451
Uh oh no gas? (europe.pub)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/memes@slrpnk.net
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[–] 15 points 3 weeks ago (33 children)

Gas prices? Skill issue, just don't buy it. I haven't bought any in years.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

    If you buy food, you buy diesel. It's what's in the tractors and delivery trucks.

    This is why it's literally impossible for an American to live a two tonne CO2 lifestyle. Emissions are imbedded in the supply chains and government.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (10 children)

    How much of that food emissions is from beef though? Like even if you insist on still eating meat if you were to change to pork/chicken it would reduce emissions a lot.

    Although might be right for Americans, they have 3x what we do here per capita. Should be easier for me if I just need to do around half of what the average person does to get under 2. So heat pump, eat minimal meat with plenty of grains and veg instead, cycle to work, probably already most of the way there.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Everything regarding Agriculture (not just in the US, look at how much of the russian harvest is just rotting on the fields this year because of the lack of fuel) is heavily dependent mostly on diesel fuel. All those large machines use lots of fuel, and they are used in every step - preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting and harvesting. The way the US is doing things, transportation also uses fuel for giant fleets of trucks for most of the distance - transportation by train exists, but suffers from decades of neglect and having to compete with subsidized fuel prices. If americans had to pay for fuel without externalizing costs, i'm sure that the train network would suddenly have enough resources to expand and do long overdue maintenance.

    Sure, cattle is a huge part of the problem, but the above process is CO2-heavy even in areas where it would not have to be.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Do you have a source for this?

    I find that everything related to meat and fish production produces 13.78% of global emissions excluding transport ([wikipedia] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_from_agriculture?wprov=sfti1)) or 53% of all agricultural emission, while the whole supply chain is 18% of agricultural emissions, thus 4.6% of total.

    So meat production is by far the driver of agricultural emission, even if obviously the whole chain could become cleaner.

    Additionally, all freight transport accounts for 30% of transport emissions, so a total of 6% of global emissions. So banning all camions would achieve half of what vegetarianism would achieve.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    As i said, cattle is a huge part of the problem - i fully agree with you on that point. But the emissions are only one part of the equation: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_agriculture. The environmental effects of agriculture go much farther than their emissions, in many areas actively hindering reuptake of CO2 (or destroying CO2 binding capacity outright), or causing greenhouse gases to be emitted as a result of their actions (By heavily damaging / killing functioning ecosystems). These effects go much farther than anything that is discussed in the "official" count, and they don't disappear by becoming vegetarian/vegan. The fuel addiction of our current agricultural practices only makes everything a lot worse.

    Edit: I just checked - land use is somewhat counted into the stats you posted, but things like damage to ecosystems by pesticides, plastic use and damaging waterways because fertilizer runoff i can't see anywhere.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    Little is from beef. Beef, while the worst for emissions per calorie, is a tiny part of the overall food chain. Grains dominate.

    You will get closer, but I suspect your nation is simply too wealthy to hit the target. The UK is 2.25x higher than two tonnes per capita.

    It might be achievable if you cycle, never step foot on an aircraft, eat a local vegetarian diet, live in a small space heated with a heat pump, and buy solely used durable products. Again, there's too much carbon in the supply chain and government services like road maintenance

    Of course, you are miles ahead of the US.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    Beef is like 40x the emissions of grain per kcal. Grains are also a lot of the overall value because they are uses as animal feed. Drop the need for animal feed and you significantly drop the need for grains.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    live in a small space heated with a heat pump

    Their thin walls cause this to only be a tiny improvement I'd wager (still the best option though). They can even punch holes in their walls, if I tried this with a german drywall I'd break all the bones in my hand.

    but I suspect your nation is simply too wealthy to hit the target

    This implies environmental protection contradicts wealth (as in "lots of money in one n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ regional administrative zone"), a common conservative lie. It doesn't, unfettered capitalism does. E.g. the solar business makes fucking bank but is a net positive on the environment. So are lots of other businesses. The definition of wealth is fucked anyway.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    The U.S. is about 28 times larger than Germany. There is an entire continent worth of biomes here. Some places have thin walls, and some don't. Insulation factor is less important in, say, San Diego than it is in Minneapolis, for example.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    if you insist

    so while you're on your high horse: we know a few people who have made dietary decisions. i know a shitton of people with severe dietary restrictions that have made those decisions for them. they look identical from the outside. if you look at someone else's plate, you should have two things to check for: whether they have enough to eat, and whether something on there looks good enough you want to try some/ask how to make it.

    that's my high horse

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (20 children)

    Nice privilege. A lot of the rest of us don't have a choice.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    Nice privilege

    Oh yeah, so privileged to have grown up unable to afford to learn to drive a car

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Yes, it is a privilege. I grew up in a rural area (about 60 miles away from the nearest city) with no access to public transportation or services. It would take FOUR HOURS to walk to my nearest friend's house. I also grew up dirt poor and couldn't afford driving school. So, I had to convince friends to show me how to drive, or get friends' parent to show me, and eventually during my senior year, I convinced one of my teachers to let me take the behind the wheel test in his car. All of this because without a license where I grew up, you're never going ANYWHERE. No job, no friends, no mobility to get out of a shitty rural town. So yes, to not have had to do all of that, that is indeed privilege

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Friends with cars, teachers that let you fucking borrow their car?! Yeah, didn't have any of those options. Even if I did, didn't have the money to buy one or get insured.

    The test its self is also pretty difficult here, you are not passing it on a couple hours driving a friends car as practice.

    I didn't have that. If something was going on 50 miles away, I didn't go.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    Friends with cars, yes. And teachers who pitied me, yes. But it certainly want a couple of hours. We're talking about years of sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving friend's cars on dirt roads. I didn't own a vehicle for another decade after that.

    I don't know about where you grew up, but what I grew up, even if you crossed that 60 mile trek to the nearest city, you'd still need a car to get to most places, because it's fuckoff big and not well connected

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  • [–] -3 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

    Gasoline powered car ownership is not mandated by law and every country has cities where a car-free lifestyle is possible.

    It appears you chose to move to a small town near Des Moines. North of you are the Twin Cities where you can live car free with public transit or a bicycle if you are physically capable.

    So yes, you do have a choice. The privilege is the money for a car.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago

    I grew up in a small town in the west country, UK. No car was due to financial necessity. If I wanted to go somewhere it was by bike or I just didn't go. Yeah that probably did make it harder to find a job, though on the flip side it also meant literally any full time job pays enough to live comfortably.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    There's a reason the overwhelming majority of trips in Minneapolis happen by car. There's like 3 cities in the US where not having a car or motorcycle doesn't put you at a massive disadvantage, those are NYC, DC, and maybe Boston or Chicago.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

    Plenty of people in the Twin Cities live with only a bike and public transit. I was one of them and I never felt the massive disadvantage you write about. You just need to choose to live in an appropriate location.

    Again, it's a choice.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    You just need to choose to live in an appropriate location.

    Again, it's a choice.

    You just need to relocate, find affordable housing (lol), find a new job at that new place, convince your partner, potentially rip away your kids from their environment, move far away from family and friends, find a completely new social circle and then you'll finally be able to live car-free! Except all the times you'll now have to rent one.

    Like, seriously? It is not always just a choice, you're just god damn privileged to be easily able to move. Let alone to a pricy place with quality infrastructure.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    No one said choices are easy. That doesn't mean they aren't choices.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    It's ignorance here. Your ignorance is showing.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Please explain my ignorance. It sounds like a group of people trying to justify lifestyle choices and pretending they are powerless.

    I have even been told how horrible it is to live without a car in a city where I literally lived without a car without issue.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

    Again.. aye dude

    It is not a choice for many.

    My friend down in SC occasionally wants to kill themselves because they cant find work, dont have transportation, and the bike they got, is terrifying to ride on the roads around them.

    I was born in the middle of no where new england. I did make it to a small city once, for one decade, (and never owned a car) until homelessness had me back in the sticks (they had a bed open).

    I wanted to move to New Haven. I cant afford New Haven, and life dropped me back east again anyway.

    Ive never had much choice in where I lived. Just the same as how I kinda just fell into emoloyment, not really chosing that either, but taking what you can get.

    please stop telling everyone they have a choice. We have choices for a lot of things. Moving, just isnt one of them always, def not for everyone. Many like you get choice (maybe they waste it) but also many like me dont. I aint got moving money. Glad you got to have agency in your life, I really didnt, and I know I am not the only one.

    Bikes are dope, trains, public transport, fuck I feel like my area could benefit from a trolly just the way the roads are. But, Ive got none of that here. If I drive up to the university, I could take a bus to the capital city that takes half the day for a 40min car ride. Thats- thats what I got access to. Gotta cross six lanes of stroad to get the the nearest grocery; gotta take a highway to the second closest. Its numbscull shit out here.

    Someone being like, "you could move you have choice" is really like a slap in the face, and you said it not once (and I let it go) but twice. naw boo. My choice was New Haven, and I never made it.

    The answer isnt "everyone move to cities". The answer is to bring public transport and bike infrastructure out into the suburbs and beyond.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    How much is rent?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    How much does it cost to buy, maintain, fuel, park, and insure a gasoline car?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    Depends massively on the car and your willingness to learn about them. My last car before I fled the US was a 2006 camery I inherited that only needed oil changes, tires/rotations, a battery, brakes, plugs, and a timing chain, and got ~28mpg. The timing chain, plugs, brakes, and tires were done by a mechanic friend, so not a whole lot given that I had it for like a decade, total cost was probably about what I sold it for.

    My sister on the other hand insists on buying the least maintainable and fuel efficient cars possible on shit credit and I shutter to think what the monthly effective cost of ownership is, probably in the high hundreds.

    My current mode of transportation when I'm not in China or Japan is a bike I paid 500 for and gets 100mpg. I put about 60 dollars into a new clutch, chain, sprockets, plug, and foot pegs. It could use a new bore, rings, piston, bearings, transmission, and something is causing a weak spark before its warmed up, and it'll need new tires in a few thousand km, but it's carried me across SEA twice, so none of it's critical, its just the parts are showing signs of abuse.

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