Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

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I don't own a car - not entirely for ecologic reasons, but that's one of them. I do most of my short-distance trips by bicycle, I'll use a car-sharing offer when I need to transport heavy stuff, though I currently consider buying a cargo bike to replace that use.

I'm in the fortunate position that this is possible for me since I live in the city, have proper public transport, can walk to the supermarket and in a pinch have multiple car-sharing offers to pick from.

Still, I believe that action against climate change cannot be effective at an individual level. It's the classic tragedy of the commons - what I save in energy, the neighbor next door easily blows through the tailpipe of his SUV. Foregoing a car is not possible for large chunks of the population, those that live in areas with less good public transport, for those that regular need to travel long distances etc. So action needs to come at at least federal level, probably even at a EU level: Public transport (and long distances railway) needs to be a real alternative to private car ownership in at least most places in germany. Clean energy needs to be supported, dirty energy not (we're still paying subsidies for a lignite mine in brandenburg). So yes, demonstrations make sense, because they support the policies at a level that actually makes sense.

> I'm in the fortunate position that this is possible for me since I live in the city

I can't approve. You've made the choice. You've paid for this choice. People keep claiming that I'm lucky to live close from my work and not have children. I was a choice, and blaming it on chance undervalues the effort we make (i.e. paying twice the price for housing and/or only choosing among jobs within a certain radius of public transports).

> I believe action against climate change cannot be effective at an individual level

Yes. After travelling the world, I've seen that there will always be another Mythbusters show to waste cars, another person who'll have an unfair advantge on me by using air conditioning and long-distance travel, and another child born in the world who deserves the same amoung of energy luxury I've lived in.

Unless all countries pass a tax on petrol usage (I mean a huge tax which will make cars, meat and heating too expensive for 95% of the population), we're doomed.

We had meat and heating before petrol, why would you expect it to go away?

Are you in California by chance? Because you seem to ignore the fact that large part of already-inhabitated world is unlivable without heating (and, possibly, meat). Canada, Scandinavian countries, Russia, even then Germany and Poland, and as south as Bosnia.

It's as if you were thinking that warm countries becoming unlivable is tragedy, but cold countries becoming unlivable is desired.

> We had meat and heating before petrol, why would you expect it to go away?

We had _some_ meat before petrol (when my parents were kids in the 1950s, sundays were special because they had meat, the 18th century won't have been better). And since the start of the industrial revolution, world population has increased about sevenfold.

"Industrial revolution" is a loose concept, it started at different time in different places and didn't really become runaway before mass petrol.

For us colder northern countries, population didn't change that much since the coming of petrol. Maybe 1,5x increase in all. Definitely not sevenfold.

The industrial revolution is the point at which we began to use a lot of fossil fuel, first coal and later petrol. It may be different times in different places but it's more or less equivalent to the "before petrol" I was replying to. That was also different times in different places.

And I bet those colder northern countries import much of their meat these days, so it's not much use to make this about local matters only.

You can probably try to outlaw international meat trade. Still, colder countries are okay-ish for cattle actually, and you can grow chickens pretty much anywhere.

> but cold countries becoming unlivable is desired.

I don't know, let's analyze the facts. Do they emit carbon and participate to the destruction of civilization in 2150? Which one is a crime against humanity, staying in cold countries or moving those populations?

There seem to be a MAJOR problem with your reasoning.

Why do we fear carbon emissions? Because climate change will make swaths of planet uninhabitable and/or underwater, forcing people there to move.

Don't tell me your solution is preventively moving half billion people. Isn't that the result you wanted to avoid? What's the principial difference anyway between land becoming uninhabitably hot and land becoming uninhabitably cold (due to lack of heating)? You lose land either way and have to move people from it, worsening situation everywhere else.

Your solution is basically shooting yourself in the foot to avoid gangrene, and the amount of faith you have in such solution is disturbing. Your position is one big reason why climate change deniers exist: because you scare people with your misdirected zeal.

But there is now 7 billion people. And no, it's not just "People will have to move": +6 degrees in one century is a temperature change we haven't seen since humans appeared on Earth: https://www.xkcd.com/1732

So we need to come back to emissions of 1990 (when they balanced natural absorption), emit a even less for a while, but with 7 billion people, everyone has to emit much less than in 1990.

To preempt any question... I still eat meat and I don't see how I could do without.

Then stop talking about crimes about humanity. If you consider yourself a criminal, go and jail yourself.

Personally I don't think "going back" is viable, we should probably be trying to engineer ourself a new climate. Better than we had pre-industrialization.

Our planet was pretty messed up even before humans came. It was going to snowball.

> I can't approve. You've made the choice. You've paid for this choice.

I made the choice, certainly. I'm fortunate that my family is well off enough that I could afford my flat when I bought it - mostly with my own earned money, but with backing (and the safety net) provided by my parents. No bank would have given any loan to me with a freshly started company. By now, that I could get a loan for the flat on my own, I could not afford the price, since prices have risen steeply. So yeah, graced by my birth and the hard works of my parents I was in a position to make that choice. Others are not. I was fortunate - not lucky.

>> I believe that action against climate change cannot be effective at an individual level

I believe it as well. Unfortunately on any other level you have players caring more about the own money / power than the well-being of the masses and players being deeply involved in the human driven climate change. Sometimes the latter pays the former. Sometimes?

It is a windmill fight.

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