Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

climatenexus.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 230 posts

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#121

Post by Rovanion »

sascha_sl wrote: post #99
spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

This is terrible advice, because it makes people think they did "enough" themselves to combat climate change when dropping animal product methane to 0 would not even be close to enough. Remember, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate emissions. These need to be dealt with, swiftly. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

You got to start with what's within your control, right? Then you may continue with others. But until you do that you're a hypocrite.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#122

Post by bamboozled »

crispinb wrote: post #64
zubspace wrote: post #58

One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this? Think about a nation going full green and the effect it could have on neighbouring countries? Or a president understanding, that this problem was of highest importance could be a leader of a global change! Think about the fame! But what do we have instead? Ignorance, unwillingness, a dangerous continuation of the status quo on the state level…

> One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this 1. Political leaders in many countries (eg. Australia) have been deeply corrupted by the fossil fuel industry. And they're mostly legally immune because they essentially allow that industry to write the laws (including those permitting them to take up fossil fuel company sinecures when they quit politics). 2. Even when you have less-corrupti…

At some point it might even need to become a national security / defence force issue.

I mean, what was the point of all the wars, death and destruction if the military just allow themselves to suffocate? That would seem like a strange end.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#123

Post by zaroth »

zubspace wrote: post #58

One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this? Think about a nation going full green and the effect it could have on neighbouring countries? Or a president understanding, that this problem was of highest importance could be a leader of a global change! Think about the fame! But what do we have instead? Ignorance, unwillingness, a dangerous continuation of the status quo on the state level…

Think about the fame?

The short term effect of these policies is to cause a significant amount of economic pain and discomfort on the people you enact them against.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#124

Post by perfunctory »

sascha_sl wrote: post #99
spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

This is terrible advice, because it makes people think they did "enough" themselves to combat climate change when dropping animal product methane to 0 would not even be close to enough. Remember, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate emissions. These need to be dealt with, swiftly. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

> because it makes people think they did "enough"

It doesn't. I reduced my own meat consumption and I don't think it was enough. In fact, no single measure would be enough. There are no low hanging fruits here. We need lots and lots of different adjustments across the board.

So, this is a good advice, along with all the other good pieces of advice.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#125

Post by 317070 »

steve_taylor wrote: post #23
dev_dull wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global birth rate is declining almost across the board. It’s the lowest it’s been in the US in the last 30+ years with no signs of speeding up. Also be careful what you wish for. Some of our most important social programs (such as social security) have intense insolvency issues as birth rates continue to decline.

You’re confusing quantity with its rate of change. If the population stops growing today and remains the same, all those people are still having an impact on the environment.

Or they don't? I mean, it is very possible to have an extremely reduced impact on your environment. You can even have a positive impact! Not at our current average life style, but maybe even at our current average life quality.

Population already has a negative rate of change in the west (leaving out migration).

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#127

Post by andy_ppp »

spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

I’ve personally started just eating meat on the weekend as a gateway drug into full vegetarianism, it’s actually a really nice thing eating so much veg and clean food all week and then maybe roasting a really nicely grown chicken on the weekend. I definitely feel much better.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#128

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

sascha_sl wrote: post #99
spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

This is terrible advice, because it makes people think they did "enough" themselves to combat climate change when dropping animal product methane to 0 would not even be close to enough. Remember, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate emissions. These need to be dealt with, swiftly. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

>Remember, 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate emissions

Most of these 100 companies are oil companies, and the emissions from oil they sold on to consumers is unfairly attributed to them. Exxon don't burn oil for fun, they sell it to people to power their cars.

This statistic is incredibly misleading.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#129

Post by vneumanarc »

mullingitover wrote: post #19

Weird that there's no mention of the melting permafrost as a methane source. I thought that was a well understood potential feedback loop for climate change.

Because it doesn't jive with the vegan agenda. Look at the most upvoted comments here. It's all stealth vegan propaganda masquerading as concern about the environment.

Never mind that cars, ships, agriculture ( I bet most of these vegans haven't ever heard of petrochemicals or fertilizers ), smartphones, electricity, etc are all individually greater contributors to environmental damage.

Also, the growing numbers of bison, deer and other ruminants around the world contributes to increase in methane levels. People forget that all ruminants ( bison, cows, etc ) all produce methane though they'll use the faux stat of them being net negative contributors.

And sad as it is, veganism will actually increase fossil fuel usage as the vegetation that people eat need petrochemical fertilizers to grow and a vegan diet cannot be locally sourced like meat can, so they need to ship vegan food from all over the world. But vegans don't like facts too much. They'll throw in the nonsense about livestock agriculture being transfered for humans. Good luck surviving on corn, soy and wheat. Humans aren't ruminants. We are omnivores by nature.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#130

Post by zaroth »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #93
goodcanadian wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing something, I mean really doing something, requires changing our culture. I'm not sure it's so dire as that. Taking the US as an example (numbers from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... ), the largest source of greenhouse gases is transportation at 29%. A real push to switch to electric cars could have a significant impact without significantly changing the way people live their live…

A real push to switch to electric cars already pushes certain types of people to drive bigger trucks and pollute more brazenly, e.g. "Rolling Coal" which I've witnessed first hand in my very liberal college town. Culture is very complicated and you will always get push back. Furthermore, switching out the 200+ million cars in USA to electric vehicles is not going to help emissions because of the carbon footprint of n…

Why discount EVs if you’re listing energy efficient new housing stock?

EVs are not a car someone is getting who wasn’t otherwise getting a car. It’s not a question of “let’s build 100 million EVs” but rather, since we are building 100 million vehicles, as many of them as possible should be EVs.

Keep in mind that in order to achieve meaningful results it’s going to cost a lot of money. That means asking people to pay more, perhaps significantly more, for items, or in taxes, to cover that cost.

Increasing costs is not just a theoretical hand wavey “oh the rich will pay” effect. It’s a “pushing more people below the poverty line” kind of effect.

The idea that we should be using way less electricity per person is also I think missing the point entirely. Electricity per person is a good proxy for productivity which is a good proxy for wealth of a nation. Reducing energy use is putting the whole country on a diet, and shrinking GDP would cause more pain and suffering than climate change in the short term. The solution doesn’t lie in that approach.

In fact we should be using significantly more electricity per person, to offset the reduced amount of fossil fuel consumption.

Electricity generation & supply needs to get highly renewable and a lot cheaper. That is already the trend and we will get there over the next 20 years. Once the retail cost for generation and supply is reliably below $0.05/kWh you have effectively priced out most uses of fossil fuels. If electricity stays expense then I just heat my house with natural gas and keep driving my ICE vehicle.

Your “rolling coal” example is prescient, although perhaps not for the reason you think. These are people who have been asked to make basically zero personal sacrafice at all (maybe they chipped in $1.00 toward the EV tax credits) who still feel threatened by EVs. Rolling coal is not a strike against EVs it’s the perfect example of how important it is to find efficient solutions that don’t undercut members of our society, and why EVs are such a great solution.

Post reply on HN