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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

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To be clear: you’re saying we shouldn’t believe any science at all because a snap reaction to an emerging pandemic turned out to be excessive?

I think the point is there’s a lot hypocrisy of elitists telling us to reduce our emissions while they’re flying on private jets.

That’s a completely different point.

No, he's saying that pandemic-induced outrights lies delivered to the population may have hurt the credibility of politicians who used "science" as the justification.

Administration's could restore some of that credibility by walking back statements that turned out to be wrong.

I say this as someone who lost a parent to COVID.

Turned out to be excessive? The countries that were actually successful averted the deaths of millions of their own citizens.

I've given up debating this with the COVID skeptic folks because it's impossible to definitively prove exactly what would have happened without lockdowns. Instead my general argument is that it was a situation where a great deal was unknown, if with the benefit of hindsight we learn that we overreacted that doesn't mean the original choice was the wrong one. We worked with the evidence we had available at the time and we played it safe. Playing it safe seems sensible to me.

Because methods to reduce our wasteful consumption, reliance on continuous growth and on the evidently harmful burning of fossil fuel aren't "hard sacrifices".

They are progress. Necessary progress.

Those are the definition of luxury beliefs.

> experts that were promising us that two weeks of strict lockdowns would help us defeat the last pandemic for good

No. Experts (ie the IPCC) are much more pessimistic than what Shell is admitting in this headline. Current models predict that we need to go way way beyond merely ending growth of fossil fuels to even stay below 2C of warming. We'd need to drastically drop the usage, which we are not on track to do with current government policies.

> how does anyone in any position of power expect us, the populace, to follow the same road of hard sacrifices “because science!”?

Would you sacrifice based on a hunch? Of course not. Science is frankly the only thing that should convince us to make climate friendly policies. I suspect you really are just unwilling to sacrifice regardless of any reason - it's a waste of time pretending it's because some higher bar hasn't been met.

Well, in theory it could have. And likewise, it sure seemed to lessen the impact of the entire unvaccinated population (aka, the entire population) getting really sick all at once. Even as it was, hospitals were screwed and millions died. Quarantines and lockdowns were imperfect, as were the results.

Something about the relationship between the perfect and the good.

I’m willing to do my part once private jets get banned

Yeah that's an insane take that unfortunately a lot of people share. Private jets are obviously a problem but there are much bigger targets to tackle first. It's like saying you won't tackle ocean pollution until your local pond is cleaned up. Private jets are flashy and easily polarize public opinion - but saying you won't do your part until those are banned is frankly a coward's move.

"Critics of coercive measures targeting private planes point out that a ban would only reduce carbon emissions by 0.2%, based on study of the direct cost of private jets alone."

https://flybitlux.com/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-priv...

Just admit you're not really intending to "do your part" at all. You just intend to whataboutism everyone else for the forseeable future.

It makes more sense when you view it as a prisoner's dilemma.

I already have a relatively low carbon footprint compared to many. I don't commute to work, I don't have a boat or a camper or a snowmobile or a quad or drive a big truck. I don't fly more than a couple of times a year. I don't even have a gas lawnmower. I also don't have kids, which is arguably one of the biggest extra carbon consumers a person can introduce into the world.

I'm not going to cut my carbon usage down to pre-industrial levels while other people could cut their carbon usage down to my level with a lot less impact to their quality of life.

At some point people who are extremely cutting their own carbon usage are just subsidizing the lazy usage of others.

No serious person is asking for you to personally cut your carbon footprint through individual action. That won't work and is a waste of energy.

We need to be working to make green energy cheaper than fossil fuels, make electric cars cheaper than gas cars, and begin exploring extreme solutions like dumping iron in the ocean as a backup plan. These are government policy level solutions, and the only ones that should be taken seriously.

0.2% of all emissions sounds like a disproportionately big win. Like the entire emissions of small country. That's a low hanging fruit. Let's do it!

It is low hanging fruit to get every country in the world to agree to outlaw private jet travel!? How ridiculous.

The US can't even pass basic legislation to stop schools from getting shot up once a week, but this is low hanging fruit??? Ok...

Yes, it's a fair bit easier than that mess.

It is easier than passing laws that are economic carrots to promote electrifying cars and building new green energy sources of power?

No. It clearly isn't and will just become a culture war issue that doesn't even matter.

Good point, let's do that too.

I wonder if that also affects less than 0.2% of global population...

0.2% of all emissions just for banning private jets?

That's... incredibly good. I doubt private jets are actually key to much economic value creation.

I’m going to take anything a private charter jet company says about the carbon footprint of private jets with a very large grain of salt.

You should probably do your part, which may well involve campaigning for such an outcome.

Plus recycling and ditching your car, obviously.

And what, you want them to do zoom calls and fly economy, or horror (gags profusely) , take the train like some common peasant ?

The audacity !

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