The all-purpose heavy duty Climate Chaos thread (sprinkled with hope).

brianlux

^^^ I was reading about both of those subjects today.  And not just in one source.  It's big news and about time it gained some tract but to many of it's not very new news.  It's been coming for decades. 

This was interseting"  "“As always in science, a single study provides limited evidence, but when multiple approaches lead to similar conclusions this must be taken very seriously,” he said. “The scientific evidence now is that we can’t even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two.”"    I hope scientists are not being optimistic about the tipping point business.  I would think that's a done deal and at this point, mitigation is the best we can hope for.   Not that I wouldn't be wholly in favor of mitigating climate change!

benjs

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

mickeyrat

https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1684044616528453633?t=CcBZ-_9mU-TnfMQfuJYpEw&s=19

tempo_n_groove

Halifax2TheMax said:

And this?

Scientists detect sign that a crucial ocean current is near collapse

The Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system has become slower and less resilient, according to a new analysis of 150 years of temperature data — raising the possibility that this crucial element of the climate system could collapse within the next few decades.

Scientists have long seen the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, as one of the planet’s most vulnerable “tipping elements” — meaning the system could undergo an abrupt and irreversible change, with dramatic consequences for the rest of the globe. Under Earth’s current climate, this aquatic conveyor belt transports warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. But as rising global temperatures melt Arctic ice, the resulting influx of cold freshwater has thrown a wrench in the system — and could shut it down entirely.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communicationssuggests that continued warming will push the AMOC over its “tipping point” around the middle of this century. The shift would be as abrupt and irreversible as turning off a light switch, and it could lead to dramatic changes in weather on either side of the Atlantic.

“This is a really worrying result,” said Peter Ditlevsen, a climate physicist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the new study. “This is really showing we need a hard foot on the brake” of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ditlevsen’s analysis is at odds with the most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which drew on multiple climate models and concluded with “medium confidence” that the AMOC will not fully collapse this century.

Other experts on the AMOC also cautioned that because the new study doesn’t present new observations of the entire ocean system — instead, it is extrapolating about the future based on past data from a limited region of the Atlantic — its conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.

The qualitative statement that AMOC has been losing stability in the last century remains true even taking all uncertainties into account,” said Niklas Boers, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “But the uncertainties are too high for a reliable estimate of the time of AMOC tipping.”

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that this crucial ocean system is in peril. Since 2004, observations from a network of ocean buoys has shown the AMOC getting weaker — though the limited time frame of that data set makes it hard to establish a trend. Scientists have also analyzed multiple “proxy” indicators of the current’s strength, including microscopic organisms and tiny sediments from the seafloor, to show the system is in its weakest state in more than 1,000 years.

For their analysis, Peter Ditlevsen and his colleague Susanne Ditlevsen (who is Peter’s sister) examined records of sea surface temperatures going back to 1870. In recent years, they found, temperatures in the northernmost waters of the Atlantic have undergone bigger fluctuations and taken longer to return to normal. These are “early warning signals” that the AMOC is becoming critically unstable, the scientists said — like the increasingly wild wobbles before a tower of Jenga blocks starts to fall.

Susanne Ditlevsen, a statistician at the University of Copenhagen, then developed an advanced mathematical model to predict how much more wobbling the AMOC system can handle. The results suggest that the AMOC could collapse any time between now and 2095, and as early as 2025, the authors said.

The consequences would not be nearly as dire as they appear in the 2004 sci-fi film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which a sudden shutdown of the current causes a flash freeze across the Northern Hemisphere. But it could lead to a drop in temperatures in northern Europe and elevated warming in the tropics, as well as stronger storms on the East Coast of North America, Peter Ditlevsen said.

Marilena Oltmanns, an oceanographer at the National Oceanography Center in Britain, noted in a statement that the temperatures in the North Atlantic are “only one part of a highly complex, dynamical system.” Though her own research on marine physics supports the Ditlevsens’ conclusion that this particular region could reach a tipping point this century, she is wary of linking that transition to a full-scale change in Atlantic Ocean circulation.

Yet the dangers of even a partial AMOC shutdown mean any indicators of instability are worth investigating, said Stefan Rahmstorf, another oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute who was not involved in the new study.

“As always in science, a single study provides limited evidence, but when multiple approaches lead to similar conclusions this must be taken very seriously,” he said. “The scientific evidence now is that we can’t even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/25/atlantic-ocean-amoc-climate-change/

This has been the one thing I have worried about.  The influx of fresh water into the oceans current and making it stop...

brianlux

Heather Cox Richardson's letter of July 26, 2023 (thank you Micky for keeping those coming here) explains in good detail here (and better than I can) what this thread is mostly about.  It's all right there and worth reading.

https://community.pearljam.com/discussion/287333/letter-from-an-american-by-heather-cox-richardson#latest

static111

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

mickeyrat

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

this is where Musk makes a chunk of change too. selling tesla's offsets....

Halifax2TheMax

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

brianlux

I appreciate that more people are becoming conscious of the need to mitigate carbon in the atmosphere, and I appreciate that some of the efforts mentioned here are sincere and somewhat helpful, but my own view is that, bottom line, the most important step in reducing carbon is reducing or eliminating the consumption of luxuries- fewer air flights, fewer steaks, fewer if not zero jet skis, pleasure boats, massive RVs, end the outmoded tradition of bands hauling semi tractor trailers worth of gear and equipment across the land. 

Also, focus more on what we need than what we want, and purchase durable goods instead of cheap crap.   

Improving education, reversing population increases, and living a lot lighter on the planet as the main basis for solving or at least reducing climate issue need to be the biggest, most basic solutions.  Otherwise, it's all just wishful thinking.

Lerxst1992

mickeyrat said:

https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1684044616528453633?t=CcBZ-_9mU-TnfMQfuJYpEw&s=19

Superconductor you say?

https://youtu.be/XcYP5XP0Rlk



Seriously this could be huge

static111

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

mickeyrat

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

so much the better then. skew toward local for a bit. corp farming gets far too much as it is.

brianlux

mickeyrat said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

so much the better then. skew toward local for a bit. corp farming gets far too much as it is.

I agree.  The fewer miles food travels the better. 

I don't know if it's still a thing, but some cities like New York were promoting urban gardens/ urban farming using rooftops and empty lots to produce food.   

I'm also hugely in favor of keeping farms closer to big cities.  Instead of urban/suburban sprawl, surround cities with farms like a lot of old European cities do.

mickeyrat

brianlux said:

mickeyrat said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

so much the better then. skew toward local for a bit. corp farming gets far too much as it is.

I agree.  The fewer miles food travels the better. 

I don't know if it's still a thing, but some cities like New York were promoting urban gardens/ urban farming using rooftops and empty lots to produce food.   

I'm also hugely in favor of keeping farms closer to big cities.  Instead of urban/suburban sprawl, surround cities with farms like a lot of old European cities do.

I dont visit it much at all. "suburb" up the road(surrounded by Columbus) has a farmers market virtually every weekend in their down town.moves off site on the wonter and for a time occupies common areas in the little mall they have...

brianlux

mickeyrat said:

brianlux said:

mickeyrat said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

so much the better then. skew toward local for a bit. corp farming gets far too much as it is.

I agree.  The fewer miles food travels the better. 

I don't know if it's still a thing, but some cities like New York were promoting urban gardens/ urban farming using rooftops and empty lots to produce food.   

I'm also hugely in favor of keeping farms closer to big cities.  Instead of urban/suburban sprawl, surround cities with farms like a lot of old European cities do.

I dont visit it much at all. "suburb" up the road(surrounded by Columbus) has a farmers market virtually every weekend in their down town.moves off site on the wonter and for a time occupies common areas in the little mall they have...

We are fortunate to have a small farmer's market in Placerville on Wednesday afternoon and a larger one on Saturday.  Also, for local food co-op carries a lot of local produce and other things. 

Now if I could just get people to say "shop locally" instead of "shop local", lol.

Zod

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

Are carbon offsets real?   Quite often they're just land, that was already developed, and probably wasn't going to be developed, and your paying money to make sure it doesn't get developed.

Maybe it helps a little, in that maybe some of them protect parts of the planet.. but even at that.. it doesn't offset your carbon, it just has some other place in the planet that offsets it by not getting worse.

We might be at the point there's not enough physical space to planet enough trees to offset how much carbon we create.   Carbon offsets are pretty sketchy.

tempo_n_groove

brianlux said:

mickeyrat said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

I’m very sceptical of offsetting and groups that sell carbon offset.   What do they do? Plant trees, suck carbon out of the air, find people to use negative energy to offset our energy use.   It seems like a way to give a green energy company money to fund their projects without getting any return, other than the offset/mitigation of peoples trips.  

When you purchase an offset do they show you where your money is going and how it offsets your travel?  Or do they just say that you purchased x tonnes of gold standard certified in approved carbon offsets.

I read through less.ca website, but everything is very cyclical and nothing is really explaining what offsets are and how they mitigate an individuals energy use.  There is a link to an independent audit that just seems to be more word salad about gold standards and the United Nations and how less had to purchase more offsets from others to offset their own sale of offsets to folks that are trying to purchase offsets to offset their travel.  

It seems you give less.ca money that they then invest in green energy products, but I couldn’t find any info on the site about how much carbon their projects actually reduce.

It is definitely a cloudy area and I’m always wondering how much greenwashing is happening in this industry.

I think it’s great that you and others contribute to efforts in this way, I just would like to see a more clear view of  the maths. How much carbon  are users trying to mitigate and how much carbon are their projects reducing etc specifically like what are their net reduction levels, how much of that do they sell ?  At the end of the year do did they have more offsets than they sold, or did they purchase more, and from where and what were the net reductions of those offsets etc.

The best solution I read about and it was a few years ago or more, was an article in the New Yorker that argued for a carbon tax on every product produced from cradle to grave to drive efficiency and to let the market decide. A steak produced in the next town over would be inherently cheaper than one trucked in from Nebraska if you lived in Maine, let’s say. Get back to local supply networks but drive change and efficiency through the effort. Sure, lots of short term pain but long term gain. Free market, right? Sure, it’s why I’m skeptical of the future. Corporate interests and their lackeys in government will never go for it.

But then the local farmer and local economies would grow because they have an unfair advantage against trucked in corporate product.  Sounds like an anti capitalist program to me.

I agree with Brian though the best way to lower carbon is to reduce consumption.  There is a reason reduce, reuse , recycle started with reduce….it is the most important part.

so much the better then. skew toward local for a bit. corp farming gets far too much as it is.

I agree.  The fewer miles food travels the better. 

I don't know if it's still a thing, but some cities like New York were promoting urban gardens/ urban farming using rooftops and empty lots to produce food.   

I'm also hugely in favor of keeping farms closer to big cities.  Instead of urban/suburban sprawl, surround cities with farms like a lot of old European cities do.

We call that Farm to Table Brian.  Yes it is heavily promoted and yes restaurants are growing on rooftops or buying really close.

@rgambs Whatever happened to him?  He would say that only the rich should be able to afford organic in the offseasons as the carbon footprint it leaves is pretty drastic.  I have never looked into that theory though as moving vegetables I thought was rather easy now or it would cost a fortune?

One thing my GF and I forget every year around this time is how bad store bought veggies actually taste.  We are growing our own maters and cukes and harvested some the other day.

Dear lord they taste so much better!

tempo_n_groove

Zod said:

benjs said:

JB16057 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

benjs said:

I just returned from two weeks in Italy and one in Greece. Cities were 35 degrees celsius on average, but in the heat of the day, it reached 45 (113 fahrenheit). At the base of the acropolis, the Red Cross was stationed to quickly process those who fainted on the short journey up to it, and while the site is usually open all hours of the day, they closed at noon for the past week due to untenable heat for visitors and staff. Today, I was surprised to read that two Greek islands are currently being evacuated (the worst in their history) from wildfires. All of this in a country where tourism is responsible for just under 20% of their GDP - how is that sustainable?

The tragedy of this all, is that it's now been literally decades since we've warned that this was imminent but as humans, we individuals seem to keep our blinders on when it comes to big problems, and to wait until 'too late'. On the government side, those entities who are meant to take the lead on tackling the big societal problems, have stood by idly - because what's their incentive to working on it? One country can't fix the problem, so if they work harder than other regional governments, they're accused of over-investing in the future and/or 'not caring about the problems of today'. These opinions are weaponized by political opponents, all but assuring that little is done. The incentives simply aren't aligned, and this leads me to complete faithlessness that anything can change while the problem is still reversible - assuming that's even the case anymore.

We are going to save earth? We can’t even get 45% of the country to agree trump started a violent riot that led to the deaths of seven people. It sounds like I am changing the subject, but if people are this burned into their beliefs, how are we convincing them their politics are destroying the planet?

what makes this more painful, is these aren’t hidden people, they are our family members, friends, coworkers, etc, and they just do not agree that earth can be or needs to be saved. They make jokes about cows destroying the planet, and think it’s absurd to consider eating less beef.  

Edit, thanks for sharing stories of travel. It’s upsetting seeing what’s happening to wonderful places like Rhodes 

The Earth needs to be saved. Where do we start?

How much of a carbon footprint did this trip to Italy and Greece leave? We should all stop traveling for vacation. Can you even fathom how much this could save Earth if everyone stopped lavishly traveling the world? 

On second thought, we should just keep giving money to the government because they always have our best interest at heart....

I purchase carbon offsetting for every flight I take. For our Europe trip, it cost my girlfriend and me $170 each on less.ca. Within Italy, we rented a small car and road tripped it for two weeks. If there are other initiatives you think travellers should be pursuing, I'm all ears.

On the 'we should stop travelling for vacation' - what if offsetting was mandatory, and added on as a travel carbon tax? I'd be okay with that. This route seems less harmful given how many countries have a GDP dependent heavily on international tourism, due to weaker domestic economic performance. 

Are carbon offsets real?   Quite often they're just land, that was already developed, and probably wasn't going to be developed, and your paying money to make sure it doesn't get developed.

Maybe it helps a little, in that maybe some of them protect parts of the planet.. but even at that.. it doesn't offset your carbon, it just has some other place in the planet that offsets it by not getting worse.

We might be at the point there's not enough physical space to planet enough trees to offset how much carbon we create.   Carbon offsets are pretty sketchy.

If we can build up then we should be able to tier plants up too.  No reason why we cant have levels of vegetation?

Am I on to something!?!

brianlux

Well, the Maui/Lahaina thread got derailed and lock quicker than a wildfire on dry land.  But in the bigger picture, that terribly sad even is yet another reflection of what is happening with climate change.  During as recently as from the 70s on, a good friend of ours lived on and spent a lot of time on Maui and "The Big Island" (called Hawaii) and she is devastated by what is happening there.  She says wildfires of the nature we are seeing were unheard of until recent times and never as bad as today.

And look at Canada- over 27 million acres have burned this year and fire season is far from over.  Think about that- 27+ million acres.

What is most frustrating is that just yesterday I was thinking about how I remember that forty years ago I read something someone (I think it was Doug Peacock) had said about environmental conditions that metaphorically we were like a speeding car about to smash into a brick wall and nobody was doing a damn thing to stop it. At the time, I had been somewhat aware of the issues evolving, but reading that article was when I started to ramp up my involvement in environmental activism and became more aware of my own impact on the planet. 

And now we're hitting that brick wall and a lot of people are saying, "Oh my GOD, what happened?"

40 years ago, and too many people just slept through our many years of opportunity and now look at what is happening. It's pathetic.

Halifax2TheMax

brianlux said:

Well, the Maui/Lahaina thread got derailed and lock quicker than a wildfire on dry land.  But in the bigger picture, that terribly sad even is yet another reflection of what is happening with climate change.  During as recently as from the 70s on, a good friend of ours lived on and spent a lot of time on Maui and "The Big Island" (called Hawaii) and she is devastated by what is happening there.  She says wildfires of the nature we are seeing were unheard of until recent times and never as bad as today.

And look at Canada- over 27 million acres have burned this year and fire season is far from over.  Think about that- 27+ million acres.

What is most frustrating is that just yesterday I was thinking about how I remember that forty years ago I read something someone (I think it was Doug Peacock) had said about environmental conditions that metaphorically we were like a speeding car about to smash into a brick wall and nobody was doing a damn thing to stop it. At the time, I had been somewhat aware of the issues evolving, but reading that article was when I started to ramp up my involvement in environmental activism and became more aware of my own impact on the planet. 

And now we're hitting that brick wall and a lot of people are saying, "Oh my GOD, what happened?"

40 years ago, and too many people just slept through our many years of opportunity and now look at what is happening. It's pathetic.

Jimmy Carter was right but you know, he was also a sissy.