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Comment by game_the0ry | Hacker News Reader

You know what else would help reduce carbon emissions? Banning private jets and mega-yachts.

Funny how you never see that in the mainstream discourse.

Those are not significant sources of emissions. All air travel, including commercial and private and goods transportation, is 1.9% of global emissions. All sea travel, including commercial and private and goods transportation, is 1.7%.

Road travel is 11.9%.[1] Of that, more than half is personal transportation vehicles (i.e. not freight)[2].

This is why personal vehicles are the #1 target for transportation-related improvements.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Emissions-by-sec...

[2] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/transport-sec...

What percent will private jets be once everyone is driving EVs?

I don't have numbers, but I would guess still pretty tiny. There just aren't a lot of private jets out there, compared to other forms of transport. If your goal is to reduce emissions quickly, it makes sense to target the largest sources first, and I don't think private jets will be near the top of the emissions list for a long time.

But we're already targeting the 3 biggest sources: the EV transition has started, the renewable energy transition has started, and the heat pump heating transition has started. Agriculture is the only remaining biggie. After the big 4 the next biggest are all in the 1-3% range -- stuff like cement, steel, fertilizer and jets.

IOW, jets are near the top of the list now, tied for second after agriculture.

I'm skeptical private jets are in the 1-3% range, even after the EV and grid conversions are complete, but I would love to see some sources if you have any! It's not something I've looked into.

The math doesn't matter - tell the poor and middle class they can no longer buy a gas lawnmower or gas stove, but the rich can own 5 mansions, multiple private jets and 400' yachts (all of which damage the environment way more than the average poor or middle class person does), then people will push back - and rightly so.

Its hard to sell a 'climate emergency' when the people pushing it the hardest (i.e. Gates) are the worst polluters. If there really is a climate emergency, then everything should be on the table - you know, shared sacrifice and all - otherwise it just stinks of the rich faking a climate emergency so they can get richer.

See the '$50 trillion dollar opportunity' that has the Davo's elite salivating on how to make themselves even richer:

https://www.dw.com/en/davos-green-transition-is-50-trillion-...

and btw, these Davo's elites pushing for this '$50 trillion opportunity', by scaring the public about the 'climate emergency', by and large all flew to Davos in their private jets.

Sure, I'm 100% in favor of a wealth tax/cap, but I think that's going to be a lot less effective at lowering emissions than targeting the biggest sources of emissions.

but to me, its not about the actual emissions (which you are correct about in absolute terms) - its about selling the message to the average Joe who is being asked to make a sacrifice that the people who are pushing the message, are not being asked to do.

Side story: during Covid, teachers at a local school wanted mandates for all the students (the people least at risk of actually getting very sick), but they pushed very hard not to have to get it themselves - i.e. they wanted all the benefits of having a vaccinated population around them, but they were unwilling to take the risk on themselves (they lost this battle btw)

Not to conflate the issues, but its the same principle - don't make me(the public) do something that you (the ones in charge) are not willing to do yourself.

> its about selling the message to the average Joe who is being asked to make a sacrifice

I think selling fixing the climate as a sacrifice is a non-starter. If you're framing it that way, you've already lost. We should align incentives such that fixing the climate is also an improvement for people. That means subsidizing green solutions (EVs should be cheaper than gas cars), replacing polluting power plants with renewables improves the surrounding community (less immediate air pollution, noise) and users of the power (renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuel plants). No one needs to make sacrifices to fix this.

In other words, instead of worrying about what some rich jag-offs are doing, focus on how we can turn fixing climate change into a win for everybody. (And make those rich jag-offs pay for it ;) )

> No one needs to make sacrifices to fix this.

If no one needs to make sacrifices, then this should happen by default basically and we'd have to actively work to prevent it from happening.

No, I don't think that's the case. Governments can influence what the market does using incentives and funding, without anyone making sacrifices. Fund climate-friendly research, fund deployment of renewable energy, subsidize EV cars and charger deployment. This work creates a ton of jobs, advances our tech and research capabilities, and puts us in a good position to help transition other economies around the world. None of that is a sacrifice: cars get cheaper, energy gets cheaper, jobs are created, tech improves, and we don't have to pay trillions of dollars in environmental damage every year.

“Fund, fund, subsidize, and subsidize” contain embedded sacrifices for someone*. (If they didn’t, we’d fund and subsidize even more than we currently do, by an enormous margin.)

* In this case, the sacrifices come from competitors/substitutes to the things being funded or subsidized, consumers who are ineligible for a particular subsidy program (but for which the demand is increased for the product by those eligible), and of course, often from net taxpayers.

Also from inflation.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the emissions from 10s of millions of personal vehicles is much more significant than a few thousand yachts. Don't get me wrong, I'm for adding restrictions on those things, but I see this private jet argument pop up as a way to avoid doing anything.

its not a way of not doing anything, its a way of showing the absurdity of telling little old ladies they can't get a new gas stove - or the struggling landscaper that he has to buy more expensive battery operated mowers, but Bill gates can fly around the planet on one of his many private jets - either it is a climate 'emergency' or it isn't.

When the elites get real about making a personal sacrifice (not greenwashing one) - then maybe, just maybe the everyday Joe will get the message.

...and buying carbo credits doesn't count - that is no different than beating the heck out of your wife, and donating money afterwards to a battered women's shelter to absolve your sins.

If the people who travel by private jet to davos keep telling the people who don't what to do and why, their arguments would have more credibility if they actually made similar sacrifices.

Its hard to take Bill Gates seriously about climate change when he flies around unencumbered on his own private plane.

Expanding OPEC to cover all producers, and setting global oil production at an environmentally safe limit would make efforts to control demand unnecessary.

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