[36chambers]

The US is the ultimate example of this. At the start of the C20th the US was a nation built by railroads - it was railroads that had created the possibility of a national market and economy rather, for example. American cities were amply equipped with public transport systems. The car destroyed that (often also physically destroying communities as highways connecting suburbs and downtowns were driven through poor neighbourhoods). This didn't happen simply because people preferred cars but because of regulatory choices that privileged the car (and the trucking industry). Intercity rail networks evaporated, over time, and cities themselves became choked with cars. This is true of British cities too, though perhaps to a less extreme degree. Increasingly, we have restructured them and our lives around personal car ownership. Now we believe they are a right and a necessity. No-one living in a city should need a car simply to function.

There's a good Vox mini documentary which talks about cars and public transport in America (for anyone who might be interested)

[Bradders]

This discussion seems a bit narrow to be focusing on flight for social, domestic, and pleasure. Surely getting a handle on population numbers and changing food production, transportation, and consumption is at least as important, if not more. Not to mention lots of other things that need sorting.

Totally agree with that; I think the original point was that the Government's focus on personal car use / electric cars is not the right one, even if it is very visible / high profile. In reality the biggest gains are probably in very niche areas (like ship cleanliness), which also importantly don't infringe on people's lives.

[36chambers]

This discussion seems a bit narrow to be focusing on flight for social, domestic, and pleasure. Surely getting a handle on population numbers and changing food production, transportation, and consumption is at least as important, if not more. Not to mention lots of other things that need sorting.

Though, on the topic of recreational flying, what ever happened to carbon offsetting? I haven't flown in a couple of years and have no immediate plans to, but as and when I do fly again it's something I'd look to do. Secondly, if a flight quota was introduced, why no trading? If my quota was 1 short haul every 3 years, I'd have loved to have flogged that to somebody else.

I offset my flying, and driving, by not eating meat. I thought everyone was doing that

[ali k]

Besides, I was only using the car as an example of my view that people will be extremely reluctant to simply forgo technology which is accessible to them. Which goes back to Pete's point, to make it inaccessible you have to make it expensive.

Though, on the topic of recreational flying...if a flight quota was introduced, why no trading? If my quota was 1 short haul every 3 years, I'd have loved to have flogged that to somebody else.

NO NO NO to both of these. The transition to a low carbon economy doesn't HAVE to lead to more inequality baked in. That's a political choice. It will be a completely fucked up world (even more so) when the richest in society can just hoover up poor people's flight quotas or buy their way to maintaining freedoms that the lower orders are priced out of.

To take the topic of birth control as an extreme example - hypothetically, if this were to become policy how would people feel if rich people could just buy poor people's baby quotas. Fuck that.

[Oldmanmatt]

I fear that after 40 years of govermental stalling & dithering the situation is now that you have a simple choice between seeing your relatives & keeping them (along with everthing else) alive.

Not wanting a fight but this is simply not the choice we face - it's an exaggeration, used for effect, of a choice we face now that might help people we'll likely never meet, a long way into the future, avoid some undoubtedly severe long-term effects of a warming planet.

The simple choice, for those who can afford it, is to choose to continue trying to live the same/similar lifestyle but pay much more; or don't and spend less. The choices available to the less wealthy will be narrowed down for them without their input.

Alternatives to aeroplanes/ diesel cargo ships  can be created - however they won't unless govts force it.

Regs for heavy oil used in international shipping changed at the start of 2020 to much lower sulfur dioxide, I remember reading. Hydrogen or heavy batteries augmented by solar arrays feasible for shipping also. I expect shipping, along with electric rail to increase for public transport. Still, all for the wealthier classes aren't they..   


Ali - I think we're at the beginning of a concerted policy to shift the overton window so that more and more people in countries with high rates of consumption over time get used to their restricted, limited lives.

Actually, it was just the final deadline for existing high sulphur fuel and lube oil usage vessels to be taken out of service. In reality low sulphur fuel oil etc hasn’t been used for 20 years and HFO’s haven’t been used for even longer (already old hat when I started out 32 years ago) and even large 2 stroke engines are finally disappearing (despite being the most efficient at constant speed operation). Emissions have been strictly controlled and monitored for around 15-20 years, with incremental toughening over time (some US and Northern European ports now use drones to monitor exhaust gases, unannounced). Scrubbers are now required on all new constructions and retro fit engines and so on…

[andy popp]

The US is the ultimate example of this. At the start of the C20th the US was a nation built by railroads - it was railroads that had created the possibility of a national market and economy rather, for example. American cities were amply equipped with public transport systems. The car destroyed that (often also physically destroying communities as highways connecting suburbs and downtowns were driven through poor neighbourhoods). This didn't happen simply because people preferred cars but because of regulatory choices that privileged the car (and the trucking industry). Intercity rail networks evaporated, over time, and cities themselves became choked with cars. This is true of British cities too, though perhaps to a less extreme degree. Increasingly, we have restructured them and our lives around personal car ownership. Now we believe they are a right and a necessity. No-one living in a city should need a car simply to function.

There's a good Vox mini documentary which talks about cars and public transport in America (for anyone who might be interested)

A useful illustration. And a good starting point for replying to Bradders' interesting comment on the previous page. Even if we accept that a technology (such as the car) was inevitable in the form we know it (which I don't, but that's a different debate) then we, by which I mean societies, still have choices about how we have cars, how we integrate them into our lives, how society comes to depend on them (or doesn't), how we do (or don't) reconfigure our physical infrastructure around them etc. It's not a binary have/don't have, or road vs. rail etc. - or it shouldn't be. For many, however, driving is not a choice, because no other choice is available. Just because something was chosen doesn't mean it was pre-determined or optimal. The conditions under which a choice is made matter as much as the options available.

At the same time, I do believe societies do make choices in a way that cannot be reduced solely to the aggregation of atomized individual choices, even if the processes are flawed and some voices are much louder than others. That said, individual choices do matter as the starting point from which most of us try and make a change. whether that is by deciding not to fly, buying an EV, or giving up meat. So, in terms of the breadth or narrowness of the debate, I think it's quite natural that we first turn to those things we know we have a chance of changing, like our own behaviour. Most importantly, we can try and make those choices as well informed as possible.

As to the wider points about mobility; there have, of course, been huge population movements across human history but until very recently most people have lived and died very close to where they were born. Even in Western Europe owning any form of personal transport beyond a pair of legs was unusual until the advent of the bicycle in the late C19th. Very few people owned horses for personal transport. I don't think we're especially hardwired by history to crave mobility.

[remus]

I think the place of cars in society, and how we got here, is a really interesting discussion. As you say Andy, personal mobility is a very recent thing in historical terms. It's extremely addictive though, Im sure many on here will remember when they learnt to drive and got their first car: the sense of freedom and possibility is a powerful thing and very difficult to give up once you've lived with it for a while. Being able to hop in the car and get ~anywhere in western europe in under 36 hours is pretty remarkable.

[SA Chris]

All Henry Fucking Ford's fault. That twat

[petejh]

I offset my flying, and driving, by not eating meat. I thought everyone was doing that

I've offset my entire lifestyle by having not had kids (nothing to do with climate change reasons..). By the maths of it I'm pretty much on a free pass to eat anything I like and travel anywhere I want, for life, and will still come in as having lived a low impact life compared to the average family. That's not a dig at people who want or have kids btw, I like kids, it's just the facts of consumption and the resultant CO2.

[teestub]

So can I just offset my carbon onto my parents as it’s their fault I exist?

[dunnyg]

Worth a try

[Will Hunt]

Besides, I was only using the car as an example of my view that people will be extremely reluctant to simply forgo technology which is accessible to them. Which goes back to Pete's point, to make it inaccessible you have to make it expensive.

Though, on the topic of recreational flying...if a flight quota was introduced, why no trading? If my quota was 1 short haul every 3 years, I'd have loved to have flogged that to somebody else.

NO NO NO to both of these. The transition to a low carbon economy doesn't HAVE to lead to more inequality baked in. That's a political choice. It will be a completely fucked up world (even more so) when the richest in society can just hoover up poor people's flight quotas or buy their way to maintaining freedoms that the lower orders are priced out of.

To take the topic of birth control as an extreme example - hypothetically, if this were to become policy how would people feel if rich people could just buy poor people's baby quotas. Fuck that.

Does it necessarily have to equate to inequality? I'd envisaged as everybody being given an equal quota, with people being able to choose to sell. Inequality might arise if people on low incomes end up having to sell their quota to make ends meet (you might suppose that these people were unlikely to be flying anyway in an age beyond cheap air travel), or if the market rate goes so high as to make it financially inconceivable to not sell for most people - a problem that could be solved with price caps or other regulation?

It's not a complete idea but I don't think a quota system need necessarily promote inequality.


Carbon offsetting? What happened to that?

[andy popp]

So can I just offset my carbon onto my parents as it’s their fault I exist?

I had this exact same question.

[mrjonathanr]

As far as I can see, ‘carbon offsetting’ is just weasel words to avoid taking responsibility for your own footprint, or greenwashing to permit business as usual to continue without taking a big PR hit.

[Bradders]

So can I just offset my carbon onto my parents as it’s their fault I exist?

Can anyone explain the maths of this to me? Or point me to something that does?

I just don't get the concept that by having a child I am contributing carbon emissions, when surely their own emissions will also be counted against them. Isn't there double counting going on here?

Is it more to do with "excess" children? As in, having more children than just essentially replacing yourself (and therefore contributing to population growth)?

[ali k]

Does it necessarily have to equate to inequality? I'd envisaged as everybody being given an equal quota, with people being able to choose to sell.

I don't see any other outcome happening apart from those with more cash buying from those with less. It'll be like wartime rationing again, only this time it's the rich creaming off the lion's share of everyone's carbon quotas instead of eggs or butter.

If the govt sets strict emissions limits, which is what's needed (not just on flights but across the board), then without some serious regulation carbon emissions will basically become a commodity which ends up being concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest to 'spend' on golfing holidays or trips to space.

And carbon offsetting is bollocks - that term should be confined to the same ships full of 'recycling' being sent off to Malaysia.

[ali k]

Is it more to do with "excess" children? As in, having more children than just essentially replacing yourself (and therefore contributing to population growth)?

To be a true carbon hero you need to time your exit perfectly with their arrival, so you never actually meet your child. That's the carbon neutral way

[teestub]

And carbon offsetting is bollocks - that term should be confined to the same ships full of 'recycling' being sent off to Malaysia.

Environmental hero and occasional jet setter Honnold does his offsetting via Mossy Earth https://mossy.earth/

IMO if people are still going to fly for leisure (which seems entirely likely for the near future at least), then I’m happy for them to have their consciences salved somewhat by donating to such organisations. There are a lot of BS ones out there too, but that’s true in any business field I guess.

[teestub]

Can anyone explain the maths of this to me? Or point me to something that does?

I guess the maths is quite simple: if one was considering having a child, and then didn’t for climate change reasons, then one could argue that you’ve saved the planet one entire human being’s worth of carbon consumption.

[Bradders]

Related to the car discussion, this article, containing a load of utter nonsense about the supposed inequities caused by electric cars, just popped up in the FT:

https://www.ft.com/content/f0659114-94dc-4181-ae50-db0d86b84feb?fbclid=IwAR0q9d6i0oApVCUTs1jFKymt4IyOxBoH-9Se95C2Gmg7lRgJZNEXGiAgQuk

Not entirely sure what the point was they were trying to make. Anyone? I'm mystified. Surely everything listed as a supposed problem is easily rectifiable and a natural issue this early in the general switch from ICE to electric.

[Bradders]

Can anyone explain the maths of this to me? Or point me to something that does?

I guess the maths is quite simple: if one was considering having a child, and then didn’t for climate change reasons, then one could argue that you’ve saved the planet one entire human being’s worth of carbon consumption.

Hmm, yes I suppose so. Although we've no way of knowing what each future human's carbon output is likely to be. It could even be zero!

[Will Hunt]

Does it necessarily have to equate to inequality? I'd envisaged as everybody being given an equal quota, with people being able to choose to sell.

I don't see any other outcome happening apart from those with more cash buying from those with less. It'll be like wartime rationing again, only this time it's the rich creaming off the lion's share of everyone's carbon quotas instead of eggs or butter.

If the govt sets strict emissions limits, which is what's needed (not just on flights but across the board), then without some serious regulation carbon emissions will basically become a commodity which ends up being concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest to 'spend' on golfing holidays or trips to space.

And carbon offsetting is bollocks - that term should be confined to the same ships full of 'recycling' being sent off to Malaysia.

But, but, here's me, who's not going to use my flight quota anyway, absolutely desperate to sell a commodity I didn't previously have to anyone who'll buy it. If they're rich and choose to use it on a golfing holiday then that's absolutely fine by me.


And rather than a mere dismissal of "it's bollocks", please explain why it is a nonsense for the conscientious flyer to pay a company to sequester an equivalent volume of carbon when taking a flight.

[TobyD]

As far as I can see, ‘carbon offsetting’ is just weasel words to avoid taking responsibility for your own footprint, or greenwashing to permit business as usual to continue without taking a big PR hit.

I agree.  It seems like a way for relatively wealthy people or organisations to pretend to make a difference when actually the answer is just to not use resources in the first place. 

[Will Hunt]

And rather than a mere dismissal of "it's bollocks", please explain why it is a nonsense for the conscientious flyer to pay a company to sequester an equivalent volume of carbon when taking a flight.

[mrjonathanr]

conscientious flyer

That oxymoron is where the problem lies Will.