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Can Dirt Save the Earth?

nytimes.com

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Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#31

Post by AnthonyMouse »

empath75 wrote: post #22
scumblr wrote: post #4

I love reading about clever ideas like this, but at the same time, I'm leery of the notion that we can fix the climate at the last minute, a narrative that stems from the late capitalist imperative to innovate. We don't need to innovate to find a solution; we need to act.

We’re not going to act. I’ve come around to accepting that. We need to plan on what we do if we don’t reduce carbon emissions because it’s too late for that already. Even if everyone is driving electric cars that’s just going to lower the price of gas and people will put it to other uses.

> Even if everyone is driving electric cars that’s just going to lower the price of gas and people will put it to other uses.

a) There is a floor to oil prices. No one will produce it for less than the cost of production, no matter how low demand falls.

b) It's possible to raise the price arbitrarily using a carbon tax, which becomes much more politically expedient once prices are already lower and fewer voters are relying on oil for their commute.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#32

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ars wrote: post #17
scumblr wrote: post #4

I love reading about clever ideas like this, but at the same time, I'm leery of the notion that we can fix the climate at the last minute, a narrative that stems from the late capitalist imperative to innovate. We don't need to innovate to find a solution; we need to act.

> we need to act What actions are you suggesting? And keep in mind that any action that reduces standard of living will cause deaths, and ultimately more emissions because people won't have spare more for environmental causes. So bearing that in mind, what actions are you suggesting?

Tax carbon, use the money to fund a UBI. The UBI increases standard of living as much or more than a carbon tax in the same amount reduces it. The carbon tax itself also promotes living closer to work over having a longer commute, which also improves standard of living by reducing the amount of time unproductively spent commuting. (We could also reduce carbon/commuting further by constructing more high density urban housing.) Reducing oil consumption reduces resources sent to antagonistic OPEC member states, leaving those resources here to improve standard of living as well.

This is before we get to the benefits of having less climate change.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#33

Post by rebuilder »

triodan wrote: post #29

Doesn't the account in the article run counter to the narrative that cows are massive greenhouse gas producers? Is there an alternative to grazing that would not require cows?

There's the question of what the cows are fed. AFAIK, grazing isn't how most cows feed these days, and the high methane output may have to do with the feed they're given instead of grass. There was a post here some time ago about feeding cows algae, and that also reducing methane output significantly.

That said, even if grazing does result in a net capture if carbon, that doesn't mean that the problems associated with eating beef like we do go away. There's not enough pasture to produce the amounts of meat factory farming puts out.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#34

Post by rebuilder »

aaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #3
ars wrote: post #2

Nicely written article, but the author needs to have a conversation with a chemist on the difference between carbon, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons. The author calls all of them "carbon", making for confusing reading. Anyway if you need a summary: Spray cow manure on fields to encourage plant grown. Done right you can actually increase topsoil, burying older plants under newer ones and store hydrocarbons there. Bas…

Ok, let’s cultivate the Sahara!

There's a slight problem with water, I believe.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#35

Post by rebuilder »

vkou wrote: post #15
CM30 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no other way. Any attempt to get people to 'change' their lifestyle now is ineffective, and any attempt to force them to will just be met with a coup/failed government. At the end of the day, technology is the only thing that will fix climate issues. Anything else is simply not possible.

And if we don't develop the technology in time?

We're in trouble, then.

I have to agree that technology has to play a big part in mitigating and surviving climate change. I don't believe we have the social means to change our consumption patterns enough.

Right now, to meet the approx. 1.5 tons of CO2 per capita long-term target implied by the (inadequate) Paris accords, you basically have to be homeless in the west. Just your share of infrastructure puts you over the limit.

I don't believe for a moment we can, as a society, voluntarily reduce our quality of life to the point that our emissions would be sufficiently reduced. Any political system that tries that will collapse, because that's what happens when economic growth stops. And if your society is in upheaval, you're not going to be solving climate change, except possibly through self-destruction.

So yes, we definitely need to act, but that action needs to include some very impressive technological change, because without it, we're all but guaranteed to fail.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#36

Post by strainer »

fouc wrote: post #24
strainer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can appreciate, but will see how long it keeps its charm. ...I hardly ever see my desktop anyway.

Brown is a great colour.

I wouldn't like to do without it. Its not so often I come across a professionally composed picture of a big steaming pile of plant food.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#37

Post by AngryData »

A decent article, not pefect but well done. Too often is wildlife, forestry and agricultural sciences tainted with the general populous's biases and misinformation about what is eco-friendly or green despite most people have almost zero experience in any relevant fields. People get taught some simplistic model or ideal as children and never get taught anything beyond that, so they mistakenly believe that they learned all the important and relevant parts to complete the picture. But in reality 9/10 people have never grown more than a few lawn weeds or an extremely hardy house plant that you have to actively attempt to kill. Add in some mass media fluff pieces and bullshit targeted political ads and you got a whole pool of nonsense shielded under the guise of 'common knowledge.'

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#38

Post by grondilu »

monktastic1 wrote: post #21

> This view ran counter to a lot of conservationist thought, as well as a great deal of evidence. Grazing has been blamed for turning vast swaths of the world into deserts. But from Creque’s perspective, how you graze makes all the difference. This is the idea behind this fantastic TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI We're largely focused on high-tech ways to "fix" the Earth, but the Earth has known…

There is also Freeman Dyson's talk called "heretics thoughts" according to which global warming is mainly a land management issue.

https://youtu.be/8xFLjUt2leM

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#39

Post by jillesvangurp »

If it works, even a little bit, I'm all for it. There are similar stories about e.g. China restoring vast arid lands back into green lands through simple measures that basically include a little bit of engineering but mostly letting nature do what it does best. Similarly, Northern Africa is basically turning land into deserts by letting goats and sheep roam free and to eat everything that looks even remotely green. Some simple fences keeping the animals out can apparently restore a lot of that land in years thus making it possible to farm all sorts of stuff that previously would not grow there at all.

This suggests that figuring out how to manipulate nature to function more optimally, can actually be beneficial. Even merely stopping to do things that are clearly misguided seems to help. Healthy soil does all sorts of things that are beneficial. Holding carbon is part of that yes. But it also holds water. Without water nothing grows. If you fix that, bio diversity increases, the soil becomes richer, more stuff grows. Including the stuff we're interested in farming.

Much of last century was dedicated to intensive farming and short term yields without any regard whatsoever to the long term impact. None of that has to be permanent. If you read science fiction, a popular topic is terra forming. We'll have an opportunity to terra form earth long before we need to terra form somewhere else. Might be easier too and feasible.

Re: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

#40

Post by ForHackernews »

rebuilder wrote: post #35
vkou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if we don't develop the technology in time?

We're in trouble, then. I have to agree that technology has to play a big part in mitigating and surviving climate change. I don't believe we have the social means to change our consumption patterns enough. Right now, to meet the approx. 1.5 tons of CO2 per capita long-term target implied by the (inadequate) Paris accords, you basically have to be homeless in the west. Just your share of infrastructure puts you over…

All of the (as you say, inadequate) climate accord plans already assume that we are going to develop magical carbon-sequestration technology and deploy it on a global scale by 2050 or so.[0]

So basically, it's even worse than you might think. Not only do we have to cut our emissions dramatically, but we also have to invent some technology for negative emissions.

[0] https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

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