Climate Change - The Languish 'Community' Responses?

[Berkut]

I wonder at how much of an effect individual consumers can actually have though.

Recycling plastic is basically a waste of effort. If we want to reduce the amount of plastic, we have to produce less plastic - not recycle some fraction of the amount we produce more of every year.

Smarmy comments about magic governments are kind of funny, since they are presented as the alternative to magic people magically changing, even when we know that if people did magically change at some rate double or even triple what they are doing now, it would make no discernible difference in the global warming problem. IMO, it seems like exactly he opposite - that demands that people somehow stop being people are a convenient way to obfuscate from the real and only solution - significant and serious legal changes to force businesses to pay the previously unrealized costs of their own business, which will then allow the market to help price the actual cost of negative climate activity. But lets ignore that, and just Tsk-tsk our neighbors for not recycling their cardboard boxes from Amazon.

People are not going to "adapt their behavior to the changing climate" because someone guilts them into doing so - people will continue to act just like people (in the aggregate) have acted for as long as there have been people. They will respond to their actual, day to day incentives. Many of them, maybe even most of them, don't even have the *ability* to do anything different. If you want people to change their behavior, or more importantly you want businesses to change their behavior, change their incentives. It is literally the ONLY way that actually works.

The irony is that the reality is that efforts like "recycling" are propagandized by the very businesses who are selling us more plastic. It is a great way for them to pretend like they give a shit, as if the problem of global plastic production, it's waste, and it environmental impact could be solved if only people just recycled more, while the companies produce more and more and more plastic year after year after year. But don't worry about that! If you just do your part, why, we can recycle like....8% of it!

[Syt]

I don't have a car, and I don't travel much, in general. I don't engage in conspicuous consumption, really, though I need to sort out my diet (for health reasons, mostly). Less processed food, more locally sourced greenery. And of course recycling, avoiding plastics etc.

[Syt]

Btw, carbon emissions by source in the EU in 2019:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/999398/carbon-dioxide-emissions-sources-european-union-eu/

[Berkut]

Btw, carbon emissions by source in the EU in 2019:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/999398/carbon-dioxide-emissions-sources-european-union-eu/

You have to go after the big items in order to effect real change.

Focusing on the small stuff, IMO, is almost Machiavellian in that it is a way to distract from the actual problems and their solutions.

Now, part of tackling things like road transportation and electricity and heat production is getting people who consume those things to change their behaviors. But that isn't going to happen in any way that can actuallly make a difference by just asking people to change. Some will, but most will not, and even those who do change won't do so enough.

No, you have to change their incentives. Charge a hell of a lot more for gas, and invest more in better alternatives. The consumption of energy....well, that is probably just not possible to reduce in any real way. I mean, I doubt it has EVER happened in all of human history. Humans are going to keep consuming more and more and more energy. The trick there isn't to reduce energy consumption, but to produce energy more cleanly. Which means embracing nuclear.

[Josquius]

Now, part of tackling things like road transportation and electricity and heat production is getting people who consume those things to change their behaviors. But that isn't going to happen in any way that can actuallly make a difference by just asking people to change. Some will, but most will not, and even those who do change won't do so enough.

You'd be surprised.
An awful lot of people rarely leave their town and will drive well under a mile down the road just to buy some bread. And the bloody school run....Its turned into an arms race with parents driving because they think all the cars near the school make it dangerous to walk. Thankfully there's efforts to tackle that in place.
I do think we could knock down car use by a good 25% (number pulled from my arse) if people would just be more conscientious about it.

No, you have to change their incentives. Charge a hell of a lot more for gas, and invest more in better alternatives. The consumption of energy....well, that is probably just not possible to reduce in any real way. I mean, I doubt it has EVER happened in all of human history. Humans are going to keep consuming more and more and more energy. The trick there isn't to reduce energy consumption, but to produce energy more cleanly. Which means embracing nuclear.

But yes. This is the problem really. Public transport is generally crap. Its easy enough in London and NYC to live without a car but expecting someone in a random no-name town to do it is just ignorant.
The iffy thing with increasing petrol tax too is that this will disproportionately fall on the poor who are already suffering from often being economically forced to live somewhere they've no choice but to drive.
IMO we need some kind of a post-code and/or income based approach to taxation of cars and petrol. If you live in a city there should be public transport there for you and you should be strongly discouraged from having a car. Whilst this is done however we don't want to incentivise people to move to the countryside.

With the rise in WFH I see increasing rumblings of paying people to commute and this just sits very badly with me. Its encouraging people to live in more remote locations knowing there's no drawback from the inconvenience, there's a reward even,

[Sheilbh]

Btw, carbon emissions by source in the EU in 2019:

UK chart by source - and the change is really interesting. In part we're benefiting from Maggie () and having no domestic coal industy anymore so we've gone from coal being about 40% of power in the 2000s to 2% now so power used to be by far the biggest but has fallen dramatically. I think there's one coal power plant left and it'll be closed in 2024. Also I think there are genuine achievements on the policy front especially around manufacturing industry energy standards by Labour, Coalition and Tory governments since about 2008 - there's a lot of continuity from Miliband to Davey to Sharma and Kwarteng (they should all be trying to claim credit but for some reason don't):


But this is what I mean about the challenge now being about distribution of costs - because a lot of the low hanging fruit (not burining coal) has been done. So about a third of emissions on that (so 75% of emissions from business, residential and agriculture) relate to heating and (far less common) AC. There is a huge benefit from proper insulation, better windows but also updating heating systems - I know that gas heating and hobs are being abolished. But that will cost money especially for the classic asset-rich/cash-poor home owner like a pensioner. We need to think about how to do that in a just way and I'm not sure where they're yet (given the government's approach it'll probably just be a massive bung for older voters paid for by a "climate levy" on students ).

Similarly if you break down transport - most of that is surface transport and cars which is a growing share - and we need to work out how to deal with that. But again that will have an individual cost and will be distributed unequally. The gilets jaunes shouldn't haunt all of Europe but it's an example we need to learn from that measures need to be seen as "fair" - I think this will be key about transport or buildings.

[Tamas]

Recycling, while I continue to do so to the extent made possible by the ridiculously tiny bins provided at our block of flats, seems like a giant scam.

Once China stopped accepting massive heaps of plastic trash the plastic waste problem started proliferating across the world.

A few years ago the Guardian revealed some massive scam where most of the UK's recyclable trash was carried abroad I think possibly the Netherlands but not before taking subsidies for recycling it. The scale of it sounded massive but not even the Guardian was eager to keep it on people's minds, I guess not wanting to work against climate change initiatives.

Then fairly recently it was revealed that Turkey is the new China, accepting shiploads of the first world's trash that people think they threw out to be recycled.

[Legbiter]

Here we meticulously sort our plastic trash for "recycling" which means it's getting shipped to Indonesia to be incinerated or dumped in a landfill there. Organic household waste is being turned into mulch at a central location which unfortunately is so toxic in heavy metals and microplastics that it's unusable. Metal is easy I guess. Paper is only reusable on a fairly small scale because of contamination from other trash.

[Josquius]

Its not like stuff being shipped overseas is how things have to be. Its merely the logical outcome of leaving recycling up to the free market. Of course foreign companies can undercut local ones and offer the best prices by cutting corners and not handling things properly.
Western countries need to wake up to the fact this practice won't continue forever as these countries become wise to whats going on and how some of their citizens are fucking up the country for minimal profit. Hopefully as an outcome of the resillient economy stuff of corona we will see local recycling firms supported.

[Tamas]

Its not like stuff being shipped overseas is how things have to be. Its merely the logical outcome of leaving recycling up to the free market. Of course foreign companies can undercut local ones and offer the best prices by cutting corners and not handling things properly.
Western countries need to wake up to the fact this practice won't continue forever as these countries become wise to whats going on and how some of their citizens are fucking up the country for minimal profit. Hopefully as an outcome of the resillient economy stuff of corona we will see local recycling firms supported.

The way I understand the only reason recycling exists in its current form is that there are subsidies around it. So people take the state subsidies then dump the stuff in Asia and rake in the profits.

I guess you are right that states could set up recycling infrastructure, and then sell the recycled materials but I assume there are reasons that hasn't been tried yet.

Interesting to note that metals indeed seem to work with recycling the free market has been scooping them up for many decades. One recurring crime in Hungary used to be the vandalising of railroads mostly for wiring in the electrical equipment to be sold to recyclers.

[Josquius]

Its not like stuff being shipped overseas is how things have to be. Its merely the logical outcome of leaving recycling up to the free market. Of course foreign companies can undercut local ones and offer the best prices by cutting corners and not handling things properly.
Western countries need to wake up to the fact this practice won't continue forever as these countries become wise to whats going on and how some of their citizens are fucking up the country for minimal profit. Hopefully as an outcome of the resillient economy stuff of corona we will see local recycling firms supported.

The way I understand the only reason recycling exists in its current form is that there are subsidies around it. So people take the state subsidies then dump the stuff in Asia and rake in the profits.

I guess you are right that states could set up recycling infrastructure, and then sell the recycled materials but I assume there are reasons that hasn't been tried yet.

It was a while ago so can't re-find it but I remember reading an article about how there used to be a lot of domestic recycling in the US until the Chinese firms came in and undercut them out of business.
As in all these things I imagine being able to scale up drastically as foreign undercutting is eliminated will help keep costs down. It still might become a bit more expensive, but I'd be willing to pay an extra pound or two of tax for waste being handled properly.

Interesting to note that metals indeed seem to work with recycling the free market has been scooping them up for many decades. One recurring crime in Hungary used to be the vandalising of railroads mostly for wiring in the electrical equipment to be sold to recyclers.

Oh yes. Happens here too. There's a major railway line that was mothballed and a bunch of people in hi-vis came along and tore it up to sell.
You regularly read of people trashing ancient church roofs to steal the lead et al.

[mongers]

Failing to recycling isn't a significant cause of climate change, more a token of general pollution and wastefulness of resources. So not sure why it's brought up so much with regard to global warming, other than as a convenient council of despair - 'Look recycling doesn't work, it's a scam, so why should I bother to do it and likely other environmental schemes are also.

As Shelf and others here have said he we should be concentrating on the big ticket items, like household heating with gas, road transport, making agriculture more efficient especially as per land usage, finding alternatives to growing aircraft emissions and consuming less?

[Tamas]

Failing to recycling isn't a significant cause of climate change, more a token of general pollution and wastefulness of resources. So not sure why it's brought up so much with regard to global warming, other than as a convenient council of despair - 'Look recycling doesn't work, it's a scam, so why should I bother to do it and likely other environmental schemes are also.

As Shelf and others here have said he we should be concentrating on the big ticket items, like household heating with gas, road transport, making agriculture more efficient especially as per land usage, finding alternatives to growing aircraft emissions and consuming less?

I think Berkut had a good point on energy usage. It is never going to go down barring a global thermonuclear war, so production must be made cleaner. Which we already have readily available its called nuclear power. But that's way too science-y and scary for the general public, so we are screwed.

[mongers]

I think Berkut had a good point on energy usage. It is never going to go down barring a global thermonuclear war, so production must be made cleaner. Which we already have readily available its called nuclear power. But that's way too science-y and scary for the general public, so we are screwed.

We'll I agree with you about the efficiency of nuclear and it being part of the solution, but we're not screwed just because a minority of the public think it's scary; Tamas try being optimistic for once!

[Tamas]

I think Berkut had a good point on energy usage. It is never going to go down barring a global thermonuclear war, so production must be made cleaner. Which we already have readily available its called nuclear power. But that's way too science-y and scary for the general public, so we are screwed.

We'll I agree with you about the efficiency of nuclear and it being part of the solution, but we're not screwed just because a minority of the public think it's scary; Tamas try being optimistic for once!

Look at Germany - one nuclear power plant gets damaged by a historically rare tsunami in Japan and they close down all their nucular plants and switch back to coal.