But this is a perfect way to make money by green labeling."use ours because we save you 20% electricity" so therefore our brands are creating less ghgs.
This sounds like consumerism with extra steps to me, since emissions are mostly coming from industry, not individuals.
A lot of carbon has to be emitted for the manufacturing and distribution of goods and a lot of the time it exceeds their lifetime energy consumption (and its equivalent carbon emission).
Best case scenario would be making goods more modular and reliable, so it doesn't need replacement as soon, and making it so older ones can be updated or at least mantained for longer.
e: I'm not even considering material cost and extraction.
True. But we also do need to manufacture a lot. Renewables, batteries, insulation, hobs and heaters, probably houses too. Unless you want everyone to live without heat and electricity.
The best bet it government spending on public transport and communities and the reduction in work hours. That will make people do more instead of spend more.
Probably. By the time legislators get on board, it'll be way too late. It's already too late, but it'll be too late to avoid even the most disastrous consequences.
So I went into the article with a skeptical view, but the authors point is that people's assessment of whether the I.R.A. legislation was effective will be based on their ability to navigate rebate programs easily, i.e., get rebate for things bought in the appliance aisle.
I can't say I disagree, but the article headline doesn't convey the content well. Basically the author is arguing about how you best win hearts and minds.
One of the neatest things I've learned about on Technology Connections was an induction cooktop that used 120V electricity. It had a bank of batteries in it that would provide power for cooking without overloading the mains, and you could plug appliances into it in the event of a power failure and still be able to cook.
If you had appliances storing energy like that you could level out demand curves. And you can also store energy with heat. If we had temperature regulator valves on our water heaters, we could get them to 160-170 degrees when energy is cheap and let them coast down to 120. Heating water is one of the major energy expenditures for a home, so if we could get that to be 100% renewable would be a huge advance.
I've heard it said many times. There are no silver bullets to climate change. Many solutions have to be researched, discovered, developed, and implemented.