Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on. Reducing energy use at the individual level is good, but insufficient if the energy used comes from fossil fuels.
I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production. There has to come a global moratorium on fossil fuel production and the wells that exist need to be capped. If it comes out of the ground it will be used somewhere and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere. The more low carbon our lifestyle the cheaper fossil fuels will get and someone somewhere will always buy and use them. Regrettably politicians dare not talk about this elephant in the room.
"Individual action" is a euphemism for changing your lifestyle in the slightest, even if imposed from outside through tariffs/taxes or other regulation. What people want is their exact same lifestyle, except eveything bad has been spraypainted green. It's understandable, I want my wishes to turn things into gold.
Action against companies is an extension of action against consumption, not an alternative.
I'd say many are ready for individual action but are discouraged on a daily basis especially by
- hypocritical politicians and environmentalists traveling the world on first class/private jets
- negativity like yours and the one I originally answered
- misinformation/information overload/infighting: whatever good someone tries to do someone will pop up to explain why it is bad: nuclear, organic, frugality, you name it, someone will magically pop up to tell you how worthless exactly your contribution is.
I say: almost every effort is worthwhile as long as one doesn't actively destroy. At least spread enthusiasm and knowledge.
> Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on.
The covid shutdown should have put this myth to bed forever.
Hundreds of millions stuck at home and no longer commuting took a massive dent out of carbon emissions and sent shock waves through the oil industry.
Individual action can save the planet; we have to be drops in the flood.
> I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production.
There's no way we can continue to works as we do and plan cities as we do and stem the oncoming catastrophe with any alacrity.
In what world is hundreds of millions of people drastically changing their lifestyle because they've been instructed to stay home by their governments "individual action"? That's a collective response to a crisis mandated by government.
Yes, the individuals were coerced to take action. Note that what many intend when referring to individual action is not that the individual _chose_ to take action, but that the individual _does_ take action. When claiming that individual action won't make a difference they're claiming that changing how we live as collective individuals won't make a difference; it doesn't matter what motivated that change for their thesis to be considered.
IMHO, Governments ought to _heavily_ tax commercial office space to coerce companies to support WFH. Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
I don't think I've ever heard an argument that defines individual action in the way you do. Most "individual action" arguments tend to lean towards pushing people to make individual choices to reduce emissions, and many are not substantive – take shorter showers! bike instead of driving to the gym! Even the actions that are reasonable – "give up air travel" – only become significant in aggregate.
> IMHO, Governments ought to _heavily_ tax commercial office space to coerce companies to support WFH. Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
I think that's absolutely reasonable and something that should happen now. But "I now work from home because my company told me to because the tax on the office/parking increased to push a shift in behavior" is absolutely not an individual choice.
> I don't think I've ever heard an argument that defines individual action in the way you do. [...] Even the actions that are reasonable – "give up air travel" – only become significant in aggregate.
One person making a change has never been a reasonable solution for global climate change; advocating for individual action has always meant making changes in the aggregate behaviour of individuals.
> But "I now work from home because my company told me to because the tax on the office/parking increased to push a shift in behavior" is absolutely not an individual choice.
Correct, it is not an individual choice. It is an individual action.
> Correct, it is not an individual choice. It is an individual action.
Every world government has passed a law, rigorously enforced, that says each person can drive no more than 20 miles a week. dleslie drives 20 miles a week. Has dleslie performed an individual action to address climate change?
> Apparently I've done the opposite, because that's more than I drive in a week now. ;)
Ha! Pandemics, eh? :)
> But not to be trite, yes I would have
This feels to me like over-egging the pudding - but getting into this discussion is really more of a question of philosophy than climate science, so it's a bit of a distraction.
It seems that, beyond the semantics of what constitutes "individual action", we seem to agree with what's needed:
> advocating for individual action has always meant making changes in the aggregate behaviour of individuals.
> Make it so that the opportunities to commute start to disappear.
> but getting into this discussion is really more of a question of philosophy than climate science, so it's a bit of a distraction.
Ah, but the politics of it are important to causing change to happen. If we can't get voters to buy-in to changing their behaviour then Governments are unlikely to create such policies.
The important concept for the opposition to individual action, I think, is that the opposition is rooted in two ideas:
1. Individuals shouldn't be burdened with having to change the way they live
2. The burden should be on the big evil capitalist corporations
Neither of which hold much water, I think; the data behind carbon reduction due to covid restrictions shows that changing the lives of individuals is an important and necessary part of the solution.
And those big evil corps are mostly serving consumer demand. They're not pumping carbon into the atmosphere just because they're evil, right? Moreover, some of the largest polluters are in China, and China has been a major polluter for generations; it's not a strictly capitalist concern.
> Global CO2 emissions declined by 5.8% in 2020, or almost 2 Gt CO2 – the largest ever decline and almost five times greater than the 2009 decline that followed the global financial crisis. CO2 emissions fell further than energy demand in 2020 owing to the pandemic hitting demand for oil and coal harder than other energy sources while renewables increased. Despite the decline in 2020, global energy-related CO2 emissions remained at 31.5 Gt, which contributed to CO2 reaching its highest ever average annual concentration in the atmosphere of 412.5 parts per million in 2020 – around 50% higher than when the industrial revolution began.
> What if "safe for the environment" isn't just another brand that you can choose to buy if you're willing to pay the extra dollar?
But "safe for the environment" is a brand that you can choose to buy. Every environmental damage can be offset.
I'd reverse the question: what if solving global warming is something that can be achieved without outlawing anything, including SUVs, plastic garbage and wasteful lawns? Certain people perceive global warming as an opportunity to reshape society in their preferred image; (visibly) ecologically conscious, "green", friendly, local, low power, low consumption, etc. This can be seen in the discourse around technological megaengineering solutions to global warming, such as a space sunshade - usually you will find in the comments someone saying "but then we'll just keep burning fossil fuels!" Yeah, so? I thought this was about warming?
> Loss of biodiversity? Sea level change? Loss of ice sheets? You can't pay a tax somewhere and unshatter that glass.
Sea level change and ice sheets are a result of climate change and thus can be offset with carbon offsets; they're the poster child for the concept.
I don't recognize loss of biodiversity as damage.
> Oh, not even close, not if even if there were less than 1 billion humans on Earth. None of those things is sustainable in the long run.
Those things are negligible footnotes in the long run. And all of those things, including the plastic bags, can be run off solar. All it needs are the right incentives.
Individuals can and should reduce their direct CO2 footprint. Most of personal energy budget goes for transportation and heating and/or cooling the living spaces. Two solutions enable you to stop directly burning stuff: EVs and heatpumps.
Beyond that, cap-and-trade scheme has worked to reduce SO2 emissions and it will work to reduce CO2 emissions.
Am EV over a fuel burning car is huge improvement, however EV’s alone are not a sustainable solution to our transport needs. There needs to be mass transit and wider adoption of cycling/walking in more towns and cities. EV’s are still burning fuel if they’re not charged using 100% renewable energy, which clearly we are not at yet, and at the end of the day they’re _still_ an inefficient means of transporting people over any distance.
To reduce transportation emissions worldwide, there needs to be greater emphasis on alternative modes of transports to cars, electric or not.
- Long distances should be covered by train/bus.
- Medium distances by metro/bus/tram/whatever works in a given city’s geography and layout.
One issue with individual action, in the absence of a market incentive such as cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, is that reducing your use of power/fossil fuels reduces demand, thus ever so slightly reducing prices, which will give others licence to use more. It doesn't 100% cancel out your efforts, but it does reduce the effect.
One issue with EVs is that they aren't necessarily a feasible option for a lot of households due to their cost. Putting a market incentive in place would lead to a hundred different ways of reducing our CO2 emissions from driving, not limited by the ingenuity of one person or organization. More people working from home, more carpooling, distributed co-working spaces, more use of public transportation, even shifting how we design and zone our towns and cities, are a few things I can think of.
I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to take a very direct, immediate, simple action to move the USA toward having a carbon fee and dividend policy* take a look at this (or at the very least, send it to your environmentally concerned friends and family): https://citizensclimatelobby.org/senate/
(*a tax on carbon, where, that get returned to all citizens so as to reduce or even eliminate impact on lower income families)
Individual actions help, they aren't sufficient alone but if every citizen went vegan and didn't vacation, it would probably buy us a couple more years to transition our energy system. Every little bit helps, but I do agree industry is the low hanging and greater emitting fruit that must change first. For instance air conditioning, there are very potent greenhouse gasses in ACs, companies would do well to phase those out fully and quickly and dispose of them properly. A little government incentive there would be a massive win, much easier than telling humans not to travel.
> which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on
I'm not sure how it is in the US or around the world, but in Germany switching to 100% renewable energy for your home takes about 10 minutes online, by changing contract or company. Sure - if everyone did it there would not be enough supply, but apparently the majority does not despite being able to.
I'll just mention though that I think there is some double dipping going on here:
"Every" Norwegian seems to be happily thinking that they are using green hydropower, while at the same time the green certificates are sold to Germany.
Not saying this to discourage you guys, what you do makes green power more viable. Edit: The problem is Norwegians are living happy lives thinking they aren't contributing from power at least and nobody is telling.
I only want to help lit a fire under the feet of Norwegians :-)
And personally I could accept a small extra fee to get certified nuclear power ;-)
This argument is the problem. If we stopped producing fossil fuels right now, there would be an economic collapse, and starvation, and probably a few wars.
In 50-75 years we will probably be looking back in horror at the missed opportunity to avoid the ongoing economic collapse, the massive famine, starvation, and plagues that will follow on COVID, and the continuous wars as refugees flood from the front lines of climate collapse to places where the impacts aren't as severe and immediate.
I went to school in the 90s and we were learning about climate change then. The argument of "we can't stop now" seemed good enough 25 years ago, but we've still not actually made any progress towards making it easier to stop. We need to do that right now.
This is true. But if large portions of the electorate start living like GP, they'll have no problem with voting for carbon taxes and other measures that'll cost money. They won't be swayed by talking heads on TV shouting "environmental Marxism!".
Since I am GP: I really hope I'd not fall for anything so stupid :-)
That said I am also a conservative and I think I know a bit about conservatives; if one want conservatives to change as fast as possible phrase it in a way that sounds reasonable to the conservative mind:
- it is economically smart on individual level
- "repairing things is the traditional thing to do" and "it feels good to be in control"
- "industry should look for ways to save resources to stay competitive and increase yield on investment for shareholders" (sorry, English is not my first language, if this reads as a parody it is not meant as)
- "take advantage of the green wave". Competitive advantage: Point out that wealthy consumers will, on average, choose the greener product if they are otherwise equal. (Maybe poor ones will too, but we are here to sell this idea, aren't we ;-)
- On a national level: we need to get independence from China
- "reach individual monetary independence faster by making smart choices"
Doing this instead of continuing to make a partisan issue about it should go a long way I think. That is, if getting the results is more important than "being right".
People are already making money this way: just yesterday I heard a close friend explaining enthusiastically (I'll translate it on the fly from my native language as well as adding my explanation of why I think this was potent):
- a US jeans company had gotten hold of "the last real loom that wasn't sent to China" (local business argument)
- "hired the old operators to teach the how to use it" (traditional argument),
- "picked it apart - about a million pieces - and restored it" (self sufficient etc argument)
- and are now selling expensive pants - but it is real jeans (the actual sales argument)
There are different ways to reach different sections of the electorate, and we should use all of them. I'm in total agreement with you that those are the talking points to use with people on the conservative side of the political spectrum.
> Doing this instead of continuing to make a partisan issue
Unfortunately, making it (doesn't matter what "it" is) a partisan issue has been shown to work, over and over and over. It's depressingly predictable at this point. People go into all sorts of mental contortions and doublethink to explain why the stance "their" side has taken is the "right" one.
People and industries who have more to lose from a greener economy have no hesitation in employing these tactics to stall or block change, and influence people.
> Unfortunately, making it (doesn't matter what "it" is) a partisan issue has been shown to work, over and over and over. It's depressingly predictable at this point. People go into all sorts of mental contortions and doublethink to explain why the stance "their" side has taken is the "right" one.
You are of course right.
But since this issue is already owned by democrats/progressives/whatever and since conservative thought leaders have painted themselves into a corner maybe I should say: we shouldn't say anything that makes it an even more partisan issue.
The more we can avoid the soreness of doing what "the other side want" and focus on "this is beneficial for me/us/"our country" - right here and now, next quarter etc the better.
> People and industries who have more to lose from a greener economy have no hesitation in employing these tactics to stall or block change, and influence people.
Of course, which is why we need to outsmart them :-)
I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production. There has to come a global moratorium on fossil fuel production and the wells that exist need to be capped. If it comes out of the ground it will be used somewhere and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere. The more low carbon our lifestyle the cheaper fossil fuels will get and someone somewhere will always buy and use them. Regrettably politicians dare not talk about this elephant in the room.