[mikemike]

I know some out there are still unconvinced about the destruction wreaked by the baby boom generation but here is some more evidence. A new study out relating age to per capita CO2 emissions by americans finds that they peak around age 60. This means that we won't see the apogee of environmental destruction caused by boomers for another 20 years.



Hopefully this serves as a warning call to boomers to cut there consumption.



My family's carbon footprint has already peaked and I am committed to reducing our net electric consumption to zero within the next 3-4 years by installing solar PV panels and switching to LED lights. We have already cut our gasoline consumption by over 70% by moving close to where we need to go most often and I think we should be able to cut it by 90-100% from here by 2020 depending on the evolution of EV technology.

Of course the other big energy hogs are Canadians and Aussies but baby boomers are on track to destroy the whole world as if the US government and economy were not enough.

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Individual CO2 emissions decline in old age

[wizofoz]

yep, Mike we are to blame. No doubt about it. The pace of development and technological change merely in my lifetime is immense. I'm 51 and barely a boomer.

The world has to change, and we, the consumers of all the pollution, need to lead the way. I for one am happy that the Aussie govt passed a carbon tax bill yesterday. Aussies are the highest per capita emiters of C02 on the planet. It's a good thing, given that fact, that there are so few of us. Imagine if these were a billion of us all polluting at the same rate? Thats what it would be like if India were to have the same emissions as Australia.

the critics of this tax say that as there are so few of us, we are making very little difference in world terms, and therefore the tax is not only futile, it is counter to the on-going prosperity of this country. I say we need to do everything we can to reduce our foot print and try to reverse the worst ravages of the 'carbon age'.

I like the analogy about a car crash. When faced with imminent danger, do you still speed on, at full power, or do you try to apply the brakes, slow down and change direction. The latter is a carbon price.

I'll cop a few slings over this post, fair enough, bring 'em on.

[reeftool]

Gee, and I always thought that the global warming that began in the mid 1800's was what started the worldwide population explosion. The passing of our generation is not going to correct anything. Instead of coming up with stupid ideas like a carbon tax, governments should begin directing their efforts towards dealing with the coming consequences of a warmer planet instead of promoting false hopes. The world population is not sustainable. Our technology is vulnerable and can only produce food for so long. We are going to run out of potable water long before we run out of oil. It isn't the carbon footprint that is the problem. There are 7 billion of us and the number is growing. Think about it for a minute. We could stop burning oil tomorrow and that problem isn't going away. Just don't think too long because it will scare the crap out of you. Is there enough farmland? Enough fresh water? I hope I'm wrong but I believe we are long past the point of no return.

[les3547]

I know some out there are still unconvinced about the destruction wreaked by the baby boom generation but here is some more evidence. A new study out relating age to per capita CO2 emissions by americans finds that they peak around age 60. This means that we won't see the apogee of environmental destruction caused by boomers for another 20 years.]

39 years ago I stopped consuming what is the biggest source of CO2 on the planet. How about you?

Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars

Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.

Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.

The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.

The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.

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Last edited by les3547; 11-10-2011 at 12:23 AM.

[Ratmagiclady]

yep, Mike we are to blame. No doubt about it. The pace of development and technological change merely in my lifetime is immense. I'm 51 and barely a boomer.

The world has to change, and we, the consumers of all the pollution, need to lead the way. I for one am happy that the Aussie govt passed a carbon tax bill yesterday. Aussies are the highest per capita emiters of C02 on the planet. It's a good thing, given that fact, that there are so few of us. Imagine if these were a billion of us all polluting at the same rate? Thats what it would be like if India were to have the same emissions as Australia.

the critics of this tax say that as there are so few of us, we are making very little difference in world terms, and therefore the tax is not only futile, it is counter to the on-going prosperity of this country. I say we need to do everything we can to reduce our foot print and try to reverse the worst ravages of the 'carbon age'.

I like the analogy about a car crash. When faced with imminent danger, do you still speed on, at full power, or do you try to apply the brakes, slow down and change direction. The latter is a carbon price.

I'll cop a few slings over this post, fair enough, bring 'em on.

Same as it was when I was considered a near-prodigy, though: this tech has to mature or we're boned. The problem isn't a generational lack of 'personal morality' in some ways, (though it wouldn't have hurt to show some restraint, care, or responsibility, but that's water under the bridge.)

To be very honest, they were still promising 'too cheap to meter' nuclear utilities when *I* was a kid. Guess what didn't happen, even.

(First week I was in the Midwest, though, I heard em testing the tornado sirens, and I was like 'Shit, either the ICBMs are incoming or the local Seabrook musta cooked off. Where is it?'


The problem is that conservation was opposed at every turn systemically and it was *let happen.* Made to happen by those with the short-term interests in waste and consumption. The fact that they've parted out things like the American economy and left nothing is only the last part.

This would have been a lot easier a lot earlier. *Especially* before we in the 'first world* *exported* the same damn choking things to places like China, Even ten, never mind thirty years ago. If we'd been getting our *own* act together all this time, we wouldn't have been exporting the same damn problems to places with bigger populations and calling it 'prosperity.' Though, really, 'We?' I just spent a few days talking about how busy I was getting kicked in the head. ''We" might not be the appropriate term. But it's all of our problem now.

Unless we're dead yet.


(But, yes, mikemike. Some things do take longer to play out than an election cycle. See?)

[yucatanPentax]

I think the need to blame other people for the climate change crisis seems pretty strong. Mike, you should congratulate yourself on your financial resources and ability to do what most of the country simply cannot afford to do. Are your parents "boomers"? Did you reach whatever age you are now (presumably somewhat youngish?) without the consumption of energy and emissions of green house gases?

Please note that the study you cite did not specify that only boomers increase energy consumption up to age 60, but all people of any generation increase energy consumption up to age 60. Only the author who reports the study inserts the "boomer" theme.

Now, since you are more financially gifted and can afford expensive solar panels (which, by the way, resulted in the emission of greenhouse gases in their manufacture), you may be the exception to the rule. But the study itself did not divide people into generations and call out any certain ones as being "more guilty." That's just a faulty conclusion on your part. The study actually is saying that you too will increase your consumption of all goods as you reach your peak earning years versus debt and then you will reduce consumption as you age into retirement.

The other thing that your logic mistakes is that "net zero" electricity consumption means that your greenhouse gas emissions are zero. Not true. Unless you are going totally off-grid (and even then, battery manufacture creates greenhouse gases and they have to be regularly replaced), your consumption of electricity at night and during cloudy days will create greenhouse gases. The fact that you then feed electricity back into the grid on other days is of no importance: The fact that the grid must be there for you to live means that you are creating greenhouse gases , not "zero."

One of the readily apparent flaws of this "age related study" is that children are said to emit few greenhouse gases, but that is only the case when each child is considered individually. At the household level, significant contributions are made by the provisions of schools, travel to and from schooling, extra-curricular activities, etc. Child-rearing is one of the most economically-costly efforts that people undertake. And spending money directly relates to greenhouse gas emissions. Long story short: The study is interesting to think about at an abstract level, but at a practical level it has many defects.

Lastly, you left this out altogether:

Overall, the balance in the medium term is expected to be positive. (note: positive here means "good")
... if it turns out that new technologies will be more carbon-efficient in the future, that might even leverage age structure effects for the good of the climate. This could be the case, for instance, if electricity, of which the old use a lot, could be generated and distributed with fewer emissions.

Scapegoating any group of people by attributing identical behavior to all is generally frowned upon. Regardless of whatever group you don't like, it is simply wrong not to consider people as individuals. Scapegoating is lazy thinking.

[Ratmagiclady]

I think the need to blame other people for the climate change crisis seems pretty strong.

Actually, that's like a step up along the grieving process from the denial and blame phases. Too bad we passed certain tipping points in 2003 and needed to get a lot of stuff done *yesterday* as of then, rather than think about kinda-sorta-slow-down-the-making-it worse.

I don't want anyone to panic, cause we're a decade too late for that in a lot of ways. What we *need* to do is get over ourselves and figure out how to get *resilient.* That probably starts with seeing each other as human beings, not just bill-paying breeding ovens with credit ratings. We need to get *very smart* *posthaste.*


We probably won't. In either event, not-hating each other *would be helpful* We're human beings. Or being humans. We really can be smarter than this. If we try. But we have to try.


Besides. It's been worse. I grew *up* thinking Reagan was gonna get us all nuked, with his Alzheimer's and Neocon deal. and the Christian Right squalling for apocalypse-as-usual-with cesium fallout. Make no mistake, Big Money and Big Religion were saying the same damn things then as now. And some notion of actual implacable death hanging over your head was just something you had to deal with, ...and find a way to care about the world, anyway.

We can do this.


We've been in it before, and before that, and probably will be again. But we're *in it now,* blame the queers and immigrants as you like. Hearken to thee biosphere. Kids. Cause that's a very thin skin of Mammagaia between us and deep black vacc, that we call, 'Everything that matters to us.'

(Think on that, fellow stone-throwing primates.)

No two ways about it.

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Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 11-10-2011 at 12:31 AM.

[GeneV]

We are also to blame for populating the world with all those new consumers who are adding CO2 emissions to the world. My footprint as a child was a good deal smaller than someone in today's world so these new ones are really a drain. But wait, adding population helps pay for retirement.

Yeah, it's time for Logan's Run. Careful Mike, you are about to come up for Carousel.

[Nesster]

LOL, Mike, you are having a good time tweaking the boomers - I love it!

I have to say, I'm overall disappointed in the boomers. We turned out far more conservative and narcissistic than the Not To Be Trusted parents and grandparents. (Yeah, let's blame them! )

I think a lot of our conservatism stems from the narcissism. We are easy marks for Reaganomics: a pain free materialism, with tax cuts and increased government spending. Hey, I get to keep what I think is mine, and still get the gov't to supplement my lifestyle. Now that the results of that particular proposition are apparent, the selfish ME generation - and our clueless offspring - are still stuck on the ME thing, only even more grubby and less 'compassionately conservative'.

I am glad that there are signs you youngsters have different ideas. There are / were plenty of us boomers thinking the same - a lot of what you're putting into effect we did also, and a lot of the ideas were current in the late 60s and 70s. Somehow the big business American consumerist marketing machine succeeded in making us a side show, a sneered at effete, Earth Shoed, Subaru driving, latte drinking bunch of dilettante hypocrites. And you know, Un-American to boot.

Don't be fooled, this marketing is still ongoing.

[Nesster]

...putting on me grandpa manner... droning on about the past ... Growing up in a well educated, scientifically oriented family in the 70s, and having tons of excellent magazines to read, as well as absorbing much of the then current discussion... I clearly recall how all these environmental issues were being discussed, policies proposed, evidence presented. At the time the USA was gearing up to confront these things.

So what happened? The oil shock was a mixed blessing - the conservation / alternate source movement got a boost, but the shock to the economy was worse. Business and conservative interests started to push their agendas - after all the economy was going bad, inflation and interest rates where extremely high, the stock market was stagnant. People were open to hearing things that promised jobs and income... not just environmental problems and so on.

Oh, and American cars sucked. The car companies were clueless about quality engineering and design, used crap materials, the unions were at their relative worst, and EPA (and safety) mandates clearly screwed performance and quality too. Back then, the car industry drove the economy. We were sold crapola... and our anger and disappointment was channelled towards government and the unions... rather than the management of these car manufacturers. The fact that imports began to increase market share - with the same EPA and safety regulations - didn't seem to suggest where the majority of blame belonged.

Then Reagan happened. Overnight, there was a fuzzy feel good thing going on, and environmental concerns nearly disappeared from view. Marginalization. Ridicule even. Not to be discussed seriously. Predictions of economic harm from any proposed environmental change got far more press. It was a different world all of a sudden.

Which is why when these issues started to come back into the mainstream in the late 90s and 00s, it was such a feeling of deja-vu. They were often presented as brand new discoveries or ideas... when in fact they often were exactly what had been said in the 70s.

[Hey Elwood]

I've got the answer to all these issues and it can be summed up in 2 words....soylent green

[Nesster]

In this context, something pretty cool: a Cartography of the Anthropocene
A Cartography of the Anthropocene

Technically, the Anthropocene is the most recent period of the Quaternary, succeding to the Holocene. The Quaternary is a period of the Earth's history characterized by numerous and cyclical glaciations, starting 2,588,000 years ago (2.588 Ma). The Quaternary is divided into three epochs: the Pleistocene, the Holocene, and now the Anthropocene.
...
Here is the definition more or less impressionistic we propose for the Anthropocene:

"A period marked by a regime change in the activity of industrial societies which began at the turn of the nineteenth century and which has caused global disruptions in the Earth System on a scale unprecedented in human history: climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution of the sea, land and air, resources depredation, land cover denudation, radical transformation of the ecumene, among others. These changes command a major realignment of our consciousness and worldviews, and call for different ways to inhabit the Earth."

Well worth the visit for the pictures / maps....

[redrockcoulee]

Generally as well the wealthier a person is the greater their carbon footprint will be, and I am using generalization for sure however not many poor folks drive to their weekend cabin or fly on vacations regularly. The reason I bring this up is Mike blames the boomers for using too much carbon and also in the other thread for not being rich enough.

When I used to teach at the college it was a 40 minute walk in the winter (Canadian winter not a southern US one) and just before I would get to the parking lot at the college I would be taking off my hat and gloves as needed to cool down after walking up the hill. Then in class some students would complain about the distance they have to walk from where they parked their cars to the college door, less than a 2 minute walk. We will see if the youth of today have a smaller footprint than us boomers. We sure have a larger one than our parents whose footprint was larger than their parents. It took years to get into this mess and so far years of arguing if there really is a mess and then arguements about what we can or should do about it.

Carbon tax is a means to motivate a movement against fossil fuels and to more green energy especially conservation the greenest of them all.

Nester; there has been debates for decades about whether or not the holocene ended and when and not just with the one you mentioned but others even predating the advent of the global climate change models. I had not seen the one you posted, thanks for sharing

[mikemike]

Generally as well the wealthier a person is the greater their carbon footprint will be, and I am using generalization for sure however not many poor folks drive to their weekend cabin or fly on vacations regularly. The reason I bring this up is Mike blames the boomers for using too much carbon and also in the other thread for not being rich enough.

Actually, it is the reverse in general poorer people have larger carbon footprints because they live further out, have little control over choosing mechanical systems like A/C and appliances which usually means their landlord has the cheapest (and least efficient) stuff installed, they are more likely to drive an older and larger vehicle like a truck or SUV which gets poorer mileage and emissions. On the extremes you have high direct correlation to income where the poorest 5% who don't have cars or afford heat have extremely low emissions and the super rich .5% who have private jets have extremely high emissions. In the middle though, you have an inverse correlation to income for the reasons I explained.


I saw a research paper on this before and it was in a system which required special access, if you go to your university library and look you might be able to find it in their databases.

The policy approaches of incentives for efficiency and punitive carbon taxes are extremely regressive BTW. For example one of the reasons I plan to do solar panels soon is b/c there is an 30% refundable tax federal credit and a 50% refundable state tax credit bringing the effective cost of the system down to 20% of the actual cost, the catch is that you need to be able to wait for your tax refund to recoup your money and need to have plenty of capital which you don't mind tying up (in my case I am budgeting for a $30K system). After it is installed the net metering works such that I will sell my extra KWHs to my neighbors (who might not be able to afford solar PV) at the price of peek demand electricity and I get my nighttime KWHs from the grid at the price of low demand electricity. Same thing with cash for clunkers, the only people who could afford to take advantage of it were people who could afford a new car.

[mikemike]

The fact that the grid must be there for you to live means that you are creating greenhouse gases , not "zero."

Depends on the source of energy of the local utility's baseline power. Here it is mostly nuclear power for the baseline with natural gas to provide demand driven peak power.

39 years ago I stopped consuming what is the biggest source of CO2 on the planet. How about you?

I still eat beef for about 1 meal per week but I eat mostly seafood and poultry.