[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Firstly, this isn't about ethics, it's about emissions. You aren't "bad" for driving an SUV.


Second, it's simple math. Transportation is about 14% of world emissions. There's about 1.5 billion light duty vehicles accounting for accounting for a little less than half of that, so let's say about 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions or 3.2 billion metric tons of CO2. On average in North America, a passenger car emits about 2.4 million metric tons per vehicle. The entire F1 claims it produces 276,000 metric tons, and about three quarters is the set up and logistics.

Lastly, F1 is an entertainment product that produces 0.00007% of the world's CO2 emissions. Your SUV is about 1/100000th of that. At the end of the day, no one needs to feel guilty because that's how the system is set up and guilt is not a good force for change anyways. Regardless, we need to decrease emissions from a policy level because asking individuals to change their habits is a surefire way to not change anything. Why do you think the BP used a marketing firm in the earl 2000's to invent individual "carbon footprints", or beverage container manufacturer's funded reduce, reuse, recycle ads when government was looking at bottle deposits? If the problem is that of individuals, then we don't pass policy that puts ownership of change on the markets that need to change. It's the very same reason that shutting down Oilsands production isn't going to curb demand, only make it more expensive. At the end of the day these are systemic issues needing systemic change (meaning policy shifts) and not just guilt people into changing. Why should you sell your gas vehicle and buy and electric one just to be a better person? That's stupid

This is a very good post so I'm quoting it