[zamler]

Originally Posted by Itse

The dumb thing about the incoming global climate crisis is that despite what many are saying, massively cutting down on emissions would not even be hard. No new technology is needed.

There's really only seven major things that need to get done.

- Shut down all coal mines. Build nuclear energy and renewables to replace them. All the necessary technology exists for this. Sure it's expensive, but way cheaper than dealing with climate change. Easily doable within a decade.

Really? How do you know this? Based on what metrics? I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong but my first instinct is, no way that is viable.

- End subsidies for meat and dairy production and fossil fuels. Transfer those same subsidies to low carbon footprint food production and renewable energy. Doable with a few years.

What is low carbon footprint food production? Got an example of this? What types of renewable energy specifically?

- Build tons of public transport and make it cheap and high quality. It makes for good cities anyway, and basically pays itself back when you don't have to spend the same money on new roads for new cars.

100% agreed here in fact I'd take it a step further I think public transit should be free.

- Make fossil fuel cars things you can only buy with a special permit, explaining why you need it. Doable within a decade.

This would be land mine type legislation can you imagine the outcry if person A got a permit and person B didn't, because reasons?

- Put in place consumer protection laws that require all household appliances to last at least 10 years, all clothes at least 2 years and all electronics at least 4 years. These are all technically trivial requirements to meet. Costs no public money. Would make most people happier, because most people don't like shopping for new things anyway.

This would be government way overstepping their bounds, mandating to such a high degree how companies choose to make their products. Can't support this.

- Make it illegal for companies to destroy unsold, unused products. No public costs. Some products would become more expensive, some would become way cheaper because there would be a lot of really cheap discounts as companies dump unsold products.

Why do companies destroy unsold products? I'm thinking mostly because they don't meet regulations?

- Plant a lot of new trees. As far as fighting climate change goes, this is an extremely cheap method. If you JUST DO THIS, BUT A LOT, you could make a MASSIVE difference.

I think everyone can agree with this.

Notice that none of these are consumer level decisions. None of these require any new technology. Some would actually be obviously beneficial to consumers, and on a personal few people would need to make massive adjustments. All of this is doable within a decade.

Quite a lot of it does require massive increase in regulation and government enforcement. Slippery slope for me.

A lot of people would have to change their diet for budget reasons, but spoken as someone who has cut down his meat use to maybe 1-2 a week, it's trivial, and this is speaking as a single parent who also has to feed a teenage athlete who is a fairly picky eater. It was about a two year process of slowly cutting down on meat, getting used to new products and coming up with some new go-to recipes, but it was never really a major chore. There already exists a ton of good high-protein choices that are perfectly fine for everyday cooking. It's just a, question of availability and price, both of which would be fixed with a change in where agricultural subsidies are sent.

Industrial scale meat production is extremely resource intensive and is responsible for massive destruction of natural environments. That's all I how to say about that.