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

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

#141

Post by Daishiman »

moonchrome wrote: post #120
Daishiman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, no. I would like a planet that still has a semblance of uninhabited environments that are mostly unperturbed. Look at any satellite images of the amount of land that is being used by farming in the world. Those places used to be natural ecosystems that no longer exist. We have already started a mass extinction event from which the level of biodiversity we used to have is essentially unrecoverable.

So people should not have children because you want to have nice scenery ... well I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I want people to not have children so that we can preserve the accumulated genetic legacy of billions of years of evolution, which is what prevents our ecosystems from degrading by making it robust.

We are not separate from said ecosystems. Also, what makes you think people's desire to have children trumps the health of the systems we depend on for survival?

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

#142

Post by Daishiman »

moonchrome wrote: post #119
Daishiman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's regressive about admitting that it's literally impossible to maintain a developed country standard of living for 7 billion people? There are physical limits and laws of thermodynamics that no amount of innovation will be able to fix. What is the point of continued population explosion? Satisfying some people's belief that reproduction is an inherent right?

>There are physical limits and laws of thermodynamics that no amount of innovation will be able to fix. People have been crying about overpopulation since forever - like the Pink Floyd song goes "And if you survive till two thousand and five I hope you're exceedingly thin" - we have the least poverty in history and the population is still growing. Sorry to burst your green bubble but we are nowhere near close to ther…

All the reduction of poverty won't mean shit if by the end of the century, as we have predicted and with those predictions turning out very well, the ocean rises by 3-5 feet and we turn the ocean acidic.

Are you totally not able to comprehend that material gains in human living come at the cost of the extraction of resources from the ecosystem, and that said extraction is literally unsustainable?

Do you not understand that the exponential growth of the last century has had an impact on the planet greater than the rest of the entirety of human existence?

It is impossible to continue the resource extraction we have maintained for the last 20 years, for the simple reason that the climate is already starting to do number for us and this is just the beginning, consequence of said resource extraction.

Unless you like the idea of geoengineering the planet (and no one in their sane mind does) the idea that progress depends on human consumption has to stop.

You are the exact example of when psychologists say that people cannot really comprehend the exponential function.

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

#143

Post by ItsDeathball »

DrPhish wrote: post #93
dymk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is what amuses me when people talk about ebooks being environmentally friendly. A paper book will usually be made of paper milled from a sustainably managed forest - we don't generally go clear-cutting virgin forests for wood pulp. A lot of sawmills and paper mills, furthermore, burn their waste wood and sawdust as fuel for the mill. The whole process, aside from transport, can be carbon-neutral, meaning a paper library can be seen as a repository of sequestered carbon. Moving from paper books to plastic tablets that consume power and need replacement every two years is anything but environmentally friendly.

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

#144

Post by moonchrome »

Daishiman wrote: post #142
moonchrome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are physical limits and laws of thermodynamics that no amount of innovation will be able to fix. People have been crying about overpopulation since forever - like the Pink Floyd song goes "And if you survive till two thousand and five I hope you're exceedingly thin" - we have the least poverty in history and the population is still growing. Sorry to burst your green bubble but we are nowhere near close to ther…

All the reduction of poverty won't mean shit if by the end of the century, as we have predicted and with those predictions turning out very well, the ocean rises by 3-5 feet and we turn the ocean acidic. Are you totally not able to comprehend that material gains in human living come at the cost of the extraction of resources from the ecosystem, and that said extraction is literally unsustainable? Do you not understan…

>Are you totally not able to comprehend that material gains in human living come at the cost of the extraction of resources from the ecosystem, and that said extraction is literally unsustainable?

You don't seem to be able to understand that reliance on the ecosystem is not a good thing - it's inherently unstable anyway - just because we were fortunate enough up to this point doesn't mean that a big event like a volcano, weather or biological catastrophe can't destroy the ecosystem and us with it.

Sea level only matters if we can't develop underwater construction in 100 years - As I've said it's unlikely that even in 20 years we will be using traditional farming as a food source - let alone in 100 years - just like we advanced from hunter gatherer -> farming - we adopted the environment to us - the next step is already happening.

You seem to be stuck in the mindset that just because we can't deal with something now it will be a problem in 100 years. If we had to deal with this issue in 10-20 years I would be worried (it would still be possible but it would require large scale dedicated effort) in 50-100 years it's practically guaranteed to be solved by standard progress.

People have been screaming about overpopulation exponential growth, etc. since forever[1], and it's yet to show any signs of being reality.

The solution isn't running back to the caves and wishing everything stays as it was if we stop burning stuff and stop having children so we can enjoy the views - it's to take control of environment and reduce dependency on inherently unstable factors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe

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

#145

Post by khuey »

refurb wrote: post #79
khuey wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says the fires are especially bad because they're burning peatland this year, which is releasing trapped hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.

Peat contains hydrocarbons? Are you sure?

Well, trapped carbon is what actually matters. But yes, there are hydrocarbons of various forms in just about everything that is or was once alive.

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

#146

Post by lisper »

moonchrome wrote: post #140
lisper wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG, you really don't get it. This isn't about seals. There's a classic puzzle that goes like this: you have a jar full of growth medium and a single bacterium of a species which divides twice an hour. One week later the jar is full of bacteria. At what point was the jar half full? The classical answer is: 30 minutes before the end of the week. But the real answer is that this situation is impossible, because after a…

> Sooner or later we will hit a limit Sooner or later sun will burn out, universe will expand in to nothingness, etc. Those arguments are pointless - we won't reach those limits within our lifetime even with highest growth projections and who knows what happens after that. But that's not what OP is arguing - baby seals - ie. "bio diversity" and "wildlife preservation" - is more important to the modern green movement…

> Sooner or later sun will burn out

Yes, in about 5 billion years.

> we won't reach those limits within our lifetime

Between "our lifetime" and 5 billion years there is still a very broad range of possibilities. Maybe you don't care what happens to the next N generations, but I do.

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

#147

Post by lisper »

merah wrote: post #136
Skunkleton wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> travel the world, programming and documenting tropical flora and fauna. That is damned cool. Tell us more.

I stumbled into a niche that somehow combines both my passions: programming and nature. Started with a linux server I built in a jungle that ran off of an off-grid power source serving over wifi. Many, many months later (and after losing two laptops, two smartphones, two DSLRs and three GPS units to Zeus and a crocodile)... it's a platform that runs across three continents and some days I double-take what I've built…

> I have no CS qualifications

You do now :-)

Links please?

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

#149

Post by flycaliguy »

codecamper wrote: post #8

palm oil is a terrible, terrible thing. If you have travelled at all to central america or asia, you know what i mean. (ok yes, you got me... traveling to asia isn't so hot for the environment either) Wherever you think a jungle should be, you see palm trees. As far as the eye can see. If you care about this. And you probably should. Then have a look at the ingredient list & don't buy products with palm oil.

Don't forget that palm oil is sometimes used in animal feed and will not be found on packaging.

A family member recently switched from buying margarine to butter after reading about the environmental effects of palm oil. Our dairy farming uncle then reminded us that they use palm oil in the feed for the animals to aid in managing digestion and fat levels.

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

#150

Post by moonchrome »

lisper wrote: post #146
moonchrome wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sooner or later we will hit a limit Sooner or later sun will burn out, universe will expand in to nothingness, etc. Those arguments are pointless - we won't reach those limits within our lifetime even with highest growth projections and who knows what happens after that. But that's not what OP is arguing - baby seals - ie. "bio diversity" and "wildlife preservation" - is more important to the modern green movement…

> Sooner or later sun will burn out Yes, in about 5 billion years. > we won't reach those limits within our lifetime Between "our lifetime" and 5 billion years there is still a very broad range of possibilities. Maybe you don't care what happens to the next N generations, but I do.

> Maybe you don't care what happens to the next N generations, but I do

It's not about not caring - it's about not knowing what will and will not be relevant. As I've said before - people have been talking about population explosion since forever - we should be starving from 80s. All these people consistently ignore progress in their predictions.

You don't know what the dominant method for food production will be in 20 years or what will be the dominant energy source - as someone linked above the things I'm talking about are already starting. How can you predict what will be relevant in 100 years ? We should deal with problems coming in 10-20 years - we don't have the tools to deal with the longer term than that.

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