• cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If you want to talk about real solutions to climate change I wouldn’t aim as consumer facing things like cars or household recycling. That’s all BS to make people focus on what their role in it is to distract from the fact that the vast majority of emissions come from things like:

    Industrial and manufacturing processes Electricity and heat generation Transportation (with vast majority being bunker fueled chips, and agriculture.

    Me getting 25mpg versus 30 ain’t moving the needle on the emissions numbers the same way moving to renewables for electricity generation and eliminating shipping emissions would. Or mitigating agricultural emissions which produces tons of the worst kinds of greenhouse gasses (methan and nitrous oxide).

    And then we have fugative emissions from unintentional leaks or more accurately irresponsible processes and maintenance from things like fracking, oil/gas extraction and transport. Quite literally just drilling into gas and releasing it into the air.

    But yea, my Honda is the problem.

    I’m not saying everyone has a part to play, but don’t let the arguments and focus be on anything other than the big culprits of greenhouse gas emissions. We could pass meaningful regulations and provide meaningful incentives and actually move the needle on green house gasses.

    • assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Focusing on constructing transit oriented cities is a systems based solution to climate change. Not an individual consumer facing solution.

    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Industrial and manufacturing processes Electricity and heat generation Transportation (with vast majority being bunker fueled chips, and agriculture.

      Unfortunately I don’t run an industrial manufacturing process or shipping company… so there’s not much I can do there other than prefer to buy products/services that involve fewer emissions.

      I’ve installed solar on my home… and some day I’ll probably add a battery (when they’re cheaper), but that’s about all I can do.

      So for me at least, this stuff isn’t a huge priority. I’m already doing everything I can.

      Me getting 25mpg versus 30 ain’t moving the needle on the emissions

      Huh? That’s almost a 20% reduction in your vehicle emissions and private transport is a major contributor to greenhouse gasses. It’d definitely “move the needle”.

      I’m not saying everyone has a part to play

      I am. Might be a small part for some, but it’s a part. It could be as simple as using LED lighting instead of incandescents (10x lower emissions, and 10x lower power bill) or cooking with induction instead of gas (4x lower emissions, boils water 2x faster, and cheaper though how much depends on your gas prices).

      Those two changes I suggested don’t even cost any money. They save money.

      A lot of other changes also save money - green hydrogen, for example, was $4/kg two years ago and is $3/kg today… it was projected to be cheaper than gas some time between 2027 and 2040… but thanks to Russia’s war it’s already cheaper than gas now in some parts of the world. Suddenly the industry is scrambling to accelerate that transition.

      The liquid natural gas industry has no long term future and not because of emissions - it’s just not going to be const competitive for much longer.