Reply to do you know anyone in this affluent area that has altered their lifestyle to reduce CO2 emissions?

Forum Index » Environment, Weather, and Green Living

Reply to "do you know anyone in this affluent area that has altered their lifestyle to reduce CO2 emissions?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]This is the key point that should, to borrow a phrase, be obvious to intelligent people.  Even if every single person reduced their carbon footprint by 50%, it's a very small drop in a very large bucket.[/quote]

I'm not following your math. If every single person reduced their individual carbon footprints by 50%, the result would be a 50% reduction of aggregate emissions.

If the point you are trying to make is that emissions by industry is larger than household-level emissions, keep in mind that industry exists to serve households. If we consume less, then industry must produce less (or be stuck with surplus goods that lead to financial losses).
[/quote]

+1 Exactly. The person or persons making this argument is/are just trying to find a way to justify continuing to do whatever the heck they want without having to give any thought to the consequences.[/quote]

Well, no -- I made a version of this argument above, and I also have gone to some considerable expense and effort to reduce my household's carbon footprint (installed solar panels, heat pump, bought an electric car, etc.). I do all that because it strikes me as absurd not to go to at least some lengths to try to cut back on how much I'm contributing to the problems of climate change. But at the same time, I think it's sort of silly to pretend I'm making any real difference. We need massive government action at this point if we have any hope of changing the course of human-caused climate change; what I do really isn't going to have any noticeable impact on the problem.[/quote]

My interest in CO2 reduction began about 5 years ago when a neighbor installed solar panels. Curious, I investigated to learn more -- to understand the costs and also the benefits. For the first time, I calculated my carbon footprint (and was shocked to see how large it was), and estimated the reduction in that footprint that I could achieve with panels. Now, 5 years later, I've made many adjustments to my lifestyle, and my carbon footprint is only 50% its prior size. This sequence of actions was triggered by my neighbor's installation of solar panels. Perhaps I never would have gone down this path were it not for the example set my a neighbor.

So when assessing your impact on carbon reductions, don't forgot that your good example might inspire others to follow. Perhaps you are the neighbor who inspired me. Every big wave must begin, initially, with tiny ripples. Without the initial tiny ripples, perhaps a big wave would never come into existence.

In all likelihood, the world will not meet the 2C goal set by the Paris Agreement. We aren't moving fast enough to meet the goal. But perhaps we can limit warming to 3C or 4C. If we extract all of the fossil fuels from the ground and burn them, atmospheric CO2 may shoot upwards from its current level of 420 ppm to over 2000 ppm. At 2000 ppm, the impact would be devastating (close to 10C or 18F of warming), perhaps even threatening our survival as a species.

Long story short, it is better if society responds slowly to the challenge of global warming than to not response at all. Maybe our sluggish response will be good enough to avoid long-run catastrophe. And people like you are needed to get us started on the right path, even if it turns out to be a slow walk along the path, instead of a fast run.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics