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Stripe Climate

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121–130 of 227 posts

Re: Stripe Climate

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. It's easy for me to directly contribute to carbon removal, because of things like this. It's a little more difficult for me to help pump less carbon into the air — I can try to minimize my carbon footprint, but ultimately the thing we need is investment in clean energy and legislation forcing companies to limit their emissions.

My point was that Stripe's massive resources are better spent lobbying/writing legislation/researching how to properly implement a carbon tax than this.

Spending money lobbying for something that has no chance of passing would be incredibly stupid.

I'm glad people are taking direct action and not waiting around for some pie in the sky grand solution that simply isn't coming.

Re: Stripe Climate

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that Stripe's massive resources are better spent lobbying/writing legislation/researching how to properly implement a carbon tax than this.

Why would Stripe write legislation to create a new tax? How does that help their bottom line or their customers' bottom line?

It helps about as much as this initiative does.

Re: Stripe Climate

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that Stripe's massive resources are better spent lobbying/writing legislation/researching how to properly implement a carbon tax than this.

Why would Stripe write legislation to create a new tax? How does that help their bottom line or their customers' bottom line?

Presumably because the Collison brothers recognize that climate change poses an existential threat to the well being of their firm, their customers and their employees, and that because of their awesome entrepreneurial abilities their investors have granted them BDFL powers over Stripe.

Re: Stripe Climate

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that Stripe's massive resources are better spent lobbying/writing legislation/researching how to properly implement a carbon tax than this.

Spending money lobbying for something that has no chance of passing would be incredibly stupid. I'm glad people are taking direct action and not waiting around for some pie in the sky grand solution that simply isn't coming.

The fallacy here is that because most people intuitively understand the near-impossibility of coordinated legislative action, they assume that it must be MORE difficult than some sort of engineering solution (whose magnitude they do not intuitively understand).

They are wrong. Yes, coordinated action to reduce emissions is nearly impossible... but it's less impossible than the alternative. There's no negotiating with thermodynamics.

Re: Stripe Climate

#125

Quick reminder that carbon removal is a necessary but secondary step. We need to stop pumping more carbon into the air faster than we need to stop taking it out, simply because it takes more energy to get carbon out of the air than the energy that carbon was used for in the first place . To use a financial analogy: We have a high-interest credit card. That debt has compounding interest rates, and the interest rate is…

Yes the two are complimentary but I wouldn't make a differentiation between primary and secondary.

We need to reduce but we need to be removing at the same time. Not only so the net emissions are lower but even if we reduce to zero tomorrow there is already an excess we must remove.

Re: Stripe Climate

#126

The history of the carbon removal companies is not good (mostly due to the large incentive to game the measures), and smells of indulgences . However, this industry is still quite young... EDIT : Also this initiative seems to be very research-focused, rather than be just about using already known methods?

Are you confusing carbon offsetting companies with carbon removal companies? They can overlap, but are not the same thing. And I think the gaming is a particular problem of carbon offsetting (and I don't think there's a lot of history with carbon removal yet, at least if we talk about carbon removal in the sense of direct air capture technology).

Re: Stripe Climate

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because of not having a GND, but if the US doesn't take drastic measures soon, yes all other countries are doomed. Because the US alone is the 2nd biggest contributor to carbon emissions in the world, and probably the only country that can make China (the 1st carbon emitter) cut theirs.

I agree that it's important to take lots of action on climate change as soon as possible. That's why it seems counterproductive to tell a company they should stop taking direct action and start promoting the Green New Deal. It's too urgent of a problem to insist that only people with a particular political stance should help. Maybe the specifics of the Green New Deal are getting lost in translation here? The package…

> the Green New Deal includes provisions about labor rights, education, healthcare, etc.

Interesting. So it is the IPv6 of climate policies.

Re: Stripe Climate

#128

If anyone from Stripe is reading - is it possible yet for me to simply donate money to the portfolio you’ve assembled without running a business? We purchase monthly offsets now and I’d love to switch to funding direct carbon capture (and will happily spend more).

Take a look at CarbonRemoved.com

We have recently added removal via Bio-oil (Charm Industrial) and Olivine.

You can choose to remove via monthly subscription or a one-time purchase.

Let me know what you think!

Re: Stripe Climate

#130
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all carbon sequestration requires input energy from the grid. As an example, one of the projects that Stripe is funding is https://projectvesta.org/ , which distributes olivine, a volcanic rock that absorbs CO2 to become limestone when it is eroded. By moving this material to beaches, wave energy can be harnessed to remove CO2

Ah, simply crush billions of tons of olivine and move it to a beach. Weathering olivine doesn't scale, because you need so much. It involves hitherto unprecendented amounts of quarrying and then transport. The quarrying would destroy massive amounts of habitat. After the waves do their trick, near-shore habitats would be devastated because the entire ocean floor is covered in olivine. I am a former geophysicist by th…

Once people realize the true impact of climate change they are going to be desperate enough to attempt anything that even shows a tiny glimmer of hope.

The only problem is that some people pretend that this glimmer is a guaranteed solution.

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