But ... 5.3T pp/yr of that amount is caused by the existing coal fired power plants in the USA.
So one thing you could do is to write to your elected representatives to specifically petition for the abandonment of this form of power generation and its replacement with renewable systems.
Guaranteed to work? Nope. But if we do get rid of those plants, it will make a HUGE difference at the national and international scale.
[ EDIT: missed the 1 in front of the 7 for the average US CO2 output ... 17 not 7 ]
So we decided a significantly warmer climate was better than dealing with radioactive waste. Now it looks like we made the wrong risk assessment.
It would mean different jobs, and it means valuing work differently right along with things.
Could happen via government action, literally start paying for work and pay at a rate that seeds a market.
Could happen with individuals too. Think gig work without a company making billions at the top. While that is super attractive for some, it is entirely unnecessary, and in my view, a leaner overall model paying more to labor will prove a worthy device to move these sorts of ideas along. A variation on all this could be collectives. Companies owned by everyone in them, lean at the top, robust otherwise.
As for things, maybe we see a return to longevity in service life being more highly valued. I harbor this value now. Absolutely hate things that I know I cannot use for a decade or more. We can do so much better than the current churn of devices and software. A bit different priority and we could see more things as robust as say, Google maps still able to operate with devices made a long time ago.
It has a long half life, but a deep shaft filled with cement in a remote area does the trick.
There’s no kicking the can down the road.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-radioactive-problem-...
The practical difficulty with using renewables effectively is that you need to be able to either store large amounts of energy for later use, or trade power across long distances. We (by which I mean "in the U.S." but for other developed countries it's pretty much the same) could buy solar power from Kenya, Australia, Algeria, or similar places to get us through the night if we had high-capacity transcontinental HVDC lines running to those places. That's a major infrastructure project that would cost a lot of money, but I expect it's probably worth it.
(We can even mitigate the risk of the power lines being temporarily disabled by keeping the fossil fuel plants on standby and just not using them except as an emergency backup.)
Another option is to just build batteries on an unheard-of scale. Lithium iron phosphate cells might do the job -- being free of cobalt an nickel, the only other major bottleneck resource would be lithium. I'm not sure how practical it is to build the kinds of gigantic battery packs that would be needed to provide, say, an 18-hour backup power supply for the entire U.S., but it's probably less cells in total than we'd need to electrify our current fleet of gas-powered cars.
edit: to clarify, I'm not particularly opposed to nuclear. I just don't think it's the only option at this point.
So, we'll just keep burning coal.
> I just don't think it's the only option at this point.
It needs to be viable economically and politically, which could be years from now.
Their figures also suggest CO2 emissions were 20T pp in the US in 2019! (6558MT of CO2, 328.2M population)
1: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
The reason I'm so struck by the coal-fired electricity production numbers are that this seems VASTLY easier to fix than the transportation numbers. Even if the latter would have more impact, I think we're still a long way from being able to dramatically affect that, whereas ramping up renewable electricity generation and ramping down fossil fuels seems like a (relatively) simple challenge.
My source was
http://www.ecocivilization.info/three-tons-carbon-dioxide-pe...
which I think is from about 2017 (and has several citations at the end).
The buried lede is that, if the prophets of climate doom are correct, you need to substantially reduce your standard of living. And all those third-worlders that are trying to improve their standard of living? They need to stop doing so, yesterday, and learn to accept their impoverished standard of living. But do it cleaner!
But they won't want to do that, predictably. And to get them to do so will require enforcement. And enforcement will require coercive power - so violence. And that will result in war that has the potential to be more destructive than the doom being predicted.
If the problem is as significant as alarmists predict, the only palatable solution is technological. So if you feel so motivated, concentrate your effort there. Because the data says everything else you can do is inconsequential and is mostly virtue signaling.
I'm not making any claim about the legitimacy or seriousness of global climate change. Just pointing out that the medicine we choose can destroy as much or more than the disease.
California's per capita electricity consumption has stayed flat since 1970. That's in part due to strict energy efficiency standards. By contrast, per capita electricity consumption in the rest of the country has increased 50%, and that's despite California's standards indirectly improving efficiency elsewhere.
Today per capita consumption in California is nearly half that of the rest of the country, but the standard of living (modern conveniences, etc) is hardly less than elsewhere. Note that California's temperate climate does not explain this away. Home heating is still largely fossil fuel based in most of the U.S., including in California. And most of the population growth in California since the 1970s has been in the Central Valley and Southern California, places where air conditioning is as ubiquitous as anywhere else. Shifts in industrial makeup helped some, but the same industrial sectors also became more energy efficient. In general, most of the relative improvements are a product of better energy efficiency. And that was accomplished primarily through non-politicized regulators quietly and steadily mandating marginal efficiency improvements over the decades.
See https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ca-success-story-FS... and https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/5/31/1864690...
Suffice it to say that there's alot of pandering to the environmental lobby among Californian politicians. And lots of tension about the cost and viability of various environmental efforts. But as with politics anywhere, the importance of the objects of these fights is usually blown way out of proportion. The most consequential and productive regulations were quietly working in the background for decades, and didn't come with huge price tags.
EDIT: Apropos HN, one of the key personalities working behind the scenes to improve energy efficiency standards was physicist Arthur Rosenfeld. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_H._Rosenfeld and https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/10/the-cal.... His research work gave rise to the eponymous Rosenfeld Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenfeld_Effect) and Rosenfeld's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenfeld%27s_law). The latter states that "From 1845 to the present, the amount of energy required to produce the same amount of gross national product has steadily decreased at the rate of about 1 percent per year".
No scientist is arguing that we need to live in poverty, please keep the straw man arguments out of this.
Really though, "alarmists?" You might have been able to accuse scientists of being alarmist 30 years ago, but they predicted increasingly frequent extreme weather events, and for the past decade we have watched the trend do exactly what was predicted. Now instead of talking about how we can avoid this outcome we are sitting here talking about how to not make things worse while we learn to live with floods, hurricanes, heat domes, and polar vortexes.
We have technology, we can work on reducing carbon output without sending ourselves back to the Stone Age. We just need the political will to actually drive it.
And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering.
So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there.
And I haven't even started on the companies that PRODUCE equipment for these large forces.
Source?
> So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there.
Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's obvious that a you can't do much by regulating your own consumption. However, telling people to do whatever they want and it doesn't matter because they're 1 in 8 billion is the wrong message to send, because if all 8 billion people follow your example that would lead to a massive increase in pollution.
Most people don't follow GP's example because they can't, not because "they're getting the right message". And you bet that as soon as they can, they will. Why? Because most people don't care about the "message", whatever you believe it is. The ones who actually do something about it are the ones who would regardless of any mass-targeted "message". Going one step further, I'd say that it would be better if everyone realized that they can't do anything on their own because that might actually get people to work together, and that's the very reason why the common message is that "everyone should do their part": because that's how you keep people from working together.
Do people actually believe this? ie. "everyone will just buy a tesla on their own, so we don't need government intervention"?
>that's the very reason why the common message is that "everyone should do their part": because that's how you keep people from working together.
That's awfully cynical. During the pandemic there were multiple PSAs telling people to "do their part" by staying home, wearing masks, etc. Was that also some sort of conspiracy to keep people from working together?
The headline does not seem to be supported by the article, which mainly consists of various pollution figures for the US military but lacks comparison to other entities. The closest it gets to that is saying the US military produces "more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined". Overall it makes a convincing case that the US military is a large polluter, but not that it's "World’s Biggest Polluter".
>https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...
It's a blog for a coop chain. A skim of the article reveals the same problem as the previous: lots of facts and figures about how much the US military pollutes, but not many comparisons required to make the claim that they're the largest.
>https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h...
>https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...
Both seem to focus on the US military producing more co2 than many countries. I'm not sure how this is supposed to support the claim that they're the biggest polluter. The bay area probably produces more co2 than "many countries" (eg. Liechtenstein and Tonga), but that doesn't mean they're the biggest polluter in the world.
"...the DOD is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world. From FY1975 to FY2018, total DOD greenhouse gas emissions were more than 3,685 Million Metric Tons of CO2 equivalent."
"World's largest institutional user of petroleum" is both more precise and pretty damning.
holding individuals accountable for ignored environmental externaities of producers is a dead end. people will buy/consume the cheapest thing made available to them.
> So what do I do? know what we're doing is what we can
Everything you do is inconsequential in the face of living in a detached single family home on a quarter acre lot.
That very simple fact has exponential knock on effects requiring so much more mass to move so much further and hence consuming so much more energy, that everything else you do is meaningless.
The only solution was reducing total consumption, either per capita or capitas itself, but the former is not going to happen if people live in insufficiently dense manners that preclude public transport or walking and bicycling, and necessitate large roads, parking lots, and personal vehicles.
And of course, once you own or benefit from detached single family house lifestyles, you are not going to vote for anything that inconveniences you or causes you to reduce consumption, such as increased taxes on fossil fuels.
I'm naturally inclined towards austerity, but this problem cannot be fixed with cutbacks & efficiency alone.
Similarly, there is a huge market-driven surge in renewables: https://coloradosun.com/2021/01/25/solar-energy-colorado-uni...
A key part of this viewpoint is that strong demand in the market can actually be an accelerator.
Turning back to austerity - even if a 50% drop in demand could save us, it's just never going to happen. Even the global COVID lockdowns made less than a 10% cut in energy consumption. You'd be stunningly successful if you cut even 1% through austerity campaign.
Dense living is associated with poorer mental health and a variety of diseases, and that not taking into account people with autism, introversion etc, some of whom find urban density neurologically intolerable.
Humans didn’t evolve to live densely.
We should also at least have a carbon tax for things like normalizing beef as an alternative rather than a primary food source.
I mean, if the answer is world war, I’ll at least give you credit for an honest answer. I just rarely see that come up. The truth is yes we can and should do better, but also realize that other nations will take any advantage they can, including ignoring climate concerns.
So if it’s a global problem, it needs a global solution, so what is that mechanism to apply one?
Of course if things are truly implemented fairly, the US will also likely be subject to such taxes due to our own apparent inability to reduce our per capita carbon emissions...
But what happens when you need something more than they need to sell it? As in the case of China… steel, aluminum, titanium, food, machinery, computers, plastics, vehicles, or clothing… you know… those “couple of things” that we have collectively allowed China to make for us while pretending we’re all so green and the slave labor isn’t a problem.
India, maybe you can tax into compliance. Third world, maybe, but someone will scream it isn’t “fair”. But China? I’m skeptical we tax ourselves greatly and them effectively without them becoming the number one superpower and then doing as they please anyhow.
The CCP's entire domestic legitimacy comes from the economic growth that has come about since Deng took over. They need to keep the wheels spinning as much as the West does.
We had the technology to solve these problems years ago. This isn’t a technological problem, this is a problem about values. Do we value money or our environment more?
The climate catastrophe unfolding will be the biggest wake up humanity has ever had. That is the only silver lining to this existential predicament
Smaller house, solar panels, don't drive, don't eat meat, and don't have kids. And don't vote for politicians who are busy spreading nonsense.
> I've given up hope that this will be solved.
Oh, me too. Now it is about managing your personal guilt, which you realize at some level, judging from your comments. For me, I am likely past my lifetime CO2 budget, due to just 5 years of transatlantic flights for work (plus 15 years of driving in the US). I can't undo the damage that I have done, and now I have both eyes open staring into the abyss.
I guess you gotta find low-impact ways of enjoying life. I can recommend slacklining.
I already live in a trailer. Solar wouldn't make sense since we have 2 big trees over our trailer providing us shade. Cuts down on AC in the hotter months (now veering on March).
Not driving has been easy with WfH since last early March. I'm happy with that. I don't like driving anyways.
My SO and I are a DINK - double income no kids. This is one of the largest climate change decisions that can be made at a human level.
> And don't vote for politicians who are busy spreading nonsense.
Oh, I don't. Nor do I have any preconceived notions that my opinion does matter either. I'll do my civic part, and vote when its due, do jury duty, etc. But my opinions do not matter at any scale other than household.
I guess for me, it's not as much guilt, but foreboding. I know what the science says, and it'll be worse than what they say. I know I've done my share of pollution of many sorts, simply by using a vehicle, or flying.
But this problem isn't solvable by me. Or my politicians.. Or even by the USA. This needs a worldwide drastic response at every level. And do I see that happening? Not in a hundred years - until it's catastrophically too late.
Obviously the answer is for me to care about society (on a global level), but it's hard to do so without skin in the game. And considering it feels like others don't care or are still very wasteful... why should I be pious?
I find the whole "don't have kids" thing sad and short-sighted. Having kids was the single greatest thing that's ever happened to me, and yes there's a CO2 footprint as a result but ultimately humans need kids to have a future. Please have children, and teach them the importance of the planet.
[0] https://phys.org/news/2009-11-dogs-larger-carbon-footprint-s...
It's something I keep quiet about in day-to-day life since it seems to invite reprisal, but if we're soul-searching for what we as individuals can do, I beg you to try eating no meat at all. There seems to be an increasing awareness that animal farming as currently practised is an environmental catastrophe on many levels, including emissions[1]—I dimly recall the IPCC report being quite clear that it's incompatible with a world that isn't ever-worsening, and suspect the obvious conclusion of "stop entirely" has been watered down to "try to eat less" because they fear people will just assume the former is too onerous and not bother.
I have found it to be the opposite—simple steps, fun, healthy—and sort of want to launch into a full tale, but it has been a long week and I was just heading to bed. Still, I'm more than happy later to suggest recommendations and recipes and/or generally chat if you (or anyone) would like.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-emissions-supply-cha...
I think 90% is better than 0%.
At the state and national level, though, a lot more could be done. Ground transportation could be fully electrified. (I think the quickest way to get there is not to wait for battery technology to get better but rather just electrify the major freeways so that cars and trucks can charge while they're moving, and people won't need huge, heavy, expensive batteries to get anywhere.)
We could also expand solar and wind investments. To even out power production and consumption, we could finance the construction of intercontinental high-voltage DC lines, so we can buy solar power from the Sahara in the middle of the night and sell to Europe or wherever in the daytime.
We could invest in battery manufacturing. Most U.S. made electric vehicles are basically luxury supercars that use expensive batteries that require large amounts of nickel and cobalt. What we need to get away from burning gas is mass-production of lithium iron phosphate cells (or whatever technology that replaces it) which have somewhat lower energy density but use cheaper, more readily available raw materials and are much safer and much more durable. This is the kind of technology we need to make cheap cars for ordinary middle-class people with low environmental footprint.
For that matter, it would be great if EV tax credits applied to conversions as well as new vehicles. Hardly anyone converts vehicles now because it's expensive and high-effort, but if there was a simple kit to convert, say, a semi-recent Honda Civic to electric that can be installed easily by a mechanic and doesn't require any custom fabrication, maybe we'd have a lot more people going that route. Especially if it was subsidized to the point where the out-of-pocket expense is low.
More nuclear plants might be a good thing too, but it's not absolutely essential.
Depending where you live, it might not even make a difference.
I'd say the biggest contribution one can make is to aggressively vote for parties that support green power generation. Project like these [0] are stalled by lobbyist but offer a real chance to curb emissions.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_%E2%80%93_New_England_T...
Yes, green transportation (or just less) is good. But if I sit at home and order goods to be delivered to me, it's actually quite difficult to pick which have the smallest footprints.
The energy sources for these items are at the discretion of the large buyers. A steel plant can absolutely make the switch from coal to solar/wind at its own discretion.
What we do is unionize, and in a way where we can then withdraw our industrial contributions to climate change.
> I look at what I'm actually doing, and I'm at my limit.
I am willing to bet you've not yet tried to "manage up."
It's not our fellow consumers who are causing climate change, it is supply-side; it is management. Only industrial and trade unions have the leverage "stop the line," and demand a less-profitable, albeit life-saving economy.
I think we just have to keep pushing the society (and each other) in the right direction. Hang on, I believe it will eventually get better, though it will get a lot worse before it starts to get better.
You won’t, (and I won’t either) but if it comes down to human survival, forces will find a way to make you do it.
Not with regard to density, which has been going up, not down.
This idea of consumer fault is deplorable, its not lile i gey accurate information about carbon footprint when i shop
The house is already a sunk cost, so I am not sure how much point there is
The Effective Altruism movement has found some charities that either have proven advocacy records or offer legitimate carbon offsets, and which have a need for more funding.
The Clean Air Task Force seems widely approved of by a variety of EA researcher organizations, with one estimating that they prevent a ton of emissions for less than a dollar.
The offset programs are probably less effective in EV, but more certain. $10 per ton, I believe? Still highly affordable.
* Switch to using 100% renewable energy from your electric company.
* Live in an apartment where shared walls, floors and ceilings means lower energy usage
* Move to a city where you can walk, bicycle or transit (or at least have a short drive to most things).
But the most important is to become involved in climate politics, especially state and local politics. Even in California (the largest state in the union) all you need is a dozen or so people to get a meeting with a state representative.
The world needs more Elon Musk types to think big and bring a lower carbon footprint to modern living. Thinking people will voluntarily put themselves at a disadvantage for the greater good goes against much of what we know of human nature.
Perhaps ironically, the actual adolescents are (among) the ones who aren't.
Who you are giving money to.
Do you own a car?? Then you are destroying the planet.
I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics with my knowledge of circuitry and 3d printing. I recycle, but that's if its not repairable or reusable/repurposable.
I look at what I'm actually doing, and I'm at my limit. There isn't anything else I can add on to reduce footprint. And in reality, the same goes for many people.
These global climate change issues are the sum of all the work in this world, but the bulk of it is emitted by companies who do the cheapest thing. And if dumping gigatons of CO2 or methane in the air makes more sense, that's done. I can petition my congresscritters, but it's well known they do not listen to the little guy (https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-... ). Your party is irrelevant here.
So what do I do? know what we're doing is what we can and hope some rich people pull up the cause, and not try to escape the atmosphere in a penis-shaped rocket.
I've given up hope that this will be solved.