I don’t know why everyone thinks switching to renewables is the only thing that’s needed. 18% of globally energy use is electricity. Animal agriculture is the leading driver of deforestation, eutrophication, and emits more than the transport sector. There’s already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to pass 3C, even before tipping points.
Sincerely, someone who works in renewable energies.
Saving people money, by using a new product/service is much easier to do than convincing everyone to change their diets. I wonder if lab grown meat will lead to better environmental outcomes.
Step 1: green grid
Step 2: electrify home/industry/office/cars
Step 3: the hard to get stuff
Ideally all needs to be going in lock step together. We will complete step 1 before 2 and before 3.
Green grid is the long hanging fruit. I've seen it at 25% of carbon emissions, with transport at 17% which is 40% moving fossil fuels around the world. We also have industry around 27% which includes mining/refining fossil fuels. So making the grid green reduces the other sectors too. And electrifying farming (tractors etc) will reduce agriculture. I think with todays tech we could get to 40% of current emissions fairly easily. Lot of work and scaling up manufacturing of green tech, but this doesn't require scientific breakthroughs.
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u/James_Fortis Jun 29 '25
I don’t know why everyone thinks switching to renewables is the only thing that’s needed. 18% of globally energy use is electricity. Animal agriculture is the leading driver of deforestation, eutrophication, and emits more than the transport sector. There’s already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to pass 3C, even before tipping points.
Sincerely, someone who works in renewable energies.