Ask HN: Get paid to emit less CO2

[00taffe]

Hi guys, I was thinking about how a person could modify his lifestyle to emit less CO2 and money comes to my mind.

Generally speaking, for a person, move from 5 tons of CO2 emitted by year to 3 tons of CO2 emitted by year, could be very challenging.

Do you think that money can leverage this?

Let me know your opinions :)

[repelsteeltje]

This immediately gets complicated. I think there is still considerable discussion to be had on what constitutes CO2 emission that can/should/ought to be attributed to a person.

When asked, many people start with: electricity / gas use, car mileage, water use, etc. But beyond eating huge amounts of meat and flying, the number one contributing factor is just stuff. The hidden impact of manufacturing, transport and waste of cloths, electronics, furniture, etc. is number number one in western countries. But it's almost impossible to express that contribution per item.

So buying less stuff is very important, but (other than that meaning money never leaves your wallet) it would be difficult to measure how that contributes to going from 5 to 3 tons of CO2, I'm afraid.

[goatsneez]

Hmm, Im not sure what is the problem if the answer is reducing personal "CO2 emission" from 5 to 3 tons. With due respect it just indicates the plague of today, nobody being able to grasp scales of things. Second, reducing CO2, despite all you hear in mainstream perception control media, is going to do exactly nothing with supposed climate stability. Nay, in pursuit of this goal, we will actually destroy the responsible entity for stabilizing life supporting ecology (including climate) -- micro-biota [natural, large-scale and healthy ecosystems]. This is the proper ecological view point, not a modeler climatologist. But that is a separate issue.

Keep in mind that US military alone, in peaceful time!, just that it exists and polices the world, consumes directly equivalent of 15-20 tons per US capita. Im very much convinced (after studying the issue) that this estimate is grossly underestimated. Now, imagine adding China, Russia, EU and all the induced mess that was created by the west means in wasting resources, energy, our environment into producing things to be blown up and destroyed in general (one way or another)? It is preposterous that we are tricked into this false issue with ridiculous proposed solution. We shall say resounding NO to this. Anyone, individually, reducing from 5 to 3 tons of CO2 (even if you can do it, has nothing to do with anything, sorry for bursting the bubble).

On another level of analysis, war-machines and bigoted ideology/philosophy where the one side is denied what the other calls is god-given-right (yes Im looking at USA+UK+EU). When Western countries export their trash (e-waste, clothes, plastics, etc) to report how green they are. One can go on about the self-proclaimed and celebrated hypocrisy and bigotry so prevalent in the western collective psyche. How billions are spent on destroying countries and exporting their resources... common... how does one ignore that? It is beyond comprehension how we have such a blind spot, how we can be (collectively psychologically) so ruthless and stupid in so many ways to start discussing, pretending to be serious to reduce individually from 5 to 3 tons. Perhaps somebody more eloquent can write on this in a way digestible to a modern western semi-intellectuals (which most of us here are). (This shall not be taken personally by the poster, it is those sterile ideals, the assumptions behind this kind of questions that Im attacking here).

[smoldesu]

Taxing carbon is probably the easiest route, though most people might object to it.

[dave4420]

People have been saying that for decades.

[smoldesu]

And we've avoided enacting one for decades too.

[dave4420]

Indeed.

It would have been a great policy, say, forty years ago, but nowadays it feels like an excuse for not removing barriers to rolling out green tech (or worse, erecting such barriers).