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Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

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101–110 of 249 posts

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

#101
post #68

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Concrete can be replaced in part through the use of CEB/CSEB and/or rammed earth.

This is maybe okay for single family homes in arid regions, but not practical for denser forms of housing. Which we should be striving for, if we're worried about reducing pollution

The thumbnail (1 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuCqRqzvXkM

The more detailed (48 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA

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

#102
post #94
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly. Please don't tell me you're one of those "earth would be better of were we all dead" people. I can't stand that kind of post-modernist, nihilistic garbage. I'm not mister optimist, but still, that's way too far. Also, that kind of rhetoric is going to end up being a justification for some one very evil doing some thing very bad. > T…

> post-modernist, nihilistic garbage This argument predates postmodernism by two centuries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap If anything, postmodernism wouldn't acknowledge a way to classify people into "worth-living" and "not-worth-living"; if not by ethics or humanism, because it would find most or all criteria in the filters to be bullshit .

Malthusianism more or less espouses an equilibrium - short on food, people die, more food available, people have more kids, cycle repeats. Not that all the humans need to die. There's also a great deal of difference between "I believe there may be a lack of food" (but not passing a value judgement on the situation) and "I believe people need to die" (claiming the "greater good").

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

#103
What about all the other forms of pollution? This article focuses entirely on CO2. Do these newer cement alternatives have fewer waste products too, or more? Are those waste products recyclable?

CO2 feels like just a weird focus, compared to the toxic lakes of sludge in China near manufacturing hubs, the massive drifts of plastic in our oceans, the coal ash pools at all our coal plants, the nuclear waste still kept at all our nuclear plans, and all the other waste and pollution we product. Reducing one at the expense of another may not always end up in a good net result.

This article totally ignores all the other factors of pollution and doesn't take an fully balanced look at all the waste produced in these materials.

Ultimate to reduce harm to our environment we need to produce less entirely. That does mean fewer buildings, cell phones, new things, etc. But no one really talks about that.

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

#104

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. H…

> Fossil fuels are excess carbon atoms sequestered safely deep inside the Earth. Unless you can find a way to put them

Not Uranium.

> There is no politically viable way for this to happen.

It’s sad because we have the technology (that could surely be improved if trillions of dollars were suddenly poured into).

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

#105
post #73

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. H…

You seem to imply that planting trees cannot durably decrease the CO2 levels in the atmosphere; if so, your reasoning and conclusion are incorrect. Increasing the biomass of trees (e.g, growing a new forest) does reduce the CO2 levels; true, each tree in this forest will at some point die and re-release its carbon, but another will grow in its place; therefore, if the forest has grown and stays there forever the the…

This only works if we are sure that the forest will stay a forest for several hundreds of thousands of years, the time the offseted co2 needs to disappear and absolutely nobody can assure that. Not consuming fossil carbon means it will stay in the earth mantle for a geological time.

So carbon offsets by planting tree is a scam, and we need better than that.

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

#106
post #63

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. H…

> The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly. Please don't tell me you're one of those "earth would be better of were we all dead" people. I can't stand that kind of post-modernist, nihilistic garbage. I'm not mister optimist, but still, that's way too far. Also, that kind of rhetoric is going to end up being a justification for some one very evil doing some thing very bad. > T…

You use "post-modernism" like Jordan Peterson uses "post-modernism"... incorrectly, and likely without having read any of it.

If anything, reducing population (not through genocide obviously) for expedience is actually a very neoliberal idea

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

#107
I was involve in trying to prove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclaved_aerated_concrete a viable alternate to concrete and red brick frequently used in household development. The only part I was unable to secure was seed capital. Does anyone know of program which invest in green/climate fighting `hard` start ups? Love to get in touch with them and revive my project.

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

#108
post #79
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rapid depopulation What exactly do you mean by this, and how would you accomplish it? Assuming, that is, that nuclear doesn't work (for whatever reason), as you've drawn a dichotomy.

Dump some infertility causing chemical in all the water supplies. Or, nuke a bunch of countries, which has the added bonus of cooling down the earth. But, it's unclear that even completely eliminating humanity would reverse global warming.

Or you work on raising living standards, which naturally lowers fertility.

Warming is going to happen. Humanity will adapt. Modern spins on eugenics isn’t an answer and frankly is disgusting.

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

#109
post #77
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly. Please don't tell me you're one of those "earth would be better of were we all dead" people. I can't stand that kind of post-modernist, nihilistic garbage. I'm not mister optimist, but still, that's way too far. Also, that kind of rhetoric is going to end up being a justification for some one very evil doing some thing very bad. > T…

If these people really believed that overpopulation was the problem, then why don't they start depopulating with themselves? * It sounds terrible I know, but it serves to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the stance. Like George Carlin said, "I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. Peopl…

I'm a huge fan of George Carlin and many of his observations are spot on but it should at all times be remembered that his main mission was to entertain, not to make political statements designed to impact future policy. Yes, there is some hypocrisy involved (people that vote green, drive Porsches and go on two airplane holidays per year) but at the same time he benefits from the caricature, and that is too broad a brush to paint very large swathes of the population with.

If the planet is overpopulated then that is a problem, regardless of whether people observing this fact or reaching that conclusion see themselves as part of that problem, and regardless of whether or not they take themselves out of the genepool to remove the hypocrisy.

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

#110

What about all the other forms of pollution? This article focuses entirely on CO2. Do these newer cement alternatives have fewer waste products too, or more? Are those waste products recyclable? CO2 feels like just a weird focus, compared to the toxic lakes of sludge in China near manufacturing hubs, the massive drifts of plastic in our oceans, the coal ash pools at all our coal plants, the nuclear waste still kept a…

It's not a weird focus, there is few more urgent topic than co2, because there is so much useful chemical reaction producing it that humans need or enjoy, and we don't see any reduction in those emissions.
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