I’m laughing at this all. Great entertainment for a Friday after a long, exhausting workweek.
“But we don’t live lives of just enough, we do the opposite and live lives of wanting more.” That IS the human condition, though. It doesn’t matter what a person’s ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, sex, gender, socioeconomic status, or other criteria you want to use, we all want more over time. In other words, what’s “just enough” for one person is woefully inadequate for another, and simultaneously more than imaginable for yet another. THERE IS NO ONE UNIVERSAL STANDARD OF SUFFICIENCY FOR ALL HUMANS ACROSS THE WORLD. Stop trying to pretend that there is one and that we all must adapt to it.
I’m also laughing at how willingly Lloyd is to jump into an airplane and fly across the ocean to attend not one but TWO conferences on sustainability and sufficiency when he did the same thing not too long ago as part of another round table discussion panel. And that’s very telling because you have some climate change pundits out there arguing NO ONE should be allowed to fly more than four times in an *ENTIRE* lifetime … but if it’s for a “good cause” of promoting sustainability and sufficiency, do all of those carbon emissions suddenly cancel out someone else’s family vacation to the Canary Islands? Or maybe they have a lesser carbon intensity because the guilt of contributing to climate change is excusable when sharing the message of “only what’s needed and nothing more”?
Lloyd , you DO realize I’m taking the mickey out of this bullshit argument, I hope, because it has no fundamental meaning or value. The Nazis gave POW’s and Holocaust prisoners “just what they needed” to survive, “AND NOTHING MORE.” That’s ultimately the foundational truth that's being pushed by Klaus Schwab, the WEF, Leonardo DiCaprio, you, and all the other tree-hugging eco-warriors, whether or not they’re willing to admit it to the gullible readers of this substack—that YOU as the reader is a scourge to the planet and YOU must be eliminated, especially if you’re unwilling to drastically reduce your carbon footprint, while THEY continue to live their lives unimpeded by the decrees they demand YOU abide by.
Have a wonderful flight and vacation in London, Lloyd. I suggest you do the curious tourist thing and see as much of the city as you can, especially the museums, monuments, and bookstores. I’ll be enjoying my time here in Phoenix, living my best life.
You don’t think the end game is the same? Perhaps you should look into what is required for the world to meet net zero goals, and what hypocrisy exists between what the elite climate change pundits do and what they demand from the people they want to control.
Hi Vindaloo, well said. I finally learned the term for U.N.-speak: "inverted." Their words have the opposite meaning of what they say. This language of theirs is how they are selling Smart Cities to us. For example, "facial recognition is for your safety" - safety from terrorists, criminals - is in reality surveillance for Social Credit scoring. "Combating poverty" in reality means creating poverty. (Job losses, small business and small farms shuttered by govt., migrant replacement of jobs, etc. occurs more than is reported.) The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are dangerous to humanity. "Sustainable" inverted is "unsustainable." The public only sees what is sustainable to the UN and their adepts. I have been studying Agenda 21 from the depopulation angle since 2009. Here's a very good exposure: "The truth about the climate con exposed." https://rumble.com/v3wat8s-truth-about-the-climate-con-exposed-rothschild-unced-1992-earth-summit-geor.html
Two more high-greenhouse-gas-emissions physical conferences. All conferences should be low-greenhouse-gas-emissions virtual conferences. That includes the COPxx conferences.
Long overdue are improvements in virtual conference software so that the functionality of virtual conferences exceeds the functionality of physical conferences - a very achievable goal.
Use one's influence to promote the transition to all conferences being virtual. For example, refuse to participate in a conference unless it is made virtual. For example, respond to every announcement of a physical conference with the reply that it should be a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions virtual conference, and surely for the conference next year. For example, if you are involved planning a conference, insist it be a virtual conference.
Not doable? ... Well, if that's the case, we are In deep deep trouble. It's far more doable than so many of the challenges that have to be met to defeat global warming.
The WEF Davos and UN IPCC meetings are NEVER going to be virtual because they refuse to practice what they preach. “Eschew meat” by promoting bugs? Yeah, no, that was just a novelty experience for the cameras—but at the catered meals it was prime rib and steak and cheese, among many other high-emissions food products. Their attendees? For the Davos crowd it was almost exclusively private jets, and the UN IPCC delegates were something like 26,000 strong, the vast majority of whom flew in to attend. The optics are laughably hypocritical to say the least. And none of these useful idiots are reducing their own emissions but instead buying carbon credit offsets. The average person is more aware of the disconnect and are increasingly ignoring the climate crisis doom-and-gloom nonsense, which is a good and necessary thing as the elitist “solution” is to reduce the standard of living for everyone else … except themselves. People have caught on, and the pundits who cried wolf one too many times have only themselves to blame.
Khazzoom–Brookes postulate vs sufficiency. I totally agree that sufficiency is a key puzzle piece but I have no idea how we're going to get there. I don't think there's a hope in hell that we will get there voluntarily. And current Western democracy seems to abhor putting any limits on what people can own or do. This seems like an unsolvable problem.
Except for the 1.5 degree lifestyle (on the average, I'm way below that if you count the carbon offset of my acres of trees), I think you're preaching to the choir on you blog.
Many of us do try to live a sustainable lifestyle (unlike the govt.). And, many of us do do with less (again unlike the govt.). Some out of choice, some out of necessity in these inflationary times. But we do all we can do.
Does that mean some can do more? Sure, but, as long as we have celebrities telling us how we should live our lives while they (the celebrities) do the opposite (the 'let them eat cake' syndrome), what's the point? Whatever little the masses can do will never offset the damage done by the celebrities.
Selfish? I don't think so, I'm just being realistic. Because outside of the celebrities, there are countries like India, China and Russia, not caring and laughing at the Western world as they strive to live in austerity and the big three are willing to provide the means to that as they increase their pollution factors.
You’re right, it’s not about celebrities—it’s about an onerous and corrupt government pushing a completely implausible narrative and who are counting on the gullible sheep in the electorate to believe the lies they’re spreading.
You said, “Stop your deflection and disingenuous bullshit” but YOU provided no tangible means of achieving the goal you set forth other than a bullshit argument of replacing all current infrastructure with renewable energy powered high-speed rail. Who pays for all of that? What of our individual property rights that would be trampled on to make YOUR vision of the future a reality? Which cities would be prioritized first over others, and why? Without a coherent, clear, and meaningful plan of action and explain IN DETAIL just how, when and where it’s going to be implemented, you’re doing NOTHING but relying on hyperbole and histrionics to make your point—but it’s a useless one.
To be perfectly honest, I love having a good discussion as well—but far too often the “discussion” is one-sided, especially if I or certain other people question the legitimacy of a solution being suggested when no concrete details on how said solution would work, from cost of construction to land use disputes to divvying up RE-generated power between high-speed rail and everything else that’s supposed to be part of the “electrify everything” future. It’s like saying, “You should be rich to enjoy retirement” but without mentioning anything about what kind of education a person has, their job, their salary, health, family (or lack there of), goals for retirement, savings rate, or even WHAT amount of money is needed to “enjoy” retirement.
So forgive me for stating the obvious, but I find it incredibly disingenuous to demand *I* should be “nice” and not scare off the other readers when (a) I didn’t start with a personal attack (Hudson E Baldwin III did to Jack!) and (b) you didn’t call *HIM* out for it.
Why is it that the readers on here and TreeHugger cannot cope with being asked to explain and defend their POV’s, especially when their “solutions” require everyone to adopt their own narrative? Is this a forum to discuss and expand one’s understanding of complex issues (and solutions), or is it simply an echo chamber of meaningless rhetoric by well intentioned but ultimately clueless people who wilt at every instance of being challenged?
great post- i loved the book- and i am trying to be as close to a 1.5 degree lifestyle as i can. Good Luck with the trip _ if you are in London _ I would be happy to host a trip to RGB Kew , i am developing the decarbonisation plan for them.
A great article Lloyd and right on point! A good complementary read that supports this idea of sufficiency is Kate Raworth’s Donut Economics. I highly recommend it.
Thank you for the recap of the conference Lloyd. I ended up adding the concept of sufficiency to my Recommendations to Reduce embodied Carbon in the Built Environment - soon to be released (will share a link when live).
Enjoy the worthwhile trip. The question I keep asking is why the US is so far behind in building passive houses vs the Canadians and other European countries. We are a country full of technologists and innovators but when it comes to building high performance homes using the latest construction workflows (modular panels) and wall assemblies that result in superior and more healthy homes where we live and sleep with our families not enough people in the US let alone contractors understand what a passive home is. (I am building one currently for myself and my family).
Part of me thinks you’re not understanding the topic of your own creation. Switching to electric vehicles is not going to make a significantly significant difference in our overall carbon emissions. We need a nationwide renewable powered high-speed rail system designed extremely professionally so that it’s facilitates municipalities having The same efficiency and net zero transportation through light rail facilities. Switching the industrial automotive system to electric is not enough. We need to remove 2/3 of the cars on the road and completely do away with the whole industrial process of creating them. Of the almost 900,000,000 domestic flights last year. And infrastructure Architecture that I just described would easily eliminate 700 million of them.
Your failure to mention the real things that absolutely must happen as in our total prerequisites to having a long term 2.5° max increase globally are the ending of fossil fuel extraction and by far the most important and I negotiable issue that is rarely addressed
The sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere formed into a valuable solid such as carbon fiber or nanotubes, structural pieces for architecture, infrastructure in endless other things. At least 10 entities are doing it for less than $1000 per ton right now. With a quality carbon fiber product retailing Between 26 and $32,000 per ton, the economic incentive is already there. We just need to politically incentivize the use of carbon over steel over wood we must stop the extraction process and every probable for all resources.
Restoration of the planet bioregional eagle habitat is a completely different issue that is also something that must be done to restore species and ecosystem balance. Or shall I be real and just say give it a chance to actually exist 25 years from now
Can’t figure out exactly who’s employ you are under. Complete agitprop Russian GOP type anti-everything or a Democrat party “lower all expectations” troll
Switching to Electric cars and SUVs that way many thousands of pounds is not going to make any difference. Switching to Electric bikes, cargo bikes, scooters, tiny cars, tiny delivery vehicles could absolutely make a difference. I've always been a major Transit booster and I would definitely like to see lots of high speed trains for Intercity travel. Within cities however, I have lately come to think that micro Mobility might be a much bigger piece of the solution than Transit. The appeal of being able to go door to door, where you want, when you want is pretty unbeatable. And many many physically infirm people would be much better served with a micro car, electric tricycle or something like that than they are by transit. And micro Mobility wouldn't require building expensive Transit infrastructure. We just need to repurpose the infrastructure (roads) we already have.
I’m laughing at this all. Great entertainment for a Friday after a long, exhausting workweek.
“But we don’t live lives of just enough, we do the opposite and live lives of wanting more.” That IS the human condition, though. It doesn’t matter what a person’s ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, sex, gender, socioeconomic status, or other criteria you want to use, we all want more over time. In other words, what’s “just enough” for one person is woefully inadequate for another, and simultaneously more than imaginable for yet another. THERE IS NO ONE UNIVERSAL STANDARD OF SUFFICIENCY FOR ALL HUMANS ACROSS THE WORLD. Stop trying to pretend that there is one and that we all must adapt to it.
I’m also laughing at how willingly Lloyd is to jump into an airplane and fly across the ocean to attend not one but TWO conferences on sustainability and sufficiency when he did the same thing not too long ago as part of another round table discussion panel. And that’s very telling because you have some climate change pundits out there arguing NO ONE should be allowed to fly more than four times in an *ENTIRE* lifetime … but if it’s for a “good cause” of promoting sustainability and sufficiency, do all of those carbon emissions suddenly cancel out someone else’s family vacation to the Canary Islands? Or maybe they have a lesser carbon intensity because the guilt of contributing to climate change is excusable when sharing the message of “only what’s needed and nothing more”?
Lloyd , you DO realize I’m taking the mickey out of this bullshit argument, I hope, because it has no fundamental meaning or value. The Nazis gave POW’s and Holocaust prisoners “just what they needed” to survive, “AND NOTHING MORE.” That’s ultimately the foundational truth that's being pushed by Klaus Schwab, the WEF, Leonardo DiCaprio, you, and all the other tree-hugging eco-warriors, whether or not they’re willing to admit it to the gullible readers of this substack—that YOU as the reader is a scourge to the planet and YOU must be eliminated, especially if you’re unwilling to drastically reduce your carbon footprint, while THEY continue to live their lives unimpeded by the decrees they demand YOU abide by.
Have a wonderful flight and vacation in London, Lloyd. I suggest you do the curious tourist thing and see as much of the city as you can, especially the museums, monuments, and bookstores. I’ll be enjoying my time here in Phoenix, living my best life.
Well I can't say that this was unexpected!
Comparing Auschwitz to the hardship of living within our means. Totally valid 🙄
You don’t think the end game is the same? Perhaps you should look into what is required for the world to meet net zero goals, and what hypocrisy exists between what the elite climate change pundits do and what they demand from the people they want to control.
Hi Vindaloo, well said. I finally learned the term for U.N.-speak: "inverted." Their words have the opposite meaning of what they say. This language of theirs is how they are selling Smart Cities to us. For example, "facial recognition is for your safety" - safety from terrorists, criminals - is in reality surveillance for Social Credit scoring. "Combating poverty" in reality means creating poverty. (Job losses, small business and small farms shuttered by govt., migrant replacement of jobs, etc. occurs more than is reported.) The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are dangerous to humanity. "Sustainable" inverted is "unsustainable." The public only sees what is sustainable to the UN and their adepts. I have been studying Agenda 21 from the depopulation angle since 2009. Here's a very good exposure: "The truth about the climate con exposed." https://rumble.com/v3wat8s-truth-about-the-climate-con-exposed-rothschild-unced-1992-earth-summit-geor.html
Sign me up! UN plot and all. Safe travels.
Two more high-greenhouse-gas-emissions physical conferences. All conferences should be low-greenhouse-gas-emissions virtual conferences. That includes the COPxx conferences.
Long overdue are improvements in virtual conference software so that the functionality of virtual conferences exceeds the functionality of physical conferences - a very achievable goal.
Use one's influence to promote the transition to all conferences being virtual. For example, refuse to participate in a conference unless it is made virtual. For example, respond to every announcement of a physical conference with the reply that it should be a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions virtual conference, and surely for the conference next year. For example, if you are involved planning a conference, insist it be a virtual conference.
Not doable? ... Well, if that's the case, we are In deep deep trouble. It's far more doable than so many of the challenges that have to be met to defeat global warming.
Of course you are right. Conferences seem to be the only thing I am flying for these days. But at least I am doing both with one round trip...
The WEF Davos and UN IPCC meetings are NEVER going to be virtual because they refuse to practice what they preach. “Eschew meat” by promoting bugs? Yeah, no, that was just a novelty experience for the cameras—but at the catered meals it was prime rib and steak and cheese, among many other high-emissions food products. Their attendees? For the Davos crowd it was almost exclusively private jets, and the UN IPCC delegates were something like 26,000 strong, the vast majority of whom flew in to attend. The optics are laughably hypocritical to say the least. And none of these useful idiots are reducing their own emissions but instead buying carbon credit offsets. The average person is more aware of the disconnect and are increasingly ignoring the climate crisis doom-and-gloom nonsense, which is a good and necessary thing as the elitist “solution” is to reduce the standard of living for everyone else … except themselves. People have caught on, and the pundits who cried wolf one too many times have only themselves to blame.
Khazzoom–Brookes postulate vs sufficiency. I totally agree that sufficiency is a key puzzle piece but I have no idea how we're going to get there. I don't think there's a hope in hell that we will get there voluntarily. And current Western democracy seems to abhor putting any limits on what people can own or do. This seems like an unsolvable problem.
That’s because “sufficiency” is largely meaningless in terms of compatibility with freedom and “Western democracy.”
Except for the 1.5 degree lifestyle (on the average, I'm way below that if you count the carbon offset of my acres of trees), I think you're preaching to the choir on you blog.
Many of us do try to live a sustainable lifestyle (unlike the govt.). And, many of us do do with less (again unlike the govt.). Some out of choice, some out of necessity in these inflationary times. But we do all we can do.
Does that mean some can do more? Sure, but, as long as we have celebrities telling us how we should live our lives while they (the celebrities) do the opposite (the 'let them eat cake' syndrome), what's the point? Whatever little the masses can do will never offset the damage done by the celebrities.
Selfish? I don't think so, I'm just being realistic. Because outside of the celebrities, there are countries like India, China and Russia, not caring and laughing at the Western world as they strive to live in austerity and the big three are willing to provide the means to that as they increase their pollution factors.
This is not about celebrities. It’s about corporations and political directives. Stop your deflection and disingenuous bullshit.
You’re right, it’s not about celebrities—it’s about an onerous and corrupt government pushing a completely implausible narrative and who are counting on the gullible sheep in the electorate to believe the lies they’re spreading.
You said, “Stop your deflection and disingenuous bullshit” but YOU provided no tangible means of achieving the goal you set forth other than a bullshit argument of replacing all current infrastructure with renewable energy powered high-speed rail. Who pays for all of that? What of our individual property rights that would be trampled on to make YOUR vision of the future a reality? Which cities would be prioritized first over others, and why? Without a coherent, clear, and meaningful plan of action and explain IN DETAIL just how, when and where it’s going to be implemented, you’re doing NOTHING but relying on hyperbole and histrionics to make your point—but it’s a useless one.
V don't scare away the commenters with personal attacks. I love having a discussion here, but at some point people stop participating.
To be perfectly honest, I love having a good discussion as well—but far too often the “discussion” is one-sided, especially if I or certain other people question the legitimacy of a solution being suggested when no concrete details on how said solution would work, from cost of construction to land use disputes to divvying up RE-generated power between high-speed rail and everything else that’s supposed to be part of the “electrify everything” future. It’s like saying, “You should be rich to enjoy retirement” but without mentioning anything about what kind of education a person has, their job, their salary, health, family (or lack there of), goals for retirement, savings rate, or even WHAT amount of money is needed to “enjoy” retirement.
So forgive me for stating the obvious, but I find it incredibly disingenuous to demand *I* should be “nice” and not scare off the other readers when (a) I didn’t start with a personal attack (Hudson E Baldwin III did to Jack!) and (b) you didn’t call *HIM* out for it.
Why is it that the readers on here and TreeHugger cannot cope with being asked to explain and defend their POV’s, especially when their “solutions” require everyone to adopt their own narrative? Is this a forum to discuss and expand one’s understanding of complex issues (and solutions), or is it simply an echo chamber of meaningless rhetoric by well intentioned but ultimately clueless people who wilt at every instance of being challenged?
I don’t greengage with zero post zero notes to follow her botbois
It’s easily done. I would go into detail but it would be a waste of my energy and time.
I promise you are far far far from a sustainable lifestyle.
great post- i loved the book- and i am trying to be as close to a 1.5 degree lifestyle as i can. Good Luck with the trip _ if you are in London _ I would be happy to host a trip to RGB Kew , i am developing the decarbonisation plan for them.
A great article Lloyd and right on point! A good complementary read that supports this idea of sufficiency is Kate Raworth’s Donut Economics. I highly recommend it.
Thank you for the recap of the conference Lloyd. I ended up adding the concept of sufficiency to my Recommendations to Reduce embodied Carbon in the Built Environment - soon to be released (will share a link when live).
Enjoy the worthwhile trip. The question I keep asking is why the US is so far behind in building passive houses vs the Canadians and other European countries. We are a country full of technologists and innovators but when it comes to building high performance homes using the latest construction workflows (modular panels) and wall assemblies that result in superior and more healthy homes where we live and sleep with our families not enough people in the US let alone contractors understand what a passive home is. (I am building one currently for myself and my family).
Part of me thinks you’re not understanding the topic of your own creation. Switching to electric vehicles is not going to make a significantly significant difference in our overall carbon emissions. We need a nationwide renewable powered high-speed rail system designed extremely professionally so that it’s facilitates municipalities having The same efficiency and net zero transportation through light rail facilities. Switching the industrial automotive system to electric is not enough. We need to remove 2/3 of the cars on the road and completely do away with the whole industrial process of creating them. Of the almost 900,000,000 domestic flights last year. And infrastructure Architecture that I just described would easily eliminate 700 million of them.
Your failure to mention the real things that absolutely must happen as in our total prerequisites to having a long term 2.5° max increase globally are the ending of fossil fuel extraction and by far the most important and I negotiable issue that is rarely addressed
The sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere formed into a valuable solid such as carbon fiber or nanotubes, structural pieces for architecture, infrastructure in endless other things. At least 10 entities are doing it for less than $1000 per ton right now. With a quality carbon fiber product retailing Between 26 and $32,000 per ton, the economic incentive is already there. We just need to politically incentivize the use of carbon over steel over wood we must stop the extraction process and every probable for all resources.
Restoration of the planet bioregional eagle habitat is a completely different issue that is also something that must be done to restore species and ecosystem balance. Or shall I be real and just say give it a chance to actually exist 25 years from now
You’re kidding, right?
What pays for this conversion, an unlimited supply of unobtanium?
Can’t figure out exactly who’s employ you are under. Complete agitprop Russian GOP type anti-everything or a Democrat party “lower all expectations” troll
Neither. I’m just an average critical thinker who doesn’t resort to ad hominem attacks or who believes in fairy dust to make things fly.
Switching to Electric cars and SUVs that way many thousands of pounds is not going to make any difference. Switching to Electric bikes, cargo bikes, scooters, tiny cars, tiny delivery vehicles could absolutely make a difference. I've always been a major Transit booster and I would definitely like to see lots of high speed trains for Intercity travel. Within cities however, I have lately come to think that micro Mobility might be a much bigger piece of the solution than Transit. The appeal of being able to go door to door, where you want, when you want is pretty unbeatable. And many many physically infirm people would be much better served with a micro car, electric tricycle or something like that than they are by transit. And micro Mobility wouldn't require building expensive Transit infrastructure. We just need to repurpose the infrastructure (roads) we already have.
If done correctly, it would pay for itself by removing road repairs and expansion.