the others being simply higher grades of hydrocarbons like gasoline and compressed gas. One's carbon-free, slow, and presents a significant change in show ships are built, while the other needs changes only to the engines, fuel lines, and fuel tanks, re-uses existing industrial expertise, and maintains the pace of travel -- but isn't carbon-free. Which one do you think companies would chose?

So, what I'm really intrigued by is the thought that you could takeoff with chemical fuel and cruise with electric or fuel cells.

Or, as you mention, there's always syngas. That might be the holy grail that saves us from ourselves.

https://www.cleansky.eu/