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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

#121

Post by gruez »

dillonmckay wrote: post #118
gruez wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recycling is carbon neutral - it doesn't cause co2 to be released nor does it sequester any. You can argue that the process itself generates co2, but so does producing virgin plastic.

How is recycling plastic carbon neutral? The amount of energy required to chew/melt/process the plastic, the energy to transport the recyclables to the processing facility, and then the transportation costs to ship the decycled material to the buyer(s)?

>You can argue that the process itself generates co2, but so does producing virgin plastic.

It's carbon neutral compared to the alternatives.

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

#122

Post by valw »

Spooky23 wrote: post #108
yters wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Careful: having the entire world adopt the living standards of Western countries is about the best way to guarantee that climate change makes the planet inhabitable by 2100.

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

#123

Post by EGreg »

icxa wrote: post #77
bin0 wrote: 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…

For the same reason a regular Progressive who believes in Medicare for All isn’t going to opt out of private health insurance and give 30% of their money to the government. There is no program in place for the money to go to. Under a progressive tax system, they might not owe all that much, if anything. And the goal is to put the program in place and require everyone to participate. Look at the success of the Toronto Protocol banning CFCs to save the Ozone layer. How do George Carlin’s arguments apply there? “If you are really worried about the hole in the ozone layer, just stop buying hair spray, and stop pestering the rest of us!”

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

#124

Post by Robotbeat »

valw wrote: post #86
torpfactory wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optimistic side of me reads this as a call to arms for engineers. The political and economic calculations aren't stagnant. If there emerge better and cheaper alternatives, the market will usually make the switch happen. The key thing is the presence of better alternatives. We're already seeing this in action with electricity generation. Solar and wind are cheaper for bulk generation than fossil sources. A few inc…

Climate change requires a call to arms for everyone. Many scientific experts don't believe that enhanced technology can be the main solution. True, technology can be a part of the solution, but changing our values and life habits are much more important. That's why top recommended environmental measure is carbon taxes, not subsidizing energy efficiency. We've already made dramatic technological progress on our energy…

> Many scientific experts don't believe that enhanced technology can be the main solution. True, technology can be a part of the solution, but changing our values and life habits are much more important.

Are you sure these are scientists? Because this sounds a lot like an ideological belief, not a scientific one. I definitely know a lot of activists who believe this.

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

#125

Post by pbhjpbhj »

valw wrote: post #117
hokkos wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This only works if we are sure that the forest will stay a forest for several hundreds of thousands of year You do realize that carbon sequestrated in a forest 100ks of years is prevented from contributed to global warming during all that time period, right? > Not consuming fossil carbon means it will stay in the earth mantle for a geological time. Nobody's arguing against that. But it's silly to argue that not con…

Your extinguisher vs firemen analogy is a good one IMO:

We need to do something right now, carbon sequestration fits there.

We also need to change our ideology, and our energy resources, if we stick a plaster (ie bandaid) of carbon sequestration on it now and assume that is going to fix it, that's where we going to get to the point where land usage is going to go up against that. We can't simply go on using carbon based fuels and just "plant trees" forever unless we also create a reducing global population ...

Sequestration needs to be at greater levels than current use, we shouldn't allow rich people to go on 'using' by only sequestering to counter current usage.

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

#126

Post by lozenge »

tyfon wrote: post #20
Ensorceled wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#127

Post by valw »

yters wrote: post #38
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…

Nuclear power doesn't seem too politically non viable, especially if the alternative is rapid depopulation.

Regardless of the controversy on the risks of nuclear energy, don't overestimate it's potential. We simply can't build nuclear plants everywhere we need them. We still mostly need a reduction in energy consumption and deforesting.

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

#128

Post by yters »

Spooky23 wrote: post #108
yters wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, we are already engaging in eugenics like I describe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memora...

Just the means we employ of pushing birth control and abortion are more politically correct in our intellectual environment.

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

#129

Post by hirundo »

valw wrote: post #95
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Dr Evil has me run the numbers and it turns out that killing six billion people, you have all their body mass rotting and putting carbon back into the atmosphere, add on top transport costs and so on - it just was not worth it. Seems much simpler to fix global politics and improve technology.

Have you considered that once they're dead, they stop farting? Methane counts too!

Eventually but not immediately: https://www.quora.com/Can-a-dead-body-fart

"Definitely yes. Having worked as an undertaker’s assistant in my youth I have witnessed this at least twice. The odour is unmistakable and the gas (should there be any in the bowel) easily comes out when moving the deceased from the hospital cold slab to the coffin. I have not heard any sound but the foul smell is there - so yes."

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

#130

Post by Robotbeat »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #114
torpfactory wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't get better by itself, hence the "call to arms". Engineers need to choose to work on, maybe even for less money or less job security, solutions which are so much better that policy and implementation will contort themselves toward the new paradigms. Politics is the really effective avenue to solve this but it is a lot easier if better alternative solutions exist. I wanted to emphasize that the optimism can be…

Earth will be the terraforming planet we will cut our teeth on.

Inevitably.
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