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Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

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Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#11

Post by tyfon »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #5

One good thing the US and Canada does is to not use cement for houses ! It is somewhat negated by the terrible insulation in most homes in the US (and the fact that homes tend to last less long I guess). Does anyone have any data on how much gets emitted for house construction depending on the material ?

I'm not sure about the amount of gas, however it is quite common to make the ground floor of concrete here in Norway.

However it's not solid, it has a core of Styrofoam to insulate so it. The rest of the houses are usually of wood/glass that is heavily insulated. It would be interesting to see if you could make the foundations out of wood or something like that instead.

All new buildings has to adhere to very strict codes of how to be constructed [1].

We also have the worlds tallest wooden building [2] here so maybe this is the future instead of concrete/steel skyscrapers.

[1] https://dibk.no/byggereglene/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/

[2] https://www.dezeen.com/2019/03/19/mjostarne-worlds-tallest-t...

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#14

Post by Ensorceled »

noja wrote: post #2

Is there an ordered list of what produces most pollution? What's at the top? Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?"

Fundamentally, there is very little you can change on an individual basis that will make a real difference. By all means, lead by example, but we have to support systemic changes at all levels of government to actually make any head way here.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#15

Post by kibwen »

nabla9 wrote: post #8
inapis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Fossil fuels for power generation, followed by transportation and industry [1] > Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?" Little bit but to seriously make an impact you might have to look for alternative sources of powering your life. But nevertheless every single bit helps. This climate change conundrum cannot be fixed without the en…

The list you provide is missing some man made sources of CO2 and methane. It's just CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Meat production is almost as much as transportation, roughly 17%.

Though all meat production is not made equal; beef production is overwhelmingly more emissive per serving (6.61 lbs of CO2 per 4 oz) than pork (1.72 lbs) or poultry (1.26). Even without giving up eating meat, substituting most of your beef meals for chicken would still be a step in the right direction (and is essentially zero-cost, considering that this requires no significant lifestyle changes and anywhere that sells beef is almost certainly also going to sell chicken).

http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#16

Post by Tuna-Fish »

However, concrete very slowly absorbs the CO2 back from the air, becoming limestone.

I know this takes very long for thick structures, on the order of centuries. Does anyone have a good idea of just how long?

Anyway, if a cement plant starts capturing the CO2 released during production and disposing of it somewhere other than the atmosphere, it would become a CO2 sink as the cement would slowly consume CO2 as it cures.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#17

Post by midnitewarrior »

Telling a lie then saying 3 Hail Marys means you are forgiven for the lie, it doesn't fix the lie.

As such, planting a tree to be forgiven for going on a flight that burns carbon-laden jet fuel doesn't fix what you did.

Fossil fuels are excess carbon atoms sequestered safely deep inside the Earth. Unless you can find a way to put them back there, there's no fixing the situation. Planting a tree does capture carbon. However, when it dies and rots, all the carbon gets re-released over time back into the atmosphere. If you burn that wood, it happens much more quickly.

The only way to fix this problem is to stop using fossil fuels. There is no politically viable way for this to happen. The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#18

Post by peteradio »

Grading everything on one thing like CO2 pollution seems far too simplistic. I don't think you can get away with that approach, somehow we need a more holistic plan. Should we stop using Cement? What happens if we take that approach, do the alternatives that fill the gap actually further the ultimate goal, what even is the ultimate goal?

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#20

Post by tyfon »

Ensorceled wrote: post #14
noja wrote: post #2

Is there an ordered list of what produces most pollution? What's at the top? Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?"

Fundamentally, there is very little you can change on an individual basis that will make a real difference. By all means, lead by example, but we have to support systemic changes at all levels of government to actually make any head way here.

If everyone thinks like this nothing will change.

You can do both. Campaign for political change and change your personal behaviour. I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help.

So saying that there is nothing that can be done on the individual level is quite dangerous as I personally think over time this will have the biggest effect as more and more people realise that is what has to be done.

Then you need the politicians to kick remaining ignorant part of the population into action.

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