[patrickyeon]

Two of the last paragraphs:

> All of this is technically possible, and as we have seen, it would produce less in emissions than the present alternatives. However, it’s more likely that a switch to sailing ships is accompanied by a decrease in cargo and passenger traffic, and this has everything to do with scale and speed. A lot of freight and passengers would not be travelling if it were not for the high speeds and low costs of today’s airplanes and container ships.

> It would make little sense to transport iPhones parts, Amazon wares, sweatshop clothes, or citytrippers with sailing ships. A sailing ship is more than a technical means of transportation: it implies another view on consumption, production, time, space, leisure, and travel. For example, a lot of freight now travels in different directions for each next processing stage before it is delivered as a final product. In contrast, all sail cargo companies mentioned in this article only take cargo that cannot be produced locally, and which is one trip from producer to consumer.

This speaks to me. I see much more conversation around "how can we use technology to remove the negative environmental impacts from our lifestyles?" than I do around "how can we change our lifestyles to cause fewer negative impacts?"

[exporectomy]

It's also complete nonsense. Invent a worse technology so people will use it less. If you can compel people not to use the faster ships, then just compel them to use those less instead!

[kortilla]

Because the latter isn’t a sustainable solution to the problems we are facing. The environment can’t support all of the current population at any kind of modern lifestyle.

Unless “changing lifestyles” is “give up all daily transportation, heating, cooling, meat, and 99 percent of electricity”, it’s not gonna cut it.

[lmm]

Better zoning could eliminate a huge amount of commuting emissions. A cultural shift away from in-person meetings as signalling, and travel as a substitute for personality, could eliminate a huge amount of air travel emissions. Meat consumption can be drastically reduced. The changes we need aren't actually all that big.

[cfn]

I believe you are over estimating the amount of change required. Fifty years ago, or so, consumption was much lower without doing away many of those things.