I heard about this report on the radio this morning. My first thought was that I can't wait for governments to do little-to-nothing about it. Got to protect those bottom lines. My second thought...
I heard about this report on the radio this morning. My first thought was that I can't wait for governments to do little-to-nothing about it. Got to protect those bottom lines. My second thought was that climate change will probably be (just like Covid) something that we are told we'll need to "live with," as if it's not a possible extinction-level event.
It truly is Code Red for humanity. It is an existential threat that will dominate the lives of hundreds millions of people who are alive today. That is the scope of how many people will become...
It truly is Code Red for humanity. It is an existential threat that will dominate the lives of hundreds millions of people who are alive today.
That is the scope of how many people will become climate refugees of various kinds due to their homes becoming:
*unlivably hot (or potentially cold if regional weather patterns change)
losing access to fresh water
losing access to local food production due to changes in local climates
being destroyed by extreme weather
sinking into a rising ocean
and so on
Then there's the whole group of people who will be secondary climate refugees as there is primary conflict/war/violence stemming from climate-related issues they have to flee from.
The so-called 'refugee crisis' that Europe coined around 2016, and as The West has created literal walls to keep everyone else out of their societies for decades will seem like peanuts to the consequences we face if global emissions aren't drastically cut now. It will take years to convert to non-fossil societies in each and every aspect of life.
We're overdue for political action by several decades already. These alarms and hitting the big red button happened years ago, which is why it's so strange to see what happens when it turns out the situation is even more dire than previously thought.
I think there is complacency even among Westerners who accept that climate change is real because they imagine that it'll at least be a concern that will not touch the west. The displacement of...
I think there is complacency even among Westerners who accept that climate change is real because they imagine that it'll at least be a concern that will not touch the west. The displacement of poor people in poor countries happens everyday anyway: the difference between 1,000,000s and 100,000,000s is abstract and is for the New York Times to figure out how to fit into their page layout.
The well-educated, liberal folks I know are jetting and shopping like there's no crisis. They'll fly to Chicago for Market Days this past weekend, NYC the next, Spain the one after.
I eat vegetarian, get around by bike+public transit, live compactly, and try to keep my flights under 3 times per year... and already I feel immensely guilty because my total yearly carbon emissions as a Westerner are still multiple times that of the average human.
Even if the West does manage to set up impenetrable borders, pain will still be afflicted on the west because the climate change refugee crisis will destabilize the global order. Poor countries will feel immense internal pressure as well as external pressure from refugees from even poorer countries. There will be intense global resentment between the poor world and the rich world.
And even after we erect our walls and gates, we will have to sit behind them and live with ourselves and our guilt.
How much faith should I have in these voluntary carbon-neutrality-as-part-of-consumption schemes? So basically a related industry; maybe you have insights anyway. My question is: Given a company...
How much faith should I have in these voluntary carbon-neutrality-as-part-of-consumption schemes? So basically a related industry; maybe you have insights anyway.
My question is: Given a company claims they're carbon neutral because they pay someone like you to offset their emissions, how seriously should I take these claims, considering there's a lot of ways to fudge the numbers thus paying your company not enough to actually offset the emissions?
Similarly, there's these "enter your flight info and we'll tell you how much to pay us to offset the carbon footprint of your flight". Same question, does the math even check out?
I'm asking because the overhead induced by carbon neutrality seems awfully small, all things considered. Is that just greenwashing or is that legit?
The math is legitimate. However, the efficacy of the actual offset depends on the quality of the projects which claim to actually sequester the carbon. Unfortunately, carbon offsets are rife with...
The math is legitimate. However, the efficacy of the actual offset depends on the quality of the projects which claim to actually sequester the carbon.
Unfortunately, carbon offsets are rife with conflicts of interest - the people that issue the credits make money trading on the volume of those credits, the people who make the claims and do the documentation are paid by the people who earn the credits. Ultimately, we just don’t have any financially disinterested oversight. That makes vetting your offset quite difficult, and most companies do not do their due diligence on this matter.
In Wren's case, we work around the issue by funding a very small portfolio of highly trusted projects. We know the people running these projects, and so we can collect tons of data and personal updates from them and send them to our subscribers each month to prove their efficacy. Some of our projects have peer-reviewed studies or are on the cutting-edge of sequestration technology.
I would check out https://carbonplan.org for more resources on this! We really appreciate their work in this space.
Interesting perspective. I can certainly see how the quality/efficiency of the offset projects can vary. What I was trying to get at, not sure I made that clear: The same problem of no regulatory...
Interesting perspective. I can certainly see how the quality/efficiency of the offset projects can vary.
What I was trying to get at, not sure I made that clear: The same problem of no regulatory oversight seems to apply also at the "you must do this amount of penance" kind of calculations. No one stops a company trying to claim carbon neutrality from fudging the numbers a little bit or scoping their claim ingeniously. Consider for example a grocery store that claims to be carbon neutral. What does that refer to? In all likelihood, all you're going to get is offsets for their stores and their logistic chain. It doesn't mean that the food they sell is carbon neutral. In all likelihood that is in fact not the case. Or maybe they did other ways of "creative accounting".
To clarify: Not that that dissuades me at all from funding your passion; in fact I think failure at the level of accounting would just make me skip the middle man.
Ah, I see - you're interested in the calculations used to arrive at some amount of CO2 which makes someone or something "carbon neutral" and how those work. That's a good question! These...
Ah, I see - you're interested in the calculations used to arrive at some amount of CO2 which makes someone or something "carbon neutral" and how those work. That's a good question! These calculations for an individual can be extremely complicated (e.g. flights), or extremely simple (e.g. your car's MPG). It really depends. The calculations for Wren's personal carbon footprint calculator are based on numbers from World Bank and Berkeley's Cool Climate dataset. We then use your answers to adjust that average number up and down as necessary based on factors in your diet and energy use.
For corporations, it's a whole other regulatory world known as "carbon accounting." A company's carbon footprint calculations typically include something like the following:
Building and electricity usage
Employee commutes and work-from-home electricity costs
Cost of capital, services, etc.
If you're asking if I think that these numbers come out to something legitimate, my answer is yes. We're talking about orders of magnitude here, and, in general, these numbers are pretty accurate. For the calculations that I've personally vetted, I regard their results as generally true.
I did some math today with the numbers it gave me. I'm basically right at world average emissions. With the rate you guys calculate I pay for net zero emissions, times 12 months per year times 8...
I did some math today with the numbers it gave me. I'm basically right at world average emissions. With the rate you guys calculate I pay for net zero emissions, times 12 months per year times 8 billion people results in ~800 billion USD / year for net zero emissions. About 1% of world GDP. That is.... surprisingly cheap, to be honest.
To be fair, your methods also aren't scalable to that point. Can only sequester so much carbon by hugging trees. So at nation or world scale it certainly becomes more expensive because you desperately need infrastructure change to get rid of fossil fuels. But the overall figure of 1% of GDP makes net zero seem quite doable indeed, while seeming not implausible at all.
Glad you could corroborate our numbers! Also, yes, as I said in a previous comment these methods are not intended to be scaled up to “the entire emissions of the world” - offsetting is just one...
Glad you could corroborate our numbers! Also, yes, as I said in a previous comment these methods are not intended to be scaled up to “the entire emissions of the world” - offsetting is just one part of the solution. Many, many other factors will need to work together to make emissions go down substantially. But every little bit does count.
(Admittedly these are only partly related to carbon sequestration at best. Also, this partly a list of the worst fears concerning true, lasting climate reform.) Suppose it is the mid 2030s and...
(Admittedly these are only partly related to carbon sequestration at best. Also, this partly a list of the worst fears concerning true, lasting climate reform.)
Suppose it is the mid 2030s and after decades of campaigning, progressives finally have the majorities required to govern (at least in developed western nations, probably) and make significant changes to the world and one of them is combatting climate change. What can they still do at this point?
Can mass airline tourism (tourism in general?) exist in a carbon-neutral world? Can globalized shipping and supply chains? If not, what do you think that could imply, do you think that means more something along the lines of encouraging local products or something considered more ominous like autarchic or nationalistic economic practices?
How valuable are individual contributions to solve the problem? In the face of statistics like "70% of climate emissions are done by 100 companies", me recycling seems worthless and a piece of right-wing personal responsibility propaganda, but most seriously concerned by climate change say most aspects of individual life will be changed dramatically. Is this more fundamentally about the number of people whose lives must be changed for it to have an effect or is the way we live our daily lives not that large of a problem, just the world (mostly companies and supply chains) around us?
What do you think about malthusianism and the idea that there are or will soon be too many people in the world to have appropriate living standards for all of them as it relates to climate change?
I really think overpopulation is not something we should focus our attention on: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question TL;DR: focus on womens'...
What do you think about malthusianism and the idea that there are or will soon be too many people in the world to have appropriate living standards for all of them as it relates to climate change?
The concern with overpopulation is another one of those things where it seems like people push it so that they would be able to live their lives exactly the same way as they always have. It always...
The concern with overpopulation is another one of those things where it seems like people push it so that they would be able to live their lives exactly the same way as they always have. It always sounds like theyre saying "Well its not those of us in the west that are driving this with overconsumption, its those people in developing countries with growing populations that need to do something".
I definitely agree that the environmentalist context of population control is basically the only one that wasn't fueled by extreme racism and that women's reproductive rights and wealth inequality...
I definitely agree that the environmentalist context of population control is basically the only one that wasn't fueled by extreme racism and that women's reproductive rights and wealth inequality should absolutely solve that problem.
But the main concern I still have is that, when he (they idak lol) talks about how the wealthiest 10% of the world emits 50% of the carbon, my reaction is more along the lines of "I would like it if everyone lived like that", and always have fantasized about it. The entire world could be decently well fed and likely housed without exacerbating climate change too much, but could the entire world live like the US or Europe does?
I mean, clearly the answer is no. In the developed world, even people living in energy poverty are currently living above the carrying capacity of the planet. The US and Europe will need to...
My favorite example, because it's something I do regularly that has generally improved my life, is using thermal cookers / fireless cookers. You get your pot of food cooking, then throw it in an insulated container so that it continues cooking without further energy input.
You don't have to babysit the pot while it cooks, for fear of fire or children harming themselves
You can take it with you somewhere while it's cooking, e.g. to a picnic, it can be portable
It's especially great in the summer, because less cooking time means your kitchen heats up less
And of course it saves energy / reduces emissions
All that's required is that you acquire one of these simple devices and learn to use it. I love the hi-tech Thermos Shuttle Chef because it's compact (yes, it's made by the same Thermos company you see in the USA, but for some reason only seems to be sold/marketed in Asia), but a simpler design like the Wonderbag is cheap enough the gov't could probably just give one to every household.
It's not a sacrifice, it's a genuine life improvement. But it's not how the US or Europe currently lives (even though thermal cookers were popular until the 1970s in the US, after which they were thoroughly forgotten).
Sorry for the double comment, but also wanted to say this. Another rendition of thermal cooking is the modern Instant Pot (and its many clones). In slower cook modes, the Instant Pot heats the...
My favorite example, because it's something I do regularly that has generally improved my life, is using thermal cookers / fireless cookers.
Sorry for the double comment, but also wanted to say this. Another rendition of thermal cooking is the modern Instant Pot (and its many clones). In slower cook modes, the Instant Pot heats the food and then just relies on insulation to keep the food at temperature. When temperature dips below the point you set, its PID will just briefly turn on the heating element, heat it back, then turn the element off. With a properly set temperature, it gives you much more versatility than a something like the Shuttle Chef at the cost of slightly more power usage.
Similarly to purely direct solar heating vs. some electric hybrid, I think that a slow cooker like the instapot adds significant complexity to a thermal cooker that can be very simple and...
Similarly to purely direct solar heating vs. some electric hybrid, I think that a slow cooker like the instapot adds significant complexity to a thermal cooker that can be very simple and long-lasting. It's not just a question of energy use while cooking, it's also a question of embodied emissions, maintenance, and eventually e-waste.
I'm a big fan of evaporative coolers. I live in a dry climate and often a decent evaporative cooler pointed from a corner of the room and a ceiling fan can cool the temperature on even the hottest...
I'm a big fan of evaporative coolers. I live in a dry climate and often a decent evaporative cooler pointed from a corner of the room and a ceiling fan can cool the temperature on even the hottest summer days down to completely fine temps.
My favorite example, because it's something I do regularly that has generally improved my life, is using thermal cookers / fireless cookers.
Another fun one is to use solar cookers. I found a used GoSun Fusion for sale and bought it, and now we frequently use the Fusion. It's great especially on summer days because instead of using the gas stove and heating the whole room and generating emissions, we just put it on our porch and wait.
Oh man, I really wanted the predecessor to that solar oven that was purely solar, the GoSun Grill. I recognize that adding electricity as an option makes it significantly more flexible, but I...
Oh man, I really wanted the predecessor to that solar oven that was purely solar, the GoSun Grill. I recognize that adding electricity as an option makes it significantly more flexible, but I question its effect on simplicity/durability/repairability. I wish I had assembled the money to buy it before they stopped selling it.
Would love to hear more about your experiences with that model.
I have no need for the electric option myself, though I understand why they released this model (I think most of their users tend to rely on the Fusion all day, and need the resilience when the...
I have no need for the electric option myself, though I understand why they released this model (I think most of their users tend to rely on the Fusion all day, and need the resilience when the sun isn't available.) I just got the Fusion used because that's all I could find while I was keeping an eye on local marketplaces. I've never even used it with the electric option so I can't tell you anything about how well it works.
As far as the solar functioning, I cook pretty much anything that I would have previously braised. The Fusion works like an oven that just holds the moisture in as well. This works well for cakes, pastries, curries, and casseroles, but doesn't work that well for anything you would want to vent moisture for. If you're willing to leave the inner cook chamber just a tad ajar (like < 1 cm) you can vent out a lot of the moisture with minimal impact to heating performance. Probably my favorite thing to cook in it is fish, as the Fusion cooks the fish thoroughly while keeping it flaky and moist.
For times, it takes on average 1-2 hours to finish in the Fusion on a sunny day (I live in a fairly sunny climate so this isn't unusual here), regardless of the outside temperature (and yes the Fusion cooks just fine in cold weather as long as the sun is available.) The one thing to be careful of is to cut things that are very dense (like potatoes) into smaller pieces so they can cook well. Otherwise, just use the included sundial to generally aim the cooker toward the sun, and just leave it alone!
Most of your questions are ones that are so far-reaching and difficult that I'm not sure there really exists a person who can give a true answer to them, much less myself. But I'll take a shot....
Most of your questions are ones that are so far-reaching and difficult that I'm not sure there really exists a person who can give a true answer to them, much less myself. But I'll take a shot.
How valuable are individual contributions to solve the problem?
Individual contributions are helpful on their own, regardless of the other required systemic change, because they can add up to a lot when enough people join in. Think of it like a person in California conserving water. The systemic solution is "maybe tell the farmers that they can't grow billions of almonds in an area with chronic water shortages." Your personal shower changes might seem useless in context to the larger solution, but that doesn't mean that 3,000,000 people taking shorter showers doesn't have a meaningful effect anyway. Of course, vote for the anti-almonds guy, but in the meantime your shower can help. With the climate crisis, I'll take all the help we can get to extend our runway.
“70% of climate emissions are done by 100 companies”
These companies will not stop unless we make them stop. We need to make it impossible for these companies to exist. We will do this by passing policy and changing markets—if everyone buys electric cars and renewable energy these companies will have a tough time. Same thing if we pass clean energy standards/carbon tax. But either of those changes start from individual people taking action.
What can they still do at this point?
I'm not sure I understand this question. Wouldn't it still make sense to pass clean energy standards/carbon taxes/R+D incentives/combustion vehicle bans and all the other policy options on the table today? You may be making the point that at that point it's "too late," but what would be the alternative? Do nothing?
Can mass airline tourism (tourism in general?) exist in a carbon-neutral world? Can globalized shipping and supply chains?
The problem with these industries is not that the supply chains exist, but that they are based on quickly outdating technology that will need to be replaced. I cannot tell you the answer to this one exactly, but I am a techno-optimist so I am very bullish on future growth with low-carbon technology. For some of the reasons see this thread from Noah Smith. This doesn't exactly address your question, but I also have very little data with which to answer it specifically.
Well, yes. What I meant by "what can they still do at this point?" to be "what can they still prevent from happening (save, depending on what you're talking about really) by this point" and, more...
What can they still do at this point?
I'm not sure I understand this question. Wouldn't it still make sense to pass clean energy standards/carbon taxes/R+D incentives/combustion vehicle bans and all the other policy options on the table today? You may be making the point that at that point it's "too late," but what would be the alternative? Do nothing?
Well, yes. What I meant by "what can they still do at this point?" to be "what can they still prevent from happening (save, depending on what you're talking about really) by this point" and, more importantly, what could no longer be done, since climate change seems to operate in tipping points where, if the world takes too long to act, something is beyond saving no matter how much the world does afterwards. For example, it is estimated that if climate change stopped today, the Greenland ice sheet would still be guaranteed to shrink 99 out of 100 years afterwards and if climate change stopped today, the world would continue to warm and the seas would continue to rise, even if it was less than now and it was temporarily stopped.
Of course, you don't need to name things that are certain to have passed their points by the mid 2030s because specific dates for this kind of stuff don't really make sense, only what's likely.
There's always a bigger fish. If we let this continue, it'll get worse. We'll have more warming, which means we'll reach more tipping points, even more warming, which means more sea level rise,...
There's always a bigger fish. If we let this continue, it'll get worse. We'll have more warming, which means we'll reach more tipping points, even more warming, which means more sea level rise, more droughts, more storms, more change, more people dying. The difference between "it's going to be a rough ride" and "global ecosystem collapse" is a big one.
Oh, and all that happens faster if we act less decisively now. If we can push a tipping point that is currently 10 years out a further 5 years back, that means 5 more years we can use to find a solution, mitigating strategies, anything, to get us out of this pickle.
Realistically, the methods that Wren funds (biochar, mineral weathering, tree planting, and forest protection) cannot balance the CO2 production of the rest of the world on their own. To do so...
Realistically, the methods that Wren funds (biochar, mineral weathering, tree planting, and forest protection) cannot balance the CO2 production of the rest of the world on their own. To do so would require planting something like a trillion trees (even the science here is fuzzy 1), or convert all of the worlds beaches to olivine, which are unfeasible for a lot of reasons and may even have negative effects in terms of albedo, etc.
Wren exists as one part of the solution to climate change that requires an extraordinary number of changes around the world. Our place is to give the individual a tool to take effective climate action at a scale comparable to their lifestyle.
Not sure if the technology is commercially viable at this point but there is a company in BC that's capturing carbon directly from the air rather than indirectly. I don't know too much about it...
biochar, mineral weathering, tree planting, and forest protection
Not sure if the technology is commercially viable at this point but there is a company in BC that's capturing carbon directly from the air rather than indirectly. I don't know too much about it other than it exists but pretty neat stuff: https://carbonengineering.com/our-technology/
It's a good method! There's lots of new direct air capture projects starting up lately. It's just incredibly expensive, and there's big doubts about these projects getting to an affordable price...
It's a good method! There's lots of new direct air capture projects starting up lately. It's just incredibly expensive, and there's big doubts about these projects getting to an affordable price within a timespan that makes sense for climate action. It's not so useful if we affordably acquire this technology in 30 years.
For context, projects like carbon engineering and https://climeworks.com have a cost per tonne of CO2 of about $600-$800, while traditional tree planting is something more like $15-20.
There's a middle ground of prices that we like quite a bit, things like biochar (~$120).
This is a very cool initiative. Thanks for sharing this, and for your work there! I'll likely be signing up myself. I've been doing a lot recently to reduce my own impact, but I like the idea of...
This is a very cool initiative. Thanks for sharing this, and for your work there! I'll likely be signing up myself. I've been doing a lot recently to reduce my own impact, but I like the idea of actively counteracting the things I either can't change or am unable to at the moment.
As for a question: what's something you wish more people knew about or understood when it comes to climate change?
I wish that more people understood that the reasons for climate inaction are not due to lack of evidence. There is plenty of evidence, and those opposed to immediate large-scale action do...
I wish that more people understood that the reasons for climate inaction are not due to lack of evidence. There is plenty of evidence, and those opposed to immediate large-scale action do understand that there's a crisis. The reason people prefer inaction is that they prefer and like the institutions that they currently have over a change that introduces an unknown way of life.
What we need to do as climate activists is to explain and manifest a vision of a world where the institutions and way of life that people know and love remain mostly unchanged, but where the bedrock that they lie on has been upgraded. The "Solarpunk" aesthetic is a perfect example of this kind of positive vision for the future.
I'm a big fan of https://charmindustrial.com (bio oil) and https://www.heimdalccu.com (sequestration through concrete), and end of life strategies for old refrigerants (e.g., CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs).
Just taken the quiz real quick, apparently I'm only 6.5€/mo away from neutrality, sitting at just over half of average German emissions. Bit of feedback though: How am I supposed to account for...
Just taken the quiz real quick, apparently I'm only 6.5€/mo away from neutrality, sitting at just over half of average German emissions.
Bit of feedback though: How am I supposed to account for household vs individual footprint? I had enough sense to cut my household power bill in half when it looked above average, but didn't do so for the apartment size. I didn't see any clear guidance either way which one would be correct.
We’re working on this! Sorry about the confusion, I know it’s not super clear. For the time being, I’d just divide any shared expenses by the number of roommates you have. That should take care of...
We’re working on this! Sorry about the confusion, I know it’s not super clear.
For the time being, I’d just divide any shared expenses by the number of roommates you have. That should take care of most of the difference. In the future, we’ll be adding much clearer instructions and calculations for households.
I heard about this report on the radio this morning. My first thought was that I can't wait for governments to do little-to-nothing about it. Got to protect those bottom lines. My second thought was that climate change will probably be (just like Covid) something that we are told we'll need to "live with," as if it's not a possible extinction-level event.
It truly is Code Red for humanity. It is an existential threat that will dominate the lives of hundreds millions of people who are alive today.
That is the scope of how many people will become climate refugees of various kinds due to their homes becoming:
*unlivably hot (or potentially cold if regional weather patterns change)
Then there's the whole group of people who will be secondary climate refugees as there is primary conflict/war/violence stemming from climate-related issues they have to flee from.
The so-called 'refugee crisis' that Europe coined around 2016, and as The West has created literal walls to keep everyone else out of their societies for decades will seem like peanuts to the consequences we face if global emissions aren't drastically cut now. It will take years to convert to non-fossil societies in each and every aspect of life.
We're overdue for political action by several decades already. These alarms and hitting the big red button happened years ago, which is why it's so strange to see what happens when it turns out the situation is even more dire than previously thought.
I think there is complacency even among Westerners who accept that climate change is real because they imagine that it'll at least be a concern that will not touch the west. The displacement of poor people in poor countries happens everyday anyway: the difference between 1,000,000s and 100,000,000s is abstract and is for the New York Times to figure out how to fit into their page layout.
The well-educated, liberal folks I know are jetting and shopping like there's no crisis. They'll fly to Chicago for Market Days this past weekend, NYC the next, Spain the one after.
I eat vegetarian, get around by bike+public transit, live compactly, and try to keep my flights under 3 times per year... and already I feel immensely guilty because my total yearly carbon emissions as a Westerner are still multiple times that of the average human.
Even if the West does manage to set up impenetrable borders, pain will still be afflicted on the west because the climate change refugee crisis will destabilize the global order. Poor countries will feel immense internal pressure as well as external pressure from refugees from even poorer countries. There will be intense global resentment between the poor world and the rich world.
And even after we erect our walls and gates, we will have to sit behind them and live with ourselves and our guilt.
I work for a company that is reducing CO2 in the atmosphere (wren.co). If you have any questions about carbon sequestration, please ask!
How much faith should I have in these voluntary carbon-neutrality-as-part-of-consumption schemes? So basically a related industry; maybe you have insights anyway.
My question is: Given a company claims they're carbon neutral because they pay someone like you to offset their emissions, how seriously should I take these claims, considering there's a lot of ways to fudge the numbers thus paying your company not enough to actually offset the emissions?
Similarly, there's these "enter your flight info and we'll tell you how much to pay us to offset the carbon footprint of your flight". Same question, does the math even check out?
I'm asking because the overhead induced by carbon neutrality seems awfully small, all things considered. Is that just greenwashing or is that legit?
The math is legitimate. However, the efficacy of the actual offset depends on the quality of the projects which claim to actually sequester the carbon.
Unfortunately, carbon offsets are rife with conflicts of interest - the people that issue the credits make money trading on the volume of those credits, the people who make the claims and do the documentation are paid by the people who earn the credits. Ultimately, we just don’t have any financially disinterested oversight. That makes vetting your offset quite difficult, and most companies do not do their due diligence on this matter.
In Wren's case, we work around the issue by funding a very small portfolio of highly trusted projects. We know the people running these projects, and so we can collect tons of data and personal updates from them and send them to our subscribers each month to prove their efficacy. Some of our projects have peer-reviewed studies or are on the cutting-edge of sequestration technology.
I would check out https://carbonplan.org for more resources on this! We really appreciate their work in this space.
Interesting perspective. I can certainly see how the quality/efficiency of the offset projects can vary.
What I was trying to get at, not sure I made that clear: The same problem of no regulatory oversight seems to apply also at the "you must do this amount of penance" kind of calculations. No one stops a company trying to claim carbon neutrality from fudging the numbers a little bit or scoping their claim ingeniously. Consider for example a grocery store that claims to be carbon neutral. What does that refer to? In all likelihood, all you're going to get is offsets for their stores and their logistic chain. It doesn't mean that the food they sell is carbon neutral. In all likelihood that is in fact not the case. Or maybe they did other ways of "creative accounting".
To clarify: Not that that dissuades me at all from funding your passion; in fact I think failure at the level of accounting would just make me skip the middle man.
Ah, I see - you're interested in the calculations used to arrive at some amount of CO2 which makes someone or something "carbon neutral" and how those work. That's a good question! These calculations for an individual can be extremely complicated (e.g. flights), or extremely simple (e.g. your car's MPG). It really depends. The calculations for Wren's personal carbon footprint calculator are based on numbers from World Bank and Berkeley's Cool Climate dataset. We then use your answers to adjust that average number up and down as necessary based on factors in your diet and energy use.
For corporations, it's a whole other regulatory world known as "carbon accounting." A company's carbon footprint calculations typically include something like the following:
If you're asking if I think that these numbers come out to something legitimate, my answer is yes. We're talking about orders of magnitude here, and, in general, these numbers are pretty accurate. For the calculations that I've personally vetted, I regard their results as generally true.
I did some math today with the numbers it gave me. I'm basically right at world average emissions. With the rate you guys calculate I pay for net zero emissions, times 12 months per year times 8 billion people results in ~800 billion USD / year for net zero emissions. About 1% of world GDP. That is.... surprisingly cheap, to be honest.
To be fair, your methods also aren't scalable to that point. Can only sequester so much carbon by hugging trees. So at nation or world scale it certainly becomes more expensive because you desperately need infrastructure change to get rid of fossil fuels. But the overall figure of 1% of GDP makes net zero seem quite doable indeed, while seeming not implausible at all.
Glad you could corroborate our numbers! Also, yes, as I said in a previous comment these methods are not intended to be scaled up to “the entire emissions of the world” - offsetting is just one part of the solution. Many, many other factors will need to work together to make emissions go down substantially. But every little bit does count.
(Admittedly these are only partly related to carbon sequestration at best. Also, this partly a list of the worst fears concerning true, lasting climate reform.)
Suppose it is the mid 2030s and after decades of campaigning, progressives finally have the majorities required to govern (at least in developed western nations, probably) and make significant changes to the world and one of them is combatting climate change. What can they still do at this point?
Can mass airline tourism (tourism in general?) exist in a carbon-neutral world? Can globalized shipping and supply chains? If not, what do you think that could imply, do you think that means more something along the lines of encouraging local products or something considered more ominous like autarchic or nationalistic economic practices?
How valuable are individual contributions to solve the problem? In the face of statistics like "70% of climate emissions are done by 100 companies", me recycling seems worthless and a piece of right-wing personal responsibility propaganda, but most seriously concerned by climate change say most aspects of individual life will be changed dramatically. Is this more fundamentally about the number of people whose lives must be changed for it to have an effect or is the way we live our daily lives not that large of a problem, just the world (mostly companies and supply chains) around us?
What do you think about malthusianism and the idea that there are or will soon be too many people in the world to have appropriate living standards for all of them as it relates to climate change?
I really think overpopulation is not something we should focus our attention on: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question TL;DR: focus on womens' rights and economic inequality instead to get similar results without troubling eugenics overtones.
The concern with overpopulation is another one of those things where it seems like people push it so that they would be able to live their lives exactly the same way as they always have. It always sounds like theyre saying "Well its not those of us in the west that are driving this with overconsumption, its those people in developing countries with growing populations that need to do something".
I definitely agree that the environmentalist context of population control is basically the only one that wasn't fueled by extreme racism and that women's reproductive rights and wealth inequality should absolutely solve that problem.
But the main concern I still have is that, when he (they idak lol) talks about how the wealthiest 10% of the world emits 50% of the carbon, my reaction is more along the lines of "I would like it if everyone lived like that", and always have fantasized about it. The entire world could be decently well fed and likely housed without exacerbating climate change too much, but could the entire world live like the US or Europe does?
I mean, clearly the answer is no. In the developed world, even people living in energy poverty are currently living above the carrying capacity of the planet. The US and Europe will need to dramatically change the way they live. It won't necessarily require them being less comfortable, so long as they are willing to learn new ways of doing things.
My favorite example, because it's something I do regularly that has generally improved my life, is using thermal cookers / fireless cookers. You get your pot of food cooking, then throw it in an insulated container so that it continues cooking without further energy input.
All that's required is that you acquire one of these simple devices and learn to use it. I love the hi-tech Thermos Shuttle Chef because it's compact (yes, it's made by the same Thermos company you see in the USA, but for some reason only seems to be sold/marketed in Asia), but a simpler design like the Wonderbag is cheap enough the gov't could probably just give one to every household.
It's not a sacrifice, it's a genuine life improvement. But it's not how the US or Europe currently lives (even though thermal cookers were popular until the 1970s in the US, after which they were thoroughly forgotten).
Sorry for the double comment, but also wanted to say this. Another rendition of thermal cooking is the modern Instant Pot (and its many clones). In slower cook modes, the Instant Pot heats the food and then just relies on insulation to keep the food at temperature. When temperature dips below the point you set, its PID will just briefly turn on the heating element, heat it back, then turn the element off. With a properly set temperature, it gives you much more versatility than a something like the Shuttle Chef at the cost of slightly more power usage.
Similarly to purely direct solar heating vs. some electric hybrid, I think that a slow cooker like the instapot adds significant complexity to a thermal cooker that can be very simple and long-lasting. It's not just a question of energy use while cooking, it's also a question of embodied emissions, maintenance, and eventually e-waste.
I'm a big fan of evaporative coolers. I live in a dry climate and often a decent evaporative cooler pointed from a corner of the room and a ceiling fan can cool the temperature on even the hottest summer days down to completely fine temps.
Another fun one is to use solar cookers. I found a used GoSun Fusion for sale and bought it, and now we frequently use the Fusion. It's great especially on summer days because instead of using the gas stove and heating the whole room and generating emissions, we just put it on our porch and wait.
Oh man, I really wanted the predecessor to that solar oven that was purely solar, the GoSun Grill. I recognize that adding electricity as an option makes it significantly more flexible, but I question its effect on simplicity/durability/repairability. I wish I had assembled the money to buy it before they stopped selling it.
Would love to hear more about your experiences with that model.
I have no need for the electric option myself, though I understand why they released this model (I think most of their users tend to rely on the Fusion all day, and need the resilience when the sun isn't available.) I just got the Fusion used because that's all I could find while I was keeping an eye on local marketplaces. I've never even used it with the electric option so I can't tell you anything about how well it works.
As far as the solar functioning, I cook pretty much anything that I would have previously braised. The Fusion works like an oven that just holds the moisture in as well. This works well for cakes, pastries, curries, and casseroles, but doesn't work that well for anything you would want to vent moisture for. If you're willing to leave the inner cook chamber just a tad ajar (like < 1 cm) you can vent out a lot of the moisture with minimal impact to heating performance. Probably my favorite thing to cook in it is fish, as the Fusion cooks the fish thoroughly while keeping it flaky and moist.
For times, it takes on average 1-2 hours to finish in the Fusion on a sunny day (I live in a fairly sunny climate so this isn't unusual here), regardless of the outside temperature (and yes the Fusion cooks just fine in cold weather as long as the sun is available.) The one thing to be careful of is to cut things that are very dense (like potatoes) into smaller pieces so they can cook well. Otherwise, just use the included sundial to generally aim the cooker toward the sun, and just leave it alone!
Most of your questions are ones that are so far-reaching and difficult that I'm not sure there really exists a person who can give a true answer to them, much less myself. But I'll take a shot.
Individual contributions are helpful on their own, regardless of the other required systemic change, because they can add up to a lot when enough people join in. Think of it like a person in California conserving water. The systemic solution is "maybe tell the farmers that they can't grow billions of almonds in an area with chronic water shortages." Your personal shower changes might seem useless in context to the larger solution, but that doesn't mean that 3,000,000 people taking shorter showers doesn't have a meaningful effect anyway. Of course, vote for the anti-almonds guy, but in the meantime your shower can help. With the climate crisis, I'll take all the help we can get to extend our runway.
These companies will not stop unless we make them stop. We need to make it impossible for these companies to exist. We will do this by passing policy and changing markets—if everyone buys electric cars and renewable energy these companies will have a tough time. Same thing if we pass clean energy standards/carbon tax. But either of those changes start from individual people taking action.
I'm not sure I understand this question. Wouldn't it still make sense to pass clean energy standards/carbon taxes/R+D incentives/combustion vehicle bans and all the other policy options on the table today? You may be making the point that at that point it's "too late," but what would be the alternative? Do nothing?
The problem with these industries is not that the supply chains exist, but that they are based on quickly outdating technology that will need to be replaced. I cannot tell you the answer to this one exactly, but I am a techno-optimist so I am very bullish on future growth with low-carbon technology. For some of the reasons see this thread from Noah Smith. This doesn't exactly address your question, but I also have very little data with which to answer it specifically.
Well, yes. What I meant by "what can they still do at this point?" to be "what can they still prevent from happening (save, depending on what you're talking about really) by this point" and, more importantly, what could no longer be done, since climate change seems to operate in tipping points where, if the world takes too long to act, something is beyond saving no matter how much the world does afterwards. For example, it is estimated that if climate change stopped today, the Greenland ice sheet would still be guaranteed to shrink 99 out of 100 years afterwards and if climate change stopped today, the world would continue to warm and the seas would continue to rise, even if it was less than now and it was temporarily stopped.
Of course, you don't need to name things that are certain to have passed their points by the mid 2030s because specific dates for this kind of stuff don't really make sense, only what's likely.
There's always a bigger fish. If we let this continue, it'll get worse. We'll have more warming, which means we'll reach more tipping points, even more warming, which means more sea level rise, more droughts, more storms, more change, more people dying. The difference between "it's going to be a rough ride" and "global ecosystem collapse" is a big one.
Oh, and all that happens faster if we act less decisively now. If we can push a tipping point that is currently 10 years out a further 5 years back, that means 5 more years we can use to find a solution, mitigating strategies, anything, to get us out of this pickle.
Just using your company's technology, how much in the way of money and resources would it take to balance the CO2 production of the rest of the world?
Realistically, the methods that Wren funds (biochar, mineral weathering, tree planting, and forest protection) cannot balance the CO2 production of the rest of the world on their own. To do so would require planting something like a trillion trees (even the science here is fuzzy 1), or convert all of the worlds beaches to olivine, which are unfeasible for a lot of reasons and may even have negative effects in terms of albedo, etc.
Wren exists as one part of the solution to climate change that requires an extraordinary number of changes around the world. Our place is to give the individual a tool to take effective climate action at a scale comparable to their lifestyle.
Not sure if the technology is commercially viable at this point but there is a company in BC that's capturing carbon directly from the air rather than indirectly. I don't know too much about it other than it exists but pretty neat stuff: https://carbonengineering.com/our-technology/
It's a good method! There's lots of new direct air capture projects starting up lately. It's just incredibly expensive, and there's big doubts about these projects getting to an affordable price within a timespan that makes sense for climate action. It's not so useful if we affordably acquire this technology in 30 years.
For context, projects like carbon engineering and https://climeworks.com have a cost per tonne of CO2 of about $600-$800, while traditional tree planting is something more like $15-20.
There's a middle ground of prices that we like quite a bit, things like biochar (~$120).
This is a very cool initiative. Thanks for sharing this, and for your work there! I'll likely be signing up myself. I've been doing a lot recently to reduce my own impact, but I like the idea of actively counteracting the things I either can't change or am unable to at the moment.
As for a question: what's something you wish more people knew about or understood when it comes to climate change?
I wish that more people understood that the reasons for climate inaction are not due to lack of evidence. There is plenty of evidence, and those opposed to immediate large-scale action do understand that there's a crisis. The reason people prefer inaction is that they prefer and like the institutions that they currently have over a change that introduces an unknown way of life.
What we need to do as climate activists is to explain and manifest a vision of a world where the institutions and way of life that people know and love remain mostly unchanged, but where the bedrock that they lie on has been upgraded. The "Solarpunk" aesthetic is a perfect example of this kind of positive vision for the future.
Which climate engineering and carbon sequestration methods and technologies are most promising that your company isn’t already involved in?
I'm a big fan of https://charmindustrial.com (bio oil) and https://www.heimdalccu.com (sequestration through concrete), and end of life strategies for old refrigerants (e.g., CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs).
Just taken the quiz real quick, apparently I'm only 6.5€/mo away from neutrality, sitting at just over half of average German emissions.
Bit of feedback though: How am I supposed to account for household vs individual footprint? I had enough sense to cut my household power bill in half when it looked above average, but didn't do so for the apartment size. I didn't see any clear guidance either way which one would be correct.
We’re working on this! Sorry about the confusion, I know it’s not super clear.
For the time being, I’d just divide any shared expenses by the number of roommates you have. That should take care of most of the difference. In the future, we’ll be adding much clearer instructions and calculations for households.
If anyone wants a climate scientist's take on the report, check out these series of blogs on the RealClimate website: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/the-ipcc-sixth-assessment-report