Ok I guess what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t try anything unless we’re first in a libertarian dream. Makes sense.
Thankfully there are people actually trying to fix things, not get stuck on ideological principles 
2 Likes
Just as well noone is proposing this.
It’s the right thing.
Switching to Green will boost the economy and is more cheap than traditional fossil fuel (if you take away all subsidies, both for renewable and fossil fuel).
You need to realize that in 2020 fossil fuel companies and industries have been subside by the various countries at a rate of 11 millions of dollars per minute.
Direct subsidies and tax breaks were around 1.5 millions of dollars per minute. The rest is environmental cost not paid.
If you hate state intervention, your highest enemy should be the Fossil fuel industry. Is being kept alive by lobbies and your tax money.
California cut 25% of it’s emission compared to 1990 and is the second fastest growing economy in the world after China.
Source:IMF study.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/06/fossil-fuel-industry-subsidies-of-11m-dollars-a-minute-imf-finds
1 Like
I’ve downscaled from eating all the time to eating occasionally - maybe once a week or less I eat a fish. My main motivation was potential health benefits - I used to read a lot of studies about nutrition science and my conclusion from this reading was that vegans (supplemented) and pescatarians live longest and healthiest. Since I don’t like supplements, I decided to become semi-vegan/pescatarian. Benefits to climate, animal welfare, and home budget were a plus but not the main driver.
3 Likes
I agree with that - I’m very pro-green (i.e. pro-nuclear), but at the same time I’m very anti-tax and anti-I-know-better-than-you government policies. Nevertheless, I think it is possible to arrange a liberal green transformation. We could start by taking off some taxes and regulatory burden from clean (nuclear) energy production - that will solve already half of the climate change problem. The other half can come from lowering taxes for renewables and EVs infrastructure. The third part can come from taxing pollution and using that money for green innovation grants. I’d vote strongly against taxing the people for normal, healthy, productive behaviors and grand-scale social engineering projects - a policy we could call “watermelon transformation” (green on surface, red inside).
2 Likes
I have one governing principle: Verursacherprinzip. The responsible of certain cost/consegeuences must be paid by the system/person causing it.
In all the discussion of you no-tax people, I have yet to read a concrete proposal on how to make sure the Verursacherprinzip is respected.
It has been demonstrated unequivocably that air pollution from private, individual traffic causes 7.8 billions chf of costs in Switzerland (in 2018). Total impact including ware transport and air traffic are 13.7 billions, so our private traffic is by far the largest contributor.
Some core data: because of pulltion, there have been a total of 14’000 days of hospitalisation in one year. 12’000 akute bronchitis in children and 2300 chronische bronchitis in adults. Additionally here were 3.6 millions of sick days due to to pollution.
Right now there is no verursacherprinzip. We pay this through our krankenkassen. People without a car pay as much as the others, but are only causing a fraction of air pollution than the private car transport.
How would you solve this without a reequlibrating tax, that would internalize cost? How would you make the system more just?
Interested in hearing non-tax strategies.
Sources:
2 Likes
I never talked about CO2 tax anywhere. And again, just one wall of complains without even an example of how to do it for something like air pollution.
Let’s say I agree with all your points. Totally right, let’s do it consequently, no cherry picking. So how do you solve it for air pollution for instance?
I guess Africa, South America and Asia (especially China and India) are the main issue. The western world is already on the right path.
If Switzerland reduces it from 0.11% to 0%, there would literally be no effect.
Actually no, you are wrong is not my preferred solution.
that’s what is hapeening right now with our society, but is not necessarily true. Almost every single kid born in Nigeria is nowehere near a polluter like a childless couple flying every weekend. So that is not true per se, it’s only true in this moment of time because of how our system is setup.
you do notice the complete discordance of these two position, right? A child tax is an intolerable invasion of private freedom.
1 Like
I used to think that thing could get fixed bottom up - ie people behaving responsibly, creating market demand for fair and net-zero products, would bring the desired change.
Unfortunately, companies lie. All the time. VW did it with dieselgate, and the oil companies consistently lie about almost everything, but particularly on how much methan they are actually leaking from wells, and how they are not fixing the abandoned wells that conitnue to leak in the environment. Satellite data confirm the incredible mismatch between leak report from oil companies and the reality.
So the customer cannot today make the right choice, because information is distorted or reports are full of lies and workaround.
Like the chart of @Cortana above. Those chart do not contain CO2 emitted by armies, navy, air forces. There are exemption for self-defense activities. Only domestic flights (like what, geneva zurich?) are included in the chart above - not international flight, which are exempt from being counted towards national CO2 emissions.
So information is completely distorted. There cannot be meaningful consumer action and choice.
So my idea is to make mandatory (of course not all at once, but gradually) that every consumable product, service or commodities must be produced, distributed and sold with net-zero impact on the environment. And then leave the market to adjust. You can still buy a fossil fueled car, and can buy gasoling to fill it up, but the car you buy and the gasoline you buy must have net-zero impact on both pollution and greenhouse gases, and the company producing them must comply.
Additionally, products must be built with either reparation or recycling in mind.
Again, the introduction must be gradual. No tax is required. The money freed up by the cost incurred in damage reparation (such as healthcare, nature cleaning etc) is diverted to a “environmental police” that checks that companies are not lying.
Are things going to be more expensive? Yes possibly, but that is inevitable - but I don’t think they will be extremely more expensive. A Fairphone is not incredibly more expensive than others, and the electric cars from VW are already build with net-zero impact. The economies of scale would then fix affordability. There would a more rough period, like 10-20 years, before things adapt.
The intervention of the state on the private choice of the customer is actually reduced - customer can buy whatever he wants with a “clean” conscience.
1 Like
The irony
(20 chars)
I do agree with you, that “we” the tiny individuals can do very little, and whatever we do is insignificant unless the big companies change.
(c.f. the video I linked too, I am very much in agreement with it)
1 Like
Fish is nice and good but:
- Fishing is one of the worst industries ever: It’s like they go in a forest with a bazooka to get squirrels and kills everything that moves (even trees)
- Fishing happens on international waters. Lawless territory where you can do whatever you want
- The bigger the fish it is the more it breathes/eats bad stuff. Too much fish and you get lead poisoning or worse.
3 Likes
There is some truth in what you say but I’m afraid your comments are like a bazooka. Too simplistic to tar everything with the same brush. Some land farming is sustainable, some is not, and it is similar with the sea
-re “worst industries ever” Q) What do you think used to be on the land we use for farming?
-SOME fishing happens in international waters. Some also happens in protected, coastal waters and some in national or EU waters. Protections and quotas depend on the case. Taking even the case of international waters in some cases there are treaties to keep the fishing sustainable e.g. North East Atlantic treaties between EU, Iceland, UK, Norway etc. I am sure in other, less developed countries it is less controlled, but isn’t that the same with land farming?
-lead poisoining - I heard about health risks of absorbing too much mercury if eating too many of certain kinds of fish (don’t know about lead). But there are also health risks if you eat meat every day. Advice is usually to eat a varied diet
2 Likes
Thanks for the additional info.
I still think the way seas are managed is worse than with land.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/china-is-pillaging-global-fisheries/
Unfortunately this happens
1 Like
I am sure there bad practises how animals are reared in China too
Regarding oceans: I stumbled onthis article of the IMF on the “staggering potential of carbon capture given by…whales”.
A whales who dies fall to the bottom of the ocean where the carbon is processed anaerobically (no CO2 emission) and an old whale contains 33 ton of carbon. But this is only the beginning of the story.
If whales were allowed to return to their pre-whaling number of 4 to 5 million—from slightly more than 1.3 million today—it could add significantly to the amount of phytoplankton in the oceans and to the carbon they capture each year. At a minimum, even a 1 percent increase in phytoplankton productivity thanks to whale activity would capture hundreds of millions of tons of additional CO2 a year, equivalent to the sudden appearance of 2 billion mature trees. Imagine the impact over the average lifespan of a whale, more than 60 years.
Another unknown negativefeedback loop where our activities dramatically reduced CO2 storage (so a similar effect as liberating CO2 in the air from fossil fuels)
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/natures-solution-to-climate-change-chami.htm
Yep, but anaerobic processes results in the emission of methane (CH4), which is much worse than CO2 (Around 250x more radiation capture). That is one of the reason why big hydroelectric projects are often negative in a GHG emission balance, because all the biomass gets anaerobically decomposed at the bottom of the artificial lake and transformed to methane.
About the phytoplankton, that is an interesting thought.
but the bottom of the ocean is different from a bottom of the lake with a much greater pression. Anaerobic decomposition there is trapped for centuries if not more, incorporated into marine sediments (as mentioned in the article)
That’s just to say that protecting and expanding the ecosystem around whales has multiple benefit:
- huge CO2 capture, both from whales itself as well as more importantly phytoplankton, which is a fraction of the size of what it used to be
- no landmass or raw material requirement - just well preserved ocean areas
- sustainable
of course fishing&transportation has had an impact on whales lifes. So it is important as with all things to try to stick to Swiss products, or at least european.
Deer from New Zealand is simply absurd (but everywhere in our shops during our “Jagd” season). I think there is sustainable meat out there and sustainable fishing, but moderation is key and actually more healthy.
1 Like
Proudly vegan for the sake of our children and our planet.