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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

I am still baffled by the focus on private housholds and private consumption when it comes to the discussion of clean energy and emissions.

The reality is that private households have very little to do with our problems and even less to do about them.

Stop eating cow sound great but it's not going to do anything of any impact.

Most emissions (70%) come from very few companies (around a 100 or some).

Instead of making life more expensive and difficult for normal citizens why not focus on those companies instead. That you can actually do something about.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/10/climate-change-green-house-gas...

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That 70% stat is not helpful because that's just the energy source companies. They're not consuming the energy, they're selling it. When you put Exxon gas in your car you are the one emitting the CO2, not Exxon.

If you start there you would probably get way more success than asking mr. and mrs. Johnson to sort their waste and not eat cow.

Not sure why this is controversial.

This way lies a deep and futile chain of responsibility-diffusion. It's not the fault of the coal mining companies, it's the power plants that actually burn coal. It's not the fault of the power plants, it's the fault of the aluminum smelters that consume electricity produced with coal. It's not the fault of the smelters, it's the fault of the consumers who buy aluminum cans made with electricity produced from coal. (Never mind that aluminum-made-with-coal-electricity and aluminum-made-with-hydroelectricity are indistinguishable once they have reached the retail product level.)

You can regulate 100 big energy sector companies and drive big changes in consumption. You can't diffuse the responsibility to change across a hundred million consumers and expect anything like an equivalent rate of change.

How will normal people be affected if you severely restrict the activities of those 100 companies?

That depends on how you do it.

How were normal people affected by putting in carburetors in cars so they didn't spit out lead into the air?

Edit: My bad I meant catalytic converter not carborators (katalysatorer in Danish)

Carburetors have nothing to do with lead emissions. Lead emissions come from lead being added to gas to raise its octane, and hasn't been added for years.

I might be wrong but as far as i know they were added while there were still lead in the gazoline. Anyway it didn't hurt the normal person it helped them because techonology.

The first gasoline engines used carburetors, they weren't added after lead was added.

Sorry i meant catalytic converter (katalysatorer in Danish)

Catalytic converters are ruined by leaded gasoline, hence the switch to unleaded gas.

Yes and the question I was answering was what I think the focus on industry changes rather than asking normal people to change did for those people.

The point is that the car industry moved on just fine.

1. I think this is a fantastic plan. I think that vertically integrated petroleum and coal companies should be forced to cease creating CO2 pollution. This should happen immediately. I am satisfied if nothing is done on the consumer side. \s

2. Carburetors aren't even on the exhaust side of an engine. Most cars don't have them any more (fuel injection), they mix air and fuel before it enters a cyclinder. You must be thinking of a catalytic converter, and that is still incorrect.

3. The only thing that stopped cars from spitting out lead was law and regulation in the US that banned tetraethyl lead additives.

I think you mean catalytic converter? Which don't remove lead but do mitigate NOx/CO/Hydrocarbons and the like

Yup you are right, i confused the words. Thanks for the correction.

Negligible. Large non corporal entities are structured such the vast majority of any benefit they provide is concentrated in a vanishingly small population and costs distributed over the largest population possible. That is the whole point.

We need to lay all these informations on a large map, so we don't have to speculate. That said, I'm sure most of the western world is in blind oppulence. So much shit is thrown out or spoiled for no reason it's crazy.

>That said, I'm sure most of the western world is in blind oppulence.

Do you want to know how I know you're out of touch?

In France, reports are quoting 30% of edible food thrown away. Is it much better elsewhere ? I suppose not

At least in America, food is basically free. If you are fine with eating the same food over and over again and have time to cook, you can eat for $10 per week in most places. Rent and higher education, on the other hand...

$10 per week? What food are you thinking of?

Beans and rice, bought dry in bulk. It won't be fun, but you'll live, for roughly $10 a week or even less.

Those companies donate to political campaigns. Or if they don't, after this threat, they will. Seeing as they are the major polluters, this in the end won't push the needle very much in terms of emissions. Typical.

But then again, from that report, most are fossil fuel producing companies. So one would imagine that less fossil fuel demand would reduce the impact of those companies and have an even more important effect on CO2 emissions

Sure, it still doesn't change that households really can't do much and it's very expensive (and IMO stupid) to put it on the consumer. Instead, make rules for the companies that are much easier concentrating efforts there.

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