> “The biggest problem we face in the world right now isn't terrorism or world war. It's climate change,” he says.
I really like seeing this quote from a Chinese business man.
I really like seeing this quote from a Chinese business man.
When it encroaches on personal things such as the size of a family (below, from the article's Zhang Yue) I do not like it - work is work and life is life - but there is a deep dislike of the way things are done by the moneyed by a lot of business people (and women are far more represented in this grouping than in large companies operating in China, including multinationals or traditional government backed companies) than a lot of people outside China are aware of.
Further quotes:
> “Don't buy things you only use once, such as newspapers.”
> “Grow your own vegetables.”
> “Most importantly, have only one child, to allow the population of the world to return to a level it can bear.”
> Another company handbook urges staff to brush their teeth twice a day, and to share cars.
> His hair is greying. Dyeing your hair is bad for the environment, he says.
> I have to set an example. My staff imitate me, and they then influence those around them. That's how we influence society.”
Not having a child is the most environmentally responsible act one can do. For each child you don't have, you offset tens of thousands of tons of CO2 emissions, millions of gallons of water used, tons of trash produced, etc.
I've been kicking around starting a non-profit that pays people not to have children, with the funding coming from carbon credits.
"By first year itself an American toddler would have generated more Carbon dioxide emission than an average person in Tanzania will generate in a life time."
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/...
http://www.greencontributor.com/index.php/human-foot-print.h...
Should we continue to overwhelm a physical system we require to survive? I don't advocate killing people whatsoever; I advocate incentivizing people to have less children (or no children, if they prefer). What's wrong with that?
>There's a difference between firing someone in a company and simply removing the position through attrition when someone leaves. This is no different than the later.
The difference is that in your company, you know you dont need the position. How do you know that a couple wants to have a kid or not?
I don't! That's why I'm not forcing them to choose! Want to have kids? Awesome. Don't want to have kids? Here's a check. Thanks for not having a kid (or kids).
I didn't boil down a human being to just carbon emissions. I included the millions of gallons of water they'd use over their life, and the trash they create. I didn't not include a comprehensive list of what an average human consumes in their life, but I have now included it below. Spend the ~5 minutes reading it to see the impact. There is no "human footprint" metric that quantifies all of the energy and entropy a human contributes to Earth's biome during their existence, so its not an easy/quick idea to get across.
http://www.greencontributor.com/index.php/human-foot-print.h...
> "It has huge benefits for future generations. If you tear it down 500 years from now it will leave a steel skeleton which is a resource for them, not just a load of rubbish. That’s what this is about."
I can't express how grateful and refreshed I am to hear a builder say such a thing. Especially coming as I am from the U.S., where we seem to specialize in building shit designed for obsolescence without a thought toward maintainability or recycling.
There may be a bit of light appearing at the end of the American tunnel; New York's "B2" building, built by developer Forest City Ratner (FCS), is 32 stories of stacked modular apartments. Hope this catches on
I hope it catches on in San Francisco and Oakland. There was a previous HN thread about B2 (can anyone find it?) and the potential to quickly add thousands of units at a higher density than currently exists would have enormous environmental, humanitarian, and economic benefits for the entire region.
On the other hand, if you live in a country where pollution controls have turned it largely invisible, and the worst pollution you experience is smelling a bit of diesel exhaust when you got too close to a bus, it's probably a lot easier to say that human activity is insignificant.