Illusion Of Climate Change

topic: evergreen, personal philosophy

When talking about the illusion of climate change, I want to begin by saying that Climate Change is a very real phenomenon that we as a society should be more worried about.

The illusion is, of course, not about what is actually happening, but rather the cause of the phenomenon. It is rather well known that the main cause of the worst effects of climate change are everyday people, driving to work, drinking coffee, and using straws… or is it?

Given this fact, there is nothing more to do than try to recycle your plastics (which doesn’t really work, and that isn’t your fault), and bake your own bread, or whatever … or is there?

The Real Causes of CO2 emissions

Contrary to what the media in general would have you believe (Seriously, look at this article to see how Packaging Conglomerates teamed up to shift the blame to consumers, away from industry), the main culprit of global contamination is not, and hasn’t been private citizens. In fact, looking at the graphs, while residential CO2 emissions have remained stable since the 90’s, energy production at around 1.8 Gt of CO2, energy production has exploded from slightly over 20 Gt of CO2 to almost 35 Gt of CO2 in 30 years, a 75% increase. This is something that no amount of recycling will be able to solve.

The largest culprits for CO2 emissions are (in order), Energy and Heat production (13.98 Gt), transport (8.25 Gt), and industry (6.15 Gt).

This is something which is easy to find, but most people don’t know. While people are collectively responsible (i.e. who we choose as government leaders), we are not personally responsible (the cause isn’t that most people don’t recycle).

Wealth

The top 1% of people pollute more than TWICE the bottom 50%:

The richest 10% of the worlds population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone. The poorest 50% (c. 3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget; The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population; The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions, while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50%

The ONLY way to come close to stopping global warming is to implement policies (such as carbon taxes and reparations taxes) that limit the impact of the richest people on the rest of us. I really recommend you read the article to see the impact of wealth inequality on climate change.

Country

If you don’t live within the U.S. or China, chances are, even as a country you don’t contribute much to climate change. China accounts for 28% by itself (almost a third), the U.S 15%, and almost every other industrialized nation hovering around 1 or 2% of world-wide CO2 emissions. 43% of worldwide emissions are due to 2 countries. Again, this is not to say that other countries don’t play a role, only to point out the biggest players, and who should be pressured into taking larger actions.

On a per capita basis, China is doing better than the U.S., but nowhere near as well as india, which has a similarly-sized population.

What YOU can actually do.

So although the point of this article is to say that most of the things that most people do to combat climate change aren’t effective, that isn’t to say that no actions a person can take are effective, or not to do things such as recycle. Rather, the point is that while these actions are helpful, it’s more useful to invest your energy in other places. Here are a couple tips:

Personal Measures

Avoid using planes as much as possible, and use public transport as much as possible. During times of pandemic, this isn’t feasible, but it helps when possible. Try to reduce personal waste production. More than that, focus on political actions. Get Righteous.

Political Actions

The main response to these large-scale systemic problems has to be political. It’s pretty much impossible for small-scale personal actions to have a meaningful effect, when we have no personal control over the largest polluters (i.e. corporations).

• Learn about Local/National Politics

  There’s no feasible way to create a lasting effect in politics, if you don’t know what the main problems are. This is relatively difficult, given the current state of media. A good approximation is going to be in my a guide to being human.

  • I’m currently in the middle of this process, learning about mexican politics.

• Join organizations

  Once you’ve identified a suitable problem (e.g. lax environmental regulations) a good move is generally to join or even create a group centered around this issue.

  • Take part in events such as marches or protests.

    This is generally a good way to gain attention to your cause, and effect political change.

What Countries Should Do

If you’re in a position of power, or would like suggestions on important climate change topics, here are a couple pointers.

• Renewable energy

  • Nuclear

    Nuclear energy has been demonized, but it is one of the more realistic solutions. It is one of the few (another notable example is geothermal) energy sources capable of delivering constant energy.

  • Solar
  • Wind

The carbon tax

In a similar vein to the waste tax, the carbon tax seeks to pin the responsibility of the effects of contamination on the organizations that produce it. It shouldn’t be society’s role to clean up the effects of a company’s contamination. Implementations such as the one in california, although not perfect by any means, have funded great environmental projects through their credits system.

Waste tax

Instead of pinning the responsibility of disposing the waste that products generate on the consumer, a waste tax would seek to penalize companies that produce waste-producing products. Large packages, or single-use items are an incredible source of contamination. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay to dispose of items safely (effectively paying twice for the product). The onus should be on companies, in order to incentivize them to reduce waste, and promote safe disposal practices.

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Bibliography:

Works Cited

IEA (2020), Global Energy Review 2020, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020

Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Muntean, M., Schaaf, E., Solazzo, E., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Olivier, J.G.J., Vignati, E., Fossil CO2 emissions of allworld countries - 2020 Report, EUR 30358 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2020, ISBN 978-92-76-21515-8,doi:10.2760/143674, JRC121460.

The International Energy. (2021) Each Country’s Share of CO2 Emissions | Union of Concerned Scientists. Retrieved February 01, 2021, from https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions

Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery - mb-confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf. (2021) Retrieved February 01, 2021, from https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2020/09/24/carbon-emissions-of-richest-1-more-than-double-than-those-of-the-poorest-50/?sh=5b2208d03c98

Additional Reading

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

BP 2018-2019 data of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html, June 2020.

IEA energy balance statistics for 1970-2015 (2017) (http://www.iea.org/).

Olivier, J.G.J. and Peters, J.A.H.W.: Trend in Global CO2 and GHG Emissions – 2020 Report, PBL Report, forthcoming, 2020.

IMF/WEO data of annual GDP growth for missing data in the WB dataset for recent years. World Economic Outlook Update April 2019. International Monetary Fund, 2019.

UNDP: population statistics (2019), World Population Prospects (WPP), The 2019 Revision Report United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2019.

WB data of GDP (expressed in 1000 US dollar, and adjusted to the Purchasing Power Parity of 2017) for 1990-2019, World Bank, July 2020.