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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

#231

Post by mac01021 »

tarsinge wrote: post #104
midnitewarrior wrote: post #17

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).

Uranium is not a fossil fuel.

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

#232

Post by edejong »

noonespecial wrote: post #177
edejong wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also do it to preserve our unique prestine environment providing higher-order evolution. And we do it to preserve our ideas, our discoveries and our memories.

Then again, perhaps all worlds that develop truly high-order species require an quick evolutionary step wherein weird little monkeys fill the biosphere with plastic and get it suitably hot enough to being said high-order evolution. A period future historians will refer to as "the plasticene"?

I love that train of thought. Could be the basis for a sci-fi book.

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

#233

Post by lozenge »

benj111 wrote: post #204
lozenge wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boycotts have never toppled an industry as far as I'm aware. In this case the beef or aviation industries could be targeted. They have only succeeded in small changes and when customers have very similar alternatives they can use.

You don't have to aim to topple the industry, just pressure them to make changes, with the implied threat of a boycott. I'll admit that approach works better with a simpler less wide ranging issue. Examples off the top of my head, in the UK I don't believe you can buy non fair trade bananas from any of the major supermarkets, and most eggs now seem to be free range.

Yes, most eggs. I just checked and 44% are intensively farmed(not free range). Generally most use in processed food and catering will be of a lesser quality standard. Funnily enough the environmental impact is usually less for intensively farmed food.

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

#234

Post by benj111 »

lozenge wrote: post #233
benj111 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to aim to topple the industry, just pressure them to make changes, with the implied threat of a boycott. I'll admit that approach works better with a simpler less wide ranging issue. Examples off the top of my head, in the UK I don't believe you can buy non fair trade bananas from any of the major supermarkets, and most eggs now seem to be free range.

Yes, most eggs. I just checked and 44% are intensively farmed(not free range). Generally most use in processed food and catering will be of a lesser quality standard. Funnily enough the environmental impact is usually less for intensively farmed food.

"Funnily enough the environmental impact is usually less for intensively farmed food"

What are you comparing here? Could a mega farm invest in slightly more efficient processes than a mere 'very large farm'? Possibly. But by that time you've already got all the issues of grubbing up hedgerows, mono cropping, reliance on artificial fertilizers, soil erosion, etc.

A small organic subsistence farmer isn't going to have anywhere near the same impact. Now you may not be able to feed the world using that model, but I don't think its fair to say that the environmental impact is worse compared to intensive agriculture.

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

#235

Post by jogjayr »

JamesBarney wrote: post #218
kibwen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sell…

This might have ethical implications considering how much worse chicken lives are than cows lives and how many more chickens you need to kill per calorie.

Inaction will lead to climate change killing millions of humans. If someone won't consider eating vegetarian more often, switching to chicken is far better from an ethical standpoint than doing nothing.

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

#236

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dorgo wrote: post #210
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose we have enough people and resources to support the current population, but not enough to support 20% more at the same level of luxury ... you don't think we should bother to try and keep the population at the level where everyone can benefit?

I think we should improve our tools/planing/everything to support 20% more of us at a higher level of luxury..

And we'll do it with our infinite levels of resources and energy, yay! /s

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

#237

Post by nkurz »

Theodores wrote: post #198
rleigh wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, not in any meaningful quantity. That only happened once, on a geological timescale (the carboniferous period). During that period, there was no breakdown of dead trees; fungi and bacteria hadn't evolved the enzymes to break it down at that point, so it just sat there, piling up layer upon layer, and eventually got turned into coal seams and oil reservoirs deep underground. Consider just how long it took t…

I wish I could mod your comment up 1000 times. That small detail about the Carboniferous Period is something nobody has told me before, which makes me wonder how many people in this debate know their subject.

From what I can tell, the "trees came before tree-eating-fungi" theory is discredited:

Popular press: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-was-most-of-the-...

Full paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2442

Contextual overview: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2334

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

#238

Post by navigatesol »

tyfon wrote: post #131
navigatesol wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Ah yes, the 1%, living in their mansions and driving Teslas to their summer homes, telling the rest of the world that they need to "make radical changes". Good luck with that.

I'm far from being in the 1%, however the things I've done personally so far is * Use public transportation to work (bus/train) * Drastically reduced meat consumption from every day to once a week. I still eat fish about twice a week. * Converted part of my garden (my house is 150 square meters so I wouldn't exactly call it a mansion) to a vegetable garden. * Make sure the food I do buy is produced locally, it is cle…

>But the more people that do it the better.

Again, most people on the planet are just scraping by.

They don't have time to garden. They can't afford to shop at farmer's markets. They can't afford most cars, let alone electric vehicles.

I assume your intentions are good, but climate change won't be remotely close to solved by such measures, and when people say, "I bought a Tesla so I could drive it to my summer home and do my part for the planet!" it probably causes more resentment from the 99% than anything else.

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

#239

Post by punchclockhero »

stephenr wrote: post #184
valw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point, pulling energy out of thin air will end up cheaper than doing expensive drilling operations. A lot of people seem to believe that abundant clean energy is a sufficient solution for our environmental problems. A huge part of GHG emissions is due to deforesting and cattle, which has little to do with energy consumption. History also seems to show that giving humanity abundant energy will only lead to i…

> A huge part of GHG emissions is due to deforesting and cattle Deforestation is clearly an issue, but I seem to recall reading about a diet with some/more/lots of seaweed essentially solved the methane issue of cattle? If the deforestation is to have space for cows the answer is obvious: cow/fish hybrids. Or cows with scuba masks? No need to collect the seaweed, no need to destroy the forest. You’ll need bigger fish…

Had the same shower thought as you. If selective breeding can make a chihuahua out of the wolf, why not make aquatic cattle out of the whale? Plenty of pastures in the ocean.

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

#240

Post by stephenr »

punchclockhero wrote: post #239
stephenr wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A huge part of GHG emissions is due to deforesting and cattle Deforestation is clearly an issue, but I seem to recall reading about a diet with some/more/lots of seaweed essentially solved the methane issue of cattle? If the deforestation is to have space for cows the answer is obvious: cow/fish hybrids. Or cows with scuba masks? No need to collect the seaweed, no need to destroy the forest. You’ll need bigger fish…

Had the same shower thought as you. If selective breeding can make a chihuahua out of the wolf, why not make aquatic cattle out of the whale? Plenty of pastures in the ocean.

Bonus: automatic surf and turf.
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