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As I understand it, this agreement creates a good framework for continuing the struggle to cut emissions. National plans need to be revised every fifth year, so there's a continuous process to improve on (or stall, I guess) measures. Also, this time everyone is onboard (or is there still a risk Congress can stop this?  )
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Dec 12, 2015 22:07
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We haven't seen any real eco terrorism yet, have we? I wonder if we ever will. Anyway, I read that CO2 emissions has stopped rising, at least looking at last year, without any global economic recession. Is there any scientific consensus regarding this? If so, that's a little hopeful, weren't emissions predicted to keep rising for a lot of big countries? Also, since this thread is supposed to be about solutions, are there any studies on what a low-CO2 society could look like? The consensus here on SA and a lot of other places seem to be that energy consumption will keep rising no matter what and the alternative is everyone living in mud huts and doing subsistence farming. But since fission power is politically unfeasible for different reasons and fusion is not going to show up in time to save the day, would it really be impossible to have a society with low levels of energy consumption but with high life-expectancy, low infant mortality, etc? I'm thinking the lifestyle of The West in the 40's but mixed with the technology of today. That is, meat is not eaten every day (and all parts of animals are eaten) but protein is also made from insect farms and "lab-grown", dairy products are replaced by oat milk and such. Cars are scarce but people use electric bikes and velomobiles to commute and transport goods within cities. Air flight doesn't exist for most people but plenty of resources are spent on healthcare. More people work in the agricultural sector but it's not completely reliant on human hands. And of course, gays don't have to hide in closets and black people can become presidents. Would that kind of society still be unsustainable if it was global? Would we able to supply such a society with enough energy from reneweable sources (without loving up every eco system building renewable energy plants)? Would it become economically and technologically stagnant? I don't really have any good data on this, but I feel like there should be a middle ground between colonizing space and tilling the land for the rest of your meager life. Of course, you could say that getting people to give up their cars, burgers and air charter is just as politically unfeasible as building tons of nuclear reactors. But, again looking at the 40's, society was able to make a shift towards a very effective and "eco-friendly" (apart from the giant military industries, I mean) economy very quickly.   
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Mar 20, 2016 14:20
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smoke sumthin bitch posted:The problem with such a system is that on top of creating even more wealth inequality it would have to imposed by force by an authoritarian goverment. Climate justice warriors rarely take into account the actual will and desires of the people. Who the hell wants to live the life of a poor subsistence farmer who cant even get out of the ten mile radius he was born in because transportation is only for the very rich. Its like that UN guy who said humans will have to get used to eating insects!?? Hellll no im not going Not sure if you just made a general argument here, but the point of my post was that we should not have to revert to pre-modern times regarding most aspects of our standard of living. It's just some stuff, like flying long distances that afaik is completely unfeasible to provide for every individual on the planet, would need to be cut. Ideally, our economy would be democratically controlled (alternatively Full Communism) so who gets to fly, for instance, would be decided by the agreed upon utility rather than financial means. Uranium Phoenix posted:Yeah, the narrative "we all need to cut back" ignores that an absurd amount of resources consumption is entirely because of the whims of the ultra-rich. It also confuses excessive consumerism that our economic system requires to function for necessities. Neither inequality nor consumerism are required for a high standard of living; quite the opposite, really. However, the people in power don't want to admit that capitalism and their lifestyle is the problem, so of course no one talks about that. Yeah, I think it was a "disciple" of Piketty, who's name I can't remember, who wrote a book on climate impact and class. There is a huge gap between rich and poor countries but also within both rich and poor countries, that's important to remember. Anosmoman posted:Economic growth and energy consumption are different things. True, but we kinda need to decrease energy consumption a lot, along with building sustainable energy. And it's a lot more effective to, for example, have people using public transit and bikes rather than private cars, instead of waiting for the rather slow technological advances that create more effective combustion engines. Even though public transit and bikes cost a lot less per capita and thus create less economic growth. Like I wrote earlier, 2015 may have been a year where there was global economic growth without growing CO2-emissions, but that'd be the first time ever. I think it's at least sound to put our actual needs first and economic growth last instead of the other way around, even though "our needs" may end up causing economic growth. And that's ignoring the myriad of other environmental issues caused by consumption. Maybe we will reach this total service economy, but I'm having a hard time picturing that. So far, when people have made the switch from consuming goods to consuming services, a thing that is happening, those services have often ended up being tourism, traveling all over the world. Which has a lot of positive effects but the way we do it today isn't good for the climate at all. And not allowing or taxing the flight industry would make those services prohibitively expensive instead.
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Mar 21, 2016 00:06
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Meanwhile, in Sweden... Far away from Trump Since this thread is about solutions, and action at the local level came up a while ago, I thought I'd share something I'm working on. Also in order to give a different perspective on activism, perhaps. I run Pling Transport in Gothenburg, a cargo bicycle delivery firm. 4 years ago, after I had finished my degree, I couldn't find a job and my sister's SO asked me if I wanted to attend a meeting with a guy who was about to start a company in Malmö delivering "larger than average" things by bike. My sister's SO had a dream of building velomobiles (a human-powered vehicle, often a bike with more than two wheel) and wanted to start a company in order to promote and test his velomobiles as well as attempt to drive a bottom-up change of infrastructure and inspire others to bike more. I had studied environmental science oriented towards social science (hence the lack of work  ) and this sounded as good a way as any to make a real change, so together with him and a mutual friend we founded Pling. First as an off-shoot of the Malmö-company, Movebybike, but later we decided to continue on under our own brand. Some of my colleagues One of the reasons we decided to strike out on our own (though we were always a separate company from Movebybike) was we wanted to run the company as a cooperative business, owned by the employees. The aim would not be to hitch a ride on some green wave but to have sustainability as an end goal in it self, instead of profits. That would make it much harder to secure external capital. But having it worker-owned company would hopefully secure a good work environment for everyone involved as well as prevent us from selling the company down the road and risk it turning into some green wash poo poo (also a private transport company owned by workers run as a non-profit would be sneak socialism and that's just too good to pass up).  A two-seater version of the Armadillo. We will eventually get the same type of coachwork for weather protection of the driver. So we deliver up to 200 kg and 2 cubic meter loads by bike in a radius of a few kilometers from the city center. Mostly using Armadillos, made by my associate's own company, Velove. All of our bikes are electrically assisted but require less than 1/10th of the energy per unit of distance travelled and 1/15th of the resources to build compared to a Tesla. Sweden gets most of its electricity through nuclear and hydro power, but thanks to electricity trading within the EU every kW saved here means potentially less emissions from Danish and German coal plants. The Armadillos also release very little particle emissions and create a lot less noise pollution as well as less congestion, for obvious reasons. Compared to a two-wheel or three-wheel bike they are very stable while still being so slim so as to fit on standard bike lanes. All four wheels are also spring-dampened, for driver comfort and for allowing fragile cargo. The major drawbacks are the aforementioned cargo limit, speed limit of 25 km/h, engine effect of 250W (though the two-seater above is perfectly good for commuting tens of kilometers on a single battery charge and I bet in the US you could slap a 1000W engine on it without it being illegal) and the weight of the bike itself at 80 kg (a slightly thin adult man). Meaning there are limits to how a big an area you can service while staying economically feasible, and it's not very fast up-hill.  Fortunately, a lot of transports need to be carried out in the city centre that are just right for us, cargo too big for normal courier bikes but small enough to not require delivery vans or trucks. Urban centres also happen to be the places where fossil-fueled vehicles release the greatest amounts of pollution, per unit of distance travelled. Restaurants delivering catering are big customers of ours, breakfast, lunch, afternoon fika for different offices. We deliver exams and materials for exhibits for the University of Gothenburg. We run errands for other companies, buying and delivering booze for their office parties, leaving carpets at the dry cleaner, picking up parcels and mail. Occasionally we move people's furniture and participate at different events. Recently we found a locale that we can use as a micro terminal, so hopefully we can begin running distribution soon. Basically we do anything people ask of us, because we're desperate for money. Except sell out.  Moving bikes with a bike...  ...As well as people Would the last four years have been better spent if I had taken a regular job and engaged in politics on my spare time? I'm not sure. Could we have achieved more by playing more "by the rules", seeking venture capital and attempting to go full frontal in several cities at the same time with a different approach to employees (akin to Uber or Foodora)? Perhaps. It's often a struggle with bad wages and all kinds of set-backs but also a lot of fun seeing something grow that you've helped create. It also feels pretty great to not protest against something but stand for a solution, as insignificant as it may be on a grander scale. On the other hand, it may not be so insignificant after all. Movebybike is doing pretty great, they're in several Swedish cities now. There's Bubble Post and other similar companies in several European countries as well as North America (I think Vancouver or Seattle?), DHL are using cargo bikes in The Netherlands (Armadillos among others!) and Germany. I wouldn't be suprised to see similar ventures in big cities that have recently begun building bike infrastructure, like Paris or New York if it hasn't already showed up there. Tl;dr: We're all hosed but you gotta do something, like become a filthy entrepreneur for instance.
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Nov 22, 2016 22:42
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BattleMoose posted:Captain: Well, it's often hard to tell. The price is important, you can't go much higher than the competition (especially since the competition can deliver all over the municipality). Our biggest customer, a restaurant, used to contract a single delivery company using courier bikes and vans. They started using us instead for any deliveries to the city centre years ago, we were slightly cheaper delivering bigger loads compared to vans. But then the other delivery company got their courier bikers a Bullitt and presented an even lower price (our price were lower than their "van prices" but their "bike prices" were lower than ours), and they immediately shifted many of their deliveries back to the other company. I think transportation, particularly of goods, is something many people don't reflect on. Many of our customers in office buildings don't see our bikes, transportation is just a necessity that you want done as cheap as possible. On the other hand, we got our second largest customer, The University of Gothenburg, through a public procurement process. They actually called and tipped us off they were renegotiating their contracts for various transport services. And the procurement process was weighted 40% price, 60% "quality" (social, ecological sustainability) so we ended up with a higher overall score despite having a higher price than our competitors at the time. I'm pretty certain some long-time customers keep us despite costing more (when we started out, none of us had any experience from the transport sector nor calculating prices for services like these) but price is definitely something that comes up early when negotiating new deals. A somewhat surprising opportunity has come up in the shape of congestion, though. We've never used that as our main selling point but a lot of time we do have the upper hand when it comes to delivery times at rush hour. Now, within the next few years, the city is going to build: a new bridge over the river splitting the city, a second car tunnel under the same river, tens of thousands of apartments and a train tunnel running under the entire city centre, with stations being built in huge shafts at points that also happen to be major thoroughfares. The municipality, delivery companies and businesses are realizing traffic will be severely restricted for years to come. We're negotiating right now with a customer supplying building sites with materials. Their stores are outside the city centre and the building sites are inside.  All we need to get through a road works is a strip 90 cm wide. So it may be this third reason becomes the most crucial soon.sitchensis posted:That is awesome Captain Scandinavia! I wonder if I could set up the same thing in my city. Thanks! Don't know where you live but Gothenburg is a pretty sprawling city, relative to other European cities. It's also very hilly in many parts. And we're doing okay and improving our revenue from year to year still. So if you have partner (having another person to rely on helps a lot), I say go for it. Also, feel free to look at our website https://www.plingtransport.se and Facebook (facebook.com/plingtransport) and shoot a mail at infoATplingtransportDOTse, we're looking to expand.  Nice piece of fish posted:That is goddamned awesome. Do you know where this would be pretty good and cool? Every major city in Norway where a car-free city centre has been proposed. The big problem so far has been transportation of goods (not so much people, public transport is obviously exempt). It would probably prompt some people to get rid of cars, as well. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't know about other Norwegian cities but I've been to a seminar in Oslo about what the red-greens have in plan, it's very impressive. And Norway already has a lot of investment made in smaller electric cars, with public charging stations and such. We've been to Oslo to show off our bikes as well, and had some loose discussions with a guy who wanted to start a similar service there, but I don't know if anything came of that. It's really about using the right vehicle for the right job. There's no reason to go to work or grocery shopping using four-seated car weighing more than a tonne. Or deliver a crate of sallads for a meeting using a van capable of carrying 3 tonnes.
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Nov 23, 2016 19:23
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If NASA's climate research is gutted, would the Chinese be able to pick up where they left? I seems every other science piece presented here was based on NASA research. 
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Nov 23, 2016 19:26
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Well, I'd love for there to be a political solution to this but, yeah, I'm going to expose my Jewish neighbours. After all, I can't stop The Holocaust all by myself. Giving one or two families away won't make a difference, gives me a better standing with The Party and perhaps I get to take over their flat. That's just common sense.
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Apr 22, 2017 13:35
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 16:01 |
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Blazing Zero posted:i knew we were heading down godwin road but i didnt expect it to take this form. well done Yeah, I'm ashamed of that post. But at the same time not. Dead Reckoning posted:No government is ever going to do that, because no democratic government, and a non-zero number of undemocratic ones, will survive telling a significant fraction of their population that they have to be priced out of the ability to heat their homes and buy certain foods (since an increase in the price of energy will be felt across most sectors of the economy) for the greater good, while people in other countries continue to consume recklessly. I don't know about that, liberal and conservative governments survived, though barely, imposing austerity and increasing wealth disparity making life worse for millions of people across most of the democratic world. And without any existential threat, just "because of today's global competitive markets...", "according to the experts..." What I'm saying is, making it so that today's rich come out way on top in tomorrow's sustainable society is our best bet. Also, if people were completely locked in their views, nothing would ever happen, historical change through anything but violence wouldn't exist. There are a load of psychological reasons that make it difficult for people to abandon their beliefs, but it does happen. And people die all the time while new people grow up. It may be too slow a change and too little anyway to make a difference in the end, yeah. But resorting to violence when you are already at a disadvantage in terms of power is not a very good idea.
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Apr 22, 2017 17:41
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