So many around me are worried about the environment. Most people know it’s bad. They just don’t know what to do, they don’t know where to start. Thank you for the video, Hank. We need more of these.
That's the issue here: it's a collective action problem on a global scale. The tragedy of the commons is very real. Solving climate change is both a matter of manifesting the sufficient political will for meaningful change, and then coordinating it. Yeah, not easy. Fortunately, we have come a very, very long way on getting people to recognize the reality of climate change. Does everybody see the threat for what it is? No, and that will never happen. But I grew up during the early to mid 2000s, and the shift in public discourse on climate change since then is palpable. When _An Inconvenient Truth_ first came out, even a lot of people who trusted in the science treated climate change as a bit of a "tree-hugger" issue. That's no longer the case, and a lot of skeptics have since come around as well. For once, the proverbial iron is actually hot. It's just a matter of striking it.
There isn't anything we as individuals can do. This is ridiculous. Virtually all of the causes are structural at a societal level, and the solutions must be structural at a societal level.
I cant even get a single person to talk to me about the climate crisis because of how uncomfortable of a topic it is. This adds to my dread, guilt, and urge of responsibility. Thank you for advocating Hank. We all needed a a refill on hope after seeing those headlines. I will keep making an effort to do what I can and open up a conversation about it.
@@AberrantAberrant In all honesty, my friends and family tend to avoid anything that is upsetting to them. But you might be right, I think talking about it at all can come across as aggressive because of the urgent nature of the topic.
I relate so hard to both sides of your experience in talking to friends and family. I want to talk about what we can do to help reduce the impact.... but my dread and fear of the future leave me frozen and unable to have conversations about the topic.
As much as I'm nostalgic for ~2010 goof-'em-up Vlogbrothers videos, thoughtful signal-boosting work like this is incredibly important, and I'm so grateful for Hank's work as a science communicator. The balance of taking a topic like this severely but also maintaining a powerful sense of hope is nothing less than *invigorating*.
@@facelessdrone This is just ignorant. The majority of the world isn't knowledgeable enough to read through multiple scientific papers, weed out the oil funded ones, understand each solution and then form their individual solution after thinking about it. If people need someone else to simplify something for them, it doesn't mean they're dumb.
The most important weapon against carbon emissions was not mentioned: Nuclear power. Look up LFTR technology. China is pursuing it, and the U.S. is not...to our great detriment.
As a greenhouse gas analyst, this video was wonderfully informative and a great beginner crash course. When people ask me if we can 'fix' climate change, i tell them that we do have the technology. We as a species have EVERYTHING we need to take direct action. All we need is an adapt or die mentally... here's hoping!
It's great to be optimistic - but the real problem has little to do with individual choice. The problems are political/economic. We are a finger snap away from a fascist takeover of the US. Big oil is a huge supporter of the Fascist/Republican party. Capitalism is designed to prioritize profits and dismiss well being. There is no political organization with any platform advocating the dismantling of the deadly structures that are driving us to extinction. John Brown once said that slavery would not end without violence. Where is the John Brown for these times?
Sounds like hopium. Everyone needs to drop their hopes and dreams of infinite consumption and become subsistence farmers, a difficult task when the climate is wrecked and we need to carry on in that manner for decades to see our impacts!
What technology do we have that will reverse abrupt irreversible climate change? Electric, solar and wind can’t because they rely on a fossil fuel base. You’re not even mentioning the aerosol masking effect which is very important when understanding climate change. Hope by definition is wishful thinking so your integrity is being called into question especially as you are a greenhouse gas analyst.
Hi Chloe, I appreciate there are a lot of roles under the umbrella of "Greenhouse Gas Analyst" but I would be interested in how you calculate how much a given increase in CO2 changes the effective radiating level of Earth.
@@levijames96 Temperature reconstructions do not show our era to be "abrupt and irreversible", they actually show our era to be consistent with a once in a thousand year event, rare, but not so rare we haven't seen it before. The very smooth "past temperatures" you are usually shown are Marcott with Hadcrut tagged on the end. These two series look like a hockey stick and scare everyone. However the data series are fundamentally different and really shouldn't be plotted together, you are looking at two very different stories.
I am amazed and impressed that you condensed 14 weeks of 3 hour university courses on environmental policy accurately into 16 minutes. I will be sharing this with everyone I know!
Videos like this are so important for dispelling the climate dread that many people have. And they help lower the barrier to entry for those who don't know much without being overwhelming or crisis-inducing. I wish I had been able to watch this when I took my first environmental science class a little over two years ago. My professor was excellent and made her best effort to inspire hope, but the sheer onslaught of information instilled so much anxiety. Even when presented with actions that we could achieve in our communities and personal lives, the problem of climate change seemed insurmountable. It still seems insurmountable sometimes. It wasn't until this semester, when I took a course on climate change, that some of the anxiety started to go away. Not completely. I'm still terrified and furious, but the end of the world via climate change no longer seems like such an inevitability. My change in outlook is partially due to knowing the intricacies of how the climate functions, but also because I had to look at the real changes that need to happen. Our term paper was on the climate action of different countries and how their culture/economy/history impact it. I wrote about Russia. Despite being notorious for supplying the world with fossil fuels, it's actually made a decent amount of progress towards curbing emissions and has already met its goal for the Paris agreement. Yeah, it still has so much more progress to make, but the steps it needs to take are /real/ and actually /achievable/. And the average Russian citizen is just as worried about climate change as we are. It's relieving to be reminded that the global community outside of the U.S. and Western Europe is just as concerned, especially in a media environment that focuses almost entirely on us. It's a reminder that we're all in this together.
Yeah. The biggest problem is how much capital is caught up in fossil fuels. Those who are more affluent invest in it or are driving forces behind it. Capitalism is reaching the limits of how far it can exploit society for profit as mega-corporations get fewer and larger, their effects more pronounced, and their greed more naked. Wide-scale change is too slow to curb this yet, but I predict around when the next generation matures we'll start seeing a greater push for positive change in the way we understand our finite resources and how to most effectively distribute them.
@Josiah Klein That approach to fossil fuel monopolies is definitely the biggest part of what makes me nervous. It's hard to stop it because they're the ones with the financial means to sway politicians through lobbying. It often feels like the only thing really stopping us from stopping climate change at this point is politics. We have the knowledge and technology, just not the funding or support. And as someone living in the US, political change at this point seems like the actual insurmountable thing.
My mom was so emotional about this when the reports came out and was crying, like, "we sung about these issues in the 60s and 70s and nothing has been done."
@@randomname2366 What do you think has been happening in California, Jewish space lasers? The fires there aren't just spontaneous, same goes for the storms that have ravaged the east coast of the United States, or the flooding of my own city, or the extreme heat that's been plaguing the southern hemisphere. The "doom and gloom" is not some catastrophic change that happens immediately - it's gradual and slow in some areas, while in others it's far more noticeable. Just because you're not seeing the effects of the carbon emissions doesn't mean it's not happening. Instead of trying to dunk on people in UA-cam comments, look into the research and data that's been recorded and studied by scientists so you know what you're talking about.
@@Jackvonblood I read the same such statements from people back in high school over 10 years ago. Newsflash, CA gets wildfires and the state is admitted to being poorly managed. They just turned of electricity to 18,000 people because they can't fix their stupid grid. I studied the topic a long time ago, watched debates and made up my mind. All you guys ever do is point to anecdotal evidence and say wait and see. Well I remember watching history channel documentaries that said 10 years before it is irreversible and that was when I was in elementary school 20 years ago. The planet is fine. Pollution is generally bad so we should have decent standards and balance it with our need for energy. Renewables are cool but far from a solution due to inefficiencies on a large scale. Drink a beer and chill. We got enough issues in this world to worry about.
@@randomname2366 Why do you think California is having such wildfires? And I wonder why they turned off electricity, is it because of the effects of the environment? California IS poorly managed, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything that can't be done about it. And yes, the effects ARE irreversible. For the next 30-40 years the less fortunate of us are going to have to struggle with the rest of climate change, and that's at best. As for anecdotal evidence, look at any government page for evidence of it. For every one piece of anecdotal evidence there are ten things that can be directly measured, but you're either too unintelligent or just don't care if the world goes up in flames. Not to mention that you made your mind up what, 10 to 20 years ago? Hell, even 5 is quite a ways back. The science has changed. Look at it again, and use some critical thinking. But if all of that is just too difficult for you, just sit back, drink your beer, and let the rest of us clean up the mess cowards like you make since you're too selfish to do anything else in the world.
@@randomname2366 You even admit "pollution is generally bad", but you're also saying it's not that bad? Is pollution bad or not? Make up your mind, cause the laws and regulations in place now aren't enough to combat it if it is, and if it's not, why are you even in the comments of this video? You should be out drinking your beer and developing lung cancer next to an industrial plant.
I feel like I'm in a constant tug of war of trying to make myself research and understand climate change, while also being so angry and scared that my 'monkey brain' defaults to overwhelming despair. Thank you for the accessible video Hank, finding good resources from trustworthy sources and then forcing myself to sit in the discomfort while reading them is hard. But I can definitely manage a 16 min video, and I know that people staying informed is key to addressing this crisis.
My solution to the climate-anxiety driven avoidance has been to just read about the renewable energy industry and new energy storage projects and technologies. It’s the “bright side “ of the coin and just as important as understanding the problem itself.
Stop outsourcing your thinking... CO2 is literally the key ingredient to growing plants. They pump 3x current co2 levels into greenhouses to accelerate plant growth. If you look into it you'll find pleanty more reasons why it's 100% for political control and little to do with honest science. Like the fact that based on the evidence people were able to argue for the banning of CFCs. If the same evidence existed for co2, they should be able to go back to the courts. If they really cared about co2 trapping heat, you could easily build a solar shade and send it towards the sun to reduce the heating hitting the earth. Fortunately clouds already do this for us automatically; the hotter it gets the more clouds reflect energy back out into space. It's always been a giant scam for the elite to extract wealth from economies; primarily from the working class.
@@holdenrobbins852 I don't see what small scale green houses have to do with the climactic conditions of an entire planet. The fact that earth is already experiencing a hugely increased number of extinctions, natural disasters, and extreme weather events makes it pretty clear that rising average global temperature poses a major risk to humanity and the environment we live in. Trust me, I've looked into it. And things don't look good.
@@cloud_appreciation_society Yeah, I've looked into it as well. The difference is perhaps the logical fallacies with your thinking... ego-centric bias being one. People always think they're the center of the universe. If the Sun looks like it's rotating around the Earth, especially if that's what we're told, then it must be, right? Humans are far from being the biggest influence on the Earth's climate... a single volcanic eruption, or forest fire can put far more carbon in the atmosphere than all of humanity in 100 years... ironic that we think acting more trees in the solution. Some trees produce thier own greenhouse gasses to keep themselves warm...
Thanks for the video! A few fact checks: 1) The graph provided at the beginning of this video is misleading. The United States most certainly does not have a level of per capita carbon emissions that is at parity with what it was at in 1918. The only reason the graph appears to claim this is because it relies on production-based statistics, not consumption-based, and therefore it is not trade-adjusted. This is significant given that the United States is by far the world's largest importer, so most of its emissions derive from consumption activity. 2) We are not on track to achieve an absolute decoupling of emissions from economic growth in either the developed or developing worlds, and we are certainly not on track to achieve the absolute decoupling of resource use in general from economic growth. The decoupling of resource use from GDP growth is actually more important, given that the extraction of the Earth's resources is both the largest driver of emissions and the largest driver of all other kinds of ecological disturbances (UNEP 2017). The technocratic approach to 'decarbonization' excludes reference to the politics of extraction and consumption, which significantly misrepresents the problem. 3) Demand-side solutions, such as carbon pricing, are not going to be sufficient to address the scale of this problem. Globally, oil companies and oil-producing nations are planning to extract and burn more 120% more oil than we can safely emit if we want to remain within the temperature limit imposed by the Paris accord (SEI 2020). We need supply-side policies to impose strict caps and moratoria on the extraction of fossil fuels, or otherwise energy policies will remain decoupled from climate policy and the entire paradigm will collapse. We must try to avoid creating a techno-solutionist narrative that simply reinforces a dysfunctional status quo. The real issue here is the need to build a post-extractive, steady state economic system that exists within the constraints of all 9 of the Earth's biophysical limits (Rockstrom 2009). If we cannot do that, it is game over.
I feel like no one is going to pay attention to your comment and that's a bit sad :/ but yeah the last I checked we absolutely 100% have not decoupled emissions from growth. I also thought carbon coins and cap n trades had been debunked a decade ago; even carbon credits are losing any credibility within mainstream environmental science, last I checked, as investigative journalism + peer review found they're just kinda sketchy companies with no real effect on emissions. The UN is also kinda seeming weird lately; I mean they had Nestle of all people handle the food security meeting recently
Hank is selling a narrative and is not existentially concerned about climate changes for himself or his children. Otherwise he’d have done more research.
1) yeah fair 2) I don't understand where he made any claim of decoupling. This is an issue but an issue he didn't deny. 3) he mentioned this in the actual video. So yeah
@@stevend776 the cap and trade model only falls apart when the companies can "cheat the cap". And although it didnt work in some areas it did work in others just as he mentioned in the video, a climate policy not working doesn't increase emissions substantially more when compared to if it didn't exist at all, but if it DOES work it DOES decrease emmitions substantially, so I'd say it's on a net positive on the effectiveness scale, it just needs to be stricter. I don't know enough about the other methods to comment. There's also the fact that we aren't constricted to just one solution. We can do cap and trade AND everything else in the video you agree with. As hank said, what is ideal is doing _everything_ that works.
People get really overwhelmed by the idea of doing their part perfectly. You don’t have to be perfect. Anything at this point helps. Thrift clothes, compost food scraps, lower your consumption, buy local, recycle , get reusable grocery bags, try to limit things you buy packaged in plastic... we don’t need to be perfect. We just need millions of people doing their part imperfectly.
Corporations and systems cause most of the emissions by far though, and they will perpetuate their influence into oblivion if we don't make them stop emitting. I think only focusing on individual actions is shortsighted even if individual actions are important (not mentioned are eating less meat/dairy and getting solar panels for your home especially if they're subsidized by your government)
Can't describe how beautiful the phrase: "by the year 2050 you can't be burning fossil fuel anymore" sounded to my ear. I really hope we get there. My country Algeria is burning right now 😔
Careful what you wish for. Imagine we get there, but because of such a policy prices have skyrocketed and the poor have become even poorer as a result. Who knows what the best path forward is atm.
@@Wind_Falconjfc- People can't breathe. If you've never been within 20 miles of a 3+ day fire you don't get to say "I dont know about ending these fires..."
@@Wind_Falcon I see it this way: if we have to temporarily decease quality of life in exchange for the survival of the human race and a net increase in the quality of life, it’s worth it. I realize that this is an incredibly privileged thing to say, but it’s where I’m at right now.
@@nothingtoseeherefolks6911 The way I see it, we might be able to ensure "the survival of the human race" without lowering the quality of life of the poorest people (who also didn't cause this problem in the first place), even temporarily. But first we have to stop panicking, which seems to be a tall order for many. I also get the benefit of not saying something that's "incredibly privileged".
This video is probably the most helpful resource I've ever seen on the Climate issue. It gives the solution, problems going on, and describes in more detail what we can and need to do. This is so clear and transparent as well, not allowing for any questions to be left unanswered. Most other videos just say "the world is ending because of climate change, here's what climate change is, we're all dead." Welp, time to read the entire 3949 page IPCC Climate Report in full.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο civilisation does cause climate change but there are solutions yes, everything that changes will change everything, but we can stop those changes from being large and/or negative by changing what we change the universe is a variable, and so is everything inside and the possible things outside it, and changing one variable always changes at least one other, but the good thing about variables is that you can optimise them.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο I highly suggest you listen to the current experts on Dynamo theory and its implications on climate change (Zharkova et al), and the real temperature -CO2 profile (Clark et al). As for your suggestions regarding the "relocation" of resources, I strongly suggest you re-examine these hypotheses with correct spatial relation to the total volume and mass of the planet, with specific regard to the relative volumetric movement and alteration of the earth's crustal composition and its effects on the Earth's core mass and volume (ahem....NONE).
@-GinΠΓ Τάο Let’s meet some day to talk physics. On the basis of your citations alone, I’m going to estimate I’ve already forgotten more about physics than you’ll ever understand. When you attempt to come to the understanding the true distance moved of heavy elements exploited to the surface of earth (to serve as the vital source for anything possible in our modern lives) relative to the total distance of the Mohorovičić discontinuity to the immense PT assemblage of the Fe/Ni core center, fairly straightforward mathematics will express a weight transfer so minuscule it can be regarded as zero, which is the relative qualification any practicing physicist would assess of your citations. Have a good day there young man.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο "the point".... Proceeds to produce "point" of M3th from pocket. Reasonable people would Rather do astronomy with geometry than astrology with gematria.
The climate has been changing as long as there has been a climate. There were times when there were no ice caps at all, and other times when ice covered the entire planet. We are lucky the climate is more stable now than it has been in millions of years. We are in a relatively short interglacial period smack in the middle of a brutal ice age. Frankly we could use a little warming, but its extremely narrow sighted to only focus only on CO2 emissions, especially for a science lover like Hank. You can't talk about climate change without talking about the milankovitch cycles, precession, obliquely, and eccentricity. These ALL have massive, inevitable impact on climate. The ice age will return and the oceans will eventually boil away no matter how much green energy we use or dont use. It's the height of egotism to take such a human centric view of the climate. We are on a spec of dust hurdling around a giant nuclear fire ball
But be very aware of those who spout false promises! None so far have ever wanted to change anything, not just whatever country you happen to be in. most government's are in it for themselves and their donors, which just happen to be the planet wreckers. At every turn everything is about the money, vast amounts of it, to whatever cost.
thinking voting matters. democracy just means who has the most power will shape the masses, the end result is always oligarchy and in the current system, oligarchs are not held responsible for their actions. they shape societys flow and who the masses elect they rule by proxy through politicians. politicians take the heat and decision makers get off scot-free. in other words. rich person with an agenda pays lobbyist to influence politicians to get laws passed that further his agenda, that politician gets re-elected because he has the money and the circle continues. so whatever or who ever we vote for does not matter at all. it matters less than literally nothing. its all smoke and mirrors.
I've been feeling really negative about all this lately, but listening to this video gave me some hope. There's a lot of work to do, but it *can* be done.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο What you're saying is incredibly interesting. I think I get the premise: that the angular momentum changes caused by mining resources has changed the Earth's movement enough to warm our atmosphere. If this is true, (and I do plan on looking into it, because it is very interesting,) I don't see how it negates or changes the fact that excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is also a huge problem and contributor to climate change as a whole, even if it isn't the only factor. So green energy would still be pretty important, not a myth. Anyway, thank you for your well cited insights.
When the scientist said we have certainty. I just cried. I didn’t realise how much fear and disappointment in the world I was holding in. As young people living just above the poverty line, we feel hopeless and it’s effecting our mental health, both consciously and unconsciously.
I feel you. Though I'm still extremely sceptic. I don't believe the people up top will do anything fast enough because I believe the people up top are mostly high functioning sociopaths and psychopaths that really only care about power and thus will drag us all down with them. We could for certain do better if this wasn't the case. But that's not the world we live in I believe.
God this is so true. This (and some horrible timing last month) and the general negativity of the news has made me feel close enough to like, suicide to prove some point.
So basically Communism. Thank you for accepting government as your lord and savior, because rememeber if you don't give us your energy, our scientists dogmatically confirm your family is going to hell.
@@holdenrobbins852 The left side solutions are all market solutions with government regulation, which is how things mostly work now for most regulations in all industries, which again, exist right now in the U.S. None of these solutions call for complete state control of the economy, stop throwing around buzzwords that you haven't taken the time to understand.
This is something that nationwide the United States really needs to fix. It's not just a pollution issue. It's an infrastructure issue (more traffic = more wear on roads), a safety issue (longer commutes = more accidents), and perhaps most important it's a lifestyle issue. If you work a full-time job and have an hour-long commute, cutting that commute in half adds hours to your life every week. Hours that you can spend doing literally anything that would make your life and/or the world a better place. Time is finite and decreasing commute time is one of the few ways we can get more of it.
It's also a housing problem. Where I live is pretty inefficient, as people commute in opposite directions, but even if people rotated a bit, there's still the issue of where the jobs are and where the houses are/housing is not being reasonably similar, especially when you consider what you can afford with said job.
Jobs shouldn't be so concentrated. There's no reason for so many businesses to be based in New York City. Public school quality shouldn't vary wildly from county to county. Cost of living shouldn't vary so wildly, unless there are logistical reasons (ex: Hawaii). It shouldn't be drastically more expensive to live in California than Florida.
@@jliller There is a book I am reading currently called "The New Geography of Jobs" by Enrico Moretti. It talks about why the different areas have become so attractive for businesses as well as the changing workforce and how it affects the different areas of the US.
It’s been a struggle to not feel hopeless this week about climate change. Thanks for sharing such detailed insights that at least show the potential glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
@@lorenzoblum868 Well, I have lost hope. In my country there is a very loud right wing that claims the Greens are a bunch of nutters who have made up the fairy tale of climate gas in their delusion and will cripple the economy and harm the country with their plans. These arch-conservatives deny that climate change is in any way related to the burning of fossil fuels and want to expand coal-fired power stations and reverse the construction of wind and solar plants.
@@ismirdochegal4804 being hopeless and depressed will affect your body and soul. Don't let this spoil your life. Keep a low carbon footprint and enjoy life because life can sometimes be a blessing... And life is short. We cannot change the world. We can change our (world)... Edit : you can change your life and make it better by enjoying simple things...
Thank you Hank! This video means so much to me. I try to be environmentally focused, but I have found it very challenging to find resources on what I can do. This is a great kickstart and I greatly appreciate the extra resources you added at the end. This video is exactly what I needed and I will be sending it to everyone I know!
Did anyone else see the typo in the summary slide-“decrabonization?” I was just imagining the removal of lots of little crabs. :) Wonderfully informative video, though!
@@Tychoxi Crabism is when the govt does stuff. And if it does whole bunch of stuff it's Crabunism Down with Crabitalism! Crabism is the ideology of the future!
hey Hank, you've said before Crash Course has a bigger footprint than Vlogbrothers, is there a miniseries worth of Crash Course episodes covering this material?
This! They've touched on it in their geography series (and maybe others that I haven't watched yet). But a whole miniseries on climate change would be great.
Absolutely fantastic video, thank you for helping me manage my climate dread a little bit! Also my country Australia makes me so angry, we had a damn carbon tax then it all got scrapped! DISGUSTING!
What to do with all the newly-found Money is extremly Easy: Make Things that should be a Basic-Human-Right a HUman-Right: Shelter, Food, Watr. Not just the video "Finland ENDED Homelessness" by Second Thought prove that SIMPLY building Houses ends Homelessness; furthermore, the Earth objectively does have enough Food for Every Human thats just a factual Fact, so Starvation can be ended in Full.
The only problem I have with a lot of the individual actions is that they can be boiled down to "Be upper middle class". Nearly 50% of Americans make $30k or less each year, meaning that transitioning to new vehicles, lifestyles, etc... just really isn't viable with the way we've structured our economy. I agree with the massive carbon tax and limited UBI it could be possible, but without that, to be frank, people can't just buy a new electric car etc... We have to address the poverty problem (including the working poor) for nearly half of the country to have the resources to help fight the climate change. The top 50% can't really ask the bottom to martyr themselves for the top 50% willingly.
The single most impactful decision anyone can make to reduce their carbon footprint is to stop eating meat, which you don't need to be rich to do. Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT a more expensive option.
I agree...not only that, but we shouldn't be asking people in other countries who consume like 10% of what the average American consumes to just freeze their quality of life while we figure stuff out. We need a lot more than "OK EVERYONE STOP" because, as everyone needs to understand, unstable climate is a justice problem.
Fully agree! The climate crisis isn’t an isolated problem - we need to tackle multiple things at once. It also irks me how often the responsibility fall to the individual, when it should rather be the big corporations and governments taking action.
@@CashCopMineZ It's not, not driving is the single biggest thing also it's not just "meat" like people seem to say. It's only lamb, beef and goat that are of concern. Poultry Pork are Fish are all fine from a carbon perspective.
@@1account305 "INFORMAED PUBLIC, thats what we need" he says, but THE Problem i see and find odd to see is that Climate-Change-Coverage isnt getting Shout-Outs by UA-camrs who cover the Topic. Pinned Comments shouting out UpisNotJump, Hbomberguy, OCC, Some More News, and Second Thought should be total common sense but to my Distress is that not what i see. Climate-UA-camrs dont recommend each other. No matter how normal it is to be curious after finishing a video, you will not hear Watch-Suggests.
I love that vlogbrothers still does extremely informative and well researched videos like this!! Perfect to send to friends and family members who feel like the barrier to understanding or engaging with these issues is too high. Vlogbrothers proves it’s not!!
My Main Problem with those fighting Climate-Change is how unfocused they are. They donteven recommend other Climate-Change. Videos about Climate-Change dont use the Momentum to give Watch-Suggests and mention UpisnotJump, Hbomberguy, or some More News.
I've been a fan for almost 10yrs, as always, you guys fill me up with hope and optimism, but throughout the years I've grown up and changed a bit my personal perspectives over the world. Now I feel (specially with videos like this) that philanthropy and negative freedom is not what's gonna save us. Stop consuming, stop producing, give to each according to necessity and take from each according to capacity.
That is a nice sentiment. Lets turn it into a slogan and make it the new form of government. To each according to their need and from each according to their ability.
Studying this in school, and it's mega depressing. You're doing a great job summarizing. The scheme we studied was REDD+, (which helps preserve tropical forests, in theory) and its shortcomings are many. But, as you said, it's a "market based solution", which people in the center like a lot. Carbon taxing sucks a lot sometimes, but it's still better than nothing at all.
@@90benj we have both emission trading systems and carbon tax in some countries (but not all - you’re right about that!) The tax also varies a lot from country to country. I think France has a tax of about 40€ per metric ton of carbon emissions, just as an example
@@jennifer6278 Hmm, alright didn't know that. I know from here, Germany, that we had a price of about 5€ per tonne, which is ridiculously low and I don't think that was even Carbon tax, but only emissions certificate price for big industries. Multiple institution calculate the environmental impact cost of CO2 to be about 200€/per tonne, so there is that.
I don't think this guy's solutions are all good but he got a point. The environmentalist should think the problem-solving in an economic way. Cause economy is what create the world nowadays. The relationship between the environment and the economy is just like what we used to have in the Cold War, until one defeated, it won't stop.
To everyone interested in the topic of this video, I recommend the book "Drawdown". It's a series of 100 short articles on the most effective and economically efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gases. It was undertaken by many, many scientists and researchers at the behest of Paul Hawken and is both readable and interesting. What is most interesting about the book is which things are most effective and efficient. The most effective is, perhaps surprisingly, women's rights. I will leave how, exactly that could be the case as a cliffhanger for the book :-).
Lemme guess: Women's rights= more women in the workforce and family planning=declining birth rates= decreased population growth or stable populations, or even declining populations=less net consumption=less CO2 emissions in energy, transport, agriculture and industry. Did I get it right?
@@Ratchet4647 That's pretty spot on. There are a few other benefits, but positively mitigating population growth is a massive focus of this as a solution. The two areas to achieve this are the education of women in developing countries and access to family planning around the world.
@@Ratchet4647 Pretty much, though it's not about being in the workplace. It's more about women having higher status in developing countries correlating with lower birth rates.
I love the attitude of "lets do literally anything on this list to any degree" It makes it to where nobody can actually disagree with you for some bs political reason. Somebody might say "50 dollar carbon tax, thats insane" and you can just respond "okay 25 dollars"
I mean someone could disagree with you: plants need carbon, the ocean soaks up carbon, ocean critters use that carbon to make shells, their corpses fall to the bottom, there's no mechanism for that carbon to get back into the air for plants to eat, so if we stop burning oil and making concrete the earth will run out of co2 and the plants will die.
@@lvikng57 I mean, thats not really disagreeing on an opinion/political basis. Thats such a stupid take that nobody who knows how to vote could have it.
@@lvikng57 no that's just a misunderstanding of the carbon cycle, the world is constantly creating enough carbon to sustain its self if left alone, the correct amount gets absorbed and used up when there is an increase in the carbon produced and a destruction of things that absorb and use that carbon more and more of it gets stuck in the atmosphere in a concentration greater than what is needed to sustain the planet, as that concentration increases you get climate change
Hank: if you're watching this you're probably fine Me; watching from Tunisia where we were among the 10 hottest places on earth last week: sure thing Hank
He has data which tells him where most of his viewers are watching from (north america) and thats why he said "probably" because he is talking about the majority of his viewers.
If you check out this census video at about minute 17 you can see /most/ nerfighters are from the /causing climate change/ countries. ua-cam.com/video/MGacCLOLUao/v-deo.html as one of those people I want to say sorry for the injustice of this and pledge to reduce my carbon footprint.
@Lucas De Araújo Marques I interpreted it as 'if you're rich enough to be able to watch youtube you're probably rich enough to avoid the worst parts of climate change', hence why he said "if you're watching this" and not "if you're in europe or the US"
@Lucas De Araújo Marques he said "probably" meaning he thinks (actually, he *knows*) that *most people* watching this video are in that situation. He did not say "you are certainly fine". Words mean things. Try to understand the words before you complain about them.
God damn it I've had enough. Our generation just moves from one crisis to the next. Just in my corner of the world we've experienced four extreme weather events in just under half a year. I've come to hate the word "unprecedented". I ask... no, beg those with a platform to keep creating this sort of informative content. It helps us grasp what we need to do next because we all need hope, but more importantly we need a plan of action.
I was kind of rolling my eyes in the beginning thinking this was going to be something I’ve heard a million times or the very depressing ”alright so the report shows us we all gon burn in hell on earth in just a bit” reaction video, but it was actually very interesting and taught me new things and also gave me some hope that it can be possible to make big changes with the right strategies and actually affect how things are going to end up.
@@atthecore4560 It's worse because it doesn't point anyone in the direction of making things better, it makes it seem as though it's an impossible and unbeatable task when it's clearly not. Think of it like this: An army is approaching where you live, and it's going to be extremely difficult to fight them off. Do you complain and worry about it, or do you think and plan how best to fight them off? I'd say that thinking about how to fight them off is far better, since it invites action and not complacency nor stagnation, as both of those things are equivalent to letting yourself die.
@@tonydai782 Funny, that's exactly how you induce mass psychosis and impose your totalitarian will on people: m.ua-cam.com/video/09maaUaRT4M/v-deo.html
I struggle to feel powerful or influential in this fight. I went to undergrad for environmental science but found that it was unfulfilling as a career. No amount of technology and science and data and facts will fix the problem. Now I'm back in school for environmental policy and while I find tackling the climate crisis from the public policy angle a bit more fulfilling, I am still filled with a sense of dread and hopelessness whenever I stop to think more deeply about the impact I can have on the world.
Although it’s true that one person can’t do much you can still do what Hank said at the beginning of the video and encourage others to do the same. Cutting or eliminating meat, if it could be done on a large scale, would make a huge difference
Many of us feel this way, and I think the best way to fight back against this feeling is to join an environmental organization, of any kind. It's both genuinely empowering (because it's much more possible to have an impact through collective action) and emotionally empowering (because you're surrounded by like-minded people in a solutions-focused setting).
@@majorfallacy5926 although that is theoretically true, do you really think the powers that be would really let that happen? How many times was the electric car killed before it came to market?
@@brightknight1965 what kind of conspiracy are you talking about right now? The electric car failed cause people wanted shiny fast cars with long range, which electric couldn't do until recently
Im glad you dove deep into political/market based solutions as opposed to making the focus on consumer side activism. Truth is, not everyone is going to switch to electric and go vegan, its just not gonna happen. It puts the blame on the consumer while big corporations get away with massive carbon emissions. Participating in a broken system shouldn’t be shamed.
Ok, I haven’t finished watching this video yet, but I’m already happy that you made it, because I have seen “How to be green, that you made a few years ago, a couple of times and every time it stuck to me that an average person probably wouldn’t understand why the key to become green is understanding. And finally you explain it, and it’s great
With the whole climate change issue, I feel like I'm watching significant history literally unfold. The worst feeling though is every year it gets worse, and every year it feels like the world kinda just shrugs and keeps going.
If your sad and depressed maybe the people in power want that for you? Look into positive environmentalists Bjorn Lomborg is a climate activist who makes you hopeful for the future. Check him out.
It's good to realize the reality of a bad situation like this, despite how it may feel. The thing is, you need to not let the negative feelings stop you from doing what you can to make things better, as difficult as it may be. I often feel the same way, but not doing anything will make you feel much worse. Just remember that you can do what you can to change the situation.
Sounds a lot like you might be suffering from mass psychosis driven by the media personalities like Hank and the politicians: m.ua-cam.com/video/09maaUaRT4M/v-deo.html
I did my master's thesis on how to price stormwater and sourcewater protection with all of these principles! That was in 2015!! So happy to see this video, Hank!
I agree with an earlier comment that individual (often consumer) actions can easily lead to privileging wealthier people into purchasing away their sense of complicity. Would also add that conceptualizing the climate crisis in these terms turns a political issue that exists in the public sphere into a set of individual decisions; in other words, it risks depoliticizing the issue. And while these sorts of individual actions are important, one thing that's often missing from these conversations is that the single most effective action you can take is to become politically involved. It will take enormous amounts of pressure to enact the sort of policy needed to achieve climate justice, and this simply can't be done without building coordinated movements and institutions that can put pressure on mainstream politicians.
@@r.d.marshall9383 Yeah, my comment was made (in part) with that video in mind. I mostly agree with his criticisms about collective thinking leading to possible complacency, but I don't agree with his conclusions about individual action.
@@pyRoy6 The data only says that individual action can bring awareness and support for social issues. It doesn't guarantee that the response generated will be effective at solving the social issue.
@@XxThunderflamexX Fair point. I happen to agree that "leading from the front" is the most effective way to bring about systemic change, or, at least, that it can't hurt. Why do you believe otherwise?
Hi Hank, you mentioned that rural households use more energy than urban settings, which is true by 10%, but according to many sources rural households use it more efficiently since they have larger plots of land. Furthermore, about 80% of Americans live in cities, so it would not make a lot of sense to crack down on the minority of Americans who are not consuming the majority of the energy.
It will become clearer to you as time goes on that the point of these "solutions" is not to save the planet, but to depopulate the countryside of the specific ethnicity which resides there. If they wanted to save the planet they would be building hundreds and hundreds of nuclear power plants.
@@kowalityjesus You need to crawl out of your lizard people populated conspiracy hole. But in regards to Nuclear, yes we need to build more Nuclear energy facilities. It's hard to get public support for it because there's such a stigma against it though, even though things like coal plants are overall more dangerous. Scientists are increasingly pointing out however that we can't get the job done with renewables alone. at least not with out current infrastructure and rate of energy consumption.
Isn't that backwards? Using more land also has more impact as well right? But yeah, rural households probably are less important, the biggest problem of course is neither rural or urban, its the suburbs. Suburbs use too much land, too much energy, they have bad infrastructure and require more car use, they're just all around kinda shit.
Did anyone else notice "decrabonization" under Investment? I, for one, would not advocate for getting rid of the crabs; they can be very tasty when prepared well.
Once again, the Green brother(s) come through with an enormously comprehensible and compassionate video. We could use some more of these guys. Are we locked into the whole anti cloning thing? Just asking.
We need the School-Friendly Climate-Change-Video of UpisNotJump shown in Classrooms and College-Campuses; and on a very bloodrelated Note: The 'Lets ban Cars'-Video of Adam Something.
Commenting for the algorithm! For everyone out there feeling depressed and overwhelmed, let's try to turn that anxiety into action. Talk about it, push your governments, create community and collective action, keep informing yourself (also about positive initiatives that wonderful people are working on), etc.
Here's a suggestion: How about living our lives freely, and treating these suggestions for what they are, a complete joke. Use them as another form of entertainment. If you choose to be an actor in this cruel stage play, sure get up on the stage. The more characters, the merrier the entertainment will be.
A reminder to everyone in the USA: VOTE. If we want anything to get done, we need to use the 2022 midterms to vote in people who will take the climate crisis seriously. I know it often feels like an exercise in futility---heck, I'm from Idaho, my state practically worships Trump---but still, vote. And call your representatives and senators for good measure.
Hey, I don't know if you ever read my comment or if you will see this one because I'm the first one to comment but I love the fact that you were talking more about climate change and it does make me feel better. I am the person that commented on your Facebook post saying that would make me feel better if you made a video about climate change in the new code red for Humanity.
I think one of the biggest issues that our country will face going forward if we want to become more planet-friendly is appealing to rural voters. Having grown up surrounded by farmland, I think many climate plans have been especially unrealistic when viewed from the eyes of someone in agriculture. This has been a big source of the divide, and if we are going to make any progress on the issue, they need to be addressed and considered.
What to do with all the newly-found Money is extremly Easy: Make Things that should be a Basic-Human-Right a HUman-Right: Shelter, Food, Watr. Not just the video "Finland ENDED Homelessness" by Second Thought prove that SIMPLY building Houses ends Homelessness; furthermore, the Earth objectively does have enough Food for Every Human thats just a factual Fact, so Starvation can be ended in Full. Cody Johnston also pointed out countless systemic Problems but as much as i like his Worker-Right VIdeos, i wanna explicitly mention WATWER RUNNING OUT, a not-much-known Gigantic Problem. Water should not cost anything, he argues.
I really want to have hope, but it seems utterly inconceivable that the United States will do anything even remotely close to what is needed to keep us under 1.5°C let alone 2°C, particularly when we have decades of worsening conditions already baked into the system, and any changes we make won’t make a visible impact for at least that long. I fear that by the time the US is finally forced to react by conditions that can no longer be ignored or explained away, we will have already committed ourselves to far more than 2°. 😭
Here’s some examples! In South Africa, they were running out of water, and eventually there was a “day zero” deadline where they would run out of it. But thanks to conservation efforts, it kept getting pushed further and further back, and now it has been pushed back indefinitely The ozone layer was rapidly depleting in the late 20th century, but eventually legislation and other actions slowed and eventually stopped the decay. Now it is projected that the Ozone layer will “heal”, and will eventually get back to normal There’s hope!
@@carsonpicard1973, I appreciate the optimistic examples, I really do! But the cases like drinking water, acid rain, and ozone layer were all smaller in scope had relatively modest pain/cost in the short run, and had results that could be easily observed in a relatively short time horizon. In order to combat climate change, we have to make changes with non-trivial cost/pain to some of the most core parts of our economy and lives like energy production, transportation, and food. We have to ask people in the present to take on these costs and this pain, and do so for decades before any changes will be apparent. If we assume it will 20-30 years before we can see the positive results of reaching net zero emissions, that means the US needs to keep electing people for 5-8 Presidential election cycles who will keep up the progress towards net zero. That seems like a nearly impossibly high political hurdle.
The most important thing you can do to help get to the necessary goal is to support the Green New Deal and the current $3.5 trillion budget plan in Congress. Hands down.
I haven't felt more satisfied by a video in a long time! Thank you for educating us on such important topics all the time! I am so glad I've found your channel and hope you continue for A LONG TIME to inform us on our world!
Also! Something to do if you can afford it is install a heat pump next time you want to update your home heating/cooling system. It’s basically an air conditioner with extra parts so it can both heat and cool. They’re fully electric and way more efficient at heating than a furnace, so will be clean if powered by renewables!
"if powered by renewables" There's the kicker. It's a single digit percentage and there's nothing you can do about it unless you're a home owner willing to spend $30,000 on a solar setup.
Thats true. However they’re so much more efficient than furnaces (3+ times more) that it ends up being lower emissions even in our current grid. (They can also be cheaper to run depending on your electricity and gas prices) :D
1% of Elec is solar. coal, oil,& gas power generators to produce 99% of electricity. Where I live electric is double what the national avg is. Solar power for my home will cost me double what I'm paying now for electric. so stop cramming your climate change down my throat. Do some common sense research. my 2cents.
Hey Hank, I love this video and I intend to share it widely. Thank you for mentioning that there are those like myself who do not believe that there can be a market-driven solution to what they (I) see as an issue that capitalism itself is making. It's my one point of disagreement with this video. I really appreciate seeing you put so much thought in to your arguments here, as I feel very 'confronted' by this aspect of your video, but in a way that excites me and is stimulating me to think.
The moral side of me is very happy that you're educating me about what I can do to make this a better planet for future generations and myself, as bleak as things may look right now. The punishment-loving part of me is mad about the education clause.
16m ago i knew barely ANYTHING about climate change policies. You really werent lying when you said this is a good starting point. Definitely going to check out the resources you suggested. Thank you so much, Hank
As a renewable engineer, this video was very succint in the information, cudos. I am personally more of a fan of market based solutions. For SIJ you need just much more bureaucracy and adminitration, both of which are huge resource sinks, both monetary and talent-wise. Additionally, it is very hard to predict, what the best course is, so SIJ often neglect critical important innovations, while subsidizing solutions that might be very ineffective resource-wise. And in the end, what we need more than anything else, is a change in the society. We are used to having a certain standard of living without paying for it. If we seriously want to save the climate, we need to change our behaviour and especially our consumption. Our consumption is what drives the CO2-Emissions, since like you said "If there is no cost, there is no incentive to prevent it". So, even if we have a price shock with things being much more expensive then they were, we at least have a non-distorted market representation of the actual costs of our consumption and the market mechanism can work properly to find alternatives, innovations and new products. If the free market works as intended, it is the most effective solution to climate change.
These market-based solutions have quite some big flaws though. It is actually incredibly difficult to price nature. Carbon prices fluctuate and this doesn’t provide enough buy-in for industries. It also means the value of nature and the consequences of climate change becomes marketable/monitosed and can be driven by many factors other than the goal to drive down carbon emissions. The incentive option has many issues with fraud i.e. fossil fuel or agriculture industry often claim they are “storing” away carbon because they are not opening to oil fields or they have set protective areas that would otherwise have been exploited. There are many of these “accounting” practices that defeats the objectives. Thus the carbon pricing system to date has been fairly ineffective and is evident in the slow meaningful adoption across the world. The carbon emissions is still souring despite all the pledges. To make these market based solution work, effective regulations are needed. Market itself will not work on its own.
I can see why you support decarbonization as you directly benefit from that as you are actively employed by the competition to carbon fuel manufacturers. But you must know as an engineer in this field that the requirements to go carbon free are practically impossible. Akin to the gdp of the entire planet many times over for the next 100 years. As an engineer I'm sure you must realize spending 100s of trillions of dollars to prevent 10s of trillions in damage is ludicrous.
@@capitalismftw4757 As someone who has named his channel "Capitalism FTW", you surely must know, that carbon emmissions are right now external costs and they must be internalized for the market to properly work. You have your numbers backwards by the way. Not internalizing carbon would cost 100 of trillions if not even more. And in the end, there is no real alternative to reducing our emissions, we either do or die. And precisely because it's virtually impossible to reduce all carbon emissions, with diminish returns, I think a market based solution can give us the most bang for our buck so to speak. I am hurt by you implying, that I am biased because of my profession. I am an engineer first and right now employed in grid research, not in the renewable sector per se. I could be making much more money pandering to the status quo and the current strong market players, but I don't, because I am fact driven. I have seen the data and come to my own conclusions. Going carbon free, internalizing all external costs, will benefit the market and the wholr economy. If you have at least a little bit of a clue of economics, you will know, that we already pay all the costs of climate change anyway, there is no way around it. They are just hidden costs, not being taking into account when the price is build. So you assertion of "spending 100 of trillions to save 10 of trillions" is really just guesswork on your part - and pretty bad one I must say, sorry.
@@90benj I got my data from environmental activists. The Copenhagen consensus has actually run the numbers on the costs of climate change and the costs of zero carbon that is where I get the number I don't know where you got your data for 100 trillion in damage that just isn't accurate. Also you are not being objective you claim "we do or we die" this is not true flat out not true
@@90benj even if we keep increasing fossils fuel use humanity won't die this is not even stated by the ipcc. The temperature would be higher and there would be other effects but the effects would not be a devastating effect on human life. There is no existential threat to human existence Wich you seem to believe by saying we do it my way or we die. And you cannot say that the costs are not in the price you claim we need to pay for externalities. But you only consider negative externalities by your logic if there is a good externality from fissile fuel use we should pay for it in the monsters value it brings that is nonsensical. If you only focus on negatives you won't see the whole picture you only care about carbon emissions you don't care about the quality of life improvements that come from fissile fuels.
I’m watching this as the sky is a hazy orange and we are facing record breaking temperatures again in Oregon. People are dying daily because of this heat. I’m am terrified of our future.
Yeah every summer it feels more & more like staring down the end of a metaphorical gun barrel. Especially in the PNW where air conditioning has never really been part of our infrastructure. It's scary
@@johnjacob1412 Cute. The average summer in my area used to 75-80 degrees, but we now regularly get up to 90-100. That's a problem & not normal at all.
@@Razbeariez The summer in my area is normally between 105 F and 112 F most years, and this year it is in the mid 90s and dropping with more rainfall than average. 3 years ago we got more rain in one month than we normally get in 6. Weather changes. It is called average for a reason. Quit worrying about stupid shit and go make a family. The weather is not going to always be the same and nothing we do will change that.
It’s reasonable to be anxious, things don’t really look good. Nobody deserves to be anxiety free, that’s just a line sold by capitalism to keep people obsessed with themselves and therefore easy to manipulate.
Same, ever since the report I've been a gloom ever since and more depressed (I'm 18) and I had a very rough childhood, everyone says it's gonna get better soon but I really don't see it, then comes in this I really don't get why I was even born, more so I almost died when I was born with jaundice got better but had a miserable life I lost my innocence at age 4, I really don't get why I'm even alive, plus I am terrified of the afterlife since I'm also raised religious and base on my actions I'll be in hell sooo yeah the report washed up my hope for a nice future
For a month I've had this in my "watch later" list, because I knew I needed to watch it and it was so important, but also so long ^^ Thank you for changing the title/thumbnail into a positive mindset, that definitely helped. And I wasn't let down, this was exactly meeting my standarts for "Hank decided this deserved more than four minutes - content" :D And thanks for the work you put into making this make a little sense
We need the School-Friendly Climate-Change-Video of UpisNotJump shown in Classrooms and College-Campuses; and on a very bloodrelated Note: The 'Lets ban Cars'-Video of Adam Something.
I gotta say this video truly did make me more knowledgeable about what I can do more research into that’ll be productive. Instead of simply just saying upset and feel overwhelmed about what I as an individual could possibly do to make an impact. Thanks for making this video mate.
"Spend money to speed the process of decrabonization" We really all need to do our part to fought against convergent carcinization. Teaching kids to crab walk is more dangerous than previously thought!
Thank you, Hank, for giving me hope! I am sometimes close to giving up on people since we know about the negative effect of our lifestyle on the nature and climate for decades now and so far I have seen way too little effort to address or even acknowledge one of the most important problems for humanity.
Hank mentioned eating less meat, especially beef. He should have also mentioned dairy. It has the same problem as beef- cows and other ruminants produce a huge amount of methane.
totally agree that meat and dairy consumption should be lessened greatly. But i also think that keeping livestock CAN be some of the best ways to live off of the enviroment while still perserving it. its just the way we keep and feed livestock now (and in the huge quantaties) that makes it hard to produce enough food in such a way. guess my point is that having large fields with monocrops that gets sprayed with insecticide probably isnt the ideal either.
@@MichaelDeeringMHC as @SacredFig said, cheese is an unnecessary luxury. If you really value cheese that highly, there is a wide range of plant-based cheeses available.
Quick question re: switching to electric vehicles. Considering how overwhelmed the power grid has been this year (mayors and governors asking citizens to avoid AC, etc.) if all future cars, or even all cars in California needed charging, would that damage the grid? It needs updating anyway, but is this something we are prepared for? Or will be in 10yrs?
It'd probably be a more gradual transition - Hank's not advocating that everyone go buy an electric car right now, just that the next time you go to buy a car, buy an electric. So it's possible they'll be adjusting the power grid as people transition to electric cars. That's my hope, anyway.
Electric cars are actually good for grid stability because they act as storage. Cars can be charged when electricity is plentiful and return electricity to the grid when demand spikes. This is especially needed to make renewables work.
Californian who developed an EV education program here (not an expert-that’s who I hire!-but familiar with many talking points) Having questions about the grid is legit. The best case scenario is powering a vehicle on sunshine (aka solar panels; solar + battery storage is even better). There’s also emerging “vehicle to grid” technology on the horizon where your car can act as a battery backup and power your home as a form of resiliency. I think we’re on track to be able to handle widespread use of EVs, especially with State building codes requiring increasing amounts of solar and EV readiness in new buildings.
Can't say this about all EVs but my Tesla 3 has lots of customizing in regards to charging. You can set a start time so you are only charging at night when the grid isn't as busy but you can also turn down the AMPs running to the car. So if you aren't driving a lot and don't need your car charged now you can lower this input and charge the car slowly (basically the amount of draw any smartphone would have). Obviously this doesn't solve all the potential draw issues you are worrying about but it is an advantage of EVs. Not to mention there are ways to get power without the grid
1:53 that "No" along with the sad smile hides so much sadness, like trying to solve a world changing problem for a good chunk of your life and still having not much be changed sadness. Must be hurting a lot inside.
I often forget that this is not common knowledge, so thank you for making this video Hank 🌻 I’ll definitely be passing it on! For anyone interested in thoughts and science on how we can build a better world I highly recommend ‘Doughnut Economics’ by Kate Raworth and ‘This changes everything’ by Naomi Klein (probably also her newest one, but I haven’t read that one yet) ☺️ The Ecopolitics podcast is also a good one to check out!
I definately agree with the sentiment that I’m in favor of anything that’ll get done. The US especially is doing so little that any move in the right direction is a good move.
Random thought: I think more things should be made from stone. Metal products last longer and are higher quality than plastic things. But metal is harder to acquire and costs more. So why not go in between the two and make things made of stone? Make a straw made of stone. It’s abundant, it doesn’t require a lot of carbon to produce, and it would last longer. A stone fork! Stone buildings! Stone. Also it looks kind of cool tbh. Cons: harder to work with and not as mouldable as plastic or metal. Heavier. Pros: more jobs, harder to work with means more people would have to work it Abundance. It’s naturally occurring and pretty common all over the globe. Mining for metal creates a lot of stone and it’s probably not used for much when it could be Looks cool. People use it for countertops and stuff because it’s sturdy and looks nice This is just a random thought lol
As much as I like carbon tax/pricing What prevents "carbon laundering"? (There was this video NK bypassing sanctions by laundering their oil and towards HK/Chinese ships) Countries are gonna find ways to bypass laws (same way how criminals always deposit/send money less than 10k USD to avoid financial investigation) Also. How is giving money from the carbon tax to pay for the trip to see family gonna help? Your paying yourself? The point of carbon tax is increase cost so that people will take carbon usage into account in everyday lives. Carbon tax that pays the people is just gonna inflate prices, little to no change on behavior (which defeats the point of said carbon tax) I'm all for carbon tax that uses said funds to reinvest on non-carbon energy sources. (Problem with this however, just like all other taxes. What prevents green companies from hiking up the costs for these investements?) It is known that subsidies increase prices (because if they can milk a literal money printer/near infinite system. They surely will milk it dry) (This already happened on tuition, and will continue to happen unless we stop subsidizing schools, defunding schools actually make it cheaper) This isn't capitalist mumbo jumbo. This is basic game theory. So tldr. Im sure with carbon tax, but same way with financial laws. We have to be strict on where these carbons/products come from. And if they follow the carbon tax (I doubt China/India will have a carbon tax system as strict as US cuz DUH) Carbon tax Yes on carbon tax. No/low guarantee for subsidizing green energy. (But open for private investments. You can't milk a private investment as easily as the government based ones)
If we've solved the issue with sulfuric acid in the atmosphere, then, I don't see why we can't apply that same concept here. I do agree, let the parts that can do it quickly, do so quickly, and then make sure to give the more difficult ones the time needed to fix their stuff. Was initially skeptical with this video (primarily cause of how hard people have been pushing to just drop $100 trillion on everything within just the US alone, let alone the same amount for every other country), I'm actually rather glad that there's a break down of what our options are, along with, how we, effectively, solved it before (sulfur production). I remember hearing bits and pieces of it where we've had the sulfur production issue, creating acid rain, and had been wondering why we never had it now, though, I was originally under the impression that it was from much further back than the 80's. But, the fact that we've figured it out then, I really can't see a reason for why we aren't/haven't applied that to the carbon production at this point. Edit: something that I think may be key (at least, here in the US and with our friendly Canadian neighbors), is better city planning. I'm friends with a bunch of people who have some connection to city planning/design, and we've all talked about it and found that there's a ton of issues, that, if we can solve the transportation issue, we can fix quite a bit of other problems. Alternate resource use would also be quite helpful here, but, over all, better transportation planning, with increased interest and encouragement to use mass transit, such as trams, trains, etc, would help out considerably I think.
The key difference between successful examples fom the 80's like sulfur pollution, and the ozone destroying chemicals and our failure to act for so long on carbon is that carbon affects much more of the economy. sulfur pollution basically just required power plants to add some pollution removing equipment, ozone destroying chemicals only affected a few chemical companies and required them to switch. Carbon was integrated throughout the entire economy in power plants, transportation, fertilizer, cement, and industry, and some issues( like gas prices) are highly emotional for people. That meant a lot more lobbying by industries that didnt want to change, a lot more disinformation campaigns, and a lot more general resistance from ordinary people who didnt want to change and didnt see the big picture.
Thank you. I needed some optimistic outlook to the dreary inevitability of the impending climate disaster we are all running towards. I have little faith any of these will ever get enacted but I do like the carbon tax as a dividend payout.
" I do like the carbon tax as a dividend payout." well you can either get some tax money back (very unlikely) or simply not pay that tax in the first place.
@@Krusty-kl5ej "religion accomplishes its true goal" Religion has no goal. It is a *container* for things; containers do not have goals. However, of the thousands of things you can put in this container, some of them will have varying goals. The one called Scientology certainly demands money. The one called Buddhism does not.
You say "inevitability of the impending climate disaster we are all running towards" Oh stop it, are you a child? Of course the world isnt going to capitulate in just ten years unless we save it from ourselves....get a life. That story is for frightening children. Its not for grown ups.
i loved everything about this video except for one major piece that was missing. NUCLEAR! the focus on renewables blinds people to the fact that we currently have the technology to produce cost effective clean and safe power on scale without any of the concerns that come with renewables like solar and wind. Lithium Ion batteries are creating massive issues with depleting resources, solar is seeming to be more and more problematic when it comes to producing energy on mass scale. wind is good but hard to scale up and quite expensive. there is enough nuclear fuel to last us for the next 20 000 years, and thats assuming we never figure out how to use the spent fuel (which still has about 90% of its energy left) or figuring out how to make Thorium reactors which would keep us going till the sun burns out. any conversation about climate change and carbon emissions is lost without the mention of nuclear energy.
I 100% agree with you about Thorium, but there is a large concern over the inequalities that tend to be linked to the use of nuclear energy, specifically where the waste is taken care of. It leads back to the question of is the potential damage to the communities effected by waste worth the saved damage that would've come from climate change?
@@mayanpaw there are 2 things i would say about that, 1 is that its much easier to manage nuclear waste than it is to manage the equivalent amount of CO2 produced to make the same amount of energy, and second is that its much easier to hold individual companies and producers responsible for their nuclear waste. adding this into the comparison between the different by products, and it seems like a pretty big win for nuclear even in the worst scenarios
@@mirkofernd a nuclear power plant can run for its entire lifespan and never create more waste than it can store on the grounds of the nuclear powerplant itself, there is such little waste that it can be stored in cement containers which are under constant watch to detect any radiation leeks or issues, and if there are ever any leeks they can be easily solved by placing them in a new container. comparing this to coal/natural gas which produce large amounts of air pollution, or compared with the cost to create the batteries to store all the energy from solar/wind, it seems like the cost benefit of nuclear is a really easy choice, but fear and lack of education makes people afraid of problems that have already been solved.
Yeah, 100%. And for fusion (our ultimate goal to be honest) to work, we first need 2H and 3H, which chiefly is formed in fission reactors. Nuclear is the one source of energy which, apart from waste which we can be managed anyways, doesn't have real drawbacks to 80% of the political spectrum. Fossil fuel companies can transition into nuclear, keeping themselves alive, while not polluting, like they are with hydrogen now. We need a multifaceted plan, not a single tool (solar right now) to create green energy, otherwise this discourse is useless.
Thank you so much Hank. Your passion for educating people on what they need to know never ceases to astound me. This all extremely important stuff that I didn’t know I didn’t know. Thank you.
Where was this video when I was writing up my carbon tax essay three months ago? My favourite quote I found regarding what's our best option to solve the climate crisis, "The time for picking winners is over"
@Bitterkind i shouldnt have to tell you how deeply unhelpful the notion of making emitting carbon a crime akin to murder is. climate action is already politically difficult to bring about. abolishing carbon emissions outright would be orders of magnitude more difficult. not only that, but the governments of the world are simply not powerful enough to enforce it. there would be nothing short of total revolt. but what's really going on here is that you aren't interested in solving climate change. you are another one of these people who are more interested in sabotaging the climate movement with radicalism, making it seem more unattainable and impossible to make change than it is. maybe you want to prove your morality according to some twisted moral calculus, or maybe you're just paid by the fossil fuel industry, i dunno.
Well done! Absolutely agree that all avenues need to be utilized to their full potential. The impact of climate change is absolutely being felt. We've got really poor air quality here - west coast Canada, local water shortage with farmers and individuals growing food not allowed to water, and increased heat related deaths. We will all be impacted by the discomfort of heat, bad air, lack of food supply and increase in climate refugees. But.... it doesn't have to get post apocalyptic! Let's all vote for the environment! We have proven we can make tough adjustments!! It's a win win versus a very dismal lose.
This was an excellent video, when I look climate change I have a tendency to focus on eco technology and environmental processes thank you for reminding me to look at the other facets of the problem.
The work isn’t just for you who live in developed countries, it’s also for us, the more affluent people in developing countries. Despite living in the Philippines, which emits less than average per person, I have a carbon footprint almost at par with those in the lower end of developed countries. Of course, those in the supply side should also do their part.
Whatever fixes we implement I do not want to give any more money to a government(s) that routinely mismanage our money. I also worry about this carbon tax being yet another way for employers or corporation to pass their carbon bill onto their workers. I don't see a good road forward Hank... at least not in the U.S.
I'm an adult with autism and I'm having a hard time understanding this video. I really appreciate that you made it, but it goes fast and the issues are very complex for me to process so quickly. At about the 5 minute mark I had to stop because I felt overwhelmed. If you have any resource recommendations about climate change that explain it a bit more simply I would really appreciate it.
ua-cam.com/video/45wuGMgG1tE/v-deo.html I think this video might help but I'm not sure. It talks about a carbon tax like hank did in this video and all the points he made about it as well, but does not talk about other means governments can stop climate change. I think it is easier to understand.
So many around me are worried about the environment. Most people know it’s bad. They just don’t know what to do, they don’t know where to start. Thank you for the video, Hank. We need more of these.
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That's the issue here: it's a collective action problem on a global scale. The tragedy of the commons is very real. Solving climate change is both a matter of manifesting the sufficient political will for meaningful change, and then coordinating it. Yeah, not easy.
Fortunately, we have come a very, very long way on getting people to recognize the reality of climate change. Does everybody see the threat for what it is? No, and that will never happen. But I grew up during the early to mid 2000s, and the shift in public discourse on climate change since then is palpable. When _An Inconvenient Truth_ first came out, even a lot of people who trusted in the science treated climate change as a bit of a "tree-hugger" issue. That's no longer the case, and a lot of skeptics have since come around as well.
For once, the proverbial iron is actually hot. It's just a matter of striking it.
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There isn't anything we as individuals can do. This is ridiculous. Virtually all of the causes are structural at a societal level, and the solutions must be structural at a societal level.
I cant even get a single person to talk to me about the climate crisis because of how uncomfortable of a topic it is. This adds to my dread, guilt, and urge of responsibility. Thank you for advocating Hank. We all needed a a refill on hope after seeing those headlines. I will keep making an effort to do what I can and open up a conversation about it.
Have you considered that you might come on a bit strong? There are a lot of people willing to talk about this.
@@AberrantAberrant In all honesty, my friends and family tend to avoid anything that is upsetting to them. But you might be right, I think talking about it at all can come across as aggressive because of the urgent nature of the topic.
@@incandescentbri4437 No doubt. It's unfortunate that the burden of expressing urgency falls on us.
whats the point of talking about it
I relate so hard to both sides of your experience in talking to friends and family. I want to talk about what we can do to help reduce the impact.... but my dread and fear of the future leave me frozen and unable to have conversations about the topic.
As much as I'm nostalgic for ~2010 goof-'em-up Vlogbrothers videos, thoughtful signal-boosting work like this is incredibly important, and I'm so grateful for Hank's work as a science communicator.
The balance of taking a topic like this severely but also maintaining a powerful sense of hope is nothing less than *invigorating*.
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In fairness, we still goof it up quite a lot.
@@vlogbrothers Haha; right you are! Hard to argue otherwise after The All-Star Experiment :p
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oh my god finally! someone telling us what is wrong, AND informing us the ways it can be fixed, thank you for this video
Or... you could just do you're own research from peer reviewed sources instead of waiting for someone to spoon feed it to you....
@@facelessdrone This is just ignorant. The majority of the world isn't knowledgeable enough to read through multiple scientific papers, weed out the oil funded ones, understand each solution and then form their individual solution after thinking about it. If people need someone else to simplify something for them, it doesn't mean they're dumb.
Yeah fix the sun, good luck with that...
@@facelessdrone not all of us have that capacity hon…for various reasons
The most important weapon against carbon emissions was not mentioned: Nuclear power. Look up LFTR technology. China is pursuing it, and the U.S. is not...to our great detriment.
As a greenhouse gas analyst, this video was wonderfully informative and a great beginner crash course. When people ask me if we can 'fix' climate change, i tell them that we do have the technology. We as a species have EVERYTHING we need to take direct action. All we need is an adapt or die mentally... here's hoping!
It's great to be optimistic - but the real problem has little to do with individual choice. The problems are political/economic. We are a finger snap away from a fascist takeover of the US. Big oil is a huge supporter of the Fascist/Republican party. Capitalism is designed to prioritize profits and dismiss well being. There is no political organization with any platform advocating the dismantling of the deadly structures that are driving us to extinction. John Brown once said that slavery would not end without violence. Where is the John Brown for these times?
Sounds like hopium. Everyone needs to drop their hopes and dreams of infinite consumption and become subsistence farmers, a difficult task when the climate is wrecked and we need to carry on in that manner for decades to see our impacts!
What technology do we have that will reverse abrupt irreversible climate change? Electric, solar and wind can’t because they rely on a fossil fuel base. You’re not even mentioning the aerosol masking effect which is very important when understanding climate change. Hope by definition is wishful thinking so your integrity is being called into question especially as you are a greenhouse gas analyst.
Hi Chloe, I appreciate there are a lot of roles under the umbrella of "Greenhouse Gas Analyst" but I would be interested in how you calculate how much a given increase in CO2 changes the effective radiating level of Earth.
@@levijames96 Temperature reconstructions do not show our era to be "abrupt and irreversible", they actually show our era to be consistent with a once in a thousand year event, rare, but not so rare we haven't seen it before. The very smooth "past temperatures" you are usually shown are Marcott with Hadcrut tagged on the end. These two series look like a hockey stick and scare everyone. However the data series are fundamentally different and really shouldn't be plotted together, you are looking at two very different stories.
I am amazed and impressed that you condensed 14 weeks of 3 hour university courses on environmental policy accurately into 16 minutes. I will be sharing this with everyone I know!
Are you amazed by the carbon footprint of the military industrial complex?
"Buy a smaller home" bold of you to assume i can ever afford a home.
Yeah, government, making life hell (ie more expensive) for everyone, we should give them more power to control the economy, makes total sense.
@@holdenrobbins852 what in the heck are you talking about?
They could also just rent rooms out of their home.
@FilthyDank Wasteman the 11th
Did you realize what a jack-ass you were being there? No, you didn't.
@FilthyDank Wasteman the 11th this toxic positivity isn't helping anyone.
Videos like this are so important for dispelling the climate dread that many people have. And they help lower the barrier to entry for those who don't know much without being overwhelming or crisis-inducing. I wish I had been able to watch this when I took my first environmental science class a little over two years ago. My professor was excellent and made her best effort to inspire hope, but the sheer onslaught of information instilled so much anxiety. Even when presented with actions that we could achieve in our communities and personal lives, the problem of climate change seemed insurmountable. It still seems insurmountable sometimes.
It wasn't until this semester, when I took a course on climate change, that some of the anxiety started to go away. Not completely. I'm still terrified and furious, but the end of the world via climate change no longer seems like such an inevitability. My change in outlook is partially due to knowing the intricacies of how the climate functions, but also because I had to look at the real changes that need to happen. Our term paper was on the climate action of different countries and how their culture/economy/history impact it. I wrote about Russia. Despite being notorious for supplying the world with fossil fuels, it's actually made a decent amount of progress towards curbing emissions and has already met its goal for the Paris agreement. Yeah, it still has so much more progress to make, but the steps it needs to take are /real/ and actually /achievable/. And the average Russian citizen is just as worried about climate change as we are. It's relieving to be reminded that the global community outside of the U.S. and Western Europe is just as concerned, especially in a media environment that focuses almost entirely on us.
It's a reminder that we're all in this together.
Yeah. The biggest problem is how much capital is caught up in fossil fuels. Those who are more affluent invest in it or are driving forces behind it. Capitalism is reaching the limits of how far it can exploit society for profit as mega-corporations get fewer and larger, their effects more pronounced, and their greed more naked. Wide-scale change is too slow to curb this yet, but I predict around when the next generation matures we'll start seeing a greater push for positive change in the way we understand our finite resources and how to most effectively distribute them.
@Josiah Klein That approach to fossil fuel monopolies is definitely the biggest part of what makes me nervous. It's hard to stop it because they're the ones with the financial means to sway politicians through lobbying.
It often feels like the only thing really stopping us from stopping climate change at this point is politics. We have the knowledge and technology, just not the funding or support. And as someone living in the US, political change at this point seems like the actual insurmountable thing.
My mom was so emotional about this when the reports came out and was crying, like, "we sung about these issues in the 60s and 70s and nothing has been done."
Lol your mom fell for the same lie 60 years ago and yet your both still fooled. Yikes! Lots of doom and gloom that has never come to pass.
@@randomname2366 What do you think has been happening in California, Jewish space lasers? The fires there aren't just spontaneous, same goes for the storms that have ravaged the east coast of the United States, or the flooding of my own city, or the extreme heat that's been plaguing the southern hemisphere. The "doom and gloom" is not some catastrophic change that happens immediately - it's gradual and slow in some areas, while in others it's far more noticeable. Just because you're not seeing the effects of the carbon emissions doesn't mean it's not happening.
Instead of trying to dunk on people in UA-cam comments, look into the research and data that's been recorded and studied by scientists so you know what you're talking about.
@@Jackvonblood I read the same such statements from people back in high school over 10 years ago. Newsflash, CA gets wildfires and the state is admitted to being poorly managed. They just turned of electricity to 18,000 people because they can't fix their stupid grid. I studied the topic a long time ago, watched debates and made up my mind. All you guys ever do is point to anecdotal evidence and say wait and see. Well I remember watching history channel documentaries that said 10 years before it is irreversible and that was when I was in elementary school 20 years ago.
The planet is fine. Pollution is generally bad so we should have decent standards and balance it with our need for energy. Renewables are cool but far from a solution due to inefficiencies on a large scale. Drink a beer and chill. We got enough issues in this world to worry about.
@@randomname2366 Why do you think California is having such wildfires? And I wonder why they turned off electricity, is it because of the effects of the environment? California IS poorly managed, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything that can't be done about it. And yes, the effects ARE irreversible. For the next 30-40 years the less fortunate of us are going to have to struggle with the rest of climate change, and that's at best. As for anecdotal evidence, look at any government page for evidence of it. For every one piece of anecdotal evidence there are ten things that can be directly measured, but you're either too unintelligent or just don't care if the world goes up in flames. Not to mention that you made your mind up what, 10 to 20 years ago? Hell, even 5 is quite a ways back. The science has changed. Look at it again, and use some critical thinking. But if all of that is just too difficult for you, just sit back, drink your beer, and let the rest of us clean up the mess cowards like you make since you're too selfish to do anything else in the world.
@@randomname2366 You even admit "pollution is generally bad", but you're also saying it's not that bad? Is pollution bad or not? Make up your mind, cause the laws and regulations in place now aren't enough to combat it if it is, and if it's not, why are you even in the comments of this video? You should be out drinking your beer and developing lung cancer next to an industrial plant.
I feel like I'm in a constant tug of war of trying to make myself research and understand climate change, while also being so angry and scared that my 'monkey brain' defaults to overwhelming despair.
Thank you for the accessible video Hank, finding good resources from trustworthy sources and then forcing myself to sit in the discomfort while reading them is hard. But I can definitely manage a 16 min video, and I know that people staying informed is key to addressing this crisis.
My solution to the climate-anxiety driven avoidance has been to just read about the renewable energy industry and new energy storage projects and technologies. It’s the “bright side “ of the coin and just as important as understanding the problem itself.
Are you taking a depressant: do you booze?
Stop outsourcing your thinking... CO2 is literally the key ingredient to growing plants. They pump 3x current co2 levels into greenhouses to accelerate plant growth. If you look into it you'll find pleanty more reasons why it's 100% for political control and little to do with honest science. Like the fact that based on the evidence people were able to argue for the banning of CFCs. If the same evidence existed for co2, they should be able to go back to the courts. If they really cared about co2 trapping heat, you could easily build a solar shade and send it towards the sun to reduce the heating hitting the earth. Fortunately clouds already do this for us automatically; the hotter it gets the more clouds reflect energy back out into space. It's always been a giant scam for the elite to extract wealth from economies; primarily from the working class.
@@holdenrobbins852 I don't see what small scale green houses have to do with the climactic conditions of an entire planet. The fact that earth is already experiencing a hugely increased number of extinctions, natural disasters, and extreme weather events makes it pretty clear that rising average global temperature poses a major risk to humanity and the environment we live in.
Trust me, I've looked into it. And things don't look good.
@@cloud_appreciation_society Yeah, I've looked into it as well. The difference is perhaps the logical fallacies with your thinking... ego-centric bias being one. People always think they're the center of the universe. If the Sun looks like it's rotating around the Earth, especially if that's what we're told, then it must be, right? Humans are far from being the biggest influence on the Earth's climate... a single volcanic eruption, or forest fire can put far more carbon in the atmosphere than all of humanity in 100 years... ironic that we think acting more trees in the solution. Some trees produce thier own greenhouse gasses to keep themselves warm...
I was hoping this week's video would be about the IPCC report and it really didn't disappoint! Thank you so much for making this Hank!
You might like my channel too. :)
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Who the hell trusts the IPCC after all the email scandal and "hide the decline" ?
Email scandals? Broken record much? Go back to Moscow, Ivan. And at 22 hours, thou art a bit too new of a newbie.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex anybody?
Thanks for the video! A few fact checks:
1) The graph provided at the beginning of this video is misleading. The United States most certainly does not have a level of per capita carbon emissions that is at parity with what it was at in 1918. The only reason the graph appears to claim this is because it relies on production-based statistics, not consumption-based, and therefore it is not trade-adjusted. This is significant given that the United States is by far the world's largest importer, so most of its emissions derive from consumption activity.
2) We are not on track to achieve an absolute decoupling of emissions from economic growth in either the developed or developing worlds, and we are certainly not on track to achieve the absolute decoupling of resource use in general from economic growth. The decoupling of resource use from GDP growth is actually more important, given that the extraction of the Earth's resources is both the largest driver of emissions and the largest driver of all other kinds of ecological disturbances (UNEP 2017). The technocratic approach to 'decarbonization' excludes reference to the politics of extraction and consumption, which significantly misrepresents the problem.
3) Demand-side solutions, such as carbon pricing, are not going to be sufficient to address the scale of this problem. Globally, oil companies and oil-producing nations are planning to extract and burn more 120% more oil than we can safely emit if we want to remain within the temperature limit imposed by the Paris accord (SEI 2020). We need supply-side policies to impose strict caps and moratoria on the extraction of fossil fuels, or otherwise energy policies will remain decoupled from climate policy and the entire paradigm will collapse.
We must try to avoid creating a techno-solutionist narrative that simply reinforces a dysfunctional status quo. The real issue here is the need to build a post-extractive, steady state economic system that exists within the constraints of all 9 of the Earth's biophysical limits (Rockstrom 2009). If we cannot do that, it is game over.
I feel like no one is going to pay attention to your comment and that's a bit sad :/ but yeah the last I checked we absolutely 100% have not decoupled emissions from growth. I also thought carbon coins and cap n trades had been debunked a decade ago; even carbon credits are losing any credibility within mainstream environmental science, last I checked, as investigative journalism + peer review found they're just kinda sketchy companies with no real effect on emissions. The UN is also kinda seeming weird lately; I mean they had Nestle of all people handle the food security meeting recently
Petition to pin this comment!
Hank is selling a narrative and is not existentially concerned about climate changes for himself or his children. Otherwise he’d have done more research.
1) yeah fair
2) I don't understand where he made any claim of decoupling. This is an issue but an issue he didn't deny.
3) he mentioned this in the actual video.
So yeah
@@stevend776 the cap and trade model only falls apart when the companies can "cheat the cap". And although it didnt work in some areas it did work in others just as he mentioned in the video, a climate policy not working doesn't increase emissions substantially more when compared to if it didn't exist at all, but if it DOES work it DOES decrease emmitions substantially, so I'd say it's on a net positive on the effectiveness scale, it just needs to be stricter. I don't know enough about the other methods to comment.
There's also the fact that we aren't constricted to just one solution. We can do cap and trade AND everything else in the video you agree with. As hank said, what is ideal is doing _everything_ that works.
Hank: “reminder that educational videos are allowed to be over 4 minutes.”
Me: “it‘s only been 4 minutes?”
* checks time *
“Oh dang.”
seriously, this was the fastest 16 minutes of my life
for me it was long but worth the time :)
fr, I love these videos
People get really overwhelmed by the idea of doing their part perfectly. You don’t have to be perfect. Anything at this point helps. Thrift clothes, compost food scraps, lower your consumption, buy local, recycle , get reusable grocery bags, try to limit things you buy packaged in plastic... we don’t need to be perfect. We just need millions of people doing their part imperfectly.
Billions*
And reusable grocery bags can be made of old t-shirts and clothing with minimal sewing! So that's one less New manufactured item to buy
Not having children.
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Corporations and systems cause most of the emissions by far though, and they will perpetuate their influence into oblivion if we don't make them stop emitting.
I think only focusing on individual actions is shortsighted even if individual actions are important (not mentioned are eating less meat/dairy and getting solar panels for your home especially if they're subsidized by your government)
Can't describe how beautiful the phrase: "by the year 2050 you can't be burning fossil fuel anymore" sounded to my ear. I really hope we get there. My country Algeria is burning right now 😔
Careful what you wish for. Imagine we get there, but because of such a policy prices have skyrocketed and the poor have become even poorer as a result.
Who knows what the best path forward is atm.
@@Wind_Falconjfc- People can't breathe. If you've never been within 20 miles of a 3+ day fire you don't get to say "I dont know about ending these fires..."
@@SittingOnAPorch Thanks for giving a charitable interpretation to my comment and not acting like a complete clown.
@@Wind_Falcon I see it this way: if we have to temporarily decease quality of life in exchange for the survival of the human race and a net increase in the quality of life, it’s worth it. I realize that this is an incredibly privileged thing to say, but it’s where I’m at right now.
@@nothingtoseeherefolks6911 The way I see it, we might be able to ensure "the survival of the human race" without lowering the quality of life of the poorest people (who also didn't cause this problem in the first place), even temporarily. But first we have to stop panicking, which seems to be a tall order for many.
I also get the benefit of not saying something that's "incredibly privileged".
This video is probably the most helpful resource I've ever seen on the Climate issue. It gives the solution, problems going on, and describes in more detail what we can and need to do. This is so clear and transparent as well, not allowing for any questions to be left unanswered. Most other videos just say "the world is ending because of climate change, here's what climate change is, we're all dead."
Welp, time to read the entire 3949 page IPCC Climate Report in full.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο i can’t tell if this is a joke or not
@-GinΠΓ Τάο
civilisation does cause climate change but there are solutions
yes, everything that changes will change everything, but we can stop those changes from being large and/or negative by changing what we change
the universe is a variable, and so is everything inside and the possible things outside it, and changing one variable always changes at least one other, but the good thing about variables is that you can optimise them.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο I highly suggest you listen to the current experts on Dynamo theory and its implications on climate change (Zharkova et al), and the real temperature -CO2 profile (Clark et al).
As for your suggestions regarding the "relocation" of resources, I strongly suggest you re-examine these hypotheses with correct spatial relation to the total volume and mass of the planet, with specific regard to the relative volumetric movement and alteration of the earth's crustal composition and its effects on the Earth's core mass and volume (ahem....NONE).
@-GinΠΓ Τάο Let’s meet some day to talk physics. On the basis of your citations alone, I’m going to estimate I’ve already forgotten more about physics than you’ll ever understand.
When you attempt to come to the understanding the true distance moved of heavy elements exploited to the surface of earth (to serve as the vital source for anything possible in our modern lives) relative to the total distance of the Mohorovičić discontinuity to the immense PT assemblage of the Fe/Ni core center, fairly straightforward mathematics will express a weight transfer so minuscule it can be regarded as zero, which is the relative qualification any practicing physicist would assess of your citations.
Have a good day there young man.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο "the point".... Proceeds to produce "point" of M3th from pocket.
Reasonable people would Rather do astronomy with geometry than astrology with gematria.
Loved this video hank, imma vote to try and best not ruin the planet, meanwhile act as best as I can to not ruin the planet!
Unexpected cameo
i havent seen your videos in years but its great to see you here!
Why is everyone I went to high-school with on UA-cam except me?
Did I ever tell you I did Philosophy with your mother? No joke.
Love your ttrpg channel
Go Vegan Jazza
I loved the format of this video, it helps make an overwhelming topic just that more digestable. BOOST
hi
Hi
omg Cary kill hitler!!! :D
boost
The climate has been changing as long as there has been a climate. There were times when there were no ice caps at all, and other times when ice covered the entire planet. We are lucky the climate is more stable now than it has been in millions of years. We are in a relatively short interglacial period smack in the middle of a brutal ice age. Frankly we could use a little warming, but its extremely narrow sighted to only focus only on CO2 emissions, especially for a science lover like Hank. You can't talk about climate change without talking about the milankovitch cycles, precession, obliquely, and eccentricity. These ALL have massive, inevitable impact on climate. The ice age will return and the oceans will eventually boil away no matter how much green energy we use or dont use. It's the height of egotism to take such a human centric view of the climate. We are on a spec of dust hurdling around a giant nuclear fire ball
I'm doing my Masters in public policy at Oxford and Hank still explains things more clearly than any professor I've had.
We're researchers, not communicators - a huge gap in academic training in all disciplines.
@@adriansullivan7629 he said to get off tiktok and youtube shorts and increase your attention span
@@adriansullivan7629 He said to educate yourself on the topic, and that this video was one of the short ones, so you should start here. :-)
Sounds like you should drop out and go to a school that costs less
That's awesome. I hope you do well in that field. I feel like we need alot more of that yk.
Forgot the biggest thing an individual can do: VOTE for politicians who support these policies!
But be very aware of those who spout false promises!
None so far have ever wanted to change anything, not just whatever country you happen to be in. most government's are in it for themselves and their donors, which just happen to be the planet wreckers.
At every turn everything is about the money, vast amounts of it, to whatever cost.
Although democracy is a privilege, often taken for granted
thinking voting matters.
democracy just means who has the most power will shape the masses, the end result is always oligarchy and in the current system, oligarchs are not held responsible for their actions. they shape societys flow and who the masses elect they rule by proxy through politicians. politicians take the heat and decision makers get off scot-free.
in other words. rich person with an agenda pays lobbyist to influence politicians to get laws passed that further his agenda, that politician gets re-elected because he has the money and the circle continues.
so whatever or who ever we vote for does not matter at all. it matters less than literally nothing. its all smoke and mirrors.
How did that work out for Venezuela?
@@thomasmaughan4798 Looks like you tried to make a clever comment, but failed.
I've been feeling really negative about all this lately, but listening to this video gave me some hope. There's a lot of work to do, but it *can* be done.
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go plant-based SON!!
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this is why hank is everyone's fave science communicator: he makes 16 minutes feel like 4
Time flies when you're being communicated to.
absolutely haha, he made me like learning
@-GinΠΓ Τάο care to elaborate? most surely you wont but anyways
@-GinΠΓ Τάο What you're saying is incredibly interesting. I think I get the premise: that the angular momentum changes caused by mining resources has changed the Earth's movement enough to warm our atmosphere. If this is true, (and I do plan on looking into it, because it is very interesting,) I don't see how it negates or changes the fact that excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is also a huge problem and contributor to climate change as a whole, even if it isn't the only factor. So green energy would still be pretty important, not a myth. Anyway, thank you for your well cited insights.
@-GinΠΓ Τάο so how exactly are we causing gravity exactly? Care to explain?
When the scientist said we have certainty. I just cried. I didn’t realise how much fear and disappointment in the world I was holding in. As young people living just above the poverty line, we feel hopeless and it’s effecting our mental health, both consciously and unconsciously.
I feel you. Though I'm still extremely sceptic. I don't believe the people up top will do anything fast enough because I believe the people up top are mostly high functioning sociopaths and psychopaths that really only care about power and thus will drag us all down with them. We could for certain do better if this wasn't the case. But that's not the world we live in I believe.
God this is so true. This (and some horrible timing last month) and the general negativity of the news has made me feel close enough to like, suicide to prove some point.
@@Dragontihui Probably not. The real black pill is that the people in charge are no worse on average than you or me.
@@Dragontihui If all of that's true, then we should remove those in power that make the world worse, no?
It's easy to lose hope. It's impossible to lose certainty.
The person who can truly make the biggest difference by making content that I can share with everyone. I'm so thankful.
I shouted in unison with Hank: "Which should we choose? ALL OF THEM."
Wich I am in favor of? ALL OF THEM
So basically Communism. Thank you for accepting government as your lord and savior, because rememeber if you don't give us your energy, our scientists dogmatically confirm your family is going to hell.
The give people money based on race option? Sounds racist. And it does not help the climate.
@@holdenrobbins852 The left side solutions are all market solutions with government regulation, which is how things mostly work now for most regulations in all industries, which again, exist right now in the U.S.
None of these solutions call for complete state control of the economy, stop throwing around buzzwords that you haven't taken the time to understand.
me too!
Hank: "Live close to where you work"
Me: That's the dream, Hank. That's the dream.
This is something that nationwide the United States really needs to fix. It's not just a pollution issue. It's an infrastructure issue (more traffic = more wear on roads), a safety issue (longer commutes = more accidents), and perhaps most important it's a lifestyle issue. If you work a full-time job and have an hour-long commute, cutting that commute in half adds hours to your life every week. Hours that you can spend doing literally anything that would make your life and/or the world a better place. Time is finite and decreasing commute time is one of the few ways we can get more of it.
It's also a housing problem. Where I live is pretty inefficient, as people commute in opposite directions, but even if people rotated a bit, there's still the issue of where the jobs are and where the houses are/housing is not being reasonably similar, especially when you consider what you can afford with said job.
When you add kids into the mix, you have to think about the school they will be attending. So many decisions when it comes to where to live.
Jobs shouldn't be so concentrated. There's no reason for so many businesses to be based in New York City.
Public school quality shouldn't vary wildly from county to county.
Cost of living shouldn't vary so wildly, unless there are logistical reasons (ex: Hawaii). It shouldn't be drastically more expensive to live in California than Florida.
@@jliller There is a book I am reading currently called "The New Geography of Jobs" by Enrico Moretti. It talks about why the different areas have become so attractive for businesses as well as the changing workforce and how it affects the different areas of the US.
It’s been a struggle to not feel hopeless this week about climate change. Thanks for sharing such detailed insights that at least show the potential glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex.
@@lorenzoblum868 Well, I have lost hope. In my country there is a very loud right wing that claims the Greens are a bunch of nutters who have made up the fairy tale of climate gas in their delusion and will cripple the economy and harm the country with their plans. These arch-conservatives deny that climate change is in any way related to the burning of fossil fuels and want to expand coal-fired power stations and reverse the construction of wind and solar plants.
@@ismirdochegal4804 being hopeless and depressed will affect your body and soul. Don't let this spoil your life. Keep a low carbon footprint and enjoy life because life can sometimes be a blessing... And life is short. We cannot change the world. We can change our (world)... Edit : you can change your life and make it better by enjoying simple things...
@@lorenzoblum868 That was really nice, and much needed to read, thank you
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Thank you Hank! This video means so much to me. I try to be environmentally focused, but I have found it very challenging to find resources on what I can do. This is a great kickstart and I greatly appreciate the extra resources you added at the end. This video is exactly what I needed and I will be sending it to everyone I know!
Did anyone else see the typo in the summary slide-“decrabonization?” I was just imagining the removal of lots of little crabs. :) Wonderfully informative video, though!
Fighting invasive species is important, too.
CRABITALISM. Humans go in -- Crabs become more powerful!
@@Tychoxi Crabism is when the govt does stuff. And if it does whole bunch of stuff it's Crabunism
Down with Crabitalism! Crabism is the ideology of the future!
all of a sudden that just made my day better, thank you
Lol, yes! Once I saw it I couldn't look away.
hey Hank, you've said before Crash Course has a bigger footprint than Vlogbrothers, is there a miniseries worth of Crash Course episodes covering this material?
This! They've touched on it in their geography series (and maybe others that I haven't watched yet). But a whole miniseries on climate change would be great.
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There’s a typo on the “Everything Else” slide. Instead of “decarbonization” it says “decrabonization.” DECRAB!
Came here to say this. We need to start decrabbing immediately lest the Pinchy One rise to power.
NO MORE CRABS. NO MORE CRABS.
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D E C R A B
Anti-carcinisation!
Absolutely fantastic video, thank you for helping me manage my climate dread a little bit! Also my country Australia makes me so angry, we had a damn carbon tax then it all got scrapped! DISGUSTING!
What to do with all the newly-found Money is extremly Easy:
Make Things that should be a Basic-Human-Right a HUman-Right: Shelter, Food, Watr. Not just the video "Finland ENDED Homelessness" by Second Thought
prove that SIMPLY building Houses ends Homelessness; furthermore, the Earth objectively does have enough Food for Every Human thats just a factual Fact, so Starvation can be ended in Full.
The only problem I have with a lot of the individual actions is that they can be boiled down to "Be upper middle class". Nearly 50% of Americans make $30k or less each year, meaning that transitioning to new vehicles, lifestyles, etc... just really isn't viable with the way we've structured our economy. I agree with the massive carbon tax and limited UBI it could be possible, but without that, to be frank, people can't just buy a new electric car etc... We have to address the poverty problem (including the working poor) for nearly half of the country to have the resources to help fight the climate change. The top 50% can't really ask the bottom to martyr themselves for the top 50% willingly.
As someone who is broker than a joker, I completely agree with all of this.
The single most impactful decision anyone can make to reduce their carbon footprint is to stop eating meat, which you don't need to be rich to do. Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT a more expensive option.
I agree...not only that, but we shouldn't be asking people in other countries who consume like 10% of what the average American consumes to just freeze their quality of life while we figure stuff out. We need a lot more than "OK EVERYONE STOP" because, as everyone needs to understand, unstable climate is a justice problem.
Fully agree! The climate crisis isn’t an isolated problem - we need to tackle multiple things at once. It also irks me how often the responsibility fall to the individual, when it should rather be the big corporations and governments taking action.
@@CashCopMineZ It's not, not driving is the single biggest thing also it's not just "meat" like people seem to say. It's only lamb, beef and goat that are of concern. Poultry Pork are Fish are all fine from a carbon perspective.
Hank, I don’t know why, I actually do, but you’re just a beacon of hope. You and John. You guys are awesome. I love you guys. Now I cry
So true omg
hmm bacon hmmm
@@1account305 "INFORMAED PUBLIC, thats what we need" he says,
but THE Problem i see and find odd to see is that Climate-Change-Coverage isnt getting Shout-Outs by UA-camrs who cover the Topic. Pinned Comments shouting out UpisNotJump, Hbomberguy, OCC, Some More News, and Second Thought should be total common sense but to my Distress is that not what i see. Climate-UA-camrs dont recommend each other.
No matter how normal it is to be curious after finishing a video, you will not hear Watch-Suggests.
I love that vlogbrothers still does extremely informative and well researched videos like this!! Perfect to send to friends and family members who feel like the barrier to understanding or engaging with these issues is too high. Vlogbrothers proves it’s not!!
My Main Problem with those fighting
Climate-Change is how unfocused they are.
They donteven recommend other Climate-Change.
Videos about Climate-Change dont use the Momentum to give
Watch-Suggests and mention UpisnotJump, Hbomberguy, or some More News.
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I've been a fan for almost 10yrs, as always, you guys fill me up with hope and optimism, but throughout the years I've grown up and changed a bit my personal perspectives over the world. Now I feel (specially with videos like this) that philanthropy and negative freedom is not what's gonna save us. Stop consuming, stop producing, give to each according to necessity and take from each according to capacity.
That is a nice sentiment. Lets turn it into a slogan and make it the new form of government. To each according to their need and from each according to their ability.
Studying this in school, and it's mega depressing. You're doing a great job summarizing. The scheme we studied was REDD+, (which helps preserve tropical forests, in theory) and its shortcomings are many. But, as you said, it's a "market based solution", which people in the center like a lot. Carbon taxing sucks a lot sometimes, but it's still better than nothing at all.
I agree, carbon taxing isn’t great (in practice). It’s considered a bit of a failed attempt here in the EU.
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@@jennifer6278 I don't think we have a CO2-Tax, but only certifikate trade with other nations and big producers.
@@90benj we have both emission trading systems and carbon tax in some countries (but not all - you’re right about that!) The tax also varies a lot from country to country. I think France has a tax of about 40€ per metric ton of carbon emissions, just as an example
@@jennifer6278 Hmm, alright didn't know that. I know from here, Germany, that we had a price of about 5€ per tonne, which is ridiculously low and I don't think that was even Carbon tax, but only emissions certificate price for big industries. Multiple institution calculate the environmental impact cost of CO2 to be about 200€/per tonne, so there is that.
In before people think Hank deserves a punishment for making a video over four minutes:
Educational videos are allowed to be longer than four minutes.
@Bitterkind Makes sense that "bitter" is in your name.
But seriously, what specifically do you take issue with in this video?
@Bitterkind You explained nothing.. I'd bet Mr Bitterkind is a paid employee for an oil baron.
All I've wanted this week is for Hank to tell me how we can fix everything. Thank you!!!
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I don't think this guy's solutions are all good but he got a point. The environmentalist should think the problem-solving in an economic way. Cause economy is what create the world nowadays. The relationship between the environment and the economy is just like what we used to have in the Cold War, until one defeated, it won't stop.
I'm so thankful that this content is free. This feels like an episode of Last Week Tonight, but w/o the cost of HBO Max.
You can find it on UA-cam actually.
To everyone interested in the topic of this video, I recommend the book "Drawdown". It's a series of 100 short articles on the most effective and economically efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gases. It was undertaken by many, many scientists and researchers at the behest of Paul Hawken and is both readable and interesting. What is most interesting about the book is which things are most effective and efficient. The most effective is, perhaps surprisingly, women's rights. I will leave how, exactly that could be the case as a cliffhanger for the book :-).
*adds engagement to this comment to get the message of Drawdown spread*
Lemme guess:
Women's rights= more women in the workforce and family planning=declining birth rates= decreased population growth or stable populations, or even declining populations=less net consumption=less CO2 emissions in energy, transport, agriculture and industry.
Did I get it right?
@@Ratchet4647 That's pretty spot on. There are a few other benefits, but positively mitigating population growth is a massive focus of this as a solution. The two areas to achieve this are the education of women in developing countries and access to family planning around the world.
@@Ratchet4647 Pretty much, though it's not about being in the workplace. It's more about women having higher status in developing countries correlating with lower birth rates.
Yeah this is a really good book!
I love the attitude of "lets do literally anything on this list to any degree"
It makes it to where nobody can actually disagree with you for some bs political reason.
Somebody might say "50 dollar carbon tax, thats insane" and you can just respond "okay 25 dollars"
You can also point to the value of the 4 million acres of California that burned last year
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex.
I mean someone could disagree with you: plants need carbon, the ocean soaks up carbon, ocean critters use that carbon to make shells, their corpses fall to the bottom, there's no mechanism for that carbon to get back into the air for plants to eat, so if we stop burning oil and making concrete the earth will run out of co2 and the plants will die.
@@lvikng57 I mean, thats not really disagreeing on an opinion/political basis. Thats such a stupid take that nobody who knows how to vote could have it.
@@lvikng57 no that's just a misunderstanding of the carbon cycle, the world is constantly creating enough carbon to sustain its self if left alone, the correct amount gets absorbed and used up when there is an increase in the carbon produced and a destruction of things that absorb and use that carbon more and more of it gets stuck in the atmosphere in a concentration greater than what is needed to sustain the planet, as that concentration increases you get climate change
Hank proves once again that that four minute limit might be holding him bsck more than we think
"Educacional videos are allowed to be over 4 minutes" , yes, they are, specially if they're so informative and well researched. Thank you!
Hank: if you're watching this you're probably fine
Me; watching from Tunisia where we were among the 10 hottest places on earth last week: sure thing Hank
@Lucas De Araújo Marques opa outro br
He has data which tells him where most of his viewers are watching from (north america) and thats why he said "probably" because he is talking about the majority of his viewers.
If you check out this census video at about minute 17 you can see /most/ nerfighters are from the /causing climate change/ countries. ua-cam.com/video/MGacCLOLUao/v-deo.html as one of those people I want to say sorry for the injustice of this and pledge to reduce my carbon footprint.
@Lucas De Araújo Marques I interpreted it as 'if you're rich enough to be able to watch youtube you're probably rich enough to avoid the worst parts of climate change', hence why he said "if you're watching this" and not "if you're in europe or the US"
@Lucas De Araújo Marques he said "probably" meaning he thinks (actually, he *knows*) that *most people* watching this video are in that situation. He did not say "you are certainly fine". Words mean things. Try to understand the words before you complain about them.
I didn't know it was Friday. Thanks for the reminder, Hank. Oh, also the planet is burning :)
Oh my god it’s burning
🔥🔥🙃🔥🔥
It’s FRIDAY THE 13TH!!! AAAACCCKK!!!! /s
It’s... FRIDAY THE 13TH. 😳
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God damn it I've had enough. Our generation just moves from one crisis to the next. Just in my corner of the world we've experienced four extreme weather events in just under half a year. I've come to hate the word "unprecedented".
I ask... no, beg those with a platform to keep creating this sort of informative content. It helps us grasp what we need to do next because we all need hope, but more importantly we need a plan of action.
Best 32 minutes I spend today. Yep, watched it twice to completely understand it
Excellent decision!
@Bitterkind well you're commenting on a video that you think is "intellectual dishonesty" so which one of us wasted their time?
I was kind of rolling my eyes in the beginning thinking this was going to be something I’ve heard a million times or the very depressing ”alright so the report shows us we all gon burn in hell on earth in just a bit” reaction video, but it was actually very interesting and taught me new things and also gave me some hope that it can be possible to make big changes with the right strategies and actually affect how things are going to end up.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex....
Telling people the world’s gonna burn and there’s nothing to be done about it is kinda the worst way to inform people on this subject.
@@tonydai782 Why?
@@atthecore4560 It's worse because it doesn't point anyone in the direction of making things better, it makes it seem as though it's an impossible and unbeatable task when it's clearly not.
Think of it like this: An army is approaching where you live, and it's going to be extremely difficult to fight them off. Do you complain and worry about it, or do you think and plan how best to fight them off? I'd say that thinking about how to fight them off is far better, since it invites action and not complacency nor stagnation, as both of those things are equivalent to letting yourself die.
@@tonydai782 Funny, that's exactly how you induce mass psychosis and impose your totalitarian will on people: m.ua-cam.com/video/09maaUaRT4M/v-deo.html
I struggle to feel powerful or influential in this fight. I went to undergrad for environmental science but found that it was unfulfilling as a career. No amount of technology and science and data and facts will fix the problem. Now I'm back in school for environmental policy and while I find tackling the climate crisis from the public policy angle a bit more fulfilling, I am still filled with a sense of dread and hopelessness whenever I stop to think more deeply about the impact I can have on the world.
Although it’s true that one person can’t do much you can still do what Hank said at the beginning of the video and encourage others to do the same. Cutting or eliminating meat, if it could be done on a large scale, would make a huge difference
Many of us feel this way, and I think the best way to fight back against this feeling is to join an environmental organization, of any kind.
It's both genuinely empowering (because it's much more possible to have an impact through collective action) and emotionally empowering (because you're surrounded by like-minded people in a solutions-focused setting).
What do you mean no amount of technology would solve it? If we had a fusion reactor tomorrow, most of our issues would vanish within a few years
@@majorfallacy5926 although that is theoretically true, do you really think the powers that be would really let that happen? How many times was the electric car killed before it came to market?
@@brightknight1965 what kind of conspiracy are you talking about right now? The electric car failed cause people wanted shiny fast cars with long range, which electric couldn't do until recently
Im glad you dove deep into political/market based solutions as opposed to making the focus on consumer side activism. Truth is, not everyone is going to switch to electric and go vegan, its just not gonna happen. It puts the blame on the consumer while big corporations get away with massive carbon emissions. Participating in a broken system shouldn’t be shamed.
Ok, I haven’t finished watching this video yet, but I’m already happy that you made it, because I have seen “How to be green, that you made a few years ago, a couple of times and every time it stuck to me that an average person probably wouldn’t understand why the key to become green is understanding. And finally you explain it, and it’s great
With the whole climate change issue, I feel like I'm watching significant history literally unfold. The worst feeling though is every year it gets worse, and every year it feels like the world kinda just shrugs and keeps going.
If your sad and depressed maybe the people in power want that for you? Look into positive environmentalists Bjorn Lomborg is a climate activist who makes you hopeful for the future. Check him out.
The world has to shrug. The reality is; a lot of people will die first.
It's good to realize the reality of a bad situation like this, despite how it may feel. The thing is, you need to not let the negative feelings stop you from doing what you can to make things better, as difficult as it may be. I often feel the same way, but not doing anything will make you feel much worse. Just remember that you can do what you can to change the situation.
Sounds a lot like you might be suffering from mass psychosis driven by the media personalities like Hank and the politicians: m.ua-cam.com/video/09maaUaRT4M/v-deo.html
@@holdenrobbins852 yeah doom death and fear that is how people in government can control a population
We're in this together, love from Germany!
I love seeing the whole world being on board to adapt, it gives me hope
From Russia!
Aww
I did my master's thesis on how to price stormwater and sourcewater protection with all of these principles! That was in 2015!! So happy to see this video, Hank!
I agree with an earlier comment that individual (often consumer) actions can easily lead to privileging wealthier people into purchasing away their sense of complicity. Would also add that conceptualizing the climate crisis in these terms turns a political issue that exists in the public sphere into a set of individual decisions; in other words, it risks depoliticizing the issue.
And while these sorts of individual actions are important, one thing that's often missing from these conversations is that the single most effective action you can take is to become politically involved. It will take enormous amounts of pressure to enact the sort of policy needed to achieve climate justice, and this simply can't be done without building coordinated movements and institutions that can put pressure on mainstream politicians.
Not sure if you've already seen it, but Hank made an earlier video addressing some of this.
ua-cam.com/video/bvAznN_MPWQ/v-deo.html
@@r.d.marshall9383 Yeah, my comment was made (in part) with that video in mind. I mostly agree with his criticisms about collective thinking leading to possible complacency, but I don't agree with his conclusions about individual action.
@@ProgThrasher6666 Do you disagree with his data?
@@pyRoy6 The data only says that individual action can bring awareness and support for social issues. It doesn't guarantee that the response generated will be effective at solving the social issue.
@@XxThunderflamexX Fair point. I happen to agree that "leading from the front" is the most effective way to bring about systemic change, or, at least, that it can't hurt. Why do you believe otherwise?
Hi Hank, you mentioned that rural households use more energy than urban settings, which is true by 10%, but according to many sources rural households use it more efficiently since they have larger plots of land. Furthermore, about 80% of Americans live in cities, so it would not make a lot of sense to crack down on the minority of Americans who are not consuming the majority of the energy.
It will become clearer to you as time goes on that the point of these "solutions" is not to save the planet, but to depopulate the countryside of the specific ethnicity which resides there.
If they wanted to save the planet they would be building hundreds and hundreds of nuclear power plants.
@@kowalityjesus You need to crawl out of your lizard people populated conspiracy hole. But in regards to Nuclear, yes we need to build more Nuclear energy facilities. It's hard to get public support for it because there's such a stigma against it though, even though things like coal plants are overall more dangerous. Scientists are increasingly pointing out however that we can't get the job done with renewables alone. at least not with out current infrastructure and rate of energy consumption.
Isn't that backwards? Using more land also has more impact as well right?
But yeah, rural households probably are less important, the biggest problem of course is neither rural or urban, its the suburbs. Suburbs use too much land, too much energy, they have bad infrastructure and require more car use, they're just all around kinda shit.
Did anyone else notice "decrabonization" under Investment? I, for one, would not advocate for getting rid of the crabs; they can be very tasty when prepared well.
I came to the comments just to see if anyone else noticed this. 😂
I also saw that, but assumed he meant whatever the opposite of carcinisation would be, ie making crabs into not-crabs.
You can try to get rid of crabs, but Mother Nature will evolve species into more crabs
As someone with a Crustacean Allergy, I support decrabonization
Wouldn't eating crabs technically be decrabonization?
Once again, the Green brother(s) come through with an enormously comprehensible and compassionate video. We could use some more of these guys. Are we locked into the whole anti cloning thing? Just asking.
We need the School-Friendly Climate-Change-Video of UpisNotJump shown in Classrooms and College-Campuses; and on a very bloodrelated Note: The 'Lets ban Cars'-Video of Adam Something.
Commenting for the algorithm! For everyone out there feeling depressed and overwhelmed, let's try to turn that anxiety into action. Talk about it, push your governments, create community and collective action, keep informing yourself (also about positive initiatives that wonderful people are working on), etc.
yep. being informed is so important
"Commenting for the algorithm"
All hail the Mighty Algorithm.
Here's a suggestion:
How about living our lives freely, and treating these suggestions for what they are, a complete joke. Use them as another form of entertainment. If you choose to be an actor in this cruel stage play, sure get up on the stage. The more characters, the merrier the entertainment will be.
@@Krusty-kl5ej who hurt you
A reminder to everyone in the USA: VOTE. If we want anything to get done, we need to use the 2022 midterms to vote in people who will take the climate crisis seriously. I know it often feels like an exercise in futility---heck, I'm from Idaho, my state practically worships Trump---but still, vote. And call your representatives and senators for good measure.
you voted who you wanted you idiots and it didnt solve anything
Hey, I don't know if you ever read my comment or if you will see this one because I'm the first one to comment but I love the fact that you were talking more about climate change and it does make me feel better. I am the person that commented on your Facebook post saying that would make me feel better if you made a video about climate change in the new code red for Humanity.
I think one of the biggest issues that our country will face going forward if we want to become more planet-friendly is appealing to rural voters. Having grown up surrounded by farmland, I think many climate plans have been especially unrealistic when viewed from the eyes of someone in agriculture. This has been a big source of the divide, and if we are going to make any progress on the issue, they need to be addressed and considered.
What to do with all the newly-found Money is extremly Easy:
Make Things that should be a Basic-Human-Right a HUman-Right: Shelter, Food, Watr. Not just the video "Finland ENDED Homelessness" by Second Thought
prove that SIMPLY building Houses ends Homelessness; furthermore, the Earth objectively does have enough Food for Every Human thats just a factual Fact, so Starvation can be ended in Full. Cody Johnston also pointed out countless systemic Problems but as much as i like his Worker-Right VIdeos, i wanna explicitly mention WATWER RUNNING OUT, a not-much-known Gigantic Problem. Water should not cost anything, he argues.
Vegan food is delish!! Becoming a vegan is the best thing I’ve ever done. It makes me so happy! Every day!
Same! 💚
I really want to have hope, but it seems utterly inconceivable that the United States will do anything even remotely close to what is needed to keep us under 1.5°C let alone 2°C, particularly when we have decades of worsening conditions already baked into the system, and any changes we make won’t make a visible impact for at least that long.
I fear that by the time the US is finally forced to react by conditions that can no longer be ignored or explained away, we will have already committed ourselves to far more than 2°. 😭
Here’s some examples!
In South Africa, they were running out of water, and eventually there was a “day zero” deadline where they would run out of it. But thanks to conservation efforts, it kept getting pushed further and further back, and now it has been pushed back indefinitely
The ozone layer was rapidly depleting in the late 20th century, but eventually legislation and other actions slowed and eventually stopped the decay. Now it is projected that the Ozone layer will “heal”, and will eventually get back to normal
There’s hope!
Even if you're pessimistic about the 2 degree goal, the difference between 3 degrees C and 4 is also extremely important.
We should bring immigrants into our country. They use very little resources in their country, but will use more here. That'll fix the issue somehow.
@@carsonpicard1973, I appreciate the optimistic examples, I really do! But the cases like drinking water, acid rain, and ozone layer were all smaller in scope had relatively modest pain/cost in the short run, and had results that could be easily observed in a relatively short time horizon. In order to combat climate change, we have to make changes with non-trivial cost/pain to some of the most core parts of our economy and lives like energy production, transportation, and food. We have to ask people in the present to take on these costs and this pain, and do so for decades before any changes will be apparent. If we assume it will 20-30 years before we can see the positive results of reaching net zero emissions, that means the US needs to keep electing people for 5-8 Presidential election cycles who will keep up the progress towards net zero. That seems like a nearly impossibly high political hurdle.
The most important thing you can do to help get to the necessary goal is to support the Green New Deal and the current $3.5 trillion budget plan in Congress. Hands down.
"decrabonization" - people from maryland will be BIG MAD about this, hank.
I haven't felt more satisfied by a video in a long time! Thank you for educating us on such important topics all the time! I am so glad I've found your channel and hope you continue for A LONG TIME to inform us on our world!
Also! Something to do if you can afford it is install a heat pump next time you want to update your home heating/cooling system. It’s basically an air conditioner with extra parts so it can both heat and cool. They’re fully electric and way more efficient at heating than a furnace, so will be clean if powered by renewables!
"if powered by renewables"
There's the kicker. It's a single digit percentage and there's nothing you can do about it unless you're a home owner willing to spend $30,000 on a solar setup.
Thats true. However they’re so much more efficient than furnaces (3+ times more) that it ends up being lower emissions even in our current grid. (They can also be cheaper to run depending on your electricity and gas prices) :D
1% of Elec is solar. coal, oil,& gas power generators to produce 99% of electricity. Where I live electric is double what the national avg is. Solar power for my home will cost me double what I'm paying now for electric. so stop cramming your climate change down my throat. Do some common sense research. my 2cents.
Hey Hank, I love this video and I intend to share it widely. Thank you for mentioning that there are those like myself who do not believe that there can be a market-driven solution to what they (I) see as an issue that capitalism itself is making. It's my one point of disagreement with this video. I really appreciate seeing you put so much thought in to your arguments here, as I feel very 'confronted' by this aspect of your video, but in a way that excites me and is stimulating me to think.
The moral side of me is very happy that you're educating me about what I can do to make this a better planet for future generations and myself, as bleak as things may look right now.
The punishment-loving part of me is mad about the education clause.
16m ago i knew barely ANYTHING about climate change policies. You really werent lying when you said this is a good starting point. Definitely going to check out the resources you suggested. Thank you so much, Hank
As a renewable engineer, this video was very succint in the information, cudos.
I am personally more of a fan of market based solutions. For SIJ you need just much more bureaucracy and adminitration, both of which are huge resource sinks, both monetary and talent-wise. Additionally, it is very hard to predict, what the best course is, so SIJ often neglect critical important innovations, while subsidizing solutions that might be very ineffective resource-wise.
And in the end, what we need more than anything else, is a change in the society. We are used to having a certain standard of living without paying for it. If we seriously want to save the climate, we need to change our behaviour and especially our consumption. Our consumption is what drives the CO2-Emissions, since like you said "If there is no cost, there is no incentive to prevent it". So, even if we have a price shock with things being much more expensive then they were, we at least have a non-distorted market representation of the actual costs of our consumption and the market mechanism can work properly to find alternatives, innovations and new products.
If the free market works as intended, it is the most effective solution to climate change.
These market-based solutions have quite some big flaws though.
It is actually incredibly difficult to price nature. Carbon prices fluctuate and this doesn’t provide enough buy-in for industries. It also means the value of nature and the consequences of climate change becomes marketable/monitosed and can be driven by many factors other than the goal to drive down carbon emissions.
The incentive option has many issues with fraud i.e. fossil fuel or agriculture industry often claim they are “storing” away carbon because they are not opening to oil fields or they have set protective areas that would otherwise have been exploited. There are many of these “accounting” practices that defeats the objectives.
Thus the carbon pricing system to date has been fairly ineffective and is evident in the slow meaningful adoption across the world. The carbon emissions is still souring despite all the pledges.
To make these market based solution work, effective regulations are needed. Market itself will not work on its own.
I can see why you support decarbonization as you directly benefit from that as you are actively employed by the competition to carbon fuel manufacturers. But you must know as an engineer in this field that the requirements to go carbon free are practically impossible. Akin to the gdp of the entire planet many times over for the next 100 years. As an engineer I'm sure you must realize spending 100s of trillions of dollars to prevent 10s of trillions in damage is ludicrous.
@@capitalismftw4757 As someone who has named his channel "Capitalism FTW", you surely must know, that carbon emmissions are right now external costs and they must be internalized for the market to properly work.
You have your numbers backwards by the way. Not internalizing carbon would cost 100 of trillions if not even more. And in the end, there is no real alternative to reducing our emissions, we either do or die. And precisely because it's virtually impossible to reduce all carbon emissions, with diminish returns, I think a market based solution can give us the most bang for our buck so to speak.
I am hurt by you implying, that I am biased because of my profession. I am an engineer first and right now employed in grid research, not in the renewable sector per se. I could be making much more money pandering to the status quo and the current strong market players, but I don't, because I am fact driven. I have seen the data and come to my own conclusions.
Going carbon free, internalizing all external costs, will benefit the market and the wholr economy. If you have at least a little bit of a clue of economics, you will know, that we already pay all the costs of climate change anyway, there is no way around it. They are just hidden costs, not being taking into account when the price is build. So you assertion of "spending 100 of trillions to save 10 of trillions" is really just guesswork on your part - and pretty bad one I must say, sorry.
@@90benj I got my data from environmental activists. The Copenhagen consensus has actually run the numbers on the costs of climate change and the costs of zero carbon that is where I get the number I don't know where you got your data for 100 trillion in damage that just isn't accurate. Also you are not being objective you claim "we do or we die" this is not true flat out not true
@@90benj even if we keep increasing fossils fuel use humanity won't die this is not even stated by the ipcc. The temperature would be higher and there would be other effects but the effects would not be a devastating effect on human life. There is no existential threat to human existence Wich you seem to believe by saying we do it my way or we die. And you cannot say that the costs are not in the price you claim we need to pay for externalities. But you only consider negative externalities by your logic if there is a good externality from fissile fuel use we should pay for it in the monsters value it brings that is nonsensical. If you only focus on negatives you won't see the whole picture you only care about carbon emissions you don't care about the quality of life improvements that come from fissile fuels.
I’m watching this as the sky is a hazy orange and we are facing record breaking temperatures again in Oregon. People are dying daily because of this heat. I’m am terrified of our future.
Yeah every summer it feels more & more like staring down the end of a metaphorical gun barrel. Especially in the PNW where air conditioning has never really been part of our infrastructure. It's scary
I'm sure Hank's air quality in Montana is not very good rn
Being hot in the summer is called weather.
@@johnjacob1412 Cute. The average summer in my area used to 75-80 degrees, but we now regularly get up to 90-100. That's a problem & not normal at all.
@@Razbeariez The summer in my area is normally between 105 F and 112 F most years, and this year it is in the mid 90s and dropping with more rainfall than average. 3 years ago we got more rain in one month than we normally get in 6. Weather changes. It is called average for a reason. Quit worrying about stupid shit and go make a family. The weather is not going to always be the same and nothing we do will change that.
thank you so much Hank! lately my anxiety about the future has been spiking, but this definitly helped and gave me some hope
It’s reasonable to be anxious, things don’t really look good. Nobody deserves to be anxiety free, that’s just a line sold by capitalism to keep people obsessed with themselves and therefore easy to manipulate.
Same, ever since the report I've been a gloom ever since and more depressed (I'm 18) and I had a very rough childhood, everyone says it's gonna get better soon but I really don't see it, then comes in this I really don't get why I was even born, more so I almost died when I was born with jaundice got better but had a miserable life I lost my innocence at age 4, I really don't get why I'm even alive, plus I am terrified of the afterlife since I'm also raised religious and base on my actions I'll be in hell sooo yeah the report washed up my hope for a nice future
For a month I've had this in my "watch later" list, because I knew I needed to watch it and it was so important, but also so long ^^ Thank you for changing the title/thumbnail into a positive mindset, that definitely helped. And I wasn't let down, this was exactly meeting my standarts for "Hank decided this deserved more than four minutes - content" :D And thanks for the work you put into making this make a little sense
We need the School-Friendly Climate-Change-Video of UpisNotJump shown in Classrooms and College-Campuses; and on a very bloodrelated Note: The 'Lets ban Cars'-Video of Adam Something.
Dude, I just got to it. 1 year later. 1 month later is nothing. Haha I'm not proud of it but grad school is what it is. Super good video of course.
I gotta say this video truly did make me more knowledgeable about what I can do more research into that’ll be productive. Instead of simply just saying upset and feel overwhelmed about what I as an individual could possibly do to make an impact. Thanks for making this video mate.
"Spend money to speed the process of decrabonization"
We really all need to do our part to fought against convergent carcinization. Teaching kids to crab walk is more dangerous than previously thought!
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You can't stop carcinization. We will all be crabs some glorious day.
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I crab walked once and now I'm in a Immortal cover band.
Thank you, Hank, for giving me hope! I am sometimes close to giving up on people since we know about the negative effect of our lifestyle on the nature and climate for decades now and so far I have seen way too little effort to address or even acknowledge one of the most important problems for humanity.
Incredibly helpful - thank you for putting this together. It's too easy to fall into despair (then inevitable inertia) about this stuff.
Hank mentioned eating less meat, especially beef.
He should have also mentioned dairy.
It has the same problem as beef- cows and other ruminants produce a huge amount of methane.
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@@iKiffers You can easily switch from beef to chicken, but switching from dairy to what? Chicken based cheese?
@@MichaelDeeringMHC dairy is literally a luxury, unnecessary to our survival. We should have weaned off it around the age of 1 or 2
totally agree that meat and dairy consumption should be lessened greatly. But i also think that keeping livestock CAN be some of the best ways to live off of the enviroment while still perserving it. its just the way we keep and feed livestock now (and in the huge quantaties) that makes it hard to produce enough food in such a way.
guess my point is that having large fields with monocrops that gets sprayed with insecticide probably isnt the ideal either.
@@MichaelDeeringMHC as @SacredFig said, cheese is an unnecessary luxury. If you really value cheese that highly, there is a wide range of plant-based cheeses available.
i made it to about the 14 min mark and was like "wow he's really packing a lot of information into four minutes"
New here, what's the 4 minute thing he was talking about?
Quick question re: switching to electric vehicles. Considering how overwhelmed the power grid has been this year (mayors and governors asking citizens to avoid AC, etc.) if all future cars, or even all cars in California needed charging, would that damage the grid? It needs updating anyway, but is this something we are prepared for? Or will be in 10yrs?
It'd probably be a more gradual transition - Hank's not advocating that everyone go buy an electric car right now, just that the next time you go to buy a car, buy an electric. So it's possible they'll be adjusting the power grid as people transition to electric cars. That's my hope, anyway.
Electric cars are actually good for grid stability because they act as storage.
Cars can be charged when electricity is plentiful and return electricity to the grid when demand spikes.
This is especially needed to make renewables work.
Californian who developed an EV education program here (not an expert-that’s who I hire!-but familiar with many talking points) Having questions about the grid is legit. The best case scenario is powering a vehicle on sunshine (aka solar panels; solar + battery storage is even better). There’s also emerging “vehicle to grid” technology on the horizon where your car can act as a battery backup and power your home as a form of resiliency. I think we’re on track to be able to handle widespread use of EVs, especially with State building codes requiring increasing amounts of solar and EV readiness in new buildings.
Our power grid needs to be overhauled in general
Can't say this about all EVs but my Tesla 3 has lots of customizing in regards to charging. You can set a start time so you are only charging at night when the grid isn't as busy but you can also turn down the AMPs running to the car. So if you aren't driving a lot and don't need your car charged now you can lower this input and charge the car slowly (basically the amount of draw any smartphone would have).
Obviously this doesn't solve all the potential draw issues you are worrying about but it is an advantage of EVs. Not to mention there are ways to get power without the grid
I can’t understand why a video like this has dislikes… thanks Hank, I’m really glad to have the knowledge
1:53 that "No" along with the sad smile hides so much sadness, like trying to solve a world changing problem for a good chunk of your life and still having not much be changed sadness. Must be hurting a lot inside.
I often forget that this is not common knowledge, so thank you for making this video Hank 🌻 I’ll definitely be passing it on!
For anyone interested in thoughts and science on how we can build a better world I highly recommend ‘Doughnut Economics’ by Kate Raworth and ‘This changes everything’ by Naomi Klein (probably also her newest one, but I haven’t read that one yet) ☺️ The Ecopolitics podcast is also a good one to check out!
I definately agree with the sentiment that I’m in favor of anything that’ll get done. The US especially is doing so little that any move in the right direction is a good move.
Random thought: I think more things should be made from stone. Metal products last longer and are higher quality than plastic things. But metal is harder to acquire and costs more. So why not go in between the two and make things made of stone?
Make a straw made of stone. It’s abundant, it doesn’t require a lot of carbon to produce, and it would last longer. A stone fork! Stone buildings! Stone.
Also it looks kind of cool tbh.
Cons: harder to work with and not as mouldable as plastic or metal.
Heavier.
Pros: more jobs, harder to work with means more people would have to work it
Abundance. It’s naturally occurring and pretty common all over the globe. Mining for metal creates a lot of stone and it’s probably not used for much when it could be
Looks cool. People use it for countertops and stuff because it’s sturdy and looks nice
This is just a random thought lol
Thank you, Hank. Here's to Carbon pricing, community-level action and everything else.
As much as I like carbon tax/pricing
What prevents "carbon laundering"?
(There was this video NK bypassing sanctions by laundering their oil and towards HK/Chinese ships)
Countries are gonna find ways to bypass laws (same way how criminals always deposit/send money less than 10k USD to avoid financial investigation)
Also. How is giving money from the carbon tax to pay for the trip to see family gonna help?
Your paying yourself?
The point of carbon tax is increase cost so that people will take carbon usage into account in everyday lives.
Carbon tax that pays the people is just gonna inflate prices, little to no change on behavior (which defeats the point of said carbon tax)
I'm all for carbon tax that uses said funds to reinvest on non-carbon energy sources. (Problem with this however, just like all other taxes. What prevents green companies from hiking up the costs for these investements?)
It is known that subsidies increase prices (because if they can milk a literal money printer/near infinite system. They surely will milk it dry)
(This already happened on tuition, and will continue to happen unless we stop subsidizing schools, defunding schools actually make it cheaper)
This isn't capitalist mumbo jumbo. This is basic game theory.
So tldr.
Im sure with carbon tax, but same way with financial laws. We have to be strict on where these carbons/products come from. And if they follow the carbon tax
(I doubt China/India will have a carbon tax system as strict as US cuz DUH)
Carbon tax
Yes on carbon tax. No/low guarantee for subsidizing green energy.
(But open for private investments. You can't milk a private investment as easily as the government based ones)
If we've solved the issue with sulfuric acid in the atmosphere, then, I don't see why we can't apply that same concept here. I do agree, let the parts that can do it quickly, do so quickly, and then make sure to give the more difficult ones the time needed to fix their stuff.
Was initially skeptical with this video (primarily cause of how hard people have been pushing to just drop $100 trillion on everything within just the US alone, let alone the same amount for every other country), I'm actually rather glad that there's a break down of what our options are, along with, how we, effectively, solved it before (sulfur production).
I remember hearing bits and pieces of it where we've had the sulfur production issue, creating acid rain, and had been wondering why we never had it now, though, I was originally under the impression that it was from much further back than the 80's. But, the fact that we've figured it out then, I really can't see a reason for why we aren't/haven't applied that to the carbon production at this point.
Edit: something that I think may be key (at least, here in the US and with our friendly Canadian neighbors), is better city planning. I'm friends with a bunch of people who have some connection to city planning/design, and we've all talked about it and found that there's a ton of issues, that, if we can solve the transportation issue, we can fix quite a bit of other problems. Alternate resource use would also be quite helpful here, but, over all, better transportation planning, with increased interest and encouragement to use mass transit, such as trams, trains, etc, would help out considerably I think.
The key difference between successful examples fom the 80's like sulfur pollution, and the ozone destroying chemicals and our failure to act for so long on carbon is that carbon affects much more of the economy.
sulfur pollution basically just required power plants to add some pollution removing equipment, ozone destroying chemicals only affected a few chemical companies and required them to switch. Carbon was integrated throughout the entire economy in power plants, transportation, fertilizer, cement, and industry, and some issues( like gas prices) are highly emotional for people. That meant a lot more lobbying by industries that didnt want to change, a lot more disinformation campaigns, and a lot more general resistance from ordinary people who didnt want to change and didnt see the big picture.
Thank you. I needed some optimistic outlook to the dreary inevitability of the impending climate disaster we are all running towards. I have little faith any of these will ever get enacted but I do like the carbon tax as a dividend payout.
LOL! If you want society to collapse and famine, implement carbon taxes.
" I do like the carbon tax as a dividend payout."
well you can either get some tax money back (very unlikely) or simply not pay that tax in the first place.
You know when a religion accomplishes its true goal when its followers blindly hand over their resources, with no questions asked....
@@Krusty-kl5ej "religion accomplishes its true goal"
Religion has no goal. It is a *container* for things; containers do not have goals. However, of the thousands of things you can put in this container, some of them will have varying goals. The one called Scientology certainly demands money. The one called Buddhism does not.
You say "inevitability of the impending climate disaster we are all running towards" Oh stop it, are you a child? Of course the world isnt going to capitulate in just ten years unless we save it from ourselves....get a life. That story is for frightening children. Its not for grown ups.
i loved everything about this video except for one major piece that was missing. NUCLEAR! the focus on renewables blinds people to the fact that we currently have the technology to produce cost effective clean and safe power on scale without any of the concerns that come with renewables like solar and wind. Lithium Ion batteries are creating massive issues with depleting resources, solar is seeming to be more and more problematic when it comes to producing energy on mass scale. wind is good but hard to scale up and quite expensive. there is enough nuclear fuel to last us for the next 20 000 years, and thats assuming we never figure out how to use the spent fuel (which still has about 90% of its energy left) or figuring out how to make Thorium reactors which would keep us going till the sun burns out. any conversation about climate change and carbon emissions is lost without the mention of nuclear energy.
I 100% agree with you about Thorium, but there is a large concern over the inequalities that tend to be linked to the use of nuclear energy, specifically where the waste is taken care of. It leads back to the question of is the potential damage to the communities effected by waste worth the saved damage that would've come from climate change?
@@mayanpaw there are 2 things i would say about that, 1 is that its much easier to manage nuclear waste than it is to manage the equivalent amount of CO2 produced to make the same amount of energy, and second is that its much easier to hold individual companies and producers responsible for their nuclear waste. adding this into the comparison between the different by products, and it seems like a pretty big win for nuclear even in the worst scenarios
are you working at a nuclear waste management facility or what experience does make you think it is easier?
@@mirkofernd a nuclear power plant can run for its entire lifespan and never create more waste than it can store on the grounds of the nuclear powerplant itself, there is such little waste that it can be stored in cement containers which are under constant watch to detect any radiation leeks or issues, and if there are ever any leeks they can be easily solved by placing them in a new container.
comparing this to coal/natural gas which produce large amounts of air pollution, or compared with the cost to create the batteries to store all the energy from solar/wind, it seems like the cost benefit of nuclear is a really easy choice, but fear and lack of education makes people afraid of problems that have already been solved.
Yeah, 100%. And for fusion (our ultimate goal to be honest) to work, we first need 2H and 3H, which chiefly is formed in fission reactors. Nuclear is the one source of energy which, apart from waste which we can be managed anyways, doesn't have real drawbacks to 80% of the political spectrum. Fossil fuel companies can transition into nuclear, keeping themselves alive, while not polluting, like they are with hydrogen now. We need a multifaceted plan, not a single tool (solar right now) to create green energy, otherwise this discourse is useless.
Thank you so much Hank. Your passion for educating people on what they need to know never ceases to astound me. This all extremely important stuff that I didn’t know I didn’t know. Thank you.
Where was this video when I was writing up my carbon tax essay three months ago? My favourite quote I found regarding what's our best option to solve the climate crisis, "The time for picking winners is over"
@Bitterkind well then we should tax their carbon too. i fail to see how this is a fundamental problem with carbon pricing.
@Bitterkind i shouldnt have to tell you how deeply unhelpful the notion of making emitting carbon a crime akin to murder is.
climate action is already politically difficult to bring about. abolishing carbon emissions outright would be orders of magnitude more difficult.
not only that, but the governments of the world are simply not powerful enough to enforce it. there would be nothing short of total revolt.
but what's really going on here is that you aren't interested in solving climate change. you are another one of these people who are more interested in sabotaging the climate movement with radicalism, making it seem more unattainable and impossible to make change than it is.
maybe you want to prove your morality according to some twisted moral calculus, or maybe you're just paid by the fossil fuel industry, i dunno.
Well done! Absolutely agree that all avenues need to be utilized to their full potential. The impact of climate change is absolutely being felt. We've got really poor air quality here - west coast Canada, local water shortage with farmers and individuals growing food not allowed to water, and increased heat related deaths. We will all be impacted by the discomfort of heat, bad air, lack of food supply and increase in climate refugees. But.... it doesn't have to get post apocalyptic! Let's all vote for the environment! We have proven we can make tough adjustments!! It's a win win versus a very dismal lose.
This was an excellent video, when I look climate change I have a tendency to focus on eco technology and environmental processes thank you for reminding me to look at the other facets of the problem.
The work isn’t just for you who live in developed countries, it’s also for us, the more affluent people in developing countries. Despite living in the Philippines, which emits less than average per person, I have a carbon footprint almost at par with those in the lower end of developed countries. Of course, those in the supply side should also do their part.
This video should be way more popular than it is
Whatever fixes we implement I do not want to give any more money to a government(s) that routinely mismanage our money. I also worry about this carbon tax being yet another way for employers or corporation to pass their carbon bill onto their workers.
I don't see a good road forward Hank... at least not in the U.S.
I'm an adult with autism and I'm having a hard time understanding this video. I really appreciate that you made it, but it goes fast and the issues are very complex for me to process so quickly. At about the 5 minute mark I had to stop because I felt overwhelmed. If you have any resource recommendations about climate change that explain it a bit more simply I would really appreciate it.
Have you tried changing the speed to 0.5x?
If you click on settings in the video, you can change the playback speed. That might help a little.
Hi! In UA-cam settings, you can change the speed the video plays. You can also put on captions in those settings if it helps. I hope this is useful. 👍
There's a podcast called "How to Save a Planet" that I think is really good! It's not simpler, it just takes its time more.
ua-cam.com/video/45wuGMgG1tE/v-deo.html
I think this video might help but I'm not sure. It talks about a carbon tax like hank did in this video and all the points he made about it as well, but does not talk about other means governments can stop climate change. I think it is easier to understand.