Pollution caused by a factory is an (almost certainly) unaccounted-for externality, a market failure hidden from the consumer of a good but known to the producer. Pinning the blame on the consumer removes it from the agent who is both directly causing it and actually able to effect change.
I hear you, but if one maker makes you pay the real price of including the externalities, most consumers will by the equally good but much cheaper alternative.
In fact, at equal price, they will choose the most convenient form factor with beautiful and practical packaging.
When I pay my waste management company to haul away my trash, I do so with the expectation that they'll dispose of it in an environmentally conscious way (as environmentally conscious as dumping it into a big hole in the ground can be). If they can't afford to do methane capture based on what they are charging, then they should charge more.
By not including externalized costs like environmental harm, cheap trash, just like cheap gas, leads consumers to use more of the product than if the environmental costs were factored in.
> I do so with the expectation that they'll dispose of it in an environmentally conscious way (as environmentally conscious as dumping it into a big hole in the ground can be)
Where does this expectation stem from? We all know they dump it in the ground as you mention but has there ever been a push for regulation to demand methane capture? I’ve never heard of such a push so I can’t imagine why anyone would expect them to have been doing it.
> When I pay my waste management company to haul away my trash, I do so with the expectation that they'll dispose of it in an environmentally conscious way (as environmentally conscious as dumping it into a big hole in the ground can be).
Lol what??? Have you never seen how the cookie is made and discarded? It amazes me how so many people on this VC-sponsored forum hold such environment conscious expectations. Many of you are in a strange state of mind about the true cost of things. Nothing is made cheaper in consumption; costs are just offloaded to nature.
FWIW: I grew up close to a copper mine, and currently live about 2 miles from a landfill (as the crow flies).
> This is similar to "China's manufacturing causes a lot of pollution". No, you, the consumer, cause that pollution.
This pretends that China's environmental standards and oversight are identical to every other countries or that worldwide shipping isn't one of the largest contributors to pollution on the planet. Which we all know is far from the truth.
So, no, China actually causes that pollution. The companies in the US who take advantage of China's lax environmental and labor laws to eke out a few points of profit causes that pollution.
As a consumer, I require goods to survive and thrive, and I have very little say in how that market functions, and I have zero say when it comes to setting policy. I'm happy to do more, and do as much as I can when possible, but I'm wealthy enough to play this game... most of America is not.
I wish HN would punch up nearly as much as it loves to punch down.
GP talked about who causes the pollution not where to punch (who to blame). Everybody has a little say in policies, at least in democracies. When you say that most of America is not wealthy enough to play this game then you basically admit this. And this is what is happening: people are not keen on making policies happen if those mean lowering their standard of living. But the thing is that, unfortunately, it is that very standard of living (i.e. consumption) that causes the problem.
You can punch up as much as you want, things are not going to change without people lowering their standards. And once we accept it we can easily force politicians to do the right thing. The tragedy of the situation is that everyobody is complicit and most people will not accept that they themselves are. Sure, everybody but them .
And I'm not saying this to blame anyone. Blaming doesn't make sense. Identifying the causes and what needs to change does.
> As a consumer, I require goods to survive and thrive, and I have very little say in how that market functions.
You do have a say when/if you are willing to bear the cost of your decisions. If more people were willing to pay up the "manufactured in a place with strict environment and labor regulations" premium, then there wouldn't be so many companies flocking to China.
But consumers don't want to do it. They rather save some bucks to buy the stuff they want and hide themselves under "everyone else does it".
> As a consumwr, I require goods to survive and thrive
An average person in US or EU consumes far more than what they “need” for survival or thriving. Half the ocean pollution can be directly attributed to the fact that most people want hundreds of pieces of clothing in their wardrobe. Yeah some people have less, but on an average, everyone consumes far more than they need, including the “poor” in these countries. You can’t just absolve yourself from all accountability.
You can absolve Coca-Cola et al. switching to plastic packaging by shifting recycling and pollution blame onto the consumer.
You can just as well absolve PRC’s environmental policies by shifting blame onto everyone who buys goods made in China.
As a matter of fact, it’s what both want you to do: assume they have no agency in this, and hold yourself and/or free market responsible for all the damage.
The lack of information, which in turn affects consumer behaviour. Information is important to a well functioning market. Excellent point, and providing more info is often to the detriment of many sellers/producers.
That excellent point aside, I did want to say that international shipping is a much smaller contribute to CO2 emissions than road freight, so a simple toggle is probably not going to cut the mustard, and goods from China are not necessarily that much worse for the environment than goods transported from one side of the US to another.
The biggest problem with most goods produced these days is the disposable nature of them.
I disagree that the end consumer has so much agency. As a consumer I simply have the choice to buy product A or B - the pollution caused by the factory that the store ordered hoping you would buy it - is obscured by many levels.
The consumer is a small part of the decision chain
> This is similar to "China's manufacturing causes a lot of pollution". No, you, the consumer, cause that pollution.
Except the China Effect of producing TrashOnArrival products is doing more than its fair share of amplifying how much must be produced to keep operational product in consumer hands.
the problem with this conversation is that it risks never landing anywhere; or landing differently depending on who is having the conversation. In order to be sure that Someone is accountable, we need an agreed framework for ascribing accountability. I think the way this might work is that the landfill is accountable, and the cost of accountability is passed on to users; that China is accountable for pollution from its manufacturing, and the cost of that accountability is passed on to consumers. The consumer only has a binary choice, (with cost a factor in that choice) whereas the producer can be incentivised to implement efficiency measures, alternative technologies, etc.
It's not really that simple -- there are lots of ways to spend less money while generating more pollution. I could spend less money by piling up my trash in my back yard instead of paying a waste management company to haul it away. But that's not going to reduce the amount of pollution I've caused, and will likely increase it.
There are several satellites focusing on human-driven methane emitters and monitoring that will be active in the next few years, like Planet's Carbon Mapper (https://www.planet.com/pulse/carbon-mapper-launches-satellit...). It's great to have active monitoring if we want to impose limits and hold offenders accountable.
Considering that merely existing creates carbon, the choice of "offenders" is concerning. Creating or "emitting" carbon and methane aren't crimes and attempts to "hold offenders accountable" makes advocates of this position sound authoritarian. You can't outlaw living and force people to buy climate approved products. The narrative and wording surrounding the climate movement get worse every year.
By "offenders" I clearly mean parties exceeding a legal limit (or any treaty-negotiated limits). It's a way to enforce laws and agreements. Of course I'm not implying that creating or releasing any amount of methane inherently a crime. We're talking about leaking pipelines (either by accident or negligence), biomass landfills that might be required to reclaim or capture methane (but aren't), things like that. Or even just identifying human-driven sources we didn't realize existed.
Seems odd the title even mentions landfills and the comments here are focused on them, since despite the largest hourly producer of methane mentioned being a landfill, they are largely glossed over! Based on the map, landfill emissions are basically a non issue outside of South Asia, so efforts to reduce those emissions can be rather targeted.
It’s worth noting that despite trapping nearly 30 times more heat, methane is only responsible for around 25% of global warming and only exists in the atmosphere for a decade vs 100s of years for CO2. Certainly reducing methane emissions will help, but CO2 will hang around long after the methane is gone (why the usual “suspect”, cattle, is a non issue).
With regards to landfills, the culprit is anaerobic decomposition. Diverting paper to recycling and most other organics to compost would go a long way.
But that's the thing about methane, it doesn't become "gone", it oxidizes into CO2. So not only does it trap more heat for the decade it's around, it also converts into CO2 to trap heat at the lower rate for centuries.
Sure, but CO2 is not the only product of methane oxidation and methane in the atmosphere can be stabilized if emission is stabilized. The same is not true for CO2 and the current CO2 warming contribution is worse.
Readit News
"That landfill is causing a lot of pollution". No, you caused that pollution. The landfill just collected it all in one place.
This is similar to "China's manufacturing causes a lot of pollution". No, you, the consumer, cause that pollution.
Just my $0.02.
In fact, at equal price, they will choose the most convenient form factor with beautiful and practical packaging.
We are not innocent in all this.
By not including externalized costs like environmental harm, cheap trash, just like cheap gas, leads consumers to use more of the product than if the environmental costs were factored in.
Where does this expectation stem from? We all know they dump it in the ground as you mention but has there ever been a push for regulation to demand methane capture? I’ve never heard of such a push so I can’t imagine why anyone would expect them to have been doing it.
Lol what??? Have you never seen how the cookie is made and discarded? It amazes me how so many people on this VC-sponsored forum hold such environment conscious expectations. Many of you are in a strange state of mind about the true cost of things. Nothing is made cheaper in consumption; costs are just offloaded to nature.
FWIW: I grew up close to a copper mine, and currently live about 2 miles from a landfill (as the crow flies).
This pretends that China's environmental standards and oversight are identical to every other countries or that worldwide shipping isn't one of the largest contributors to pollution on the planet. Which we all know is far from the truth.
So, no, China actually causes that pollution. The companies in the US who take advantage of China's lax environmental and labor laws to eke out a few points of profit causes that pollution.
As a consumer, I require goods to survive and thrive, and I have very little say in how that market functions, and I have zero say when it comes to setting policy. I'm happy to do more, and do as much as I can when possible, but I'm wealthy enough to play this game... most of America is not.
I wish HN would punch up nearly as much as it loves to punch down.
You can punch up as much as you want, things are not going to change without people lowering their standards. And once we accept it we can easily force politicians to do the right thing. The tragedy of the situation is that everyobody is complicit and most people will not accept that they themselves are. Sure, everybody but them .
And I'm not saying this to blame anyone. Blaming doesn't make sense. Identifying the causes and what needs to change does.
You do have a say when/if you are willing to bear the cost of your decisions. If more people were willing to pay up the "manufactured in a place with strict environment and labor regulations" premium, then there wouldn't be so many companies flocking to China.
But consumers don't want to do it. They rather save some bucks to buy the stuff they want and hide themselves under "everyone else does it".
An average person in US or EU consumes far more than what they “need” for survival or thriving. Half the ocean pollution can be directly attributed to the fact that most people want hundreds of pieces of clothing in their wardrobe. Yeah some people have less, but on an average, everyone consumes far more than they need, including the “poor” in these countries. You can’t just absolve yourself from all accountability.
You can just as well absolve PRC’s environmental policies by shifting blame onto everyone who buys goods made in China.
As a matter of fact, it’s what both want you to do: assume they have no agency in this, and hold yourself and/or free market responsible for all the damage.
Consumers have very few options within their control and the problem is not binary nor does its solution need to be zero sum.
That excellent point aside, I did want to say that international shipping is a much smaller contribute to CO2 emissions than road freight, so a simple toggle is probably not going to cut the mustard, and goods from China are not necessarily that much worse for the environment than goods transported from one side of the US to another.
The biggest problem with most goods produced these days is the disposable nature of them.
I disagree that the end consumer has so much agency. As a consumer I simply have the choice to buy product A or B - the pollution caused by the factory that the store ordered hoping you would buy it - is obscured by many levels.
The consumer is a small part of the decision chain
Except the China Effect of producing TrashOnArrival products is doing more than its fair share of amplifying how much must be produced to keep operational product in consumer hands.
Substitute "contribute to" for "cause"
It’s worth noting that despite trapping nearly 30 times more heat, methane is only responsible for around 25% of global warming and only exists in the atmosphere for a decade vs 100s of years for CO2. Certainly reducing methane emissions will help, but CO2 will hang around long after the methane is gone (why the usual “suspect”, cattle, is a non issue).
With regards to landfills, the culprit is anaerobic decomposition. Diverting paper to recycling and most other organics to compost would go a long way.
We are doing too little too late
This issue has been known for quite some time.
The problem is that no one is doing anything about it...