This was originally published by me on Medium in September 2018.
One cargo ship pollutes as much as 50 MILLION cars.
So, no, we don’t need to ban cars, limit people’s driving, or get self-righteous about driving an electric vehicle.
One solution — buy local. Boycott companies that make and ship their products across the Pacific Ocean for cheap labor.
Not having oil shipped across the world would help too. If we use nuclear power, we could stop that.
We are close to a solution for air cargo: hybrid airships that use 1/10 the amount of fuel to transport cargo without sacrificing space.
We are also only 5 to 10 years from the industrialization of turning airborne carbon dioxide into fuel.
There’s another fantastic solution for the CO2 problem.
Eating meat is another problem, for many reasons, but we’re focusing on air pollution right now.
Giving up meat is more impactful than giving up your car. While the demand for meat is dropping in the US, demand is rising around the world.
Fortunately, we have lab-grown meat coming to save the planet by drastically reducing the need for the cruel animal manufacturing processes used today.
The question we’ll need to answer is what do we do with all the newly available land? Wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, new cities built from scratch — I vote for all of the above!
What do you think we should do with it?