Re: [Manycouches] Daniel presentation @ 113

[Daniel Migault <[e-mail]>]

Hi Vittorio,

Thanks for the followup. I believe we disagree on how one can rely on an
individual's choice, but I am happy to understand why you believe this
could work. Please see inline. This is just my opinion.

Yours,
Daniel


On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 4:35 AM Vittorio Bertola <
[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> Il 15/04/2022 04:45 Daniel Migault <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
>
> True, average can be seen as a one-size-fits-all approach but this seems
> quite common. That is correct, we probably find one person emitting less
> and one emitting more than the average. Emissions are likely
> characterizing the country's  economy and in that case Germany and Poland
> are relying on coal to produce energy more than other economies/countries.
> There is no specific intention to target one country more than another.
> Whether one person in the country has a SUV or not does not impact too much
> on the number. As usual, this should not be taken as an encouragement to
> buy an SUV, but what matters is the aggregate and the effort needs to be
> collective.
>
> I am puzzled by this. Then, you could also say that if one person takes a
> flight to attend an IETF meeting does not impact too much on the number.
> This is not what you wanted to say.
>
> Since what matters is the aggregate, here is the aggregate:
>
>
> https://www.iea.org/commentaries/carbon-emissions-fell-across-all-sectors-in-2020-except-for-one-suvs
>
> An SUV with one person on board generates around 130 g/km of CO2 per
> person[1]. A Boeing 747-400 on a long international flight generates around
> 100 g/km of CO2 per person[2].
>
> Then, the main factor becomes how many kilometers you make. Depending on
> where the meeting is, you may fly 2000 or 10000 km or more - let's assume
> 5000 in average. How much time does it take for you to drive 5000 km on
> your SUV? It depends on your personal transportation patterns, but for the
> average car owner that would be three months, for some even less. In the
> end, how much you fly is not the decisive, life or death factor in saving
> the planet. It is more complicated. Some, for example, would claim that the
> decisive factor is how much meat you eat: some estimates place the
> emissions from beef at 100'000 g of CO2 and CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases
> per kg[3]; 1 kg of beef = 1000 km on a flight = 750 km on an SUV.
>
>
Now, this is not a good reason to just continue flying carelessly. If we
> can spare some meetings, let's do it. But we could also continue meeting in
> person while rotating the places and encourage people more than 1000-2000
> kms away to attend remotely. Or we could simply conclude that what we do is
> so important, and so better done in person, that we should continue meeting
> in person and rather focus our own emission reduction targets on something
> else, like the personal use of cars or the needless production of waste.
>
> My comment was only to qualify how one single individual person may impact
alone the average. Of course the aggregate has more impact on the average
and so does an organization with 1000 participants. It is good your data
show that other (additional) efforts can have a significant impact - and
SUV/meat are non negligeable either.


> What I dislike is the idea that the organization decides for everyone
> where they should focus their own emission reduction practices, which IMHO
> is a personal responsibility. (The collective responsibility is rather to
> make sure that the economic incentives are appropriately set, i.e. that all
> negative externalities of each product and activity are properly included
> within their prices, so that flying becomes more expensive and people
> reduce travel automatically, but according to their own priorities.)
>
In the case of the IETF moving to a single meeting a year, I do not see
this as the organization deciding what one's personal CO2 emission practice
should be. I agree though it will impact individuals. However, my
perception is that the organization provides a framework that enables
everyone to participate in a sustainable way - independently on how
individuals manage their CO2 emissions.

While relying on individual choices is appealing, I do not believe this is
a reasonable assumption. it has not worked so far, probably because self
interest of the individual almost always overcomes the collective interest
(commons).

I would rather prefer that each of us has a choice, and the hybrid model
> meeting allows this quite well. Then, if most people choose to attend
> remotely, physical meetings will naturally die out for lack of interest.
>
>
>From a remote participant's perspective, I tend to think that the
hybrid model - as experienced in Vienna- is the worst of both worlds. That
said, I do not believe we can really talk about a real choice here. The way
I see it is that the mainstream choice will be driven by the self interest
for interacting with other humans. As a result, anyone with the means to
attend in person will attend in  person.

>
>
In any case, this is a discussion that we need to have and of course this
> is just my view of the problem.
>
> Then, one more thing:
>
> You are not the only one willing to 3 in person meetings a year, however,
> I have not seen any objective data to support the claims that we cannot do
> less than three in person meetings.
>
> We are not robots and this is not a matter of science, it is a matter of
> humanity. We need to socialize for our wellbeing - if we don't, we become
> mentally insane, as many people did in these last two years. Data are
> useful to assess the consequences of our choices, but this is not a
> mathematical optimization problem.
>
> Not robots, but likely predictable as robots. I do not believe that data
will influence individuals choices, but maybe "governing the commons" can
provide some paths. I have not read the book.

>
> [1] https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/06/20210602-eea.html
> [2] https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html
> [3]
> https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201677/greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-major-food-products/
>
> -- vb.
>


-- 
Daniel Migault
Ericsson