A curtain. Manufactured from what? Manufactured how? Transported how? Installed how? Maintained how?
Fossil. Fuels.
This kind of band-aid thinking needs to stop.
We need to take a good look at our ridiculous unsustainable life-styles, and make some hard decisions about whether we need a stupid over-sized pickup truck and a new phone, or if we need an actual future for us all.
That's one aspect of it, but it won't really help much if you need to feed and provide an acceptably comfortable life to 8+ billion humans, with a strong indication of that number increasing even further.
As the population increases we will be forced to turn even more healthy nature into agricultural biological deserts, while at the same time losing existing farmland to climate change.
People don't want to touch the subject, but if we want a comfortable future then we need to put a stop to the population growth.
I'll take "things we're not going to do" for 100, Alex.
are dams, wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal systems brought into existence by sheer willpower of environmentally conscious folx singing kumbaya?
as for the rest of your rant, the very fact that you have access to electricity, internet and a computing device makes it rather clear that you don't practice what you preach.
I drive a small, fuel efficient car, 10 years old, at a speed mostly below the maximum speed limit to optimise fuel use further.
I haven't flown in an aeroplane for about 20 years.
I live in a passive solar straw-bale house that I built. It doesn't have an air-conditioner in it, the thermal qualities keep it cool in Summer and warm in Winter.
It has solar electricity, and solar hot water, and we collect our own water.
We grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables, and use little fertiliser imports.
We have planted over 1,000 native trees on our property in a revegetation project.
I'm typing on a 2nd hand laptop.
I use a phone that's 5 years old, and wasn't the latest and greatest when I bought it.
So: yeah, I acknowledge there is a long way to go, but I refute absolutely and vigorously your claim based on only superficial evidence and assumptions that I don't "practice what I preach".
The way you wrote that makes me think that you enjoy your luxury first world existence, and are defensive about any idea of making serious lifestyle changes to reduce your footprint and impact.
We are, after all, "the first species that won't save itself because it's not cost effective".
third world, no car.
I win.
This is not the kind of discourse I come to HN for.
The biggest choice you can make that has an impact on climate is not whether or not you own or drive a car, or where you live.
I have made that very big choice in favour of lessening my impact on the climate and ecosystem which I love, and I am at peace with it.
But nobody wins: we both lose.
yes, yes, I acknowledge, you are not what I thought you'd be. I usually see that rhetoric from generic rootless urbanites who enjoy every perk of living in a post-industrial society and yet demand someone to do something to put an end to it all. I didn't expect to stumble upon a genuine masochist off-grid hippie living in a straw hut.
still, you have ignored my primary point: all measures to reduce usage of fossil fuels, reduce carbon emissions and slow down climate change require... usage of fossil fuels. mining, manufacturing, transportation across thousands of miles of land, sea and air. should we give it all up and retvrn to monke?
Realistically, has that ever worked in the world? Like someone said “we all need” and everyone was like “oh, yeah, right” and started (stopped) doing it. I don’t get how otherwise intelligent people can make such statements sometimes.
Yes! At least once, we did it and it worked! [1] I know that doesn't magically make all the obstacles to dealing with climate change and its impacts vanish, but we actually did do it as a species.
This is in the same category. “Someone/something needs to” is a pipe dream, even if you own a low-emission car. Practice what you preach that we see above isn’t even a counter argument because the claim makes no sense in a tight dynamic system, where everyone does something for a pretty strong reason and is growth-oriented by design. We are in foxes and rabbits situation and the fact that we are individually smart doesn’t change anything. It’s smart to not have wars, crimes, rich and poor, lack of education, etc, yet we have all that. Embrace your logistic map.