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According to the news, Russia is burning off, or "flaring," about 4.34 million cubic meters of gas a day because it does not sell it to Europe. That's apparently an equivalent of 9,000 tonnes of CO2. Is not any CO2 I could ever emit by driving a car, eating meat or heating with gas marginalized by a behavior like this to the extent that I can never be made responsible for any global warming damage? Thanks for some insights from the philosophical side.

Mauro ALLEGRANZA
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    By your logic, stealing a little is OK, when there are people who steal a lot, and your contribution to the global ethic is minimal... until everybody is a thief. Some call this a "race to the bottom". – Weather Vane Sep 05 '22 at 19:45
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    There is no more gas being burned than if it had been distributed and burned by the consumers. Yet somehow it is no longer you who is responsible, when we are all responsible, in one way or another. The real problem with global warming is the collective behaviour, and as they say, charity begins at home. – Weather Vane Sep 05 '22 at 20:08
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    @WeatherVane Emitting CO2 is not stealing. But if we must: In a scenario where someone steals a full field of corn and ruins the farmer. If I pick up the remaining two ears, have I caused any harm? –  Sep 05 '22 at 20:16
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    You are not the only one "picking up two ears" but one among millions, perhaps billions of people. – Weather Vane Sep 05 '22 at 20:24
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    It seems easier to hold one government responsible than billions of individual people. Fuel that was wasted probably has to be replaced by the people who would have used it. So it does needlessly increase the CO2 emissions. – Scott Rowe Sep 05 '22 at 22:57
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    9000 tons sounds rather low, are you sure that figure is correct and you're not missing a million or billion somewhere? For example the U.S./Canada as the biggest per capita CO2 source (ignoring the really small countries) is at 16.1 ton per capita so that's just 600 people or a small village – haxor789 Sep 06 '22 at 06:47
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    @haxor789 I guess there is a factor of 365 you missed: per year compared to per day. – Weather Vane Sep 06 '22 at 08:29
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    @WeatherVane Ok, that makes sense so more like ~240,000 people. Not gonna lie that's a lot but that's still just a fraction of what is already produced. Of course a single person cannot really reduce their per capita amount that much on their own as it's just the average of the output and a lot of that is done by heavy industry not by private households but the industry still often works for the households so there is still something one can do about it. – haxor789 Sep 06 '22 at 08:36
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    It's happening because "Gas plants can be expensive to restart if deactivated for long periods, so operators often find it cheaper to burn existing gas rather than stop production." Your question is very similar to: 'Is it wrong to fly on holiday?' https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/92748/is-it-wrong-to-fly-on-holiday/92750#92750 – CriglCragl Sep 06 '22 at 17:34
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    The solution to pollution is dilution. The uncomfortable root problem here that no one wants to talk about is overpopulation. Yes, your emissions are miniscule, but there are billions of people all doing it. –  Sep 07 '22 at 14:19
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    I am neither philosopher nor biologist, but isn't CO2 food for plants? So more CO2 you burn, more food with there be for plants, therefore you do a good thing by feeding plants, so you are doing good thing :) – BЈовић Sep 08 '22 at 06:39
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    @BЈовић Plants can produce sugar and oxygen from CO2+H2O+Light, that's true, but there's a limit to how much CO2 can be used in that way, not to mention that there might not be many trees around industrial plants... And we also burn plants to which again releases CO2 so, yes but no. – haxor789 Sep 08 '22 at 06:47
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    All this just mean we are not isolated whenever you want it or not. So, when people in Europe are developed enough to think about some climate changes and simultaniously think 'North Corea or Russia - it's not our bussiness' or 'we'd better fix climate'. No. That won't work. We (all citizens of Earth) won't be able to 'fix' climate just in Europe, while there are such regimes exist. And yes, this means that all you can do the whole life for climate is wasted just by that act of Putin. All people should focus on fixing not climate but regimes. Even if you live on the other side of Earth. – Yuri Yaryshev Sep 08 '22 at 07:54
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    @10479 Dilution is never a solution. It is like putting a plaster. But you have to take away the root cause. Technically it is feasible to split CO2 in Carbon and Oxygen, but it requires a lot of energy (read money) Until we have a cheap source of energy we will keep struggling and keep putting plasters, but that is not a solution. Well, maybe a temporary solution. I will go as far as saying that the cost of energy is what's slowing down development, because this does not just apply to CO2 of course. – Joey Joystick Sep 08 '22 at 10:18
  • @JoeyJoystick Yes. Just ask the Tet (from the movie "Oblivion"). – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 10:29
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    @JoeyJoystick You misunderstand my comment. *All* pollution is treated by discarding it in vast amounts of water or air, thereby reducing its potency to virtually nil. This is natural; animals discard their waste in the vastness of the wilderness. What's changed in the last 100 years is number of individuals increased 10 fold, while individual waste is down only about half. We cannot reduce individual waste to zero; that's functionally impossible. Ergo, eventually we'll need to intentionally cap total population, even, perhaps, should already be doing this. –  Sep 08 '22 at 11:57
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    Unfortunately, population control is innately distasteful, that is, feels unnatural and wrong. The biological imperative makes no account for overpopulation. –  Sep 08 '22 at 12:00
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    @10479 I misunderstood you indeed, and for that I apologize. The population is growing very fast indeed and it may be needed to cap growth. But I think when more people have a prosperous life (rich countries -> welfare, pension etc.), the need to have many kids will decrease. Many countries with high growth are poor countries where the children provide for their parents when they get older. The children are their pension. You see in many rich countries, the population growth is zero or even negative (if you take out immigration!). I share your concern, but I think it can be avoided naturally. – Joey Joystick Sep 08 '22 at 12:24
  • I like your comment on the biological imperative. Not sure if it is the same thing, but I heard that in war time more boys are born than girls whereas in peace time more girls are born than boys. Can that not be linked? I need to check this out and know more about this. – Joey Joystick Sep 08 '22 at 12:28
  • @BЈовић This is an illogical old argument of deniers and supporters of the fossil fuel industry. It assumes that if CO2 has one non-negative effect, then it must, on balance, be good. A rational analysis would consider both pros and cons. For example, plants typically won't grow better in flooded fields or temperatures that are too high (not to mention the other effects of climate change on animals, including humans). – John B. Lambe Sep 12 '22 at 18:59

11 Answers11

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It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Suppose it is immoral to steal a wallet. Now, suppose that you learn that someone else has robbed a bank of a lot of money. Does it now become moral for you to steal the wallet?

In moral matters, you consider only your own options and which options are more or less moral than others. To be moral is to choose the option available to you that is more moral, relative to the other options available to you.

It makes no difference if that option is more or less moral relative to some other action of some other person. That doesn't change the options available to you or the morality of those options relative to each other.

If Russia is burning huge amounts of oil, this does not make it less moral for you to do your own small part to avoid pollution. However, it does change your available options in the following way: it makes it more beneficial to take action to limit Russia from burning that oil. By yourself, you can't do much, but if many others think like you, together you can make a political impact that could influence Russia's behavior.

causative
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  • How can we get some more effective options on the list? How can we stop violence and destruction, without using force? I think that 'influencing' those who have already gone that far is not possible. We *did* use atomic bombs, when it seemed nothing else would stop Japan, and no one else had one. What new thing do we have now that will work? – Scott Rowe Sep 06 '22 at 10:33
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    I don't find the analogy very apt. With a stolen wallet, we can point to a specific victim and significant harm, which is unrelated to the bank robbery harm. The original question is much more nuanced and interesting. – usul Sep 06 '22 at 17:37
  • @ScottRowe bombing Japan with the A-bomb was done only to prevent the *supposed* huge losses of US soldiers https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538830 ("Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved") Even if true, it was a trade-off between us soldiers and japanese civilians. – EarlGrey Sep 06 '22 at 20:18
  • @EarlGrey So what's the new A-bomb that stops destruction without killing? A sort-of reverse Neutron bomb? How do you stop people bent on destruction *without* killing them? – Scott Rowe Sep 06 '22 at 20:45
  • @ScottRowe I am confuting your point " We did use atomic bombs, when it seemed nothing else would stop Japan". the A-bombs were used purely to spare the lives of soldiers of one nation, while killing the civil population of another nation in doing so. Their goal was not to stop violence and destruction. I am not sure I follow you on the reverse thing. Are you asking me what can be the reverse of that? Maybe a nation throwing civilians strapped with explosives against another nation soldiers? ISIS did that against Syrian army, it did not go very well ... – EarlGrey Sep 06 '22 at 21:07
  • @EarlGrey why should the soldiers of the non-aggressor die? Perhaps the aggressor should have considered carefully before attacking a nation 10 times its size? Do they get to hurt us because they were stupid? Where should it end? Before it starts, I say. So, how do we stop it before it starts? – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 01:28
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    @ScottRowe I do not think the moral term like "being hurt" or "stupid" are appropriate for the discussion. As soon as civilians are killed, the non-aggressor become an aggressor. How should we stop the non-aggressor from becoming an aggressor? – EarlGrey Sep 07 '22 at 05:36
  • @EarlGrey by stopping aggression before it starts. By ending the causes of aggression: ignorance, poverty, inequity, aggression... See how it forms a loop? Where do we break the loop? *Today?* – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 13:01
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    The analogy necessarily leads to an "all or nothing" ethic, which is not at all an apparent need for the ethics involving emissions, else we'd all conclude to live naked in the woods. Is this a category error? –  Sep 07 '22 at 13:45
  • @ScottRowe among the cause of aggression, you put aggression itself. So either you play with words, or it should be clear to you that you do not stop an aggression by focusing on it, similar to not staying dry when raining if you look at the clouds only. – EarlGrey Sep 07 '22 at 14:11
  • @EarlGrey Some people need to be told this. – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 17:32
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    @usul I think you'll find that specific people are suffering the effects of the climate crisis. Just because the damage of individual actions is more spread out doesn't make it less real – njzk2 Sep 07 '22 at 21:04
  • @usul the question can be rephrased as stealing a lot from a bank vs stealing a little from the same bank if that is the problem – Viktor Mellgren Sep 08 '22 at 06:00
  • @ViktorMellgren I think a better analogy is: stealing a lot from a bank vs finding a little on the sidewalk. – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 17:43
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Important context:

The idea of you personally being acountable for your personal CO2 footprint (and that reducing it is relevant and important to combatting climate change) is not a natural idea as such, and a quite new one at that.

The individual carbon footprint as a concept was pioneered by BP to shift the focus (and blame) from systemic perpetrators like oil giants and nation states to the (almost powerless) individual.

Sadly, this mentality, of going after the individual instead of demanding/acting for larger and systemic change has permeated public politics and debate incredibly thoroughly, reducing conversation around actual change on any relevant levels.

So not from a really philosophical side, but from a historical/societal one: Yes, you can't really do that much, and you'd know that if the organizations who could do much hadnt spent millions to get us to think otherwise.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook

Hobbamok
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  • You could kinda wish Hell actually existed. Not sure what else will ever even the balance in the long run. Of course, the world would still get wrecked... – Scott Rowe Sep 06 '22 at 10:31
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    Companies and public institutions don't emit CO2 for fun. Your purchasing decisions certainly have an impact. Not to mention behavior which more or less directly causes CO2 emissions like driving a car or heating your home with fossil fuels. Of course regulations (which depend on your voting decisions) also have a big impact. Unfortunately proper CO2 taxes are unpopular. – Michael Sep 06 '22 at 10:56
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    When the next generation is looking at the ashes of the world, you’ll be the one saying ‘I didn’t do what I could because some company was very evil!’ – Sebastiaan van den Broek Sep 06 '22 at 12:35
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    @Michael normally I'd be in agreement with you on the "purchasing decisions" argument, but here we have found a weird edge case where they kind of are. This an crypto-mining. We need outright bans for some things. – Clumsy cat Sep 06 '22 at 12:53
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    What has really suprised me is that gas crisis in Europe hasn't been the catalyst to move away from fossil fuels. Far from it: in 2021 UK’s OPRED rejected Shell’s Jackdaw gas field development plans, but in 2022 they did a U-turn and approved it. – Weather Vane Sep 06 '22 at 13:16
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    Why not both? We should demand systemic change while *also* not participating in the system ourselves, to the extent possible. – user253751 Sep 06 '22 at 14:44
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    @WeatherVane this is veering off into Politics SE discussion, but the "green energy" solutions are not here fast enough for the coming winter. – qwr Sep 06 '22 at 23:40
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    See also the 70s anti-personal-littering campaigns, by similar mega corps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful#Controversies – Brondahl Sep 06 '22 at 23:55
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    Yes, but this seems to be pushing the needle all the way in the other direction to removing personal responsibility altogether (at least that's the impression I get). Individuals do still contribute and the general public are still, directly or indirectly, responsible for most emissions. Crucially, individuals ARE personally responsible for doing what they can to try to get their government to address the "systemic perpetrators". Rather than "well, we can't do anything anyway, so why bother", the better answer would be "go and vote" and "call your representative ... frequently". – NotThatGuy Sep 07 '22 at 12:12
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    @Michael yeah, and BP as well as Exxon have spend BILLIONS on making sure that climate change factors as little as possible in day to day purchasing decisions. And even that argument assumes the magical fairyland of a free marked being capable of solving climate change. – Hobbamok Sep 07 '22 at 13:08
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    @user253751 oh of course both. But due to billions spent lobbying we are way, way too far on the "individual's burden" side of the discussion. – Hobbamok Sep 07 '22 at 13:08
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    @NotThatGuy same as last comment: I am on the fence on the extreme exclusively because as a society we are way too far in the other extreme and not discussing systemic change and/or its past perpetrators. Also: The oil and gas billions are the reason why people aren't calling their """representatives""": because there is too much evicende that an Exxon check means more to them than a thousand calls from their constituence – Hobbamok Sep 07 '22 at 13:09
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    @Hobbamok We, as individuals, can also shift the public narrative towards discussing systemic change (and systemic change IS happening globally, and that's good, it should just be happening more and faster). The Exxon checks (and all the other checks) will stop coming to politicians if they are voted out. If it's clear to them that they're guaranteed to lose their position if they make a particular decision, or set of decisions, they probably won't make that decision. And if they still do, replace them with someone who'll reverse it and won't make similar decisions. – NotThatGuy Sep 07 '22 at 13:20
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    Let's say BP didn't steer public policy away from, let's say a carbon tax, to the idea of personal accountability. What's that mean? It means that now they aren't passing along a carbon tax to the end users of their product. There's no getting around the fact that if people weren't buying and burning fuel, that there wouldn't be carbon in the air. How can it be moral for end users to burn fossil fuels but immoral for fossil fuel suppliers to sell them to you? – Dean MacGregor Sep 07 '22 at 16:54
  • even though that's a BP invention that was pretty successful at shifting attention away from the bigger problem, it's still a useful tool to compare, if not individuals, at least life choices (suburb sprawl vs denser urban centers, car vs public transport, traveling by plane vs by train, eating meat or not,...) – njzk2 Sep 07 '22 at 21:07
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    @njzk2 suburban sprawl however is AGAIN an almost exclusively systemic issue. The extensive single-house-zoning around almost all US cities forces developers to build car-dependend hellscapes. In the US at least public transport is likewise rarely a valid option, in large part due to the car industries heavy attack on it (including destruction of Americas streetcars). Pretty much all of it is systemic, and even individual-choice topics like meat eating and plain vs train could be addressed far more effectively by nationwide (or in europe larger-scale) systemic action – Hobbamok Sep 08 '22 at 08:32
  • @njzk2 "How can it be moral for end users to burn fossil fuels" it's not and if you think that's what I'm saying here you're wrong. But talking about the individuals carbon footprint is like blaming a firstgrader for never having their homework done. That's 99.999% the parent's fault and to address the issue, a teacher would talk to the parents first. – Hobbamok Sep 08 '22 at 09:04
  • @Hobbamok totally agree on the fact that those issues are systemic. What I'm saying is that we can compare the footprint of, for example, an average city dweller vs an average suburbanite, and make opinions on what direction the system should take.\ – njzk2 Sep 08 '22 at 10:52
  • @Hobbamok we have to measure emissions. I see carbon footprint not necessarily as something that applies to individuals (although that's also a convenient position, given how skewed that measurement is for the wealthier part of the population), but to what lots of individuals do, given the constraints built by society. So on the one hand, stop sprawl, build walkable neighbourhoods, ... and on the other hand, hold accountable private jet owners for their individual footprint – njzk2 Sep 08 '22 at 10:55
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You're comparing the CO2 emissions of you as an individual to those of an aggregate of people (Russia) without accounting for the size of the aggregate. If you spread the responsibility for Russia's additional 9000 tons of CO2 per day across all the 140 mio. Russians (or e.g. across the 440 mio. EU citizens for whom that gas was supposedly for) then the increase in CO2 emissions per individual of this particular incident is much lower than your own personal CO2 emissions.

Dreamer
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    Yes but the CO2 emissions per capita doesn't really matter, what matters is the total CO2 emissions. The former is about who is to blame the latter is about how screwed we are regardless of who's to blame for that. – haxor789 Sep 06 '22 at 14:18
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    but the total emission is the emission per capita, times the population. – njzk2 Sep 07 '22 at 21:08
  • @haxor789 But the question in the OP is specifically about moral blame. – ajd138 Sep 07 '22 at 23:13
  • @njzk2 Actually, not quite. There can be large users of energy that I don't use the products of already. If everyone used the same energy I do, it could be very different than if everyone used someone else's energy demand profile. The problem is, no one is everyone. But more efficient processes and products (as we are already trying to implement) affect many for no effort by those people. If all lights are more efficient, for example, it is harder to be wasteful. Make good easy and cheap, and bad hard and expensive and it will largely fix itself. – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 01:35
  • @ajd138 It's in the subtext, but technically it's about whether one's own insignificant contribution can make a difference or whether one could/should adopt defeatism. – haxor789 Sep 10 '22 at 12:28
  • @haxor789 No, it's about whether an individual can be held "responsible" i.e. moral blame. That's the wording of the question, not merely subtext. – ajd138 Sep 10 '22 at 20:00
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The amount of gas Russia burns is the amount it usually sells. If you previously bought gas from Russia, you are contributing to the burning now. Stopping the purchase of gas now won't change the amount Russia burns. But where is your gas coming from now - some other equally bad dictatorship like Saudi Arabia? Should Saudi Arabia get similarly sanctioned for its war in Yemen, it will burn the amount of gas it usually sells, and you'll be glad if you didn't contribute to that.

user253751
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    We shouldn't be using fossil fuels. The source doesn't matter. Similarly, who wastes it doesn't matter. But if I am careful and others waste vastly more than I could ever affect, it seems pointless for me to take that action. – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 01:49
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    @ScottRowe Russia is burning this gas that they can't sell now, because they don't want to reduce their production, because they hope to be able to sell gas again in future (and stopping production now and then starting it up again later is more costly than running some of their production for no revenue, for a while). In the long run we need all fossil fuel *production* to be dramatically cut, which will only happen if we reduce *demand* for it so that production isn't profitable. – Ben Sep 07 '22 at 04:10
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    @ScottRowe You cannot single-handedly achieve this, but reducing your personal demand is part of an aggregate effect. If you give up on that and increase your demand again, you are instead a part of an aggregate effect *increasing* global demand, which actually helps Russia profit from actions like this. – Ben Sep 07 '22 at 04:10
  • @Ben Can we find a technological solution so that I am participating with other people actively in change instead of just each a separate 'actor' not working together? Moving money around is not a technological solution. LED bulbs, for example, are. – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 12:58
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    @ScottRowe yes, you can vote to outlaw fossil fuels in your city/state/country. – user253751 Sep 07 '22 at 13:10
  • @user253751 the technological solution would be to make fossil fuels unnecessary. We stopped killing whales when we didn't need the oil anymore. Fusion would be best, or lacking that, fission. And better batteries. In the US we unwisely stopped building nuclear power plants long ago, when that could have helped prevent the problem we have now. Not too bright. – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 13:49
  • @ScottRowe Humans are like a gas: we expand our population to fill the energy available. If there is any source of energy, we will use it. We will use solar, sure, and fossil fuels at the same time. We will cover every square inch of the planet in solar panels, burn the dinosaurs as well, and have 100 billion people. When the dinosaurs run out, 80 billion will die. – user253751 Sep 07 '22 at 14:00
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    @user253751 Heaps of unused and obsolete fuels remain, so you're clearly wrong about that. –  Sep 07 '22 at 14:13
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    @user253751 we sound a bit like the runaway AI that we fear happening. – Scott Rowe Sep 07 '22 at 17:30
  • @ScottRowe, nah, we're AS – user253751 Sep 07 '22 at 17:55
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9,000 tonnes of CO2 per day is not a lot.

Take into consideration that EU member countries have a total emission of 2,393 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year (2019). The 9,000 metric tonnes per day from Russia (3.3 million tonnes per year) is only 1.4% of that. And much less if you look at in on a worldwide per capita increase. It doesn't put you in a situation in which your actions won't have an impact. It doesn't completely invalidate your efforts if you manage to reduce your emissions by even 2%.

Aubreal
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Normally Russia would (probably) be selling that gas, for whatever CO2 intensive purposes. Now (you say/suggest/whatever) they have to waste it because they are at war. Obviously the problem of fossil fuels is not changed. The personal question concerns magnitude. Why should one try if a hundred oppose? Overall the world statistics are not encouraging. It really is about magnitude, and whether governance can get a grip.

You may find of interest this review (for all its faults) of Prof. Yehezkel Dror's For Rulers: Priming Political Leaders for Saving Humanity From Itself (2017).

Even before his 2001 book The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome Dror has advocated a more aligned world strategy.

Can the world get a grip?

Chris Degnen
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  • I'm betting on AI. – Scott Rowe Sep 05 '22 at 22:57
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    But do you suppose that the original intended users of the gas simply won't heat buildings, etc? That the global use will not rise due to intentional waste? You defeat your own argument. – Scott Rowe Sep 05 '22 at 23:03
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    Certainly the global use will rise due to intentional waste. But I think the OP's point is about waste being so great what is the point of trying to help. And that is about global governance, because they need to get it together. – Chris Degnen Sep 05 '22 at 23:12
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    The counterpoint is that natural competition is ferocious. Are we going to go to extinction as brawling countries? So pathetic (ouch, resonance). – Chris Degnen Sep 05 '22 at 23:15
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    That is to say: Sad – Chris Degnen Sep 05 '22 at 23:21
  • Russia started that war. So to say they "have to waste it" is a little cynical. – haxor789 Sep 06 '22 at 09:55
  • @haxor789 What is your opinion on the failure of the Minsk agreements? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements – Chris Degnen Sep 06 '22 at 10:22
  • I think they need some RumpleMinsk. – Scott Rowe Sep 06 '22 at 10:38
  • @ChrisDegnen Not sure what your point is here. Russia also started THAT war which lead to the Minsk Agreement in the first place and both sides violated it from day one which is why it already failed in 2014 leading to MinskII in 2015 which also failed pretty instantly and both the invasion in 2014 and 2022 were started by Russia, right? – haxor789 Sep 06 '22 at 11:49
  • @ChrisDegnen -- The Minsk agreements would have been a fine framework for peace. They required Russia to exit the occupied Donbass, after which local plebiscites would decide if the Donbass would become semi-autonomous regions of Ukraine. The 85% support for independence that the region voted for in the 90s, and the Russians dissolving all the locally elected councils, is a pretty good indication of how those votes would have gone. But Russia has blocked local elections there, as well as continued their occupation, because they knew how they would go too. Russia killed Minsk. – Dcleve Sep 06 '22 at 14:59
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While Russia is burning is a huge amount, yet your personal contribution will of course add up to that. Look at it differently though. It's always good to save some energy, if only for financial reason, or for the reason that you're less dependent on energy if you are able to live with not so giant amount of that. Especially with such big shortages it helps.

Additionally, I feel like Russia is trying to pressurize us into giving them money by saying "we burn this gas, because you don't like us". That is not acceptable behaviour on their part. We are at war, Russia vs Civilization. We will not give in and buy their gas ever. And we should vote for political parties, that don't subsidize fossil fuels.

very big cat
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Is your goal to be personally morally pure, or to cause the most reduction in CO2 emissions across society?

You have correctly identified that stopping the big polluters is going to be more effective than reducing your already tiny personal CO2 output. Therefore, it is not going to be an effective use of your time to reduce your personal CO2 output. Instead, you will be more effective if you focus on stopping other people from polluting.

The important thing is to not let the above argument become an excuse to do nothing. You have to actually try to stop the big CO2 producers from producing CO2.

UEFI
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If the question is how to evaluate your contribution to global warming (something I struggle with myself):

The accounting would need to consider whether your lifestyle up to now has been such that the Russian gas or any harmful substance/practice was demanded in the first place to keep you in your lifestyle - no matter how indirectly.

Eg if you buy a new car because you want a brand new car, you're part of the demand for new cars and are complicit. That goes to all the energy and resources used to make the car - everything, down to the last gloop of eyeliner used by the marketing team.

Another situation: my local village is resisting drilling for onshore oil. An argument for it is that the UK needs oil and it's better than transporting it via tanker from Saudi Arabia, thus wasting hideous amounts of oil (fuel) just getting the oil here. Actually: that's irrelevant because the Saudis (or whoever) will still extract and sell all oil they can. The (relatively tiny) UK extraction just adds to the total amount on the world's surface. So the notion is .. leave it in the ground. The less we extract, the less we burn.

So back to gas: If you consider the world's liveable surface to be one big bag of air and water, it really doesn't matter where or how any fossil fuels are being burned. It all hurts the ecology.

The question then becomes whether your lifestyle thus far holds an equal demand, through all channels no matter how indirectly, to the global average demand for gas or petrol, etc. per person.

Russia burning gas is clearly a waste in that no-one gets any benefit from it, but it would have been burned anyway if it was used for heating homes. The fact that it (and any fossil fuel/ harming chemical) been extracted at all is the root problem, and for that we're all responsible.

user2808054
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    I think the idea that anything that has touched it is also now poisoned (complicit) is tenuous. But, at least you're addressing the ethics of the question, unlike most the other answers, so +1. –  Sep 07 '22 at 14:05
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    I also think it's a little quick to separate "*brand new* car purchase" from all others as a meaningful distinction in this argument. –  Sep 07 '22 at 14:07
  • In most cases where "we're all responsible" some*one* finds a solution that *every*one can use. For example, light bulb meant not burning various things for light, motive power, etc (early generating plants were hydro). We cannot all fix this, just like we can't all perform surgery. So who will do what to make it happen? – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 01:25
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    @ScottRowe I guess like her or not, that's what Greta Thunberg is trying to do. I think more productive ways of doing that would be to welcome new cleaner technologies and perhaps new paradigms like "you can no longer expect to be able to use energy like you did in1985, without a second thought". If it were one person .. Elon Musk? Lol I don't know maybe it would be one movement or one political leadership that paves the way. – user2808054 Nov 02 '22 at 13:40
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    Just looking at this again in 2023.. I agree with the comments above, as they show it's not that easy a thing to untangle. – user2808054 May 12 '23 at 09:20
  • "*I have opinions,* strong opinions, *but I don't always agree with them.*" - George Bush - me neither! – Scott Rowe May 12 '23 at 09:59
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This is your mind trying to work around the fact that everything needs to change in order to combat climate change.

So no more flying, no meat, no car -not even a Tesla- and definitely do not get more than two kids.

(Putler is actually speeding up the transition to green energy with these gas prices.)

Casper
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  • Also, no clothes, no house, no breathing, and definitely no humans. –  Sep 07 '22 at 14:00
  • How do children specifically add to CO2 (besides breathing, which everyone does)? – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 01:19
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    Speaking of Tesla: [New Prius Helps Environment By Killing Its Owner - The Onion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXEddCLW3SM) – qwr Sep 08 '22 at 03:36
  • Lovely Prius :D @ScottRowe If you think about childrens lifetime CO2 emissions it's roughly: average C02 emissions per capita per year in the US is 15 tonnes * life expectancy of 80 years = 1200 tonnes of CO2 per kid. – Casper Sep 08 '22 at 07:15
  • Sure. We could save a lot on geriatric care right now. In fact, you just seem to be taking up space here... Ha ha :-) But kids in other countries contribute less CO2. "*Some are* more equal *than others.*" – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 10:22
  • True ;) Or if your kid invents a new CO2 capture technique it would be fine too ;) But maybe people who limit their amount of children are the ones that should actually have more children, otherwise only ignorant people get the upperhand. – Casper Sep 08 '22 at 21:44
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I'd say it's a question of whether or not you think the earth is doomed already (because of Russia, among other things).

If so then there's no ethical dilemma I can see. The ship has struck an iceberg, broken in half, and is on the way to the bottom in the frozen seas with no life boats and no help anywhere. We are definitely doomed. Is it unethical for you to drill a hole in the boat? Eh. It's probably fine. You can't possibly make things worse.

If we're not doomed then yes there's an ethical problem. Russia has fired a cannon and put a hole in the side of the ship. But the pumps are going and the ship might well still be saved. Is it ethical for you to drill more holes in the ship? Your holes are smaller, after all. But you'll be adding to the problem and while your lone drill hole probably won't spell the difference between doom and not-doom, every passenger on the ship making their own hole would be a bigger problem than Russia's cannonball, so now the sinking ship is your fault, too.

(Probably a good lesson here on the messaging of climate change. We should worry, but if we are convinced we're doomed beyond hope then eh, "do what you want, won't be any humans left to care in 100 years no matter what you do".)

JamieB
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  • Well, deliberately wasting lots of fuel seems different from people using fuel in the same way they have all along (assuming they were trying to be reasonably efficient). Exhorting everyone to change their individual behavior when it was not previously considered 'wrong' doesn't seem the same as someone deliberately doing something everyone knows is wrong. To use the wallet analogy, finding money on the sidewalk is not the same thing as robbing a bank. – Scott Rowe Sep 08 '22 at 17:32