[strommen]

CO2, and its interchangeably-used measure of CO2e (which is a sum of all greenhouse gases weighted based on how much they contribute to global warming) is the only pollutant that matters in this context.

Our disposable-good society is a small fraction of our overall impact on the climate. It is 100% possible to power our world with solar, wind, and batteries while keeping the rest of our lives largely unchanged. The only climate-hostile things we can't easily solve for right now are a) beef and b) air travel. Every single HN reader can go all-electric today, and most can sign up for a renewable-energy program through their utility.

If you think our society should build fewer, higher-quality goods then I agree. But doing that won't come close to stopping climate change.

[PretzelPirate]

Air travel? Sure, that ones hard to fix, but we have had a solution for years which would drastically reduce the environmental harm done by cattle farming - eating plant-based foods instead of beef.

[koffiezet]

The problem is though, that many vegetarian options are soy-based, which are pretty much all grown abroad, and have an large environmental impact there. It also requires a LOT more land to grow the same amount of plant-based proteins than meat, which for example results in local farmers in South America burning rain-forest, only to farm 'environmently friendly' soy.

So no, plant-based foods alone is not the holy grail, and also not realistic to force this upon people in the first place. In my opinion, what should happen is that the relatively new plant-based hamburgers which are very very similar to meat would gradually replace the 'mass market' meat for things like fastfood restaurants. But that on it's own isn't enough, we need better production methods for these plants too, so we don't have huge transportation pollution.

And airtravel is not the only big issue, large container-ships are a much bigger problem. Once in international waters, many switch to burning very dirty oil, instead of 'clean' diesel which they only use in local waters to comply with emission norms. Not only that, ships are built to last for decades, and companies won't convert them to full electric without economic incentives.

[sethrin]

Hobson's choice.