[lm28469]

See the problem is that we want to continue doing everything in the exact same way without giving up on any single little eccentricity we have no matter how ridiculous and how stupidly unsustainable they are, not a single damn thing

Degrowth is also stopping to eat tomatoes in the middle of January instead of importing them from the other side of the world, or not eating fucking salmon when you live in South Africa, or not using a 3000kg car to move you 80kg ass around the street to go shopping. Or things like not living in the desert and relying on AC and artificial rain to keep you alive because you would physically die if you were to experience the outside world for more than an hour

[bryanlarsen]

And by making all of those changes you'll lower carbon emissions by about 10%.

OTOH, switching to zero-carbon electricity and zero-carbon transportation would lower carbon emissions by 60%.

[lm28469]

> switching to zero-carbon electricity and zero-carbon transportation would lower carbon emissions by 60%

Is the 0 carbon mining and 0 carbon steel in the room with us right now ?

What about the 0 carbon asphalt ? 0 carbon tires ? 0 carbon cement to build your 0 carbon power plant ? 0 carbon plastic to build your 0 carbon solar panels ?

fyi steel is still made with coke, 1700s century style, and nothing is even close to ready to replace it, and you need it in virtually every car and building

When you actually look into it you will quickly realise it raises way more questions than it brings answers. And then you realise we already mined all the easy shit, now it's getting harder and harder to find the good stuff, harder meaning more energy intensive, it also means more soil to go through which means more chemicals to use (and guess what, most of it is petrol derivates), which means more tailing dams, more pollution, more wild life ecosystems destroyed, &c.

Anyone looking into the problem with an ounce of good faith cannot reach a conclusion as simple as yours. If you're still at the "electric cars " will save us I envy you, life was simpler back then

[bryanlarsen]

IMO, my solution is far less simple and hand-wavy than yours is. I can point to several books with solutions on how to get from my 60% solution to a full zero-carbon future.

There is no degrowth based path that gets us to 0 carbon except for degrowth to 0 humans.

[lm28469]

Meanwhile, after decades of "we tried everything" we produce, year after year, record levels of co2

You can look at it any way you want it simply doesn't work, it's not enough to wish for it.

There is no 60% solution, not even close, so it doesn't matter if a sci fi books mention a 0 carbon future

[bryanlarsen]

CO2 levels have been dropping on a per capita basis for several years and are expected to drop on an absolute basis in 2024 or 2025.