which of these would you be most unwilling to give up in order to help decrease carbon emissions and mitigate climate change

cheap air travel - tho i haven't flown in over 5 years and i hate flying, there are too many places i'd still like to visit some day

don't have air con or a vehicle, no heat in winter would be hard but i've lived in pretty cold places and have no qualms about wrapping up indoors

i've lived my whole life in the great lakes & northeast regions of the US, i think i'd say heat during the winter

When the heat goes out here, people die, so heat.
xp yup

most of the places i've lived in have been 100-year-old homes that are drafty w/ poor insulation too

air conditioning during the summer is a nice luxury on a few nights every summer but i've gone without it before, it's no big deal

also if i didn't have heat in my home i would not get laid between november and april tbh

I misunderstood the poll and voted car. But I actually meant heat in the winter as the most unwilling to give up.

I'm Minnesotan. Heat.

Heat in the winter by a long shot.

cheap air travel - tho i haven't flown in over 5 years and i hate flying, there are too many places i'd still like to visit some day

don't have air con or a vehicle, no heat in winter would be hard but i've lived in pretty cold places and have no qualms about wrapping up indoors

^^^^^^^^^

... I live in London, how could can it get?

... how cold can it get?

could use electric heating if it was clean electricity anyway

Heat during the winter is the only one of these I currently have and use, but it seems like the obvious answer.

Living without heat in the winter is not really an option in a place where it can often get below -20C during the winter.

I don't have any air conditioning in my house (this past summer was the first one where I actually wished I had it). Living without a car would be doable where I live. I don't really fly that often, so a lack of cheap air travel wouldn't really affect me that much.

the hawaii perspective: all of these are trivial luxuries except for cheap air travel

Most houses in denmark have district heating so not quite sure giving that up would help much

How harmful are those planes?

And why isn't "meat" on this list?

what, no option for 'life'? death is the quickest and most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint iirc

And why isn't "meat" on this list?

― niels, Thursday, September 29, 2016 1:16 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark

agriculture accounts for 9%, less than the others https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

also - didn't want to make it easy for vegetarians to feel good!

I hate flying, easily that

tbf I p much never use heat or air-conditioning at my home. no control over my office building's shitty HVAC system, unfortunately. Tons can be done on the efficiency end for HVAC as well - not so true for air travel

I've a hunch that wording it "most unwilling" instead of "least willing" is going to trip up a lot of people and cause many votes opposite to what the poll intended.

Where I live air conditioning is not very necessary. Cheap air travel means nothing to me because all my family live relatively nearby and the Pacific Northwest is a fantastic place to vacation. Presumably, losing a personal vehicle would be quite a blow, unless such a loss implied similar losses across society as a matter of policy, in which case the demand for mass transit alternatives would be instantaneous and deafening. If so, I could accede to it.

By the process of elimination, I'll vote heat in winter. Widespread wood burning for heat in an urban area would be disastrous for air quality.

luv 2 drive with AC on full blast

nixonian fire burning in the passenger footwell

'meat' woulda been an interesting option here

I could figure out how to live without pretty much every other machine or piece of technology but A/C is non-negotiable.

oh I misread this as MOST willing! I would totally give up air travel and p much all this other shit, tbh - personal motor vehicle seems like the hardest but if there were decent public transit everywhere (bullet trains to socal, etc.) I would do it

yeah i messed up in the poll also.

secret aim of the poll was to measure ILX close reading skills

i just figured everybody would be unwilling to give up any of this

Hate to admit it, but my car, not even close. Airco sores my throat, and I am literally incapable of being cold (even in winter). NV's argument for cheap flights is appealing, but I'll get over that. My car though... I suppose I could live without it, but I simply refuse to.

And why isn't "meat" on this list?

― niels, Thursday, September 29, 2016 1:16 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark

agriculture accounts for 9%, less than the others https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

also - didn't want to make it easy for vegetarians to feel good!

― 龜, Thursday, September 29, 2016 1:19 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark

Doesn't look like agriculture covers the transportation emission costs of moving the supplies to grow the food & the food to the market or whatnot. I'd be curious to find out how much you'd slash the emissions if you went all local veg.
(signed: an amoral meat-eating dog of a man)

Meat emissions a bit lower than I thought

oh I didn't realize niels already mentioned meat I should read threads

I also misread this and voted for what I'd be most willing to give up

mea culpa

this thread is why we will all sink into the deep

I live in Finland, so heat during winter is something I can't give up if I want to live. Options #1 and #4 I've never owned so wouldn't miss, I guess I'd miss cheap flights because of the traveling they allow for less rich people like me, but #2 is a no-brainer.

Doesn't look like agriculture covers the transportation emission costs of moving the supplies to grow the food & the food to the market or whatnot. I'd be curious to find out how much you'd slash the emissions if you went all local veg.
(signed: an amoral meat-eating dog of a man)

― a simba man (Will M.), Thursday, September 29, 2016 4:29 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark

there was a challops article recently that said the added carbon of a bunch of small farm trucks etc. shuttling food around locally added up to more GHG emissions than long haul trucking to big box supermarkets

maybe not recently. in past couple of years?

i made a companion thread which of these would you be most willing to give up in order to help decrease carbon emissions and mitigate climate change

Can't have my car

all local veg, like only eating stuff from heated greenhouses and preserves all winter?

i see u up there in the snowy north, will!

I'd be curious to find out how much you'd slash the emissions if you went all local veg.
(signed: an amoral meat-eating dog of a man)

― a simba man (Will M.), Thursday, September 29, 2016 4:29 PM (fifty-two minutes ago

Outside of a handful of "ethnic foods" imported from abroad, everything I eat was grown within 100 miles of where I live.

oh and oranges ... but about 85% of what I eat is local. n.b. I eat a lot of oranges though.

you're in california you jerk, everything's grown there

the closest oranges sold in stores are from 300 - 400 miles away. That's like several states or a foreign country to some of the ppl that post here.

where does the water that grows your food come from though

the sierras

also wells.

dayo, that question would be more pointed directed towards Southern Californians, rather than me and Shakey.

yeah there's definitely local water sources up here for farming whether its drawn from rivers that empty into Half Moon Bay or the San Francisco Bay or are pumped from Hetch Hetchy's vast network of waterways or wherever. There's a lot of relatively local irrigation in NorCal. My CSA's got wells to irrigate their crops out near Winters.

talking more about your drought xp

we had a bunch of rain this past season, it's way worse in SoCal

well, it's relative, as we export a lot of our water to the lower part of the state, which uses a lot more energy per capita due to population sprawl, HVAC consumption, and more auto miles

we give them our water, and they give us their Republican governors

lol

2 states/we want 2 states

seceding from the entire country has its appeal as well

US would be p fucked w out us

it'd be different for sure

I've a vague idea (aka I think I read somewhere) that one flight would outweigh any other possible saving.

It also feels the easiest to give up (though the idea of never flying anywhere ever for the rest of my life would make me feel a bit twitchy).

President Trump sure makes the idea of Governor Gavin Newsom seem palatable in comparison

ugh don't remind me. so not looking forward to our next governor. I mean, he'll be fine on a policy level but as a human being he is just disgusting.

he'll be fine on a policy level but as a human being he is just disgusting

more or less otm. I actually voted for the Republican who was running against him for Lt. Gov. last time

lol now I'm totally looking this up

whoa when did he turn into Christian Bale in American Psycho look-wise

he's always looked like that!

I've hated him ever since he ran for Mayor against bass player Matt Gonzales

whoa when did he turn into Christian Bale in American Psycho look-wise

― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Thursday, September 29, 2016 4:35 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago

me and several friends have been making American Psycho jokes about Newsom since he was first elected appointed to public office

I actually like the heat up to a point, but AC is a survival issue and that's not going to stop being the case

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/suicide-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars-giving-up-beef

I dunno, kinda feel like the mass suicide of the human race would give off some serious emissions.

in the short term maybe but i feel like it's worth it when you look at the big picture

Most big pictures are improved by the exclusion of people, it's true.

I wouldn't need heating and would need less cheap flights if I could be evacuated from the northern wastes to somewhere more sustainably habitable, and I could deal without aircon if I had to & I don't think it would make me buy a car

I could be evacuated from the northern wastes to somewhere more sustainably habitable

good news buddy just stay where you are and it'll get warmer in the decades to come

i guess i would be least willing to give up heat

don't care about cars (though i live in an extremely unwalkable town)

don't care about AC

really don't care about air travel

https://i.imgur.com/w0Umkax.png

tbf the US is way hotter than all those other places

I'm 48 years old and I have lived on the east coast of Australia my whole life, from Brisbane down to Hobart, and I have never, ever lived in a house with an air conditioner installed. Of any type. The most I've used on hot humid nights has been opening windows and a fan blowing on me.
Isn't it also true that most Americans use electric dryers instead of pegging their laundry out to dry for free in the sun? WTF.

nah, half the dryers run on natural gas