I am watching the sun rise. Pure joy. The magic of the transforming horizon amazes and lifts me ever time despite my having witnessed it many thousands of times over my 60 years spinning around on this rock. I am enjoying a coffee as I do so not an entirely consumption free activity but pretty close. “Less stuff, more joy” is a wonderful philosophy. I have been working to embrace it for several years now. It is not an easy or quick journey to move away from succumbing to the nagging voice telling me that “if only I had (insert latest manufactured need here) my life would be complete”. The forces fighting that shift every step of the way, internal and external, are strong and know well how to push the buttons of my primitive “grab what you can now it may not be there tomorrow “ mind. And, a casual glance around my place would probably have you questioning my commitment to my new guiding principles. I still have a lot of stuff. But look a little closer and you will notice that almost all of it is not my stuff, it is yours. Things that you tossed aside long before their usefulness expired to chase the latest shiner version or substitute. Look even closer and you may start to notice that much of it is stuff that was built to last and that can be repaired and reused, often for generations. Much of it had already served at least one generation before it found its way to me. Look even closer and you will start to see that much of it was chosen because it will help allow me to get to a place where I and those I share this place with will need to consume less in the future. I make no claim to the moral high ground. I have a lot of making up to the world to do before I will have paid my debt to the future but I am trying to be better. The remarkable thing I have found is that with each step I take toward the idea that there is such a thing as enough I find more joy, not less. Less time chasing stuff leaves a lot more time for watching sunrises.
Thank you for putting this so beautifully. Much better than my knee-jerk reaction of "Wait, not all clutter is new purchases. Almost all my furniture, dishes and other kitchen tools, clothing, and even many of the books are all second hand. Home grown food is stored in jars and takes tools to grow and to process. Containers for plants are scavanged from the curb when others discard them. All that can lead to useful clutter. Some "minimalist" homes seem to stay that way by exporting their clutter elsewhere." You've said it in a much better way, though.
I know your struggle well. The challenge of nudging a mind evolved over millennia to get while the getting is good to move toward a more sustainable place is hard to underestimate. My advice, rejoice in the small successes, learn from the setbacks and never stop trying to be a little better. My calendar reminds me each Friday morning to “ be better for your kids”. I don’t always rise to the challenge but I do so more often, I think, than I did before I started thinking hard about what being “better “ really means. The more I contemplate the idea the more I seem to move towards a pretty simple notion that my parents taught me by example about being a guest anywhere- try to leave the place for the next guests in at least as good shape as you found it and, ideally, even a little nicer. All the best to you.
Less Stuff, More Wealth! My dad was not an environmentalist, but he taught me the value of not internalizing the consumerist culture. He was an immigrant who believed in saving, ie he would pay cash for something like a car which loses value the second you buy it. And when I was growing up I realized our consumerist friends and family were not any happier. And now I have the ability to work less buy what I really want have money for an emergency and no consumer debt.
"The most important lesson of the report is its emphasis on consumption rather than production."
OK, but if everyone consumes less, not only will production be less but there will also be fewer jobs—and in an overleveraged world in excess of $330 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities that will eventually need to be paid off, where is the revenue going to come from to pay the taxes that feeds the beast of government and its entitlements?
Lloyd, you say that no one is telling you that you HAVE to give up hamburgers and new pants, but we all know that governments around the world are clearly working towards making those things more expensive as well as scarce. It will be imposed through one form of coercive fiat or another because the ONLY way that we collectively meet our 1.5°C goals is by draconian tyrannical diktat, no exceptions.
You also write that JUMP says, “Live for joy, not stuff" but it still takes stuff to enjoy doing things that EACH of us enjoy, in our own way. I live in Phoenix; every weekend driving on the freeways I see quite a number of people hauling their boat out of the city towards Lake Pleasant, Lake Powell, or Lake Havasu; I see a good number of others that are hauling their sand buggies and campers to rip it through the dunes of the Imperial Sand Dunes with friends and family. Just think—all that embodied carbon in those boats, sand buggies, RV's, trucks, and toy haulers, to say nothing of the gas to get there (because EV trucks aren't going to cut it with the mountainous terrain) or the many other things like food, perhaps lodging, safety gear, and more. Those are but two small examples of what could be seen as "unnecessary" indulgences that should be banned (sorry, "gotten rid of") yet for those people it bring them GREAT joy to have all that "stuff" and use it as frequently as possible.
And that's the crux of the issue—how do you not only define what joy is, but also convince others to sign on to your own personal vision of what joy should look like? Everyone is different; everyone is unique; everyone has their own interests, goals, dreams, and ideals of happiness. How, then, can anyone tell everyone that their happiness is wrong unless you force them to comply through coercion, either direct or indirect by way of regulation? Are we not free people? Yet every day we read about there being less freedom thanks to government intrusion in the form of regulation compliance: energy production, light bulbs, gas stoves, A/C, water heaters, ceiling fans, meatless school meals ... the list goes on. What of the market and building a better mousetrap that will beat a path to those winners because they have the superior product? I guess if you remove any alternatives, then the free market isn't really free—it's going to be made up of companies that sell exactly what the government tells them they're allowed to sell, i.e. communist dictatorship.
Having said all that, let me thank you for keeping comments open here on Carbon Upfront! because TreeHugger management are a bunch of weak, echo chamber loving wussies and eliminated all comments. They've lost all respectability ever since new management did the shake-up last year, and it's showing. It's a shallower, uglier version of HGTV.com and I am sorry for their incompetence affecting you and Sami and others.
"OK, but if everyone consumes less, not only will production be less but there will also be fewer jobs—and in an overleveraged world in excess of $330 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities that will eventually need to be paid off, where is the revenue going to come from to pay the taxes that feeds the beast of government and its entitlements?" So $330 trillion is owned to... someone? Who? Why do you care about this made up crap that has no bearing on actual reality? We are not slaves to our financial institutions. This is something we've created. There are enough resources that everyone can live fine. People don't need to be working 40 hours a week. But you've lead some oligarchs hoard all the wealth and force people to work longer and longer despite automation.
I think the word “freedom” needs to be assigned a time out. When you are the last one standing and no one will follow you are free to do whatever you please. Until that time we share a world and need to learn how to do so in a way that balances the immediate survival needs of those of here now against the rights of those to come in perpetuity. That means necessarily giving up some freedom at an individual level. We accept this without question for myriad things but when that duty extends to giving up our “stuff” we whine like spoiled children. This despite the reality that if we had not been bombarded with marketing from birth telling us we need this stuff to be happy we could have lived contentedly without it in the first place. We have been brainwashed relentlessly for generations now to dramatically exaggerate the utility, psychic or otherwise, of stuff and ignore the cost. Our economy is built on the premise that the world’s resources and its ability to neutralize the harmful impacts of our waste are inexhaustible and that therefore we are “free” to do as we please. We now know with a very high a level of certainty that this is a false premise and will most certainly lead to a massive amount of hurt if we don’t find a new way soon. They joy that all those people towing their boats to the lake experience is possible because we have allowed them to ignore (externalize) much of the true cost. When we challenge them about that cost and ask them to pay something for the damage their “joy” inflicts upon everyone else, here and to come, the “you are stealing my freedom” defence raises its disingenuous voice (guided notably with methodical precision by those with the most to gain from maintaining business as usual). There has never been any such thing as a free market economy. It is a deliberately misleading monicker designed to obscure the reality that we having been borrowing heavily against the future to fund an insatiable greed now. Time to start paying back our debt. It will mean having to find new (or rediscover old) sources of joy, ones that won’t impose misery on those we share the place with now and all those to come. Don’t worry, there are plenty to choose from.
"Until that time we share a world and need to learn how to do so in a way that balances the immediate survival needs of those of here now against the rights of those to come in perpetuity. That means NECESSARILY GIVING UP SOME FREEDOM AT AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL." (emphasis added)
This is an utter crock of bullshit. My using an incandescent light bulb in the U.S. does not mean someone in Madagascar is unable to eat an extra cup of rice; my using an ICE car to go on monthly road trips does not mean someone in Chad suffers a heatwave. The belief that EVERY atmospheric event is now indicative of climate change is climate fearmongering prostitution, pure and simple. Even if the world went zero emissions (not net, but true zero) and after 1000+ years of CO2 being sequestered, we're going to STILL be dealing with tropical cyclones, heatwaves, floods, droughts, freezes, and every other atmospheric phenomenon in the SAME quantity and SAME intensity as we have today. Therefore, the "increased" damage being ascribed to climate change is failing to take into account our higher global GDP, more expensive infrastructure being built in risk-prone locations, inflation, higher population numbers, and policies that result in unintended consequences [think California's no-burn forest management policy that allowed massive build-up of tree detritus that leads to higher fuel loads and bigger wildfires.]
If you believe that the "you're stealing my freedom" defense is disingenuous because it benefits those with the most to gain from maintaining the status quo, then why is it that you won't label as "disingenuous" all those renewable energy projects that cannot make a go of it on their own, require MASSIVE direct subsidies that end up costing the consumer MORE money (not less, as promised!), and rely on FF-backup power to meet contractually obligated deliveries? Aren't RE project managers selling the public a lie because they're not accounting for decommissioning and disposal costs, mining and refinement costs (pollution, monetary, and environmental), human rights abuses from children in the Congo mining cobalt, and other disgraces?
First truth to understand: the world is not fair.
Second truth to understand: the world is not equal.
Believing that we can ALL be equal is both a fool's mantra and fool's errand. Taxing carbon is an idiotic idea, especially when there is a ton of money in the form of foreign aid being given to developing nations in the form of food, medical supplies, grants, and low-cost loans. Are they going to pay for the carbon taxes on all that, or are the countries who are providing them? And having government diktats control freedom of choice in the market is no different than Stalinist Russia—we all know how well that turned out, just as has every communist country's quest to make everyone "equal". The problem is that it's never equal to the richer, but to the poorer; it also means that the government could have, by now, stepped in and set some kind of minimum standards for RE projects—like with recycling end-of-life modules—but they haven't. So I'll ask the obvious: WHY NOT? Is the free market OK with dealing with finding a solution to that, but government fiat is required to impose what kind of stove, water heater, HVAC, and ceiling fan I have in my house?
Don't make me laugh. If you want to live with less, live with less. That is a CHOICE that YOU make and no one else. That's all I want to be given to me: the freedom for me to make MY OWN CHOICES, right or wrong, without asking for permission from feckless, corrupt government.
"The belief that EVERY atmospheric event is now indicative of climate change is climate fearmongering prostitution, pure and simple. " Remain a delusional moron then. Yeah somehow despite extreme weather events becoming more common, there is nothing to see here...
I would swap out all the energy efficiency regulations for a carbon tax in a heartbeat so that everyone can consume or not according to their own preferences (e.g. living in an urban passive house while owning a Dodge Demon that's occasionally driven) and companies are freer to innovate. Unfortunately, people would rather deal with reduced choices, red tape and time-wasting paperwork than pay cold, hard cash.
In my experience, another impediment to a truly free market is the dead hand of tradition and "we've always done it this way" types of thinking, which is all too common in the trades. It's hard to innovate when everyone thinks you're crazy and doesn't give you the time of day.
A huge benefit to a revenue neutral carbon tax would be to allow people to operate their boats, eat lots of meat, drive dune buggies, fly all over the place, etc. but they'd have to pay for the environmental costs of doing it. People who don't do such things or can't afford them would at least derive some financial benefit.
"People who don't do such things or CAN'T AFFORD THEM [emphasis added] would at least derive some financial benefit."
So beggars get to not only be choosers, but get to benefit from someone else's tax burden? How does that make any sense?
If you don't have money to buy what you want, or need, you do one of two things: go without, or seek charity. If I max out my credit cards, does Visa keep allowing me to charge? No, they cut me off. Why the blue hell would we just give to people who can't afford WHAT THEY WANT because of a misguided principle of equity and equality???
That's a communist's mindset. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes! This is what I want to be doing more intentionally. I hate that we have so much stuff and that we keep buying more. I want to buy less and be more intentional about what we buy. And that can actually mean living better.
Nobody forced anyone to get a COVID 19 vaccine - isn't that the line?
There has been zero marketing for increasing natural health, growing your own food and reducing your carbon footprint, that's how we know this is pure evil and all about control
Suffice it to say that I think you are wrong with respect to pretty much every conclusion you come to. If you think there is such a thing as absolute freedom in a social group I am very curious as to where you grew up. It has certainly not been my experience. If you are prepared to deny that human activity (yours included) is impacting the climate and more generally the planet’s ability to sustain diverse life despite the data, I won’t try to change your mind by writing in all caps. I will encourage you to look again. The numbers get more convincing pretty much on a daily basis so maybe you will see something that you missed before. The “stealing my freedom is not disingenuous” because it comes from people who are in the “haves”. It is disingenuous because it is not really a call for freedom at all but rather a call for tyranny by a minority at the expense of the rest. I do agree with your conclusion that the world is not fair. I just happen to think that one of the most important things that distinguishes a civilized society from a barbaric one is level to which it manages to make it more fair. Fair does not necessarily translate to equal outcome. It is more about equal opportunity. Hope we can convince you that there is something better about creating a decent world for everyone. Peace.
My "Less Now, More Later" mantra. Now, embrace a Less lifestyle – less heating and cooling (GreenBetween 13°C-30°C/55°F-85°F, https://greenbetween.home.blog), less driving, less flying, less meat-eating, less population-growth (2 children max). Later, we can embrace a More lifestyle made carbon-free by implementation of green technology and infrastructure.
No apologies for my mantra. Minimizing the unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming is about promptly minimizing our greenhouse gas emissions. The mantra focuses on the heavy hitters. Consumption as usual - the alternative to Less - means our greenhouse gas emissions continue. We each decide - be the problem, or be the solution. One or the other. Nobody is entitled to be shielded from reality.
Tenaciously promote the consumer message. Chat with relatives, friends, strangers on the street… . Pitch it at community events - picnics, car shows… . Find files for promotional materials on the Promote page of the above mentioned GreenBetween website.
Expect resistance from many climate activist leaders - they will attempt to actively suppress you for fear your consumer focus will distract from their supplier focus. Sad, the greenhouse gas emissions of demand continue.
Caution against premature reversion to More. Progress implementing green technology and infrastructure (e.g. electric vehicles, heat pumps…) is wonderful and essential, but the need to conserve energy remains while totally-green electric grids are a work-in-progress. And then there is the upfront carbon cost of replacing green infrastructure worn out by extensive use.
Fully agreed, except I think 3°C-20°C is better suited for colder climates. Just fully insulate and heat tape all water pipes and you shouldn't encounter any problems.
13C-30C is chosen because it is centered on our existing "standard" indoor temperature and to achieve maximum minimization of heating and cooling energy with "acceptable" level of comfort. It's a sellable temperature range, but a tough sell when faced with a 20C "existing norm".
Extending a boundary to further minimize heating or cooling energy is admirable. Myself I do 10C, with15C in the bathroom. Just this evening I was chatting with a stranger on the street who doesn't normally heat his house, turning on the heat only to protect the pipes when freezing temperatures are encountered. If you do 3C you certainly will be making a significant further reduction in heating energy, but do make sure you are not cutting it too close on the pipes - heat from the building typically helps to keep the pipes from freezing - typically there is no heat tape.
I encourage you to strive for the 30C cooling limit to minimize your cooling energy. You can do it, just as so many others have found they can do.it as they venture from their formerly entrenched 20C norm.
Asking me to strive for 30C cooling limit is like asking most people to strive for 0C heating limits--it's just too much. Besides, cooling energy from solar is cheap when I need it, whereas heating energy (not from solar) is not. I think 20C is too high of a norm for heating dominated climates, 10C or 15C is far better.
You and Don can argue endlessly about what the appropriate cutoff limits ought to be—3°, 10°, 15°, 20°, 30°—just don't ever be elected to any government position so you can push a mandate supporting that.
The only "unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming" comes from there being 8 billion of us now when decades ago there was only 6 billion, meaning more people live in risk-prone areas.
Deaths from atmospheric disasters (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold, cyclones, tornados) are down 99% since 1900 and that's occurred WITH global warming. I'm not suggesting that there's a causal link, but simply that over time with better innovation, building standards, more people and construction in risk-prone areas, any disaster that hits is going to impact more people and be more costly because of the cumulative effect of inflation and modern "stuff". It's not enough to say that global warming is causing "unprecedented and increasing human suffering" without proper context.
As far as cautioning against the reversion to More—I'm assuming you're referring strictly to modern, Westernized developed nations and not developing economies, because developing economies (and their people) want More.
More meat.
More technology.
More energy.
More stuff.
How are you going to convince them to forego that innate human desire and continue subsisting with Less Than?
"Deaths from atmospheric disasters (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold, cyclones, tornados) are down 99% since 1900 and that's occurred WITH global warming. " That's obviously a flawed metric when we have pre-emptive measures to reduce the risk of death in case of a natural disaster, and also better responses to disasters and medical care compared to 100 years ago. Also, if you look at this: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters
Look at extreme temperature and wildfire deaths. Those seem to be rising recently...
Your point about the difficulty of convincing the developing world to forgo what we in the west have gorged on for generations presents probably the biggest challenge the world faces in trying to prevent catastrophic environmental degradation. Getting our own house and order and providing an example of a better model, as Don Parma notes below, would be a good start but given the numbers involved and the extent to which we have already emptied the global larder it’s hard to see a path that has this one playing out in a happy way.
Yeah, it IS the biggest challenge the world faces because you're asking people to voluntarily reduce their standard of living by at least a factor of ten. People don't do that, not without a war or other major catastrophe. And that's why hand-wringing about what modern Westernized nations should do is laughably stupid, because they are the fatted calf that developing nations would sacrifice so they can develop "equally" but only while the money Westernized nations provide to them keeps coming.
The world has winners and losers; it's neither fair, nor equal. I feel no guilt over something I had no control over, being born in the time and place where I was, nor do I feel a need to atone for something that I didn't do but which allowed the ENTIRETY of the world to benefit from.
"The only "unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming" comes from there being 8 billion of us now…". Looks like you deny global warming being the problem with respect to current human suffering. The same for the future (further global warming, rising sea levels…)?
"How are you going to convince them to forego that innate human desire and continue subsisting with Less Than?". Certainly would help if the developed nations embraced Less Now More Later, reverting to more sustainable lifestyles which the developing nations could adopt as their targets - targets often still far in the distance from their current lifestyles.
Yeah, I deny there's an issue of "current human suffering" from climate change because we've ALWAYS had tropical cyclones, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, storms, and other atmospheric phenomena—and always will.
Tell me, why do you think that those things are getting worse? Is it because the media is constantly pushing news to your inbox, or because the world is richer and we're building more expensive infrastructure in risk-prone areas, or because we're more dispersed and interconnected, or that government policies have allowed risks to grow unnecessarily as in the case of recent Western U.S. wildfires?
Do you think that if we just went net zero that we'd stop having droughts, floods, heatwaves, and the like? If you do, you're a blithering idiot who shouldn't have the right to vote. If you don't, then what is the point to labeling every. single. weather. event. as "unprecedented", "historic", or "crippling" if not for fearmongering?
And what's the basis for believing that the climate SHOULD stay the same, especially when the human population has gone from 1 billion to >8 billion and our beginning instrument record coincides with the anomalously coldest part of the past 11,000 years?
Can people embrace "Less Is More" as a lifestyle? Sure, but that's THEIR choice and is not open to ridicule by anyone if they choose to live differently than you or I. If I want a steak dinner every night of the week, why should that be a concern for you? It's what I like, it's what I want, it's what I will have—government shouldn't have any say in it whatsoever. The same would extend to anyone who wants to lug their toy hauler to the lake or sand dunes or hop on a plane to go on vacation or ANYTHING ELSE.
MY life, MY choices, MY happiness. No one else gets to tell me what should be adequate for making me happy or not. Get it?
Great piece as always! I think one of the problems is that we’ve built our entire economy to be dependent on mining raw virgin materials, manufacturing, and consumption.
I interviewed author Sandra Goldmark on my podcast recently and she has some really smart ideas about creating marketplaces for used goods and the economic activity that can come from offering repairs. Both still generate revenue but are far less destructive. Reducing our clothing consumption requires an attitude shift but also viable alternatives to fast fashion for example.
The first step is to get the data correct, such as carbon emissions from animal farming when you ask people to adopt a plant-based diet. I think that some of the data that we have are vague estimations and not very vetted. For instance, it's possible to have farm operations that are carbon negative. Same with emissions saved with solar panels and other major technologies--those emissions figures need to be open and verified.
It's very optimistic to think that people are going to adopt an extreme minimalist lifestyle at this point in time. Lloyd, the evangelist, can't even do it himself, it seems, such as in the long flight category.
So, we need a plan B. I think a solution will be to try to get as minimal in consumption as possible, and converting to clean energy as much as possible also (while updating and making precise the emissions data for solar panels, which are often produced in China with coal-powered energy). Then, for the remaining fossil fuel that we use, we need a global agreement on offsetting--that all or a high percentage of the carbon is offset at the production stage. This means we also need to get precise with carbon sequestration techniques and data. Thus, the price of offsetting would be built into all goods and services, making them net-zero but also more expensive, thus lowering consumption. All of this will take time, education, scientific excellence, and political agreement.
Or we could just convince the green NIMBY's out there to adopt broadscale nuclear and next-gen nuclear power, because that doesn't produce ANY carbon emissions and runs 24/7/365 at ~90% efficiency without any reliance on whether or not the wind blows or sun shines.
Also, in addition to what Stephen S. writes, nuclear power has embedded carbon along its life cycle. Looking at this reveals it is not true that it produces no emissions. Low emissions, perhaps, but still emissions.
Oh please, stop parsing the extent of "no emissions" vs. "low emissions". The fuel itself has no emissions and is vastly superior both in efficiency and quantity than either wind or solar and WITHOUT being reliant on weather conditions.
VB, for as much as Lloyd talks about upfront carbon, IT ISN'T GOING AWAY. There will always be new stuff being made and by definition, it will have a carbon cost to it.
If we go all in on new nukes, it'll be a few decades before they make a material difference. Meanwhile, the cost of doing so is so absurd, that it'll never happen. Solar, wind and storage are doable now, at scale and at reasonable cost.
I'm not opposed to nukes, but new ones aren't a viable solution. Vogtle in Georgia demonstrates the problem well. More than ten dollars per installed watt explains why nobody is building new large nuclear plants. And the handful on small modular reactors being planned are not going to be any cheaper and use the same technology as Vogtle.
"If we go all in on new nukes, it'll be a few decades before they make a material difference."
Why do you say that? Nuclear has been out of public favor ever since the 1960's and fears of radioactivity ran amok in pop culture—not because of any *actual* risks.
We can standardize power plant designs, we can green-light new modular designs, we can limit environmental reviews and litigation—ALL of which are what drives nuclear cost much higher than it needs to be. If the climate "crisis" is the existential threat that that dementia-addled blowhard in the White House says it is, why aren't we throwing everything we've got in our arsenal towards doing away with carbon emissions—and if France could, for 60+ years, get by with ~80% of their electrical needs from nuclear, why can't the rest of the developed world?
"But the cost! ..." I can hear you saying. Yeah, unnecessary costs overruns. No one is giving a squirt of rat piss that California's "high speed railway" between L.A. and S.F. is now well over $100 BILLION in cost overruns—a cost that is impossible to recover, EVER, in ridership ticket prices. Yet they just keep marching along because ain't it great to finally get high-speed rail as an alternative to flying? (Just ignore that it won't be high-speed.) When you consider the costs of intermittency and variability—both of which NEED to be equaled out by grid operators as well as fossil-fuel backup generation—to say nothing of the selective harm to raptors, bats, and cetaceans (for offshore wind), is wind and solar worth putting our collective eggs into one basket, compared to that of nuclear's 24/7/365 emissions-free power generation?
I don't worry about nuclear safety. Right now, the Federal government is throwing piles of money at small modular reactors. The hope is the NuScale project will prove SMRs are viable.
Should nukes be quicker and cheaper to build in the US? Sure. But they aren't and won't be just because you think so. It wasn't litigation that screwed up Vogtle.
As for Biden, who is your alternative? Trump? One reason why we aren't "throwing everything we've got in our arsenal towards doing away with carbon emissions" is that the Republican party won't accept even the possibility that climate change should be addressed.
And in spite of his age, Biden has done a terrific job. Demented? Compared with the other alternative, he's Einstein.
I am watching the sun rise. Pure joy. The magic of the transforming horizon amazes and lifts me ever time despite my having witnessed it many thousands of times over my 60 years spinning around on this rock. I am enjoying a coffee as I do so not an entirely consumption free activity but pretty close. “Less stuff, more joy” is a wonderful philosophy. I have been working to embrace it for several years now. It is not an easy or quick journey to move away from succumbing to the nagging voice telling me that “if only I had (insert latest manufactured need here) my life would be complete”. The forces fighting that shift every step of the way, internal and external, are strong and know well how to push the buttons of my primitive “grab what you can now it may not be there tomorrow “ mind. And, a casual glance around my place would probably have you questioning my commitment to my new guiding principles. I still have a lot of stuff. But look a little closer and you will notice that almost all of it is not my stuff, it is yours. Things that you tossed aside long before their usefulness expired to chase the latest shiner version or substitute. Look even closer and you may start to notice that much of it is stuff that was built to last and that can be repaired and reused, often for generations. Much of it had already served at least one generation before it found its way to me. Look even closer and you will start to see that much of it was chosen because it will help allow me to get to a place where I and those I share this place with will need to consume less in the future. I make no claim to the moral high ground. I have a lot of making up to the world to do before I will have paid my debt to the future but I am trying to be better. The remarkable thing I have found is that with each step I take toward the idea that there is such a thing as enough I find more joy, not less. Less time chasing stuff leaves a lot more time for watching sunrises.
Just saw this, thank you.
Thank you for putting this so beautifully. Much better than my knee-jerk reaction of "Wait, not all clutter is new purchases. Almost all my furniture, dishes and other kitchen tools, clothing, and even many of the books are all second hand. Home grown food is stored in jars and takes tools to grow and to process. Containers for plants are scavanged from the curb when others discard them. All that can lead to useful clutter. Some "minimalist" homes seem to stay that way by exporting their clutter elsewhere." You've said it in a much better way, though.
Thank you for the kind words Eve.
"almost all of it is not my stuff, it is yours." We are kindred spirits. Wishing you more success then I am achieving in controlling the clutter.
I know your struggle well. The challenge of nudging a mind evolved over millennia to get while the getting is good to move toward a more sustainable place is hard to underestimate. My advice, rejoice in the small successes, learn from the setbacks and never stop trying to be a little better. My calendar reminds me each Friday morning to “ be better for your kids”. I don’t always rise to the challenge but I do so more often, I think, than I did before I started thinking hard about what being “better “ really means. The more I contemplate the idea the more I seem to move towards a pretty simple notion that my parents taught me by example about being a guest anywhere- try to leave the place for the next guests in at least as good shape as you found it and, ideally, even a little nicer. All the best to you.
Less Stuff, More Wealth! My dad was not an environmentalist, but he taught me the value of not internalizing the consumerist culture. He was an immigrant who believed in saving, ie he would pay cash for something like a car which loses value the second you buy it. And when I was growing up I realized our consumerist friends and family were not any happier. And now I have the ability to work less buy what I really want have money for an emergency and no consumer debt.
"The most important lesson of the report is its emphasis on consumption rather than production."
OK, but if everyone consumes less, not only will production be less but there will also be fewer jobs—and in an overleveraged world in excess of $330 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities that will eventually need to be paid off, where is the revenue going to come from to pay the taxes that feeds the beast of government and its entitlements?
Lloyd, you say that no one is telling you that you HAVE to give up hamburgers and new pants, but we all know that governments around the world are clearly working towards making those things more expensive as well as scarce. It will be imposed through one form of coercive fiat or another because the ONLY way that we collectively meet our 1.5°C goals is by draconian tyrannical diktat, no exceptions.
You also write that JUMP says, “Live for joy, not stuff" but it still takes stuff to enjoy doing things that EACH of us enjoy, in our own way. I live in Phoenix; every weekend driving on the freeways I see quite a number of people hauling their boat out of the city towards Lake Pleasant, Lake Powell, or Lake Havasu; I see a good number of others that are hauling their sand buggies and campers to rip it through the dunes of the Imperial Sand Dunes with friends and family. Just think—all that embodied carbon in those boats, sand buggies, RV's, trucks, and toy haulers, to say nothing of the gas to get there (because EV trucks aren't going to cut it with the mountainous terrain) or the many other things like food, perhaps lodging, safety gear, and more. Those are but two small examples of what could be seen as "unnecessary" indulgences that should be banned (sorry, "gotten rid of") yet for those people it bring them GREAT joy to have all that "stuff" and use it as frequently as possible.
And that's the crux of the issue—how do you not only define what joy is, but also convince others to sign on to your own personal vision of what joy should look like? Everyone is different; everyone is unique; everyone has their own interests, goals, dreams, and ideals of happiness. How, then, can anyone tell everyone that their happiness is wrong unless you force them to comply through coercion, either direct or indirect by way of regulation? Are we not free people? Yet every day we read about there being less freedom thanks to government intrusion in the form of regulation compliance: energy production, light bulbs, gas stoves, A/C, water heaters, ceiling fans, meatless school meals ... the list goes on. What of the market and building a better mousetrap that will beat a path to those winners because they have the superior product? I guess if you remove any alternatives, then the free market isn't really free—it's going to be made up of companies that sell exactly what the government tells them they're allowed to sell, i.e. communist dictatorship.
Having said all that, let me thank you for keeping comments open here on Carbon Upfront! because TreeHugger management are a bunch of weak, echo chamber loving wussies and eliminated all comments. They've lost all respectability ever since new management did the shake-up last year, and it's showing. It's a shallower, uglier version of HGTV.com and I am sorry for their incompetence affecting you and Sami and others.
"OK, but if everyone consumes less, not only will production be less but there will also be fewer jobs—and in an overleveraged world in excess of $330 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities that will eventually need to be paid off, where is the revenue going to come from to pay the taxes that feeds the beast of government and its entitlements?" So $330 trillion is owned to... someone? Who? Why do you care about this made up crap that has no bearing on actual reality? We are not slaves to our financial institutions. This is something we've created. There are enough resources that everyone can live fine. People don't need to be working 40 hours a week. But you've lead some oligarchs hoard all the wealth and force people to work longer and longer despite automation.
I think the word “freedom” needs to be assigned a time out. When you are the last one standing and no one will follow you are free to do whatever you please. Until that time we share a world and need to learn how to do so in a way that balances the immediate survival needs of those of here now against the rights of those to come in perpetuity. That means necessarily giving up some freedom at an individual level. We accept this without question for myriad things but when that duty extends to giving up our “stuff” we whine like spoiled children. This despite the reality that if we had not been bombarded with marketing from birth telling us we need this stuff to be happy we could have lived contentedly without it in the first place. We have been brainwashed relentlessly for generations now to dramatically exaggerate the utility, psychic or otherwise, of stuff and ignore the cost. Our economy is built on the premise that the world’s resources and its ability to neutralize the harmful impacts of our waste are inexhaustible and that therefore we are “free” to do as we please. We now know with a very high a level of certainty that this is a false premise and will most certainly lead to a massive amount of hurt if we don’t find a new way soon. They joy that all those people towing their boats to the lake experience is possible because we have allowed them to ignore (externalize) much of the true cost. When we challenge them about that cost and ask them to pay something for the damage their “joy” inflicts upon everyone else, here and to come, the “you are stealing my freedom” defence raises its disingenuous voice (guided notably with methodical precision by those with the most to gain from maintaining business as usual). There has never been any such thing as a free market economy. It is a deliberately misleading monicker designed to obscure the reality that we having been borrowing heavily against the future to fund an insatiable greed now. Time to start paying back our debt. It will mean having to find new (or rediscover old) sources of joy, ones that won’t impose misery on those we share the place with now and all those to come. Don’t worry, there are plenty to choose from.
"Until that time we share a world and need to learn how to do so in a way that balances the immediate survival needs of those of here now against the rights of those to come in perpetuity. That means NECESSARILY GIVING UP SOME FREEDOM AT AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL." (emphasis added)
This is an utter crock of bullshit. My using an incandescent light bulb in the U.S. does not mean someone in Madagascar is unable to eat an extra cup of rice; my using an ICE car to go on monthly road trips does not mean someone in Chad suffers a heatwave. The belief that EVERY atmospheric event is now indicative of climate change is climate fearmongering prostitution, pure and simple. Even if the world went zero emissions (not net, but true zero) and after 1000+ years of CO2 being sequestered, we're going to STILL be dealing with tropical cyclones, heatwaves, floods, droughts, freezes, and every other atmospheric phenomenon in the SAME quantity and SAME intensity as we have today. Therefore, the "increased" damage being ascribed to climate change is failing to take into account our higher global GDP, more expensive infrastructure being built in risk-prone locations, inflation, higher population numbers, and policies that result in unintended consequences [think California's no-burn forest management policy that allowed massive build-up of tree detritus that leads to higher fuel loads and bigger wildfires.]
If you believe that the "you're stealing my freedom" defense is disingenuous because it benefits those with the most to gain from maintaining the status quo, then why is it that you won't label as "disingenuous" all those renewable energy projects that cannot make a go of it on their own, require MASSIVE direct subsidies that end up costing the consumer MORE money (not less, as promised!), and rely on FF-backup power to meet contractually obligated deliveries? Aren't RE project managers selling the public a lie because they're not accounting for decommissioning and disposal costs, mining and refinement costs (pollution, monetary, and environmental), human rights abuses from children in the Congo mining cobalt, and other disgraces?
First truth to understand: the world is not fair.
Second truth to understand: the world is not equal.
Believing that we can ALL be equal is both a fool's mantra and fool's errand. Taxing carbon is an idiotic idea, especially when there is a ton of money in the form of foreign aid being given to developing nations in the form of food, medical supplies, grants, and low-cost loans. Are they going to pay for the carbon taxes on all that, or are the countries who are providing them? And having government diktats control freedom of choice in the market is no different than Stalinist Russia—we all know how well that turned out, just as has every communist country's quest to make everyone "equal". The problem is that it's never equal to the richer, but to the poorer; it also means that the government could have, by now, stepped in and set some kind of minimum standards for RE projects—like with recycling end-of-life modules—but they haven't. So I'll ask the obvious: WHY NOT? Is the free market OK with dealing with finding a solution to that, but government fiat is required to impose what kind of stove, water heater, HVAC, and ceiling fan I have in my house?
Don't make me laugh. If you want to live with less, live with less. That is a CHOICE that YOU make and no one else. That's all I want to be given to me: the freedom for me to make MY OWN CHOICES, right or wrong, without asking for permission from feckless, corrupt government.
"The belief that EVERY atmospheric event is now indicative of climate change is climate fearmongering prostitution, pure and simple. " Remain a delusional moron then. Yeah somehow despite extreme weather events becoming more common, there is nothing to see here...
I would swap out all the energy efficiency regulations for a carbon tax in a heartbeat so that everyone can consume or not according to their own preferences (e.g. living in an urban passive house while owning a Dodge Demon that's occasionally driven) and companies are freer to innovate. Unfortunately, people would rather deal with reduced choices, red tape and time-wasting paperwork than pay cold, hard cash.
In my experience, another impediment to a truly free market is the dead hand of tradition and "we've always done it this way" types of thinking, which is all too common in the trades. It's hard to innovate when everyone thinks you're crazy and doesn't give you the time of day.
A huge benefit to a revenue neutral carbon tax would be to allow people to operate their boats, eat lots of meat, drive dune buggies, fly all over the place, etc. but they'd have to pay for the environmental costs of doing it. People who don't do such things or can't afford them would at least derive some financial benefit.
"People who don't do such things or CAN'T AFFORD THEM [emphasis added] would at least derive some financial benefit."
So beggars get to not only be choosers, but get to benefit from someone else's tax burden? How does that make any sense?
If you don't have money to buy what you want, or need, you do one of two things: go without, or seek charity. If I max out my credit cards, does Visa keep allowing me to charge? No, they cut me off. Why the blue hell would we just give to people who can't afford WHAT THEY WANT because of a misguided principle of equity and equality???
That's a communist's mindset. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes! This is what I want to be doing more intentionally. I hate that we have so much stuff and that we keep buying more. I want to buy less and be more intentional about what we buy. And that can actually mean living better.
The usual list of consumptions to reduce but "having fewer kids" no-where to be seen on it.
Nobody forced anyone to get a COVID 19 vaccine - isn't that the line?
There has been zero marketing for increasing natural health, growing your own food and reducing your carbon footprint, that's how we know this is pure evil and all about control
Suffice it to say that I think you are wrong with respect to pretty much every conclusion you come to. If you think there is such a thing as absolute freedom in a social group I am very curious as to where you grew up. It has certainly not been my experience. If you are prepared to deny that human activity (yours included) is impacting the climate and more generally the planet’s ability to sustain diverse life despite the data, I won’t try to change your mind by writing in all caps. I will encourage you to look again. The numbers get more convincing pretty much on a daily basis so maybe you will see something that you missed before. The “stealing my freedom is not disingenuous” because it comes from people who are in the “haves”. It is disingenuous because it is not really a call for freedom at all but rather a call for tyranny by a minority at the expense of the rest. I do agree with your conclusion that the world is not fair. I just happen to think that one of the most important things that distinguishes a civilized society from a barbaric one is level to which it manages to make it more fair. Fair does not necessarily translate to equal outcome. It is more about equal opportunity. Hope we can convince you that there is something better about creating a decent world for everyone. Peace.
My "Less Now, More Later" mantra. Now, embrace a Less lifestyle – less heating and cooling (GreenBetween 13°C-30°C/55°F-85°F, https://greenbetween.home.blog), less driving, less flying, less meat-eating, less population-growth (2 children max). Later, we can embrace a More lifestyle made carbon-free by implementation of green technology and infrastructure.
No apologies for my mantra. Minimizing the unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming is about promptly minimizing our greenhouse gas emissions. The mantra focuses on the heavy hitters. Consumption as usual - the alternative to Less - means our greenhouse gas emissions continue. We each decide - be the problem, or be the solution. One or the other. Nobody is entitled to be shielded from reality.
Tenaciously promote the consumer message. Chat with relatives, friends, strangers on the street… . Pitch it at community events - picnics, car shows… . Find files for promotional materials on the Promote page of the above mentioned GreenBetween website.
Expect resistance from many climate activist leaders - they will attempt to actively suppress you for fear your consumer focus will distract from their supplier focus. Sad, the greenhouse gas emissions of demand continue.
Caution against premature reversion to More. Progress implementing green technology and infrastructure (e.g. electric vehicles, heat pumps…) is wonderful and essential, but the need to conserve energy remains while totally-green electric grids are a work-in-progress. And then there is the upfront carbon cost of replacing green infrastructure worn out by extensive use.
Fully agreed, except I think 3°C-20°C is better suited for colder climates. Just fully insulate and heat tape all water pipes and you shouldn't encounter any problems.
Wait, what? 3°C-20°C for colder climates?
You WANT people to be miserable all. the. time? Do you not know that cold kills 9x more than heat does in those colder climates?
Hi Haile,
13C-30C is chosen because it is centered on our existing "standard" indoor temperature and to achieve maximum minimization of heating and cooling energy with "acceptable" level of comfort. It's a sellable temperature range, but a tough sell when faced with a 20C "existing norm".
Extending a boundary to further minimize heating or cooling energy is admirable. Myself I do 10C, with15C in the bathroom. Just this evening I was chatting with a stranger on the street who doesn't normally heat his house, turning on the heat only to protect the pipes when freezing temperatures are encountered. If you do 3C you certainly will be making a significant further reduction in heating energy, but do make sure you are not cutting it too close on the pipes - heat from the building typically helps to keep the pipes from freezing - typically there is no heat tape.
I encourage you to strive for the 30C cooling limit to minimize your cooling energy. You can do it, just as so many others have found they can do.it as they venture from their formerly entrenched 20C norm.
Don
Asking me to strive for 30C cooling limit is like asking most people to strive for 0C heating limits--it's just too much. Besides, cooling energy from solar is cheap when I need it, whereas heating energy (not from solar) is not. I think 20C is too high of a norm for heating dominated climates, 10C or 15C is far better.
You and Don can argue endlessly about what the appropriate cutoff limits ought to be—3°, 10°, 15°, 20°, 30°—just don't ever be elected to any government position so you can push a mandate supporting that.
The only government mandates I would pursue would be:
1. Getting rid of any historic preservation rule/law that gets in the way of deep energy retrofits
2. Requiring any jurisdiction that has minimum temperatures for rental properties to also have maximum temperatures. Having neither is fine.
I'm just sick of the "too hot is fine, too cold is an emergency" bias that a lot of the green building community has.
The only "unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming" comes from there being 8 billion of us now when decades ago there was only 6 billion, meaning more people live in risk-prone areas.
Deaths from atmospheric disasters (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold, cyclones, tornados) are down 99% since 1900 and that's occurred WITH global warming. I'm not suggesting that there's a causal link, but simply that over time with better innovation, building standards, more people and construction in risk-prone areas, any disaster that hits is going to impact more people and be more costly because of the cumulative effect of inflation and modern "stuff". It's not enough to say that global warming is causing "unprecedented and increasing human suffering" without proper context.
As far as cautioning against the reversion to More—I'm assuming you're referring strictly to modern, Westernized developed nations and not developing economies, because developing economies (and their people) want More.
More meat.
More technology.
More energy.
More stuff.
How are you going to convince them to forego that innate human desire and continue subsisting with Less Than?
"Deaths from atmospheric disasters (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold, cyclones, tornados) are down 99% since 1900 and that's occurred WITH global warming. " That's obviously a flawed metric when we have pre-emptive measures to reduce the risk of death in case of a natural disaster, and also better responses to disasters and medical care compared to 100 years ago. Also, if you look at this: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters
Look at extreme temperature and wildfire deaths. Those seem to be rising recently...
Your point about the difficulty of convincing the developing world to forgo what we in the west have gorged on for generations presents probably the biggest challenge the world faces in trying to prevent catastrophic environmental degradation. Getting our own house and order and providing an example of a better model, as Don Parma notes below, would be a good start but given the numbers involved and the extent to which we have already emptied the global larder it’s hard to see a path that has this one playing out in a happy way.
Yeah, it IS the biggest challenge the world faces because you're asking people to voluntarily reduce their standard of living by at least a factor of ten. People don't do that, not without a war or other major catastrophe. And that's why hand-wringing about what modern Westernized nations should do is laughably stupid, because they are the fatted calf that developing nations would sacrifice so they can develop "equally" but only while the money Westernized nations provide to them keeps coming.
The world has winners and losers; it's neither fair, nor equal. I feel no guilt over something I had no control over, being born in the time and place where I was, nor do I feel a need to atone for something that I didn't do but which allowed the ENTIRETY of the world to benefit from.
Some people will do some things, idiots like you won't.
"The only "unprecedented and increasing human suffering of global warming" comes from there being 8 billion of us now…". Looks like you deny global warming being the problem with respect to current human suffering. The same for the future (further global warming, rising sea levels…)?
"How are you going to convince them to forego that innate human desire and continue subsisting with Less Than?". Certainly would help if the developed nations embraced Less Now More Later, reverting to more sustainable lifestyles which the developing nations could adopt as their targets - targets often still far in the distance from their current lifestyles.
Yeah, I deny there's an issue of "current human suffering" from climate change because we've ALWAYS had tropical cyclones, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, storms, and other atmospheric phenomena—and always will.
Tell me, why do you think that those things are getting worse? Is it because the media is constantly pushing news to your inbox, or because the world is richer and we're building more expensive infrastructure in risk-prone areas, or because we're more dispersed and interconnected, or that government policies have allowed risks to grow unnecessarily as in the case of recent Western U.S. wildfires?
Do you think that if we just went net zero that we'd stop having droughts, floods, heatwaves, and the like? If you do, you're a blithering idiot who shouldn't have the right to vote. If you don't, then what is the point to labeling every. single. weather. event. as "unprecedented", "historic", or "crippling" if not for fearmongering?
And what's the basis for believing that the climate SHOULD stay the same, especially when the human population has gone from 1 billion to >8 billion and our beginning instrument record coincides with the anomalously coldest part of the past 11,000 years?
Can people embrace "Less Is More" as a lifestyle? Sure, but that's THEIR choice and is not open to ridicule by anyone if they choose to live differently than you or I. If I want a steak dinner every night of the week, why should that be a concern for you? It's what I like, it's what I want, it's what I will have—government shouldn't have any say in it whatsoever. The same would extend to anyone who wants to lug their toy hauler to the lake or sand dunes or hop on a plane to go on vacation or ANYTHING ELSE.
MY life, MY choices, MY happiness. No one else gets to tell me what should be adequate for making me happy or not. Get it?
Great piece as always! I think one of the problems is that we’ve built our entire economy to be dependent on mining raw virgin materials, manufacturing, and consumption.
I interviewed author Sandra Goldmark on my podcast recently and she has some really smart ideas about creating marketplaces for used goods and the economic activity that can come from offering repairs. Both still generate revenue but are far less destructive. Reducing our clothing consumption requires an attitude shift but also viable alternatives to fast fashion for example.
https://heathracela.substack.com/p/106-author-sandra-goldmark-on-fixing#details
The first step is to get the data correct, such as carbon emissions from animal farming when you ask people to adopt a plant-based diet. I think that some of the data that we have are vague estimations and not very vetted. For instance, it's possible to have farm operations that are carbon negative. Same with emissions saved with solar panels and other major technologies--those emissions figures need to be open and verified.
It's very optimistic to think that people are going to adopt an extreme minimalist lifestyle at this point in time. Lloyd, the evangelist, can't even do it himself, it seems, such as in the long flight category.
So, we need a plan B. I think a solution will be to try to get as minimal in consumption as possible, and converting to clean energy as much as possible also (while updating and making precise the emissions data for solar panels, which are often produced in China with coal-powered energy). Then, for the remaining fossil fuel that we use, we need a global agreement on offsetting--that all or a high percentage of the carbon is offset at the production stage. This means we also need to get precise with carbon sequestration techniques and data. Thus, the price of offsetting would be built into all goods and services, making them net-zero but also more expensive, thus lowering consumption. All of this will take time, education, scientific excellence, and political agreement.
Or we could just convince the green NIMBY's out there to adopt broadscale nuclear and next-gen nuclear power, because that doesn't produce ANY carbon emissions and runs 24/7/365 at ~90% efficiency without any reliance on whether or not the wind blows or sun shines.
Also, in addition to what Stephen S. writes, nuclear power has embedded carbon along its life cycle. Looking at this reveals it is not true that it produces no emissions. Low emissions, perhaps, but still emissions.
Oh please, stop parsing the extent of "no emissions" vs. "low emissions". The fuel itself has no emissions and is vastly superior both in efficiency and quantity than either wind or solar and WITHOUT being reliant on weather conditions.
VB, for as much as Lloyd talks about upfront carbon, IT ISN'T GOING AWAY. There will always be new stuff being made and by definition, it will have a carbon cost to it.
These people just wish to sweep that away.
If we go all in on new nukes, it'll be a few decades before they make a material difference. Meanwhile, the cost of doing so is so absurd, that it'll never happen. Solar, wind and storage are doable now, at scale and at reasonable cost.
I'm not opposed to nukes, but new ones aren't a viable solution. Vogtle in Georgia demonstrates the problem well. More than ten dollars per installed watt explains why nobody is building new large nuclear plants. And the handful on small modular reactors being planned are not going to be any cheaper and use the same technology as Vogtle.
"If we go all in on new nukes, it'll be a few decades before they make a material difference."
Why do you say that? Nuclear has been out of public favor ever since the 1960's and fears of radioactivity ran amok in pop culture—not because of any *actual* risks.
We can standardize power plant designs, we can green-light new modular designs, we can limit environmental reviews and litigation—ALL of which are what drives nuclear cost much higher than it needs to be. If the climate "crisis" is the existential threat that that dementia-addled blowhard in the White House says it is, why aren't we throwing everything we've got in our arsenal towards doing away with carbon emissions—and if France could, for 60+ years, get by with ~80% of their electrical needs from nuclear, why can't the rest of the developed world?
"But the cost! ..." I can hear you saying. Yeah, unnecessary costs overruns. No one is giving a squirt of rat piss that California's "high speed railway" between L.A. and S.F. is now well over $100 BILLION in cost overruns—a cost that is impossible to recover, EVER, in ridership ticket prices. Yet they just keep marching along because ain't it great to finally get high-speed rail as an alternative to flying? (Just ignore that it won't be high-speed.) When you consider the costs of intermittency and variability—both of which NEED to be equaled out by grid operators as well as fossil-fuel backup generation—to say nothing of the selective harm to raptors, bats, and cetaceans (for offshore wind), is wind and solar worth putting our collective eggs into one basket, compared to that of nuclear's 24/7/365 emissions-free power generation?
I don't worry about nuclear safety. Right now, the Federal government is throwing piles of money at small modular reactors. The hope is the NuScale project will prove SMRs are viable.
Should nukes be quicker and cheaper to build in the US? Sure. But they aren't and won't be just because you think so. It wasn't litigation that screwed up Vogtle.
As for Biden, who is your alternative? Trump? One reason why we aren't "throwing everything we've got in our arsenal towards doing away with carbon emissions" is that the Republican party won't accept even the possibility that climate change should be addressed.
And in spite of his age, Biden has done a terrific job. Demented? Compared with the other alternative, he's Einstein.
>> when you ask people to adopt a plant-based diet
That's the problem - it seems, more and more, that it won't be merely an "ask".
BTW, have you watched as the fake meat sales and stocks are tanking? So much for that "voluntary revolution in diets".