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Comment by istjohn | Hacker News Reader

The United States also needs to make real sacrifices to our standard of living. We are by far the most prodigious users of energy per capita in the world. During WWII we changed the way we lived in substantial ways. We should be prepared to make similar changes. The stakes are every bit as high. And just as in WWII, the sacrifices need to be made by the middle and upper class as much as, if not more than, by the lower class.

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We (by example, and the way we communicate) need to paint an alternative picture that makes this alternative look, not like making a sacrifice, but is fundamentally better.

- I drive my car less, because my employer encourages working from home. Don't you like working form home, get rid of that slog of a commute!

- hey bub, your new electric car is bitching cool. Quiet, doesn't rattle, instant powah. I want one too now.

- yeah, I downsized to a smaller home. Still 3 bedroom, 1800sqft, enough for my family of four. But much less space to clean. Also, heating bills are much lower. Also, damn, I actually can furnish this home with bespoke cabinetry instead of that disposable crap from IKEA. Badass!

- Nah, are you nuts, I'm not flying across the world just so I can take a selfie with other tourists taking the same selfie. I'm vacationing in driving distance, can do without the drag of air travel, that's for losers without inspiration anyway.

- yeah, I'm walking to the small grocery store a couple of times a week, instead of driving. Cost a little more, but get some exercise, plus, my food is fresh, and get to buy meals on a whim more. Living large, daily!

A life without burning fossil fuels can be aspirational. We need to talk up what we gain, not what we lose. And what we lose is not critical anyway. Cheap fossil fuels just enable us to waste space because of convenience, and an imaginery convenience at that.

Transport and home comfort are #2 and #3 in the list for your average US citizen for production of carbon output. #1 is food, so in your list, we need to include meat consumption as one of the sacrifices that we must make. This is, stunningly, one of the harder ones for people to adjust to, based on anecdotal evidence.

Changing out your car is easy, as long as you still have a personal vehicle (I think that this logic must change too). Your house needs to be more efficient, but that's fine as long as you have a single family home (I think that this must change as well).

It just seems that there is a logical leap in the list of sacrifices that people have a lot of difficulty with.

I'm curious what your source is for this, because it isn't matched by the ones I'm finding. The EPA[1] says that 9% of emissions come from agriculture while 28% comes from transportation with about half of that being from passenger vehicles. Also this article[2] says that giving up a car for transportation is higher impact than giving up meat.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

[2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/7/14/1596354...

http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyl...

There are a number of others, but many of the studies that show largely meat free living vs. living with meat have ignored Biomass Transfer Efficiency. Giving up meat, as a society, would reduce the amount of plant matter that we need to grow by a huge amount, allowing large tracts of land to return to nature, locking up carbon and reducing the amount of fertilizers that we need to use, by a huge extent.

However, I do think that we get here just as well with a hefty carbon tax, as we watch meat prices jump through the roof.

>yeah, I downsized to a smaller home. Still 3 bedroom, 1800sqft, enough for my family of four. But much less space to clean. Also, heating bills are much lower. Also, damn, I actually can furnish this home with bespoke cabinetry instead of that disposable crap from IKEA. Badass!

I actually live comfortably in an 1800 sq foot house with a family of nine. 1800 sq feet would be far too large for just 4 people.

I think a big part in communication lies in moderation. Instead of dumping a huge list of things someone can do differently, give it to people in small, easily doable chunks. It makes it much easier to change when the change is small. Work slowly towards the end goal and it should hold more people to the actual change. It would be hard to get people to just give up air travel/their car just outright.

Hey! I actually like Ikea stuff.

I don't know any other company that would replace 25 year old kitchen cabinets with new ones due to warranty. After 25 years you might wanna update your kitchen anyway.

Also, even though the cabinets may be "cheap" the design can be really clever. Plus the hardware on the kitchen stuff is high-end and you won't see it until you spend big bucks.

I agree with your other points. I can afford a big house, yet I bought a 1500 sq ft home in a nice neighborhood. No high ceilings and should enough for a family of 4.

That isn’t true according to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_...

We are up there but a number of countries, Bahrain, Qatar, Singapore, and several other nations all rank higher in per capital energy consumption.

From the page you quoted -- first bar graph on the page.

Energy use per capita, US is #1 -- Kilograms of oil equivalent (2011)

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