And what are we to do about it?
Then it’s agreed that everybody should not use their air conditioners. I dont have one.
Yup.
I would love to have all the answers! I don’t pretend to. Defining the problem is the first step to coming up with workable solutions. I try to present the science that is available as I find many folks aren’t familiar or interested with it. If you don’t understand the knowledge, how can you trust your opinion or evaluate the solutions presented?
I would rather to make the changes needed and support them than make excuses not to. We aren’t running the heat, and it is currently 41F outside. You don’t have an air conditioner. Bravo!
Quite frankly I think the way we are living today has doomed much of the current life on this planet. We have rapidly pushed the ecosphere into a new set of natural parameters that is unsustainable for many life forms. Our way of life is headed for a restructuring whether we like it or not. We can do what we can to limit the coming damage or ignore it. That’s our choice, but we aren’t going to slow it or stop it. Unless we actually find solutions, act now, and find ways to live with the disruptions that this is likely to cause. It is us in the developed world that are the most responsible for these impacts and seem to be the least likely to accept the responsibility to change because it hurts the bottom line. We are the ones that need to address the solution and make a change.
I’ll ask you the same question. “And what are we to do about it?”
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Not get involved in longhair discussions and hope for warm weather or a trip to Florida.
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You completely missed the point. If you don’t have X, then you don’t conserve on that particular use of resources. But maybe you use a lot of something else that is also harmful to the planet; that is where you can reduce use.
People have different things they waste, and most residents of this country could conserve in more ways than they want to think about.
Cherrypicking one item that you don’t own and highlighting that is merely a distractive tactic. There are plenty of things I don’t do, either; it doesn’t mean I can’t find some other consumptive thing/habit to cut back on.
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I agree and live a modest but comfortable life within my means. I often look at those most vocal about the evils of man-made change. The spokesman so to say who also happen to be extremely wealthy own several mansions they call homes and fly around in private aircraft as they wish. I personally find it hard to get behind the do as I say not as I do mentality. It also makes me dig deeper into the underlying motives they may have.
The population grows basically in two ways people having more children and people living longer. Population is a state of constant addition and subtraction both being influenced by quality of life. The main contributing factor to quality of life is abundant energy sources. Take away or reduce energy you lower quality of life and that will directly impact population on both the addition and subtraction ends.
For me it is quite like the balance in nature of everything living on land and in the seas.
It seems most of the effort is to try and go backwards and to lessen the quality of life rather than going all out to figure out the next new energy source to balance a growing population. The general belief is solar and wind is going to do this, but it is also doubtful the world as a whole will ever be powered totally that way without also going backwards with quality of life, let alone improving the quality of life for much of the population of the planet.
All it will take is that one breakthrough. Will that ever happen is the question.
There is a very strong inverse correlation between high birthrates and restricted access to education for women. Let women go to school and birthrates will decline … quickly.
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Well, is it possible wealthy or powerful people are just the ones whose statements make it into the news? I live a modest life like you and I also feel strongly about climate change like the rich hypocrites you distrust, and I would encourage people to conserve energy, not waste food, etc., if I didn’t think it would be regarded as obnoxious.
Also you talk about lessening the quality of life. I think quality of life would be improved if we all lived a little closer to the ground. If we walked or biked more and ate less fast food and worked less and had more time to cook our own meals, and even if we had less money to spend on… stuff, would we really be less happy?
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I wouldn’t consider them the “most vocal”, there are plenty of people that don’t fit that category that have been trying to get information out for many years. They don’t have planes and mansions.
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I agree wholeheartedly. A simpler life does not necessarily mean a lower quality of life.
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There is no silver bullet, no one magical solution.
Combine a mindset of finding ways to use less, along with continuing research, and imagination searching for multiple new helpful technologies and new ways of doing things without even needing new tech.
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It seems that the more evolved modern a society gets the greater it is that education is there for all. For a society to become modern (first world) energy and energy consumption is required. The parts of the world that right now are polluting the most are those trying hard to improve their standard of living. That should provide a positive improvement in education. It is what happened in this country and had many great positive impacts on quality of life in the relative short term. The downside I gather is that in improving quality of life thru exploiting energy some feel the result is we will be ending all life.
I’m one that feels the compromise although not perfect is worth it.
I agree happiness is not something wealth can buy. I know lots of people that are rich but not all that happy. Quality of life is not exactly happiness. I like to know that I have modern medicine and healthcare and electricity and clean drinking water and a warm place to live in the winter and a cool place in the summer. I like to walk and bike ride even to the store sometimes where I know there is an abundance of healthy foods I can afford. I also like knowing there is infrastructure that when I need to travel more than my legs can power me I can get in my car or even on a plane and go there. My mother never was more than 100 miles from the place she was born and always told me she was so lucky for TV as it showed her all about the world. TV and the internet are quality of life things also. All this comes at the cost of exploited energy.
I grow a victory garden each summer that helps with our food consumption and I used to turn over a pretty large plot by hand but as I got older I rely now on a gas-powered tiller. I only use about a quart or two of gas in it per summer. We rented a hybrid car on vacation a couple weeks ago. I drive a KIA Soul normally so I’m used to fairly good MPG. This SUV we rented was bigger than the Soul and I was astonished at how little gas we used. Made me wonder why not a bigger push on hybrids or better yet plug in hybrids where we have an infrastructure already in place.
Take away natural gas to those of us in the north or AC to those in the southwest or pumped in water to those in aired areas and living closer to the ground won’t improve their happiness. Most winters we have a day or two without power and heat and that is just about the breaking point for most people. I don’t know many that could make it thru a winter. Doing something like planting and tending my garden is mostly a feel good effort as I likely expend as many calories doing it as I consume from it. Riding my bike to the grocery store is a similar thing. The big hill between me and the store I’m spewing a lot of CO2 peddling up. The ride home is fun though.
You are correct there are many people without excess means discussing both sides of the issue. What the wealthy and or people in power have is a platform to reach many people with their version of their truth. The rest of us then consume the information and make it our talking points for our much smaller platforms. Some of my favorite sources of information are the people that say don’t believe me go here and do your own research. Most advice givers don’t do that and most information receivers don’t do the research.
So here is a good summary with charts of how much CO2 each country put out in 2022 and also the per capita amount for each country. The US pumps the second most into the atmosphere after China and ranks third close behind Saudi Arabia (1) and Australia (2) in per capita production.
Indian’s CO2 output is projected to increase, China’s to level off. Ours has been slowly decreasing since about 2008 while Europe’s has been decreasing since 1990.
However, CO2 is still increasing at an alarming rate with China, US, Europe, and Indian responsible for a bit over half of the world total. China is producing about the same as what the US, Europe, and Indian are when added together. The US produces almost twice as much per person as China, 2.5 times more per person than Europe, and almost 8 times more per person than Indian.
(cnn.com)](Which countries are contributing the most to climate change?)
Actually, that isn’t the case according to the above data unless you consider China as undeveloped which it is not.
We produce 2.5 times more CO2 per person than Europe. Some of the happiest countries in the world are European, they also have a high standard of living.
So, it appears we could cut our current CO2 output per person in more than half and not decrease our living standard or our happiness.
It’s best to have the data to back up an opinion.
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What?! Data doesn’t count, only emotion .
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Data counts a lot in defining reality, but emotion often counts for more when it comes to driving behavior.
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Well China certainly defines itself a developing nation and enjoys the benefits of such.
I’m always amazed by scientific studies that measure happiness and it makes me reflect back on my life and how I considered myself happy at different times and ages. The USA comes in the top 20 but never gets close to the Nordic countries with Finland coming in as the happiest along with having a low carbon footprint as if the two are even related. Despite our evil wasteful ways I see people swarming our borders trying for a better life here.
I personally don’t want to live the life in Finland even though the UN decided it is the happiest place on earth not Disney.
If the facts show that we could reduce our CO2 output per person to half and be as happy and have the same standard of living why stop at half. Lets go for 90%. Try it yourself and let us know how it works out.
Sure we can all do some feel good that also help a little but they are not approaching reducing half our footprint as an individual. If you put 10k miles on your car next year make it 5k. Take a look at your utility bills and make the change to cut usage in half. I think you might see your personal happiness index drop along with your standard of living. Data can be overrated.
