Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#91

Post by nostromo » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #76

nostromo wrote: post #45

So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences. Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming. Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

Wrong. The biggest consumers of Palm Oil are China and India, and the main driving factor is price. Palm oil is cheap. It has nothing to do with the FDA's position on trans fat.

You're reading an American-centricity into my comment that wasn't there. The fact remains that palm oil consumption is growing world-wide, in no small part as a replacement for trans-fats.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7157/full/448993a...

http://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/fda-bans-artificial-trans-f...

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#92

Post by masklinn » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

gsibble wrote: post #2

This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in line (China most of all).

As the article notes Indonesia exceeded US greenhouse productions for 26 days. Out of 300. Don't worry love, the US are still solid #2 emitters of grenhouse gases (China being #1)

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#93

Post by DrPhish » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #15

krisroadruck wrote: post #12

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

Sort of. It would be nice if we could sequester the carbon already in the air in trees. The benefit is two fold: More trees, and removal of carbon that is already in the air from burning fossil fuels.

Wood construction (e.g. 2x4 or other dimension lumber houses) does this to some extent, although there is carbon emission inherent in the harvesting, sawmilling process, transportation to the worksite and actual house construction. I'm surprised there isn't more general public awareness of using wood in engineering processes to offset the carbon costs and provide long-term carbon sequestering

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#94

Post by masklinn » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

seunosewa wrote: post #90

dougmany wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also misleading in that burning trees and burning fossil fuels is very different in terms of global warming. The carbon trees are made of was extracted from the air as the tree grew so the net added to at atmosphere is zero. The carbon from fossil fuels was nicely sequestered before it was dug up an burnt, adding to total carbon concentration in the air. Edit: OK I read the second half about peat and yes, the p…

Also, methane. It's worse than CO2 for 2 reasons: (1) It contributes far more to global warming, pound for pound. (2) Once you emit it, you can't take it back by planting trees, etc.

Then again methane naturally reacts with hydroxyl radicals into CO2 and water. The normal lifecycle of atmospheric methane is ~10 years.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#95

Post by gburt » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #43

cjensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

> All animal-produced carbon came from the air. All carbon comes from star fusion, what relevance does that have? > It's irrelevant in the long term view. It's irrelevant over geological term view, over "human" long-term view it's very relevant.

What he is saying is that it doesn't grow. It is a constant relationship. Cows sequester GHGs from the atmosphere (via the food they eat, mostly) and then release it.

I don't have enough data to know if I agree with his point (especially since the GHG changes form), but his "long-term" refers to the life cycle of a single cow.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#96

Post by lmartel » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #86

bostonpete wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too. Well, you can milk anything with nipples.

I am by no means a mod or a anything, but what exactly do you think you were contributing to this conversation with this comment? I am genuinely curious. Was it an attempt at humor? Did you think it would be well received in a forum where conversation tends to be more serious and informative? Are you aware of the rules and just don't care? Or did you think this comment was especially funny and warranted an exception?…

It's a real contribution. The parent poster is (humorously) making the point that if we really wanted to, we could switch to e.g. goat's milk because farming cows is particularly damaging to the environment.

I understand where the pearl-clutching is coming from but I think you've overreacted to the word "nipple."

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#97

Post by planfaster » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #72

planfaster wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will ? I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!

I was talking about pollution in particular, not every possible conceivable action. For times and places where pollution was not regulated, look at just about anywhere before 1900 or so.

> I was talking about pollution in particular, not every possible conceivable action.

Can you point out in your original post ("We already saw what happens") the wording you used to constrain the actions you are talking about to just pollution? I missed that. I don't want to accuse you of poorly wording your arguments, or fixing them up as you go along.

> For times and places where pollution was not regulated, look at just about anywhere before 1900 or so.

So now what you're saying is this:

We already saw what happens when the government lets the industry do what they will regarding pollution, but doesn't let them do what they will in numerous other aspects: the result is massive pollution (your example being, I suppose, US in 1880).

"And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy."

Where is that place? What's the place that right now doesn't have a wrecked economy, whose government tightly regulates pollution (I want to know how often that government sends workers to collect samples from factories waste, test it in the lab, potentially sues the company for non-compliance, etc) and that had a horrible pollution problem that was vastly improved by government action?

I still think what we should try is a situation where a government lets the industry do what they will in every aspect (not just pollution). That, it seems, has never happened, and according to Rothbard, Hayek, Friedman and Nozick, would yield the most positive solution of all possible solutions (which in this case would be the cleanest environment).

By the way, this means that your original post did not refute what I said, because you only refuted the regulated-industries-excepting-pollution, whereas I was talking about unregulated industries.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#98

Post by fredkbloggs » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #83

Sliiightly misleading headline, although not incorrect in some ways. For about a quarter of the year there are virtually no fires, another quarter (we're there now), there are a lot. Further, in most years the fires are much fewer than they are now, and we're now in a record year. So the headline is true, but only for the worst part of a record breaking year. You can't extrapolate it. In general, say per year or per…

> Further, the comparison itself is misleading as the CO2 figures for the US (and all other countries, for that matter), only count burning fossil fuel (and producing cement).

Some of the things you note that aren't counted should be counted. But burning trees should not. Those trees removed the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere while they were growing that is given off when they are burned; it will eventually be absorbed by whatever is then grown there afterward. The same thing goes for most (but not all) agricultural processes.

The real problem is not the CO2 that's given off, but the CO, soot, and various other organic and nitrogen compounds. Better known as smoke, which fouls the air for critters, like humans, that breathe it. Any change in the greenhouse effect is incidental and temporary. That doesn't mean that Indonesia should not be required to compensate those whose air is fouled, if they wish to continue allowing this. My guess is that if they were forced to do so, they would suddenly find it much easier to enforce their existing law against this type of burning.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#99

Post by moonchrome » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

mathiasben wrote: post #88

moonchrome wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this sort of regressive thinking. We can just come up with more reliable ways of producing food. I expect food production to see a huge revolution in 10-20 years - think something like genetically modified simple organisms that are designed to produce specific nutrients - like specific protein or sugar or fat. If you can design them to be energy efficient and work in low amount of space in a controlled environ…

and after these advances have been outpaced by population growth what happens then?

You have even more people to deal with the new problems ?

In general this entire mindset that there is "limited resources that we can't go beyond" is completely bogus and proven false over and over again - resources are just things that our knowledge/technology allows us to use to solve particular problems as we create new technology we grow potential resources.

Oil was used as a folk remedy until we learned how to refine it.

Earth becomes physically overpopulated - that's so far in to the future that you can count on realistically colonizing space by then.

A realistic concern is if we can reach innovation fast enough to avoid "rough patches" but long term it's incredibly unlikely that we can't solve technical problems.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#100

Post by Retric » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #83

Sliiightly misleading headline, although not incorrect in some ways. For about a quarter of the year there are virtually no fires, another quarter (we're there now), there are a lot. Further, in most years the fires are much fewer than they are now, and we're now in a record year. So the headline is true, but only for the worst part of a record breaking year. You can't extrapolate it. In general, say per year or per…

Sorry, it's a vastly misleading headline, US wildfires release a lot of CO2, but it's counted as ~zero because that carbon started out in the atmosphere. So, the net effect (ed: of all forests) over the US is ~zero in the average year.