Lamenting the decline of the car

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Doug

Proving why carbon taxation is unlikely to produce positive results

Well no, he said that if the price was high enough he would change his behavior. So it would work, we just have to find the right price.

The best alternative to carbon taxation is to not bother doing anything as other solutions will be more expensive.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is a misconception. Probably the #1 economic misconception right now.

Transportation has a cost, sure, and all else equal it's cheaper to consume something close to where it is produced. But all else is not equal and the transportation costs (dollars and carbon footprint) in the modern economy are a tiny portion of the total, because transport by ship in particular has become incredibly efficient. It's very easy for some other factor to outweigh the cost of transportation.

Exmaple:

Tons of CO2 emitted when manufacturing a Land Rover Discovery: 35
Tons of CO2 emitted to ship a Land Rover 20,000 km: 0.5-2

That's the maximum distance the car could be shipped. If we were talking about shipping it 200 km vs 2,000 km it would be really easy to imagine some other factor like power source having a bigger impact than transportation (one country has hydro, one country has coal). It's also easy to see why it might be good to have one big, heavily optimized Land Rover factory instead of a bunch of small ones scattered all over.

Just imagine what the math looks like for an iPhone that sells for $1,000 and weighs 150 g.

The story with food production is similar. Some places are better or worse places to grow food, and generally the big producers have economies of scale that hugely outweigh transportation. If we didn't have a global network of food shipping we'd be hugely worse off. In fact we would just not be able to support the populations that exist right now.

Thank you, you put that much more eloquently than I did.

[240glt]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is a misconception. Probably the #1 economic misconception right now.

Transportation has a cost, sure, and all else equal it's cheaper to consume something close to where it is produced. But all else is not equal and the transportation costs (dollars and carbon footprint) in the modern economy are a tiny portion of the total, because transport by ship in particular has become incredibly efficient. It's very easy for some other factor to outweigh the cost of transportation.

Exmaple:

Tons of CO2 emitted when manufacturing a Land Rover Discovery: 35
Tons of CO2 emitted to ship a Land Rover 20,000 km: 0.5-2

That's the maximum distance the car could be shipped. If we were talking about shipping it 200 km vs 2,000 km it would be really easy to imagine some other factor like power source having a bigger impact than transportation (one country has hydro, one country has coal). It's also easy to see why it might be good to have one big, heavily optimized Land Rover factory instead of a bunch of small ones scattered all over.

Just imagine what the math looks like for an iPhone that sells for $1,000 and weighs 150 g.

The story with food production is similar. Some places are better or worse places to grow food, and generally the big producers have economies of scale that hugely outweigh transportation. If we didn't have a global network of food shipping we'd be hugely worse off. In fact we would just not be able to support the populations that exist right now.

How much CO2 would be produced to air drop that Land Rover 20000kms away ?

Not that it happens all that much. And yes shipping is a far more efficient way of moving goods than flying it. But we're talking primarily about moving humans, and most humans don't travel by ship

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Though if it doubled suddenly due to government causes or policies, you might see a new government shortly thereafter.

THIS is the only reason that carbon taxes are unlikely to do all that they're designed to. Multiplied by nearly 300 governments.

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by 240glt

How much would it cost to air drop that Land Rover though

I suppose the odd supercar gets airmailed but mostly those would be cars at a price point and order of magnitude higher than that land rover.

[240glt]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well no, he said that if the price was high enough he would change his behavior. So it would work, we just have to find the right price.

The best alternative to carbon taxation is to not bother doing anything as other solutions will be more expensive.

Do you know the single one thing that would actually influence both my choice of vehicle and the number of vehicles we own ? Where we live. There's zero incentive to either reduce the number of cars we have or the size of them in Edmonton. Transit here is a joke, I have ample parking at home, free heated underground parking at work downtown and our parkade can easily accommodate a large SUV or truck. Fuel is cheap, roads are not congested, and you can be anywhere in the city within a half hour in a car.

If I were to be transferred to Vancouver, and want to maintain a similar proximity to work (~10 minutes commute) I'd probably be managing a property downtown, so all of a sudden there's no way we'd have three cars. One, tops. And maybe I'd stash my old Volvo at one of my friend's places up the valley and go take it for a burn every once in a while. And I doubt we'd have something as big as either the truck or SUV we have now.

[milomilo]

Totally. I don't think we should be judging the impact of carbon taxes from single individual decisions though - the important changes will come when millions of people decide they want to spend less money on gas and vote with their wallets when buying (or not buying) cars. It won't happen overnight and not everyone will change, but economy wide things will change.

Look at Europe - gas is in general far more expensive, and what do we see? Much more fuel efficient vehicles. That isn't just because North Americans love cars and Europeans don't, but because the Euros have on average chosen to save money by running more efficient vehicles.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is a misconception. Probably the #1 economic misconception right now.

Transportation has a cost, sure, and all else equal it's cheaper to consume something close to where it is produced. But all else is not equal and the transportation costs (dollars and carbon footprint) in the modern economy are a tiny portion of the total, because transport by ship in particular has become incredibly efficient. It's very easy for some other factor to outweigh the cost of transportation.

Exmaple:

Tons of CO2 emitted when manufacturing a Land Rover Discovery: 35
Tons of CO2 emitted to ship a Land Rover 20,000 km: 0.5-2

That's the maximum distance the car could be shipped. If we were talking about shipping it 200 km vs 2,000 km it would be really easy to imagine some other factor like power source having a bigger impact than transportation (one country has hydro, one country has coal). It's also easy to see why it might be good to have one big, heavily optimized Land Rover factory instead of a bunch of small ones scattered all over.

Just imagine what the math looks like for an iPhone that sells for $1,000 and weighs 150 g.

The story with food production is similar. Some places are better or worse places to grow food, and generally the big producers have economies of scale that hugely outweigh transportation. If we didn't have a global network of food shipping we'd be hugely worse off. In fact we would just not be able to support the populations that exist right now.

I agree 100% with all of that and I was already in agreement with all of it (i.e. my own position sincerely didn't change one iota - but I should probably work on trying to make it clearer to milomilo and you).

I certainly never ever hinted that I thought that bananas inefficiently grown in a huge greenhouse powered by burning fossil fuels in Calgary for consumption by Calgarians could ever be anywhere close to being in the running. When I'm saying shorter distance would (under well-designed carbon pricing) become more of an advantage than it currently is, and therefore have more impact on customers' decisions than it currently does, I mean that with proper carbon pricing you'd see more of a difference between buying, in North America, Guatemala-grown bananas, vs buying India-grown bananas, than you currently see. Or buying bananas altogether (in Calgary), versus buying whatever happens to naturally, cleanly, and economically grow in Calgary, even if that stuff's less appealing than bananas.

And when I floated the idea of credits for fresh fruits/veggies, it's because I think the greater social consequences of having many people avoid those because they've become too pricey, and instead choosing to eat unhealthy crap, may be worth the trouble (which should definitely not be major - how hard would it be to just discount anything that's fresh fruits/veggies by a certain percentage?)

Generally, I'm 100% with milomilo on the fact that well-designed carbon pricing takes all the decisions automatically for us. The only decision it doesn't take is when it's about healthy vs unhealthy choices (for one's body health, not wallet's health). Sorry if that wasn't clear...?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Right, but (and this is admittedly speculation) I expect that even if you doubled the price of fuel most food would still be reasonably affordable. It's already fairly easy to guess what food took the most fuel to get here, for example bell peppers are very pricey in Calgary, and I'd expect increase if fuel costs would impact their price more than some of the cheaper items.

The world would adjust anyway, in theory at least. The railway companies might even start thinking about upgrading/electrifying their infrastructure and providing competitive service. Although that really is fantasy.

It isn’t just the energy of transport, it is the energy required along the route. For example, bananas have to be kept between 13 and 14 degrees from the time they are harvested until they arrive at your local food warehouse. That is a phenomenal amount of cooling and heating, almost all of which is done with fossil fuels.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It isn’t just the energy of transport, it is the energy required along the route. For example, bananas have to be kept between 13 and 14 degrees from the time they are harvested until they arrive at your local food warehouse. That is a phenomenal amount of cooling and heating, almost all of which is done with fossil fuels.

What I'm trying to say is that all that energy put into bringing food here appears to be negligible. I'm trying to find hard figures for this, the BBC has a nice little tool:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

Assuming their numbers are correct, and I assume they are either for the UK or USA, which won't make much difference, we can compare different foods. According to them, if I eat 1 banana a day, that's 25kg of CO2. If I eat 75g of beef, that's 2820kg. A 100x difference. All the other vegetables use low amounts of CO2 compared to meat, which checks out with what I am saying - we shouldn't be concerned with transporting food, because transport doesn't add much CO2, and distorting the market by arbitrarily supporting local growing where it doesn't make sense will encourage inefficiency.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by lio45

Generally, I'm 100% with milomilo on the fact that well-designed carbon pricing takes all the decisions automatically for us. The only decision it doesn't take is when it's about healthy vs unhealthy choices (for one's body health, not wallet's health). Sorry if that wasn't clear...?

I don't think we're disagreeing on much here, but I'm glad you brought up the topic as it encouraged me to look into this more, and I am more educated on the subject now.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

I mean that with proper carbon pricing you'd see more of a difference between buying, in North America, Guatemala-grown bananas, vs buying India-grown bananas, than you currently see. Or buying bananas altogether (in Calgary), versus buying whatever happens to naturally, cleanly, and economically grow in Calgary, even if that stuff's less appealing than bananas.

I still think this effect is going to be small though, and it will be counterintuitive to a lot of people that it will be economically efficient (even factoring in carbon pricing) to consume lots of imported stuff from far away.

It mostly comes down to the fact that for many many goods the transportation cost is 2% or less.

On top of that most goods are produced with inputs from all over the world. Where the finished product is made in relation to the consumer might not mean much to the entire supply chain. What if the soil in Guatemala is such that it requires greater fertilization? Where does Guatemala's farm equipment come from, and what are their emission standards?

Another aspect is that even with pretty hefty carbon pricing there's going to be a trade-off between environmental cost and other costs. We're still gong to want to do land intensive production where land is cheap for example, and labour intensive production where labour is cheap. Unskilled labour costs in the Phillippines are about 1/15 of here, and a worker in the Phillippines generates far less CO2 annually. Even if carbon pricing goes up a lot it'll still make economic sense to manufacture toys or clothing in Asia.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What I'm trying to say is that all that energy put into bringing food here appears to be negligible. I'm trying to find hard figures for this, the BBC has a nice little tool:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

Assuming their numbers are correct, and I assume they are either for the UK or USA, which won't make much difference, we can compare different foods. According to them, if I eat 1 banana a day, that's 25kg of CO2. If I eat 75g of beef, that's 2820kg. A 100x difference. All the other vegetables use low amounts of CO2 compared to meat, which checks out with what I am saying - we shouldn't be concerned with transporting food, because transport doesn't add much CO2, and distorting the market by arbitrarily supporting local growing where it doesn't make sense will encourage inefficiency.

The study the article references seems to be behind a paywall, but as far as I can tell from the abstract it does not consider transportation.

[thenoflyzone]

free donuts today as well......

This time the culprit was driving an Hyundai elantra...At least that's what I think it is. Never bothered to really look.....

At this rate, I'm going to gain 10 pounds by the end of winter.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The study the article references seems to be behind a paywall, but as far as I can tell from the abstract it does not consider transportation.

Fair enough then, but from some googling it still appears that transportation is not the major factor in the carbon intensity of food. For isntance:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f

Originally Posted by Article

Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka “food-miles.” We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.

All I'm really saying is we shouldn't base policies on preconceived conceptions of what is 'good' or 'bad' as most of the time they are wrong, especially if it some hippy trying to sell you locally grown organic.

[VANRIDERFAN]

All this focus on fish belays the fact that we are currently raping our oceans and the entire fishing industry is closer to collapse than what people are willing to admit.

[khabibulin]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The health stuff sounds far too nanny state for my liking and likely impossible to effectively manage, but (to sound like a broken record) the rest would of course be solved by carbon pricing, so long as the producer is paying the same rate.

'Buying local' should not be an endgame in itself. Unless I want to eat only beef, wheat and garlic then as an Albertan it's going to be quite difficult to get much locally grown produce, unless it's from a greenhouse. And then the question is; is it more energy efficient to grow peppers in a greenhouse in Medicine Hat, or fly them in from California? Or maybe one of those options produces better tasting peppers with more energy, and I decide it's worth the extra cost.

Is it time for a vegan rant yet?

[milomilo]

I'd be much more sympathetic to a vegan rant than someone pushing 'organic' grown locally produce as if it is more environmentally friendly.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

All this focus on fish belays the fact that we are currently raping our oceans and the entire fishing industry is closer to collapse than what people are willing to admit.

this is true. we are on the brink of an environmental catastrophe insofar as the depletion of fish is concerned. Picture the cod fishery collapse in Newfoundland 25 years ago. Multiply it across almost all major fish species stocks around the world.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...cientists.html

https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/...n-out-of-fish/

more sciency: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/18/4895

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Last week, Montreal saw close to 40 cm of snow in less than 24 hours.

I drive an AWD Ford Edge. The road leading to my house wasn't plowed. I made it to work that morning, on time, at 6h30 am. (Main roads and highways were plowed btw)

My co-worker drives a Toyota Corolla. He was a no-show.

Enough said....

Holy anecdote.

I drive a Mazda3, with good snow tires, and always make it to work on time in inclement weather when others don't. That includes people driving trucks and SUVS. It more depends on the person than the vehicle. Some people see snow and take a snow day, some don't give themselves extra time and are late.