Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?
Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?
Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.
Yet, right now, millions of people couldn't prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.
In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.
But.
Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.
Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.
Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain't happening.
And that's for the most basic of food products!
Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.
This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.
The best lie from the fossil fuel industry is putting the burden of responsibility on the individual, and not the corporations.
The idea of a "carbon footprint" was created by the fossil fuel industry to convince people and governing bodies that individual people are the problem (and solution), and to distract from the pollution caused by industries.
There is so much completely unnecessary waste in industries that individuals couldn't possibly compete with. Most people aren't even aware of how much is wasted before the products even reach them.
The best way to fight climate change is to hold companies accountable.
@18107@ajsadauskas - which means the best way to fight is politica. Yes, I know this sucks immensely, I know it's slow, unforgiving, difficult - but it's the only way.
"- and let them know that if they don't do it, I will rain hellfire down on them all. I will show them that government is more powerful than any corporation, and the only reason they think it tilts the other way is because of civil servants looking for a fat private sector handout..."
@18107@ajsadauskas so the 100 million barrels of oil supplied, purchased by consumers and burned into the atmosphere every day has no effect on the climate. That’s good to know. I mistakenly thought my gas boiler, my petrol car and all the plastic I was putting into recycling was harming the planet. Phew. I’m off to fill up my tank.
"This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice."
The infrastructure is the millions of barrels of oil and the policies & systems in place to maintain its distribution for profit. You may or may not be able to switch out your boiler or use your car less. Many people won't have any other option without huge systemic changes. Making it about individual choices won't fix it.
By voting for the parties who don't take any donations from corporations.
By voting for candidates who don't rely on wealth accumulated from investing in those big corporations.
By understanding what greenwashing is, not falling into a trap of culture wars, and recognising that majority of people have more in common with poor people than with the super rich.
By understanding that the super rich trade their humanity for cash, every time.
Individuals need to change their expectations and consumption patterns, while the policy and infrastructure need to change in tandem.
You are not going to get radical reforms from the government without popular support from the population. That requires sacrifices and changes in societal norms.
In your toast example, the option that is available to everyone right now is to _not_ make the toast.
Yes, the problem is reheating the bread, not everything it took to make the bread you glossed over that OP listed. It's the toasting the bread that makes it so bad
It's not a problem that people eat bread. Growing wheat and making bread is not a problem.
Producing a toaster is a wasteful use of resources that further adds to a growing mountain of e-waste.
Toasting the bread is a wasteful use of energy.
So is driving a car to get a loaf of bread, because one lives in a food desert.
There are both individual and structural reasons for the situation we are in. Shifting the blame and focusing on just one aspect is counterproductive IMO.
@ajsadauskas@green I buy foods that have been produced as close as possible to my home. It's insane to buy milk from Queensland (3000 km away) when we have dairies here in Sth Australia.
Buying local often means buying what's in season locally and doing without for the rest of the year. This is also the cheapest way to buy fresh food.
While you're right that governments have the most power to make change, individuals can signal our willingness to make change without waiting for government.
@anne_twain
It's complex though. Transport is usually a tiny fraction of the CO2 emissions of growing food.
Most of the time a sustainable business further away will be better than buying local. @ajsadauskas@green
@cdamian@ajsadauskas@green Did you miss the 3000 km part? Then there's the strawberries that come from 3000 km in another direction.
Also, when I'm standing in the supermarket looking at the range of a dozen different milk brands, how do I know which one is sustainable? If they claim to be sustainable, how do I know it's not just green washing?
I'm sorry but the nay-sayers commenting here have not convinced me. I think you just want me to be wrong.
@urlyman@ajsadauskas@green Absolutely. I put it this way: we probably have enough in the way of consumer goods to last us the next 10 years. So let's stop buying new stuff - clothes, furnishings, tech gadgetry, hobby supplies, sports gear etc - for 10 years, while we wait for new technologies to get established and new infrastructure to be built. (Is 10 years enough to develop cargo-carrying airships?)
To manage the lack of employment, put the whole population on Universal Basic Income and limit working hours to 20 per week (with some obvious exceptions).
To enable repair of goods, outlaw practices like voiding warranties if repairs are made by someone other than the manufacturer. Provide incentives for people to set up small local repair businesses.
@urlyman@ajsadauskas@green Most applications [not toasting bread, though] you need about 1/3 as much renewable as fossil, because final vs primary energy. So there's that.
@nebulousmenace@urlyman@ajsadauskas@green Saul Griffith has been really great at explaining this issue. We don’t need to replace fossil primary energy completely, because so much of it is just waste from combustion losses that simply go away when you switch to non combustion electricity generation like renewables. Saul Griffith. 2021. Electrify: An optimist’s playbook for our clean energy future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://amzn.to/31naqTU
@nebulousmenace@ajsadauskas@green I agree that for consumer end-use, renewable* power is waaay preferable to fossil-fuelled equivalents. But that’s just part of the problem.
We absolutely need them at scale to buy us time though.
*renewables are more properly thought of as re-buildables
@jgkoomey@ajsadauskas@green As with your other reply, I defer to your scholarship and understanding but unfortunately I don’t have an Elsevier subscription.
I’m aware of many scholars whose analysis suggests really significant decoupling is at best extremely doubtful. I guess we’ll know in years to come who was right.
From my layperson’s perspective the immovable constraint would appear once again to be time…
@ajsadauskas@green Mains power may be coal or gas, but the efficiency of mains power (and the efficiency of scrubbers) is far greater than a car’s. So, from an operating fuel perspective, an EV is greener, even if imperfect.
@ajsadauskas@green Fossil fuel companies are terrified we'll work together to change what's socially acceptable—the rich will be shamed out of their yachts, EVs will be mainstream, local governments will outlaw housing gas hookups. They fight this propaganda & greenwashing (& "carbon footprint" rhetoric). The rich (people, countries) have a moral obligation to help the poor transition to a just, green economy... but we don't "wait around" for that to happen. We force it to happen by organizing.
@ajsadauskas@green So, let's talk about what it would take to get the farming, processing, and transport of foods and other goods, along with the energy used in a home to come from renewables.
In that way, the Carbon Footprint isn't such a bad way to think about it, the same tool intended to make individuals feel responsible can open our eyes to the kinds of change needed far beyond our individual reach.
Do we need to modernize and electrify domestic goods transit? I think it's probably a good idea (and honestly, I think self-driving long-haul electric freight is a great idea, along with a high speed electric freight and passenger rail network).
Do we need existing fossil fuel power generator sites to host energy storage facilities? (That's where most of the transmission wires traverse, much better than asking people to install batteries in their basements)?
Do we need a 'space race' style government & private push to design and build electrified farm equipment and smart irrigation systems, which we can ultimately tie to the Farm Bill to switch our food producers over to electrified farming?
This is what they do: convince everyone everything is a matter of personal choice.
Tobacco: framed as personal choice
Transportation: personal choice
Climate response: choice
Public health / masking: choice-ified
Who does that serve? The wealthy and powerful, because a population that learns it can work together to solve problems and find solutions that make life better will eventually figure out that together we can solve the problem of *them*