Comment by xscott | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xscott | Hacker News Reader

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Please look at this chart:

https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector

It's a few years old, but it shows that ALL of emissions from ALL air transport is less than 2%.

From the article:

> Musk's [...] jets responsible for 5,497 tons of CO2 over the course of a year

> Bezos' two-jet fleet emitting around 2,908 tons of carbon.

World wide CO2 emissions are measured in BILLIONS of tons (35-40 BILLION). I don't care if the mob breaks out the pitchforks and guillotines for the billionaires. They honestly don't seem like very nice people. However, nobody should believe that 8500 tons is a significant chunk of 35 BILLION.

Look at that chart again. Get rid of all air travel, all road transport (trucking and personal), all residential and commercial energy use (air conditioning and heating), and all all iron and steel, and you've only reduced global emissions by about 40%. So we're basically back to the medieval lifestyle, and we're probably going to have a huge increase in burning firewood to stay warm, which reduces the progress.

Nonsense like this article isn't useful. People like to think every little bit counts, but it doesn't. People like to think if we just slaughtered the billionaires it'll all get better, but it won't.

Actually it would. 2% is a lot in the scheme of things. Every bit counts. And to thin it doesnt or that we need to slash only those things emitting more than X amount is a bit simplistic.

Thinking we should just leave billionaies alone and let them do as they wish is nonsense.

2% is not a lot. If it takes 50 years of accumulation for things to get bad, saving 2% means it'll be bad in 51 years. And remember, that's for all of the airplanes in all of the world (tens of thousands from commercial alone).

The actual savings from Bezos' and Musk's planes is something like 0.000_024 percent. So if it takes 50 years until it gets bad, it'll take about 50 years and 8 minutes after you take away their planes.

Whether something counts should be done with math, not feel good sentiment or pandering to people's envy.

> 2% is not a lot. If it takes 50 years of accumulation for things to get bad, saving 2% means it'll be bad in 51 years.

Only if you simplify everything beyond all measures. But the climate is a little more complicated than "we can only emit X more tons before things get bad".

As an example, there are feedback loops that accelerate climate change once hit. Over time this amplifies the effect of any reduction we achieve now.

Also, the more time we have to "find a solution" as many people bet on, the more of our current biosphere will survive. Aside from any moral obligations, this is obviously in our best interest as it increases the chances of more humans surviving.

Even if you argue against these points, there are many others - none included in the math you've done.

I don't think you understood the argument. I rounded up to 2% to give the most possible benefit of the doubt that anything involving airplane flights matters.

Do you really think that saving .000024% by getting rid of Bezos and Musk's jets is going to delay that complicated feedback loop and buy someone the time to save the world? Do you really think 2% is going to delay anything significantly?

Because I don't see how you can "it's complicated" your way into that belief.

No, I'm pretty sure I understand your argument perfectly well: by removing any nuance and simplifying the model beyond belief you show that changes have no effect. When adding that nuance back in, suddenly the effect comes back.

> Do you really think 2% is going to delay anything significantly?

As soon as you define "significantly", I'll gladly answer your question.

My back of the napkin example chose 50 years because it made the numbers round. Let's pick more relevant numbers. The Paris Climate goals are to keep the increase under 2C, and depending on what IPCC model you believe, it looks like we'll blow through that goal in about 25 years (2050). So now, assuming you get to take all airplanes out of the skies, not just Bezos and Musk's, and you save 2% on emissions because of it. How many years does 2% buy you past 2050? I would consider 10 years significant, 1 year certainly is not.

If your answer isn't measured in years, possibly with a confidence interval, we'll both know this is more of you trying to "win" an internet discussion by arguing in bad faith.

You're deliberately looking at the wrong aspect and once again reducing a complex issue to a simple number. The question isn't "how many years does this give us until we reach an arbitrary goal", it's "what effect does the additional time have?".

We're currently experiencing a mass extinction only rivaled by previous incredibly catastrophic events. Even a single year could mean whole ecosystems collapsing or not collapsing. If we find a technological solution for climate change in 2050, but critical species went extinct due to overheating in 2049, the 2% air emissions will be the difference between billions of people dying or not dying.

I don't know how to quantify these risks, and apparently neither do you. But that doesn't mean we can ignore them when we consider the best course of action. It only means: your model is insufficient and simplifies things beyond reason.

I doubt you believe 2% is going to save billions of lives because of a tipping point in 2049. That's another bad faith argument, but go ahead and ground all the aircraft. No skin off my back.

The reason for pointing out insignificant things is so that people aren't distracted from the significant things.

"It's complicated." So go ahead and keep everyone worrying about Taylor Swift's jet. Create a carbon tax for billionaires. Offset the emissions, or whatever. But you aren't looking at things that could actually make a difference.

It's not a bad faith argument to bring up a scenario deliberately constructed for showing complexities your simplifying model deliberately ignores. Obviously I don't believe that this scenario will literally happen, and I can't imagine you're interacting in good faith if you still don't understand that.

It's bad faith unless you really believe that's _plausible_, not some extremely stretched version of _possible_.

> Obviously I don't believe that this scenario will literally happen

So you don't think that's really plausible, and I don't think it was a good faith argument.

I'm going to say it again, because I don't think you got it: The reason for criticizing when people focus on insignificant things is because it's a distraction from focusing on things that could actually make a difference.

I absolutely believe that it's plausible for a comparable scenario to occur. It might not be 2049 and 2050, but 2075 and 2080? Or 2100 and 2110?

Unless you believe that humanity will 100% die off or 100% fix climate change tomorrow, the chance of a 2% reduction in CO2 output having no measurable effect on our future is close to 0%, yet your modelling puts it at close to 100%.

I'm going to say it again, because I don't think you got it: you're deliberately misrepresenting the situation and simplifying things beyond reason. The correct response to an inability to model something isn't to just leave it out. You specifically pointed out that we should make these decisions based on math, but your math is incomplete enough to be useless.

We should wrap this up. Saying 2075 or 2110 is the same ridiculous claim as 2049, but I'll pretend you believe it'll save a billion lives to be done with it.

Btw, since you're only really interested in winning debates, you probably shouldn't open the window for other people to define the terms. When you asked me for a definition of "significant", it puts you in a bad spot no matter whether you do or don't respond to it. Of course you didn't respond with a number of years, because that would support my point. I gave a really concrete scenario, and you refused to answer, and it was obvious to both of us why you didn't answer.

Best of luck in your future internet battles. Everyone needs a hobby.

Yeah, we should. You're still not able to accept that your simplistic framing is useless and still insisting that any arguments are only valid if they simplify just as much, since your position falls apart otherwise. Ending the conversation with ad-hominems definitely shows you're not just a bad-faith troll, sure.

If you group emissions sufficiently finely, no single measure has any effect. We need to do hundreds of little changes to reach carbon neutrality. The discussion what to prioritize is not easy, but dismissing things just because they only contribute x% is not helpful.

Please look at that chart and aggressively pick all the items you're going to add up. Prioritize the difficult choices and make the helpful decisions. Focusing on energy CONSUMPTION is a losing battle, you won't even get to 50% in theory, and in practice you'd lose political will as people realize you're taking them back to the stone age.

Now look at the chart and focus on energy PRODUCTION. If someone could make enough emission-free electricity, you can get rid of nearly all of it. Except for airplanes, because batteries are heavy - but thankfully that's only 2% and doesn't matter very much.

No matter how you slice it or whatever sentimental argument you throw at it, Bezos, Musk, and Taylor's jets don't add up to anything that matters.

It's death by a thousand cuts, with that way of thinking why would we close a single coal plant? Taken in isolation they amount to nothing either.

If your argument is "everything but airplanes", it would be interesting to know why you think they are so important?

As for energy consumption reduction leading us back to stone age: it's about cutting the excess to keep what matters, no one arguing for it will pretend for a second that the excess stops at stone age level. Thankfully it doesn't even go as far as 250 years ago, when our world was still entirely renewable.

If commuting for 50km for work is what matters, cutting the excess means replacing many SUVs by an (electric) bus or a train plus an e-bike. And maybe create jobs or housing closer. Not "not working" or "dying".

> no one arguing for it will pretend for a second that the excess stops at stone age level. Thankfully it doesn't even go as far as 250 years ago, when our world was still entirely renewable.

Look at the chart. Cement, Iron, and Steel are responsible 10.2% of global emissions. Without those, it's almost the definition of stone age. I'm not sure about "renewable", but the world was not zero emissions 250 years ago. There were just fewer people.

My argument is not "everything but airplanes". My petty argument is that this article is stupid, and the bigger point is that focusing on the energy consumption side is a dead end. The problem is that EVERY sector is not very significant. That's what that chart shows:

    Eliminate air travel:                      1.9%
    Eliminate all trucking and cars:          11.9% 
    Eliminate residential heating/cooling:    10.9%
    Eliminate commercial energy use:           6.6%

    And so on...

If you focus on energy consumption, you can't solve that WITHOUT a thousand cuts, and that's totally unrealistic. And rage bait articles appealing to people's dislike and envy of billionaire airplanes for 0.000024% benefit don't help. Anyone who focuses on that is not using an engineering mindset and is distracted from the goal.

Ok, so now look at it from the energy production side. Get real serious about nuclear or wind/solar/batteries (and a few agricultural changes), and you could actually make a difference.

This is usually the point where someone says nuclear plants are always over cost and take too long to build, but the US military has hundreds of reactors running safely, and they were constructed for some government definition of "on time". If we were serious about achieving the goal in the US, we'd be pushing for a new branch of the military to manage public reactors or something, or we'd get real serious about batteries.

Btw, I fucking hate flying. The experience is miserable, and I can deal with ground/water shipping for anything I buy. It wouldn't change my life one bit if we grounded all the airplanes. But I'm not dumb enough to think that would change anything about the predictions for the climate, and flying has benefits to other people. The point was that you can't really solve air flight with batteries or nuclear power, so thankfully 2% isn't much.

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