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Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

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Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#121

Post by oberstein »

newman314 wrote: post #84
oberstein wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any engineering efforts[1] being proposed or actively worked on by Singapore to solve this issue? Every now and again I hear about the hazes forcing everyone in Singapore to wear masks and stay indoors as much as possible until the hazes dissipate. That state should be unacceptable for a first world city. [1] Like, a giant sci-fi ocean-fan... Or a military solution of invading their neighbors and running th…

Do you understand how small Singapore is? (Not trying to be snarky) But yeah, they are not invading anyone anytime soon.

Yeah, but Israel is also tiny and can still kick the ass of everyone else in the Middle East. Similar to Israel, Singapore has a lot going for it with respect to modern warfare that makes up for its population and landmass deficit. I agree that total invasion is probably very unlikely in the foreseeable immediate future.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#122

Post by mikeyouse »

nostromo wrote: post #91
guelo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. The biggest consumers of Palm Oil are China and India, and the main driving factor is price. Palm oil is cheap. It has nothing to do with the FDA's position on trans fat.

You're reading an American-centricity into my comment that wasn't there. The fact remains that palm oil consumption is growing world-wide, in no small part as a replacement for trans-fats. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7157/full/448993a... http://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/fda-bans-artificial-trans-f...

Much of the palm oil crop is used as surfactants in the cleaning industry too... Some of the biggest users are the multinational cleaning conglomerates (P&G, Kao Corp., J&J, Unilever). The problem extends far beyond replacing trans fats.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#123

Post by Retric »

masklinn wrote: post #105
Retric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it's a vastly misleading headline, US wildfires release a lot of CO2, but it's counted as ~zero because that carbon started out in the atmosphere. So, the net effect (ed: of all forests) over the US is ~zero in the average year.

That makes no sense unless the forest can be regrown as-is within a year.

It's an average over all forests in the US not just the ones that burned this year.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#124

Post by Houshalter »

masklinn wrote: post #105
Retric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it's a vastly misleading headline, US wildfires release a lot of CO2, but it's counted as ~zero because that carbon started out in the atmosphere. So, the net effect (ed: of all forests) over the US is ~zero in the average year.

That makes no sense unless the forest can be regrown as-is within a year.

No, but there are 30 other forests regrowing in that year which absorb the same amount of carbon as the one forest that burns.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#125

Post by [deleted] »

masklinn wrote: post #105
Retric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it's a vastly misleading headline, US wildfires release a lot of CO2, but it's counted as ~zero because that carbon started out in the atmosphere. So, the net effect (ed: of all forests) over the US is ~zero in the average year.

That makes no sense unless the forest can be regrown as-is within a year.

[deleted]

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#126

Post by Houshalter »

moonchrome wrote: post #81
lisper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too. Sigh. There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population. Either we control it, or the laws of physics will do it for us.

I hate this sort of regressive thinking. We can just come up with more reliable ways of producing food. I expect food production to see a huge revolution in 10-20 years - think something like genetically modified simple organisms that are designed to produce specific nutrients - like specific protein or sugar or fat. If you can design them to be energy efficient and work in low amount of space in a controlled environ…

This is starting to happen. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/31zo1r/a_future...

>"a system that produces pure nutrients at up to 220,000 pounds per acre per year (the global record for agriculture is 3,600) at less than 20 cents per pound, all while generating 99% fewer greenhouse gases than conventional farming means." ... "Berry and his team found these organisms. They gave them the ability to take in sunlight, CO2, water, a final ingredient that changes based on the end product, and the ability to secrete a pure nutrient when all these ingredients come together."

...

>there's a company called proterro[2], that's producing sugar, at the third of the price of current agricultural methods - AT 5 CENTS PER POUND!.And they make 30 times sugar per acre as regular agriculture. And at their website , they say they can also make aminoacids - which are the building blocks of protein , so maybe they could also make proteins. that kinda validates essentient's vision , furthermore , their system basically eats CO2 - which is great.

This stuff has to pass massive regulatory and protectionist hurdles. It will be fun to tell all the world's farmers their income will stop and their assets are wothless. Or fight against political groups that want to outlaw or heavily restrict artificial foods.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#127

Post by Skunkleton »

merah wrote: post #103
lisper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too. Sigh. There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population. Either we control it, or the laws of physics will do it for us.

This. Having studied environmental and social science for 11 years, published and achieved multiple "degrees of knowledge" for a solid career base; it was so very sad and frustrating that everyone seemingly persisted to "talk" around the elephant. It drove me bonkers and was labelled a pessimist by my peers. I left academia 3 years ago and now travel the world, programming and documenting tropical flora and fauna. Be…

> travel the world, programming and documenting tropical flora and fauna.

That is damned cool. Tell us more.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#128

Post by guelo »

aidenn0 wrote: post #89
guelo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. The biggest consumers of Palm Oil are China and India, and the main driving factor is price. Palm oil is cheap. It has nothing to do with the FDA's position on trans fat.

Is it cheaper than rapeseed or soy? I know corn oil in the US is cheap, but it's also heavily subsidized.

Yes.

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=palm-oil&co...

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=palm-oil&co...

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

lisper wrote: post #62
nostromo wrote: post #45

So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences. Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming. Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too. Sigh. There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population. Either we control it, or the laws of physics will do it for us.

> There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population. Either we control it

Fine, lets not talk around it. Bluntly, experience has shown that "population control" boils down to one of two things:

(1) Strong and effective social security networks, which shift incentives and produce declines (often to negative levels) in natural population increase, or

(2) Brutal authoritarian repression, extending (among other things) to either including or incentivizing outright slaughter.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#130

Post by thescriptkiddie »

cjensen wrote: post #29
miles wrote: post #16

And, though environmental groups are loathe to discuss it[1], animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from ALL transportation[2]. [1] http://www.cowspiracy.com/ [2] http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

Some of those more interesting greenhouse gasses, eg methane, can be hundreds of times worse than carbon dioxide. So the net impact is not zero.
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