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Comment by 11235813213455 | Hacker News Reader

The problem comes from most first-world people lifestyles, it's an accumulation of consumerism and damaging things, like buying products with (plastic) packagings, non-necessary products (like cosmetics), non-seasonal vegetables/fruits, having pets for example (1/5th of meat and fish production is used for pets food)

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Cutting out deodorant and euthanizing my dog has allowed me to convert Soylent into Javascript at a much lower environmental cost.

I have no idea what I just read but you might be on to something, or you have lost your mind, possibly both.

I can't believe you wasted all that meat through euthanization... what do you think they make Soylent from?

Have you considered using a more efficient programming language to lower the environmental cost of running your code?

stand away from python, ruby then

Don't forget eating too much meat, which is responsible for most of the other 4/5th's.

I'm not saying everyone should be vegetarian but for most people eating 50% less meat would be a lot more impactful than avoiding plastic packaging or imported veggies.

Yes, but the fault lies with both personal decisions and large corporations. The argument you've made is most often made in bad faith to guilt consumers into ineffective actions, shifting the blame from the systems that mould wasteful lifestyles to the "weak" individual who is trying their best.

Most of the items you listed are necessary or can be made to have little impact, e.g.: >plastic packaging Agreed here, most of it is unnecessary. However, it is a systemic issue - buying goods (especially groceries) that do not come in plastic requires significant effort i.e. shopping at bulk food stores or farmers' markets. >cosmetics Sure, a lot are unnecessary, but I'd hate to go into work where nobody wore deodorant, showered, or washed their hands. >Non-seasonal fruits/vegetables Depends on the fruit/vegetable. Where I live in Canada buying non-seasonal/local is essential - otherwise I'd be eating apples 6 months of the year. Fruits and vegetables that can be transported by ship often have a lower impact than locally-grown. >Having pets Most pet food is made from by-products that would be wasted by the animal murder industry. I'm vegan, but as long as people eat meat (which, let's be real, they will) owning pets brings huge positive impact to peoples' lives, with little impact - as long as you're not feeding your dog steak.

The point is really honestly not to guilt people, it's really about the environment and a common shared effort, almost all the pollution is more or less directly coming from end-users, consumers, thus we have a huge impact. The other day I discussed with someone at supermarket in front of fruits, about reusing plastic bags, or bringing reusable bags, they told me they do reuse those small plastic bags, for picking their dogs poop. Now with a bit of distance, you realize the nonsense: poop, which is more or less good fertilizer, wrapped in plastics, all that thrown in the common bin, collected by trucks, and brought in the incinerator. And this multiplied by a bunch of people

Yes pets food is often made of secondary parts, but it's still an accelerating factor in fishing/animal farming (some suggest insects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#cite_note-8) maybe), we also always forget the indirect cost and pollution, like the transport, the packaging needed to feed daily those 1 billion pets or so worldwide, and their other services, let alone side-effect like feral-cats, ... Yes in some cases pets are useful, but not all

For cosmetics, just see how uncommon has become a basic soap bar, which is however the most efficient cleaning product, and likely less polluting

Ok for fruits in winter, I can understand you as a huge fruit eater (I'm in the South of France), it's still a win-win to eat seasonal, seasonal fruit/vegs are much more nutritive. I think apples is not the best example as with a few variety you can cover the whole year, maybe not locally in Canada though, your gray Canadian apples are excellent tho

The line from Fight Club really hit me hard and sunk in deep when I saw the movie as a teen:

"We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need"

Want to feel less stress as work? Consume less. Want to have a smaller impact? Consume less. Want to have freedom to splurge on things that you do actually care about? Consume less.

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