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Tourists are Killing the Planet

Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 11:43:15

dohboi wrote:OK, last graph (for now :) ) :


Image

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... ate-change

Kinda says it all! :)


I don't know how this graph derived these figures but I think they are pretty accurate. What is missing on this graph is to show the actual numbers of humans belonging to those percentages. Doing this puts these percentages into perspective and you start to get a clearer picture of which socio economic group belongs in these percentages.

10% = 750 Million people (50% of all emissions)
40% = 3 Billion people (41% of all emissions)
50% = 3.7 Billion people (9% of all emissions)

That upper 10% is made up of 750 million people. This includes that 1% uber rich but also includes even some of us here at po.com. These are the upper middle class that are found in North America, Europe and in emerging BRIC nations. A lot of tourists coming to Mount Totumas are in this group. Plantagent going to climate change conferences is in this group. Folks who have enough income to do leisure high consumption.

The 40% that consume 41% of all emissions are made up of your middle and lower middle class humans. This is 3 billion people. Most are actually in BRIC nations and of course also your lower middle class in developing countries. Many own small cars, many are increasingly flying because discount airlines in developing countries offer flights for under $75 which this socio economic group can afford.

So this upper 49% made up of 3.75 billion humans are consuming 91% of all emissions.

That makes sense and also to a degree confirms something I have often stated here that in aggregate the middle class are the most egregious consumers on the planet.

That bottom 50%, 3.7 billion, only consuming 9% of all emissions do not fly in airplanes and are aspiring perhaps to own one day a small motorized scooter. From this group though there is also a significant percentage who are aspiring and will rise to that upper 91% of consumers.

Something has to give here to reverse the trend, to lower consumption. In all honesty, top down carbon tax and willful legislation coming out of the wealthiest countries will perhaps slow down a teeny tiny bit this mega trend of rising consumption.

The real target has to be reducing the wealth and access to consumption by the 91% on that graph, weakening the juggernaut of Kudzu Apes with environmental feedbacks, stopping the migration from the 50% at the bottom over to high consumption lifestyles by consequences of human overshoot doing their necessary work. Sometime during this century those consequences are going to start offering up some real time solutions. If some enlightened climate change accords with binding agreements can also be enacted then all the better. We may see some swift reductions in emissions happening from the bottom up due to environmental feedbacks and from the top down legislating and reining in the consumption of those 10% - 49% at the top.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 14:43:56

Ibon, not to diminish the rant above, but I note that the graphs are labelled "lifestyle consumption emissions" and you are talking about "all emissions". Something tells me the stats were "improved" by whomever created the chart, to strengthen their argument.

Reducing per capita emissions is of course something that has been happening since the initial clean air legislation in the early 1970s. But each improvement in efficiancy and exhaust cleanliness has been overwhelmed by advancing population numbers. The lowest five deciles are where this growth is occurring. With modern policies for Welfare, subsidized housing and subsidized medical care, we are worsening the basic overshoot problem.

Lastly, fully half the current humans live in cities, and cities are chronically sources of large scale pollution of air and water, because waste treatment facilities are always lagging the populations they serve. Again, the basic problem is not lifestyle, rather it is overshoot.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am typing this comfortably sitting in my leather-clad recliner, in front of my large screen UHDTV, with the central air chilling the 2750 sq ft shared by me and the wife, since Wisconsin is moist and humid this week. I'm not in the lower five deciles - although I had but one child and two grandchildren.

Edit: I downloaded the PDF from "OXFAM", and I'm still not sure where those numbers came from. However, one thing I have no doubt of: that group displays the same blindness as dohbois himself, they would alleviate the suffering of those lower income peoples while not addressing population overshoot in any meaningful manner. This will cause great harm in the long run, and increased human suffering.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 14:52:03

I have no idea how one would tease out the numbers but I have often wondered of the total planetary consumption of Kudzu Apes, what percentage represents the bare essentials for survival and what percentage represents superfluous consumption. Since currently superfluous consumption is a major contributor to the economy those employed in it (like Me !!!!) don't consider it superfluous since it contributes to their livelyhood.

But, I like starting sentences with BUT, screw my old english teacher..... But one day, when constraints really start to pinch and all the discretionary spending winds back down to the bare essentials, it will be interesting to see what energy load on the environment that actually represents.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 14:54:45

KaiserJeep wrote: With modern policies for Welfare, subsidized housing and subsidized medical care, we are worsening the basic overshoot problem.


I think economic development globally and especially in the BRIC nations is a far bigger contributor then social policies. Just a guess
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby dohboi » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 16:15:08

"my old english teacher"

Wow, who was it that taught you Old English, and why do you want to screw her? :)

On the other point:

If I recall correctly, someone estimated that an income that should be survivable would be something like $5000/year. (That might assume a gov. that provides basic services like healthcare, public transport, and controls rents/real estate prices...)

That level of consumption may also be almost sustainable, even at current populations, though, of course, it gets easier with lower populations. About a decade or so ago, someone estimated that the current global population could sustainably live at the lifestyle of the average Parisian of the '50's.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 05 Jul 2019, 21:34:54

Things like housing assistance, educational assistance, and supplementary state funding varies from state to state. However depending upon how you count the money, state and federal Welfare and assistance of various sorts amounts to between $9,000 and $14,000 per person averaged across 50 states and the DC. The high figure is Hawaii where each Welfare recipient gets more than $49,000.

In more than half of our states, you get more money collecting Welfare than when working a minimum wage job. (So of course we need immigrants to work those low paying jobs.) In fact, US Welfare recipients are among the top 20% in income globally.

Source: Forbes Magazine https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/05/04/the-average-us-welfare-payment-puts-you-in-the-top-20-of-all-income-earners/#320ab51316f0
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 06 Jul 2019, 07:37:16

The Global Foot Print Network has us using about 3.5 Earths. That model works with total energy inputs and extractions. So if you work that back a sustainable population is about 30% of what we use now. However (better than BUT) I heard an interview with the guy who invented the Global Foot Print Network and he says the true figures are much lower because the footprint math does not take into account pervasive changes to Earths ability to accept and process energy or wastes such as soil loss, extinctions, climate change. Those are some pretty big omissions, which is one way I get to roughly 10% of current population as sustainable.

Of course not all of humanity can cut back equally because many are already pretty near the edge. The majority of cuts will have to come from high users.
At some point simple things like heating and cooling will come into question. One person living in Minnesota will suck up the energy of 5 folks living in Panama. And yes the odd person will be able to build a net zero house, Chicago and Toronto will never become net zero.

This “XXX is killing the Planet” is silliness, simply a way to shift guilt from ones self to others. It’s a blame game plain and simple. Poking people in the eye is never a good way to educate or convince.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 06 Jul 2019, 08:12:31

Newfie wrote:However (better than BUT) I heard an interview with the guy who invented the Global Foot Print Network and he says the true figures are much lower because the footprint math does not take into account pervasive changes to Earths ability to accept and process energy or wastes such as soil loss, extinctions, climate change. Those are some pretty big omissions, which is one way I get to roughly 10% of current population


In ecology the carrying capacity after the correction of overshoot initially is always below the baseline carrying capacity before overshoot bloomed. That is because of environmental degradation. So this would make sense that human population would fall as low as 10% and once aquifers and soil is replenished we could rise back up from there.

Regarding the blame game I agree. Tourism and aviation though is a major polluting industry. It is totally discretionary and there is a major point about tourism and flying around the planet that we haven't discussed.

Many people go to other places because they are going on "vacation". From what? From a life they are living with which they feel compromised.

If folks had lives that did not feel compromised they wouldn't be so quick to jump on planes.
Like me. I never want to go anywhere! The irony is that what I am doing is making folks from far away get on airplanes .
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 06 Jul 2019, 08:15:04

Before I bought this property I flew all around the planet, mostly on business, but also for recreation. in 2008 when I stopped I was a 3 million mile member with American Airlines. Lifetime platinum card holder that these days is worthless.

How many fxxking hectars of former cow pasture do I have to reforest to be carbon neutral?

Another problem we have is that for folks to arrive at a place where I am , where I don't want to move, you have to get jaded first by flying 3 million miles. The planet does not have the carrying capacity for 7.5 billion humans to experience excesses on the pathway to wisdom.

Just think of all those fresh BRIC consumers still in the early phases of enjoying increased consumption. The excitement of that very first plane ride....
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 06 Jul 2019, 12:47:15

First.....
plane ride
new car
steak dinner
etc

lots of pent up demand there.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby dohboi » Sun 07 Jul 2019, 00:26:35

A little peak at how much billionaire pervs like to fly around in their toys:

Epstein owned a private Boeing 727 jet and traveled in it frequently, logging "600 flying hours a year ..."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 08 Aug 2019, 21:38:25

Compute how much your flight melts the Arctic, and how much your other green efforts balance that out:
https://www.vox.com/business-and-financ ... arctic-ice
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 22 Aug 2019, 18:32:12

Dohboi,

This one is for you. I don’t think it’s the whole truth, but a bit too much.

n the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs


https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-be ... americans/
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 23 Aug 2019, 17:10:09

dohboi wrote:Compute how much your flight melts the Arctic, and how much your other green efforts balance that out:
https://www.vox.com/business-and-financ ... arctic-ice


Hey Plant... That's your page. Have fun.

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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 12:01:47

I was just in Matopos National Park in NW Zimbabwe. They have Rhinos there and they are struggling desperately to save them from poachers. There is some poaching from the local native villages, but in general the park staff and the locals get along pretty well. The real problem they are facing is organized crime, which has gone into the business of poaching rhino horn to sell to China.

According to the Rangers and staff at Matopos National Park, Rhino horn is now the most valuable substance on earth, and organized crime is heavily involved in the Rhino horn business. Zimbabwe is desperately poor---one of the poorest countries on earth....and there is some poaching by locals who then sell the Rhino horn to the crime cartels, but the organized crime cartels also are involved in poaching themselves....only they use helicopters, night vision goggles, and large caliber automatic weapons to quickly move in and take Rhino horn, and then get it out and sell it on to China. The park staff has dilapidated 30-50 year old Land Rovers, single fire rifles, and native guards wearing sandals made out of old tires. They are totally outgunned and out equipped by the cartels.

In Matopos they've resorted to removing all the Rhino horns from their Rhinos, but the horn is so valuable that poachers will shoot the rhinos and dig out the small amount of horn material left inside the animals skull. This usually leave the Rhino dying in agony.

Not a lot of tourists get to Matopo because its in a remote part of Zimbabwe but the staff is grateful to everyone that does, because its their only source of revenue to protect the Rhinos. The corrupt government in Harare skims off almost all the money from the official park admissions, so the staff asked us to give them donations directly that they would use to protect the Rhino.

I was lucky enough to walk into a remote valley and see the Rhino there. We had to turn off all GPS and photo-location on the cameras, because they were afraid the poachers would locate their remaining Rhino from our photos. I could post my photos but before I left they made me pledge to take out anyone who saw my pics of the Rhino in order to protect the Rhino.

Image
Matopos National Park, Zimbabwe

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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 15:59:50

I suspect they are doomed outside zoos. Maybe we could move a few to Columbia to join Pablo Escabar’s hippos that seem to be thriving there.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 16:09:48

Africa is changing so quickly. The beautiful traditional native tribal villages with thorn kraals and clusters of reed houses that I visited when I first went there are now mostly gone, replaced by dusty, ugly government-built single-family cinder block houses with asphalt roofs.

The populations of animals in the parks is actually quite good in countries like South Africa, where there is quite a bit of money from mass tourism to support and monitor and manage the parks.

Its in the very poor and very corrupt countries like Zimbabwe and Mozambique that the parks are desperately underfunded and poaching pressure, both from locals after meat and from drug cartels after pangolin and rhino horn, is most severe.

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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 19 Sep 2019, 20:25:34

Airlines' CO2 emissions rising up to 70% faster than predicted

Carbon dioxide emitted by commercial flights rose by 32% from 2013 to 2018, study shows



Researchers said the rate of growth far exceeded that used to develop projections for CO2 emissions by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization.

The ICCT report says: “The implied annual compound growth rate of emissions, 5.7%, is 70% higher than those used to develop ICAO’s projections that CO2 emissions from international aviation will triple under business as usual by 2050.”

The total increase over the past five years was equivalent to building about 50 coal-fired power plants, the ICCT calculated. The study shows the UK is responsible for 4% of global aviation CO2 emissions, behind only the US (24%) and China (13%).

Domestic flights in the US and China account for a quarter of all aviation emissions. The US, China and EU account for 55% of all emissions.


A forecast released by Airbus on Wednesday said the number of commercial aircraft in operation would double to 48,000 planes worldwide by 2038. It predicted urbanisation and an emerging middle class would fuel rapid growth, particularly in the Asia-Pacific.



...BUT "offsets" and Technology will save us :)

“That is why from 2020 all growth in international aviation CO2 will be offset, reducing carbon by millions of tonnes a year. And by 2050 we aim to cut total emissions to half the 2005 level, using a combination of sustainable fuels and radical new technologies.”

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, called on the UK aviation industry to take the lead in introducing electric flight. In a speech at Cranfield University in Bedford on Thursday, he said: “We need to get to grips with commercial aviation greenhouse gas emissions for the sake of our children and our fragile environment.”

He said aviation “supercharges our economy, drives prosperity, jobs and tourism and helps promote Britain’s interests globally … But with aviation set to grow significantly over the next three decades, largely driven by rising demand from emerging markets, particularly Asia, the Middle East and India, I want to pave the way for the transition towards commercial use of cleaner electric planes.”


https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -predicted
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 21 Sep 2019, 20:24:52

For most, the highest 'virtue' they will ever aspire to, if that, is to 'strain at a gnat' or two, all the while gobbling dozens of 'camels.'

We all see this with the anti-plastic-straw craze, and there are a thousand others like it.

I would like to think that some of these are 'gateway' actions that could lead to willingness both to partake in greater sacrifices and to get involved in larger activism and education to address the deep structural and cultural dysfunction in the modern industrial/consumption global economy.

But more often they are, to paraphrase and activists concerns about minor recycling efforts, displacing only tiny percentages of carbon emissions while alleviating high percentages of guilty feelings.
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Re: Tourists are Killing the Planet

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 21 Sep 2019, 21:13:29

dohboi wrote:But more often they are, to paraphrase and activists concerns about minor recycling efforts, displacing only tiny percentages of carbon emissions while alleviating high percentages of guilty feelings.


Dohboi, this is the daunting next step of realization for this "Greta" movement. Young people are committed but haven't fully come to grasps with the depth and breadth of change required, for them individually and for nations.

The young generation intuits that they will be suffering increasingly the consequences. It is only those very consequences which will give them the strength to confront the daunting realization of what change really means. If those consequences do not manifest the young generation will follow their parents in alleviating guilty feelings fighting to eliminate the likes of plastic straws while the massive juggernaut of CO2 emissions continues unabated. .

The catalyst toward real concrete change has always been the consequences themselves.
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