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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

#131

Post by tyfon »

navigatesol wrote: post #69
tyfon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 clearly marked in the stores. I buy honey and eggs from the farm right next door.

* When I do go to the store I walk instead of driving.

* I bought but have not yet received an electric car. Yes it's a tesla but I have a normal job and with the way taxes are structured here it's a very common car on the road along with other electrics like leafs, e-trons, kias, e golfs etc.

* Not travelling too far for vacations, avoiding air travel as much as possible. Recently I've mostly use air due to work, but there too I often drive/take the train 8-10 hours instead of taking the plane.

There is plenty more to do, but for me personally I can't just sit idle and you have to start somewhere.

And last I did not tell anyone to radically change their lives, I said I did so myself. But the more people that do it the better.

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

#132

Post by graeme »

valw wrote: post #73
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…

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…

The earth was once covered in forest and the carbon was beneath the soil.

Planting a tree reverses some of the damage done by deforestation. Bt reforesting the earth would not restore things to how they were. As the OP said, that only happens if the excess CO2 is stored below the ground, too.

Planting trees is good, but only part of the full sequestration needed.

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

#133

Post by valw »

bin0 wrote: post #63
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…

> 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…

> 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 it wrecking itself in some other way. Sustainability is simply not compatible with our crazy paradigm of unlimited growth and consumption.

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

#134

Post by hirundo »

valw wrote: post #127
yters wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

France derives 71% of its electricity from nuclear energy. In the US it's around 20%. So while nuclear power can't replace everything, even with current technology they could power the great majority of electricity generation.

Sure we can't simply build them everywhere. But the main barriers to building enough of them to make a big difference aren't technical.

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

#135

Post by valw »

Robotbeat wrote: post #124
valw wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes I'm sure - unfortunately most of my references are French, so I don't think it's useful to share them here.

I do agree with the sad statement that we're generally lacking a scientifically rigorous and pragmatic leadership in climate activism.

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

#136

Post by jacques_chester »

cowwithbeef wrote: post #36
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…

Put another way, carbon has been slowly leaking from the ecosystem into the ground for hundreds of millions of years and now we're abruptly reintroducing that carbon to the ecosystem.

A very large amount of that fossil fuel was deposited during a period when plants could not be broken down successfully but microorganisms. In the current world much more of the carbon taken into a tree is released back into the atmosphere than presently.

That is: the original deposits were a process over millions of years, but the flow between stocks of carbon no longer behave as they used to. Whereas the stock of living and dead plants used to both remove carbon from the atmosphere, this no longer really the case.

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

#137

Post by jacques_chester »

patrickk wrote: post #42

One alternative to traditional concrete is autoclaved aerated concrete[1], a 70 year old material that's more eco friendly. Some of the advantages are mentioned in this video[2]. I'm guessing higher upfront cost means it's not competitive with traditional concrete. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclaved_aerated_concrete [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS3BTDBMt7I

A core topic of the article is that there a number of less carbon-intensive means of producing concrete, but all of them are more expensive. As it is basically a commodity market, price sensitivity among buyers is intense. It's an example of where carbon trading or carbon pricing would be able to shift the market's current selection.

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

#138

Post by noonespecial »

bin0 wrote: post #63
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…

> 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…

"earth would be better off were we all dead"

The right answer to this is "for who?" and "why would it matter then?"

We don't save the earth for the earth. We save it for ourselves.

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

#139

Post by tyfon »

tim333 wrote: post #91
tyfon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning CFCs etc did not require people to fundamentally change their lifestyles. Reducing carbon emissions does so and due to that it requires knowledge and action from the individual I think as a politician trying to change people who do not want to change is doomed. It is a lot trickier than the ozone issue and I think it requires action on all levels from the individual to the UN.

Carbon pricing ( https://medium.com/@IFC_org/carbon-pricing-is-crucial-to-sav... ) and advancing tech like solar are probably the way to go.

I agree the CO2 tax is a big part of the solution. The real cost of externalities has to be priced into consumer goods. One just has to hope everyone is on board and nobody becomes the Cayman Islands of CO2. Hopefully such a system will eventually be extended to other forms of externalities.

The price change will hopefully also accelerate R&D into alternatives which will also be a big part.

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

#140

Post by nroets »

Robotbeat wrote: post #124
valw wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Should we really take a gamble that engineers will come up with enhanced technology ?

If the future is uncertain, we should rather do too much than too little. That is how insurance works.

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