this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Shipping? Shipping is about 2 % of global CO~2~ emissions.
Large ships emit a lot of sulphur oxides (SO~x~). E.g. cruise ships emit more than all cars of Europe. SO~x~ is not a greenhouse gas, but it’s a nasty pollutant nonetheless.
They emit a lot, but they transport ... a very lot. Trucks are higher emitters per comodity.
Still both should be powered by something else like hydrogen (more interesting for ships I guess) or batteries...
And cruise ships should be IMHO taxed so high (the tax should probably directly go to countermeasures), such that only very rich people are able to (not that I grant them the fun, but they should finance this climate disaster in every possible way...)
Based on what a reasonable carbon price should be, I don't think you would need to tax them to oblivion. They would just need to pay their fair share.
This website suggests that it is about 0.4 tonne of CO2 per passenger per day. Canada's current carbon tax is $65 per tonne. So a 7 day cruise would be $182 per passenger in carbon pricing. This is just ballpark and yes you can argue that carbon prices should be higher.
We are quickly arriving at an unpayable bill.
We are quickly arriving at an unpayable bill.
For whom though? I think if your product is going to be very expensive because of that you,ll try to find ways (less carbon emissive) to make it cheaper, and for others, who have low emissions already, they get an advantage. Also rich people generally emit much more carbon than poor people.
I'm a little bit tired of the argument, that everything gets expensive, like the money just goes to nirvana, it's a tax and a tax should steer industries (mostly) to do the right thing (in this case emit less CO2). The money can go directly to people e.g. in the form of a universal basic income.
For the ability to produce enough food. It's not the tax that's the issue it's that the climate will make industrial food production unviable. We will rapidly exit the conditions that underpin the viability of the modern economy. The only work of value will be making food and related tools in a volatile climatic environment. The bill will not be payable in money, is my point. That is, a tax will be woefully inadequate.
Certainly, it will be really "interesting" how to produce food for ~10 billion people in this uncertain future. But if we finally learn to accept that e.g. cattle isn't the way forward, I think it may be possible with plant-based food. Although something like vertical farming etc. is definitely not viable today, it may be in the future. And at least currently it's totally possible to sustainably produce enough (plant-based) food. I think we'll learn to adapt, that much I trust in agricultural-technological advancement etc. But it will be "meaty" for most people and conflicts will arise (as they already are, see e.g. the conflict in Sudan that is indirectly related to climate change already, similarly as Syria previously (there were quite a few droughts the years before))
The odds that the adaption is rapid and doesn't cause extreme changes in the daily conditions of everyone are vanishing.
Absolutely, and it's astonishing, that still so few people see how "deep in shit" we already are, and I really hope that very soon ( < 5 years or so) a lot more people through whatever means will start to see that. But I think it's not a good idea to go into the doomsday mood, I don't think that helps either (individually, say depression etc. inability for action). But yeah it's depressing how little this topic is still relevant in politics etc. and how little the scientific community is/was heard, that is telling us that we need to change like > 70 years ago (and a very soft transition would've been possible since than, not so much now unfortunately, whether we do it, or nature does it...).
I guess it's less doom and more, you can just use an ev, and magically, it's all ok. It will take significant social and economic changes that will radically alter how people in the first world live.
I looked into carbon offsets of shipping containers from China to the US as part of my job. I was shocked at how little was emitted per container - Probably cost around $40 of offsets for one 45 footer.
Like you said, the bigger issue is the trucks needed for last mile / between distribution centers.
With modern open-loop scrubbers large ships don't emit SOx anymore...
...instead they just dump it into the sea. Science!
shipping is also trucks dude.. and all the other nasty ways we move products around the world..
Sure it is, but I think that's still better than if every individual needs to drive their own car through half the country to buy coffee. Shipping needs to happen in any way. Sure we could order less stuff from the internet, so individual house door shipping would be less, but that's a drop in the ocean, compared to the other named factors
Lol, trash reasoning. "Extremists" that want to start building communities that dont require you to drive everywhere. Just because evs are slightly better then gas doesnt mean its good to keep making cars a centralizing point we build our society around.
It ain't that hard,
High density places:
lower parking availability, increase public transport availability and frequency.
Low density places:
They need their cars, they can keep them.
Remove zoning restrictions, and parking requirements
so there is more mixture of commercial and residential places shortening transport distance, allowing for even avoiding public transport and just walking/biking replacing this.
More biking infraestructure.
Fair taxes to car owners,
that means, othe people not having to support the huge car projects that cost more than they can get from the taxes they do on cars.
Also regulations on environmental design of cars, basically gaining back the progress we had done on car efficiency that was taken back by everyone wanting an SUV instead of a turismo.
:)
yea yea but you won't answer to me mate, loss of time to talk with u :)
Everyone walking or biking.
Really not a choice, carbon emissiosn have to stop. EVs dont do that. Urban trees are not going to revese climate change. Wow, you're saying people need to keep lowering denisity.
Realistically, EVs are useful as a stopgap solution. They could be used to cover the transition as we expand public transit like EV busses, trains, subways, etc.
more people the better yeah