[notquiteacop]

What I read: "I'm glad I got to contribute to CO2 production and the decimation of the environment by taking a vacation to examine the coral reefs before we collectively destroyed them."

If there's ever a collective lawsuit for the excess carbon footprints produced, there will be hell to pay, and the people getting rich off of pushing externalities to their communities today will be the same ones serving life sentences tomorrow.

[defterGoose]

Generally I agree with you, and am a staunch environmentalist. However, your assertion that there would or could ever be appropriate penalties for the people profiting the most off of the natural world's destruction is simply wrong. IMO, real justice could only be delivered by a powerful world government, the likes of which we will probably never see.

I don't exempt myself from blame for the destruction of the natural world, but neither should you. I believe there is a sliding gradient of blame to be applied to all people, but really, except for a few notable exceptions (oil, finance execs in particular) it's a difficult and somewhat futile model to apply. Am I to blame for taking a vacation overseas every three years? Is a businessman more or less to blame for flying cross-country every week for meetings?

Unfortunately for those of my generation who are "woke" to the catastrophe of climate change, much of our lives have necessarily become a precarious balancing act between trying to live justly and trying to live happily. I sadly question my ability to bring children into the world with my SO in the face of a problem that is tantamount to Armageddon. But our own personal attitudes and wants shrink in the face of the enormity of the quandary that is climate change.

What I personally have come to believe is that change for the better flows from two things: willingness to forgo one's ego, and collective political action towards curbing our wasteful modern lifestyle.

[InterimNew]

We don't have any indication that the OP took any form of flight to get to the coral. There is not enough detail within that post to shame them for their carbon footprint, and such ire would be better directed at the ~100 companies that are responsible for 70% of emissions.

[evandijk70]

Agree with the first part of the above comment, but I wonder about the statistic in the second half.

I have seen it before and I always wonder when it comes up: If you take a flight with Emirates, is it considered pollution by Emirates or by you? What about the CO2 used to build the plane? Should you divide those emissions among everyone that flew in the plane, or should that CO2 be added to the company?

[pjmorris]

I grew up in South Florida. Jacques Cousteau was one of my childhood heroes. I snorkeled from early on, and got SCUBA certified as soon as I could. I dove many times off the Florida mainland and the Keys. Never had to fly to dive, just drive or ride out, sometimes we just swam from shore.

I would love to dive the Great Barrier Reef while it's still great, but can't justify it on the grounds you lay out. But I wish people could get the sense of what is being lost. Seeing it in person, in situ, is very different from watching it on a screen.

[BubRoss]

What kind of vindictive nonsense is this? Why would you possibly try to shame someone for taking a vacation over carbon emissions?

[phs318u]

In most cases this is a tactic to shut down voices by conflating, “ever traveled by air” with, “you’re a hypocrite and should just shut up”.