National policies and major energy transformations often take decades to change locked-in infrastructure and institutions, but behavioural shifts have the potential to be more rapid and widespread
Does this mean that there is little hope for mass change through government mandated programs?
Adolescents can also choose their own diets, can influence family decisions on vacations (e.g. flying vs. staying local) and should be informed of the environmental consequences of family size as they are likely becoming sexually active.
These are all very much generalizations. Not every family allows adolescents to have this much freedom and by assuming that all adolescents are in the same boat with this, assumptions and predictions made about future circumstances my be skewed.
However, even knowledgeable and willing individuals may not reduce meat intake or adopt other high impact actions if cultural norms or structural barriers act as obstacles.
This relates to the imperative discussion we had previously. Cultural norms will always be important factors to consider as humans are routine creatures with little to no willingness to deviate from change, especially not on such a large scale as altering the lifestyles of millions of people at a time.
the United States has seen as a measurable decrease (Kuhnimhof et al 2013) or at the very least, delay in car usage and ownership for the millennial generation compared to previous generations
When I first saw this, my first thought was, "Was this because of the pandemic slowing the process of people getting drivers licenses, causing a shortage on cars and parts, etc." But then i checked the publication date and saw this was three years prior to the pandemic. Therefore, my question would be, how has the pandemic influenced this data? Is any of this relevant anymore now that more people have been working from home and less major social gatherings have taken place? Will there be a boom of emissions now that we are coming out of the pandemic and people are longing for the lives they once had before the world came to a halt?
We found that the 216 individual recommended actions from textbooks overwhelmingly focused on moderate or low-impact actions, with our recommended actions mostly presented in a less effective form, or not at all
This is interesting as the most important methods for reducing carbon footprints are those that are mentioned less. Students should not only be educated properly, but they should have the opportunity implement these lifestyle changes before settling into routines as they grow up and get jobs/live as their parents did.
Using values from figure 1, we estimate that an individual who eats meat and takes one roundtrip, transatlantic flight per year emits 2.4 tCO2e through these actions, exhausting their personal carbon budget, without accounting for any other emissions.
This is interesting because statistics like this are not broadcasted to individuals looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Everyone knows about the general actions to save and conserve such as recycling, taking shorter showers, and turning lights off when not in use, but even just taking a single flight in a year and not living as a vegetarian or vegan creates a massive impact. If more people knew about this, perhaps more people would consider giving up meat or far travel
a US family who chooses to have one fewer child would provide the same level of emissions reductions as 684 teenagers who choose to adopt comprehensive recycling for the rest of their lives.
From this, the conclusion could be made that much of the global increase in emissions has come from increased populations, therefore, those countries that produce more emissions would benefit from having restrictions on how many children one couple could have, much like the ban put in place in China many years ago.
Ten textbooks used in seven of Canada's ten provinces were therefore analyzed
Is there a reason why only canadian textbooks were used? While Canada is a large country, their carbon emissions do not come anywhere near those of China or the United States. Why not analyze the material being taught to students in countries where it is much more imperative to slow down or stop emissions all together as those countries are the ones creating the biggest problems.
For instance, the emissions saved from living car-free may be lower than we calculated if public transit replaces car travel instead of biking or walking (living car free represents all the emissions associated with the life cycle of owning a car in our methodology).
This contributes to the imperative idea that we talked about on the first day of classes. The imperatives that we have to keep in mind do not only think about the planet and what is best in the long run, but rather the needs of humans and the lives we are currently accustomed to as well. By substituting rather than completely cutting out certain routine actions, it would still result in emissions, but significantly less than those previous to the substitution
For instance, recycling is framed as recycling comprehensively for a year, a plant-based diet is framed as avoiding all meat, and purchasing renewable energy is framed as purchasing all possible household energy from renewable sources for a year, even though it would be possible to perform these actions as half-measures.
This seems inconsistent. If people only do this half of the time, there should be another category for that, not counting it as an entire year's worth of sustainable efforts.
the main text only report results from developed nations
While it makes sense that developed nations will be focused on for analysis of mass carbon emissions, is there any evidence to suggest underdeveloped nations have any impact on the climate crisis? Many underdeveloped nations still run on agricultural systems rather than mass production, therefore many of those countries would most likely have a minimal carbon footprint in comparison to other countries, but do they have no carbon footprint or just a smaller one? Would it be a better idea to fix what emissions are smaller than to immediately tackle the larger ones?
though individuals have a poor understanding of which actions are more effective than others
Indeed this is true. While many individuals today have heard about the climate crisis on the news or in other forms of media, they are most likely being informed on the heavy hitters for carbon footprints such as billionaires with private jets, unnecessary trips to space, and governmental emissions based on entire countries data. Many individuals need more guidance on what they can feasibly do to stop or slow the effects of climate change while also showing enforced restrictions on those individuals/companies/countries that contribute the most to global emissions.
high school science textbooks and government resources.
Is there a reason high school science textbooks are used over professional journal articles or peer reviewed sources? Why is it that high school textbooks in addition to government resources are what are focused on when there is so much more in depth and compelling evidence found in scientific journals?
It is especially important that adolescents are prepared for this shift.
While it is to be expected that adolescents will need to be prepared for this, it is also not only this generation that will see effects. Much of generation Z has been disproportionately affected by disasters both natural and human caused and because of this, the generation may be either extremely prepared or numb to the effects entirely. What generations should be targeted are those that are doing the most to worsen the situation for their offspring.
igh-carbon individuals estimated to produce nearly 50% of emissions
how do we enforce this? What can individuals do that do not have this large of a carbon-footprint to reduce global impact?
most current pathways to stay under the 2 °C limit assume the future use of unproven technologies to achieve negative emissions
This is interesting considering that there is so much faith put in the generation of technology that has not been made yet, however, we have seen time and time again with the Covid Crisis, that many people, especially in the US, are skeptical of quick scientific advancements.