If once was nice, then twice (in one day) is nicer. Of course, again, Treehugger. This time, however, it all about that latest report that the emissions of just 3.5 Americans is going to kill someone because of our carbon emissions (“”). Yep, I’m helping to kill killing someone because I’m living and breathing. But of course, the telling statistic is buried down deep in the actual report but that didn’t seem to matter much at TH:
Carbon Emissions Will Kill People. Be Careful Whom You Blame.
An analysis finds that a person will die for for every 4,434 metric tons of carbon dioxide produced.Last week, the journal Nature Communications published a study by R. Daniel Bressler called “The Mortality Cost of Carbon.” It offered a somewhat jaw-dropping assertion: The average lifetime carbon footprint of 3.5 U.S. citizens would cause one excess death between 2020 and 2100 (“The Mortality Cost of Carbon“)
To put it another way, according to this study (or how it was widely interpreted), if you’re a family or peer group of four—each with an average U.S. carbon footprint—then collectively your emissions would kill just over one person during the course of the next 80 years.1
As someone who has written a book about my own guilt, shame, responsibility, and hypocrisy around the climate crisis, I had decidedly mixed feelings about the framing. On the one hand, it’s undeniable that people are dying due to carbon emissions—and the more that each of us does to prevent or drawdown those emissions, the more lives will be saved. From excess heat deaths to famine, we also know that these deaths will disproportionately impact the people who had least to do with creating the crisis in the first place. In other words, this is a question of justice. And countries and communities with a high carbon footprint absolutely do have a moral imperative to act urgently to address the situation.
It just seems that I just can’t away from hurting or killing someone no matter what I do. If I breath, I’m killing the planet. If I drive my F-150, I’m killing little kids and very small adults that I supposedly can’t see over the hood. My computer takes up too much power. My meat eating is hurting someone else I don’t know. Buying clothes is also wrong. And of course, my skin color oppresses people (but that’s not in this post but it goes without saying). And I’m killing Granny if I don’t wear a triple face mask EVEN THOUGH I got the Jab.
It’s all about Power by Shaming. Like I said before, more of us have to learn to tell these creeps to go pound sand. You don’t get to tell me those things without pushback from me.
You know, if someone says that I’m a danger to someone else but that prediction is now 79 years in the future, I’d say it’s more PR than fact. There is just NO WAY that given there are almost 8 billion people on the planet right now that any “study” that wants to be taken seriously is NOT going to effectively say “hey, you over there, keep your eyes on those 4 Americans – they want you dead in a few decades”). But these environmentalist just gotta go further and further out on the fringe to get any notice whatsoever – and of course the MSM laps it up like the dogs they are.
Two quick encounters:
Troy Ozarowicz : No mixed feelings at all.
No problem pointing the finger at each & every Voter who has done nothing for the last 50yrs (since 1st Earth Day made it a US national story)
The overwhelming uselessness of individual action is the point! We’ve wasted so much time afraid of the Commies, wanting monster trucks to drive to the office, and not liking how solar panels look against the Victorian shutters that we’ve completely ignored all the white papers written by people far smarter than all of us put together.
The answers are already known. Just lacking the Voters to commit to paying for it.
I’m sure there are parallels in the UK, Germany, France, & the rest who have 99% uptime on their electricity from coal-fired plants & plastic in EVERYTHING.
We’ve known the convenience consumer culture is bad for a long time; we’ve know dark money in politics is bad; we’ve know the banking system & business consolidation leads to dirtier practices, but it’s sooooo inconvenient to do anything about it. Each Voter has made this choice. Over and over and over.
Each of us is to blame.
It must be just ducky to be on the Left and be able to whack those that they want to be made scapegoats. I don’t care for that much at all. Sure, go after the guilty but the Left seems to think that anyone NOT them is guilty already:
No problem pointing the finger at each & every Voter who has done nothing for the last 50yrs (since 1st Earth Day made it a US national story)….Each of us is to blame.
Show me one of the apocalyptic prophecies that has been uttered since 50ys ago that has come true and then I might take it seriously. Not one.
And if all of those that keep jetting all around the world and hectoring ME about my middle class lifestyle and telling me to live with less would actually live their lives the way that is being demanded of me, then I might take it seriously.
They can go pound sand.
Lots of column inches in print media and pixels online have been devoted to how we’re all gonna die – and not a single one has come true. But our plant life seems to be liking the increased CO2 in the air as yields are going up.
The other “encounter of a Socialist kind” was downright disturbing but proves what Socialists really believe the rest of us should be:
Leanhoser : It is paramount that each and every one of us push government on policies that will change our behaviour over CC. Otherwise we’re just lemmings heading for the proverbial cliff. How many wake up calls do we need? If we take action there will be hope.
Very poor word choice and sentence construction, wouldn’t you say?
GraniteGrok : You REALLY think that Government is going to save us all? Hahahahaha!
You do realize that you are demanding that we all bring a totalitarian system upon ourselves. How much agency do you want Government to strip from you? How many, and how many kinds of decisions are you blithely willing to give away to greedy politicians (greedy not for money but greedy for Power over people) and faceless bureaucrats that have no idea what is best for you and your family – you really TRUST them?
That truly is lemming thinking right there….
Lemmings act in the Collective mindset per the proverbial stories of them all going over the cliff. But they’re lemmings, not humans. I, for one, don’t wish to make myself into a lemming – being a standalone Human, an Individual, is what God intended me to be. I have no wish to be a mere faceless and replaceable cog in someone Socialists idea of their social engine. But that is what they want.