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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

That’s a false argument. There’s no activity that of itself produces 50% of humanity’s emissions. Every single one is “not worth reducing” because the bulk is always somewhere else.

Nope. Every .1% reduction counts. That’s how we got here, ever so slightly increasing, and that’s how we must fix it.

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There are activities that produce significantly more than 2.5% emissions, like burning coal for electricity and heating (which is something like 20-25%, I guess).

Also, coal-fueled power plants have clear alternatives (nuclear, solar, etc). What is the alternative to transporting containers by ships?

The alternative is building and sourcing things locally. This might not be feasible in the case of key primary materials (can’t build cars if there’s no steel) but a lot of manufacturing was moved overseas simply because salaries there were lower (which is changing) and the environmental laws were weaker (which is also changing). It’s not inconceivable any more that local is preferable to outsourced, and it might even be cheaper in some cases.

We already tried that strategy... in Middle Ages. World has moved on to globalized trade for a reason.

this is a very silly comparison, why not compare to the vikings then, or cavemen, how did they get their iPhones?

That's the point, they didn't. You won't get your iPhone without globalized trade.

There was very far-reaching trade since the beginning of time. It just had to be carried by people and animals, and accordingly you only find small precious things traded far around the continents.

I just read 'The dawn of everything' and it seems that knowledge about the past has been evolving quite a bit in the past few decades. Societies still cling to the old myths of progress and premeditated development from hunter-gatherers in small bands over cities to kingdoms to states, but this a) not based on facts and never was at all (the ones putting out these ideas basically invented them over coffee) and b) not what happened.

The way the common narrative is accepted now can really hold us back.

I've been meaning to read that. How does it compare to Capital?

I've been meaning to read that - so no information yet, sorry.

See North Korea for a contemporary example of a country that produces everything internally.

Taking north Korea as an example is not a good idea. Also they still import allot through backallies. I don't see anything good from north Koreas way of doing things unless we want to go back 200 years

It’s an example of a country with constant shortages of basic goods including food.

The amount of global trade in the middle ages was enormous, literally from Europe to china with the middle east in between. If anything the laissez faire spirit of global trade was more alive in the middle ages.

Global trade has exploded since we adopted the shipping container and it's been just the latest thing in a long list of conventions.

I highly doubt that even per capita medieval folks were trading more than today.

You're mixing analyses. "burning coal" and "electricity" are not an activity. They are transformation methods to obtain energy. Nobody generates electricity or burns coal for the intrinsic purpose; those transformations generate energy that are used for activities. Those activities can however be reduced or substituted, and that is where we can find solutions.

Some methods for reducing the impact of transporting containers by ship:

* optimize (logistically, more efficient motors, capture wind energy)

* substitute (produce / consume more locally)

* reduce (consume less / differently)

.. of course all of those are more expensive and less practical.

I feel this is something that is often forgotten in public debate. Mass consumption, abundance and middle-class comfort are not a human right. Having a non-messed up planet, is. Behind your question is an implicit suggestion that you are willing to compromise, but only if it does not impact you, and that in the end, your and my children's future is subservient to our generation being able to consume cheaply and easily. This notion has already reached the German high courts, that have ruled that the state is currently failing to protect the safety of future generations.

I have been reading a lot lately on distributed and generational guilt, specifically how Germans and Japanese were not able to collectively act when their respective governments derailed and people where being beat up in the streets. And how their children regarded them.

And I am starting to think that we in the same position. We, society at large, know that what we are doing is endangering our collective future, and have known now for 20 or 30 years (the intellectual elite has known so since the 70's). Some of us are speaking out, but we sit back while our governments are inactive and empirical proof of a grim future is piling up.

My oldest son (10) was crying the other week, because this last hot summer has driven home for him, and many others with him, how life will inexorably change in the coming decades. How will his generation and their children remember us? Like the Germans that knew, but didn't act? Or like responsible adults that did not act in a selfish manner.

> What is the alternative to transporting containers by ships?

Ships are not going anywhere as there are no other/better solutions. Using ships that are powered by something other than engines using the dirtiest form of oil allowed would be the best solution, and it could be a combination of alt sources of go juice on the same ship

> What is the alternative to transporting containers by ships?

reducing, repairing, buying laptops every 15 years instead of every 2 years, etc.. that's what we need, there's no miracle solution, just limiting our carbon impact under 2T per year for each of us

I agree 2.5% is significant!

My argument is that shipping usage doesn't appear sensitive to price signals (based on the data we see from changes in prices).

This means that regulation is probably a better approach to reducing emissions here. This is what was done for cars and is shown to work there.

>Every .1% reduction counts.

As an approach I don't agree - I think it's only keeping carbon in the ground that matters. Burning it 50 years later isn't a meaningful improvement.

If it's going to be kept in the ground, that's the place to start - the markets will do the rest.

Efficiency first/alone (as policy) is flawed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

>That’s how we got here, ever so slightly increasing, and that’s how we must fix it

We got here by non-renewable fuel extraction being profitable, not by variations in demand - that only affects the timescale of extraction. We didn't tax the polluters enough to break the economics driving climate change. We still don't.

The problem with taxing polluters is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Those costs get passed down to consumers. So you're really asking for shared sacrifice from society in general, which has been a complete non-starter on this issue since the 1970s.

The cost is already being passed on to the consumers and everyone else.

If we don’t spread the pain, people don't start voting for the right actions, and we will have highly concentrated pain instead. At first. Then just high levels of universal pain, anyway.

Could anyone who downvoted this explain their reasoning? Is this statement too radical, not radical enough, ...? I am genuinely curious.

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