This is such a no-brainer that I’m surprised the climate crowd are not advocating more aggressively for it.
Something like 70% of greenhouse gasses are produced by 100 companies globally. This is like using a cup to empty an Olympic sized pool: yes, it does something, but not enough.
We need to maintain focus on the big producers and affect change there first and foremost.
It’s their products causing it. Cutting down on gas burned because we focus on more people working from home is focusing on big producers.
Ask yourself this, aside from real estate investors, who is most likely to lobby against legislation that incentives work from home? Car companies (Elon already is) and gas producers I’m sure are on the list right?
This article talks specifically about energy usage, not consumption of products. Work from home likely wouldn’t have an impact in consumed goods.
I’m a WFH employee, and my company has no plans to change it. I’m all for WFH. I brought up the issue of 100 companies producing 70% of greenhouse gases because to me this article lines up with the idea of us reducing our individual carbon footprint, which we’ve found out in the last few years was just a coordinated effort by the fossil fuel industry to deflect their responsibility to us.
All of these efforts are good. WFH is good, renewable energies are good, EVs are debatable (depending on where you stand on how the rare materials needed for the batteries are sourced) but overall better than gas and diesel. But at the end of the day, if your tub is overflowing you need to turn off the tap first before you pick up the mop.
I hear you about the articles bias towards personal responsibility when tackling an issue that is structural.
And my point stands. Elon, for example, has come out heavily against WFH because fewer people will be driving his cars. In other words, WFH is bad for the car and oil/gas lobbyists and good for the planet.
If governments started offering incentives for WFH, it would be one way of turning off the tap.
And then there is the guys in the factory and the warehouse who can not be afforded this “luxury”. The doctors and nurses, the school- and kindergarten-teachers who need to be at a specific place to do their jobs. This proposal simply does not work for everybody. The whole “work from home debate” seem to focus on a particular kind of jobs and disregards that all those jobs only exists, because manufacturing takes place in China. I’d love to see a change of focus, from product price to quality and sustainability of industry products to go along with qualified manufacturing jobs returning to Europe. And in that context we can hopefully stop shifting the exploitation of workers to Asia along with the Jobs and exploit our own workers again. NO! Of course, not exploit them as much anymore.
This is Elon’s argument. My auto workers have to drive to work so you should too!
Oh, and keep buying my cars while you’re at it!