To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower?
A wonderful, big-picture article in The New Yorker on the climate crisis by Bill McKibben about possible paths to salvaging the climate crisis through limiting certain aspects of growth.
A study cited by the degrowth advocate Steve Genco calculated that to stabilize the planet’s temperature, we need to decrease the share of passenger-car transport in our cities by eighty-one per cent, “limit per-person air travel to one trip per year,” reduce living space per person by twenty-five per cent, decrease meat consumption in rich nations by sixty per cent, and so on.
This is a huge task, but possible. I have done each of these items and none have felt like a sacrifice. The good news is that several of these, such as reducing car use and meat consumption, also have additional health benefits.
Also, unexpected to me:
An E.V. is a good way to cut carbon emissions, but so, it turns out, is a four-day workweek.