> This show changed my perspective and has made me want to redouble my efforts with regard to my impact on the environment.
At this point, the only effort worth making is reducing consumption. Reducing travel, reducing use of everything across the board. Of course, our whole society is setup so people need others to consume more and more so they can feed their family, because all the debt has that growth baked in in order to break even.
No. Participate in politics to force industries to adopt environment friendly practices and production. Be more full proof and apply the same rules to import/export.
This is how oil, fast food, meat, luxury, etc industries want you to behave. Recycle, reuse and reduce was a failure which was proposed the same way you did. Consumer responsibility could be an additional measure but not the main focus.
The problem is, conservatives and others worldwide oppose this because it imposes costs on business in just one country, leaving businesses there with a disadvantage in world markets. Policies like these need to be coupled with import tariffs to countries with dirty industries, else we just end up legislating all our industry away and instead buy from countries who have no problem with polluting the environment.
> Participate in politics to force industries to adopt environment friendly practices and production.
In my opinion, there is no environmentally friendly practice that allows the world to consume at the pace it wants to. You can’t have multiple annual flights to vacation destinations, large vehicles, and quarter acre lots per family.
Not only can the tiny proportion of the world enjoying the above not have it anymore, but to mitigate the damage already done, we probably need to come to a near stop rather than just slow down from 80mph to 40mph.
All while a few billion people in the developing world are looking forward to their children being able to fly to destinations for vacations and enjoy a backyard and nice car.
A high carbon emission tax can force people to reduce their useless flights. Aviation industry's global emission is at 2 percent and only tiny percentage (3-5%?) of world population travel by air. A lot of problems is also due to inefficient traffic control and laws. Plus, that include air cargo. I can't find anything that accounts only for consumer flights.
We’re in agreement that the way to solve the problem of overconsumption is to raise the cost of consuming by increasing taxes on fossil fuels.
Problem is any politician that proposes it will get voted out because people want to consume. So until a a large majority of people are willing to forgo the type of life desired based on what people are used to and currently enjoying, it seems impossible to impose the requisite level of taxation.
As I already pointed out, only a small amount of people travel by air regularly. So I really doubt that would be a problem for election.
For other industries, it's a mixed bag. Some will be welcomed such as reduction in planned obsolescence, better public transportation, more greenery, less trash on roads, breathable air, etc.
Most people won't notice inefficient coal power plants getting replaced by other better options. They want electricity at cheap and they will get it.
People with resources travel by air regularly, and they influence others. Also, people like to believe they will one day live the jet setting life, so taking that option away could be perceived as a negative.
People also prefer personal car transportation versus public transportation. Public transport requires living in high density environments, which means no personal backyards, no driveways for your 2+ car households, etc. Fossil fuels without the accompanying tax make cheap things possible, like household supplies and convenient packaging. Making fossil fuels more expensive hits everyone's quality of life, and we can see that when fuel prices go up and now everyone is complaining about increases in prices of food and materials.
>Most people won't notice inefficient coal powerplants getting replaced by other better options. They want electricity at cheap and they will get it.
If it was possible to offer electricity cheaper, why would it not already be the case?
> People also prefer personal car transportation versus public transportation.
I suspect it's because many countries don't have good transportation system. You are right, it would be inefficient to build large scale public transportation system in rural areas but considering that they don't account for as much pollution. I think it's an okay trade off for now.
Free public transportation also encourages more development as it benefits poor people (who are less likely to own and use their own vehicles) more.
Pushing down the cost of electricity would be a really good way to get folks to prefer it over other energy sources. Then making the grid more efficient and lower emissions benefits all the downstream applications without needing to wait for equipment replacements.
I just installed a new gas heating system (replacing my 1975-vintage hardware that died) because PG&E charges me roughly 6.4 cents per KWh delivered by pipe vs 44 cents per KWh delivered by wire. [1] Ironically, my red-state-dwelling parents are all-electric and are emitting less CO2e than I am because it's cheaper for them.
I moved out of walking range of a Caltrain station and honestly don't miss it. Tickets are always more expensive than driving, the service is slow, and living nearby is noisy. But it doesn't have to be that way. I only actually used it if I was going all the way to San Francisco, my bicycle was broken, or it was raining a lot - so a few times per year. There's just no will here to make the public transit experience excellent.
[1] Folks may notice that the $0.44/KWh is far above the stated rate. That's because there's tiers and fees. Other folks are quick to point to time-of-use as a way to solve everything, but that would actually increase my bill because most of my electricity use is either base load or peak-hours activities. And I dislike the cognitive burden of micro-optimizing everything all the time.
I agree with you that this should work, but it makes me sad that this kind of solution preserves access for the wealthy and excludes those who are not. Maybe clean energy can help reduce the divide eventually.
Personally I'd rather not promote additional tracking and surveillance. Simple measures, while they might not be perfect, at least have easy-to-predict outcomes. Directly taxing what you want less of (e.g., CO2e) doesn't require complicated mechanisms and can be rapidly and broadly applied.
At this point, the only effort worth making is reducing consumption. Reducing travel, reducing use of everything across the board. Of course, our whole society is setup so people need others to consume more and more so they can feed their family, because all the debt has that growth baked in in order to break even.