Live data from Hacker News

Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com

131–140 of 158 posts

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also has a YouTube channel. I first saw him speak at SF Nerd Nite which is a speaker series in San Francisco. He’s very entertaining and basically a self taught botanist.

Any other folks you saw at nerd night that I need to read and follow?

It's been a while since I attended one. I remember some of the most interesting talks were the ones I was not particularly interested in from the descriptions. Mostly talks about the history of San Francisco:

* Ghost signs: https://sf.nerdnite.com/2014/06/04/nerd-nite-sf-49/

* Neon signs: https://sf.nerdnite.com/2017/10/11/nerd-nite-sf-89-brain-sci...

* Dairy farming: https://sf.nerdnite.com/2019/08/14/nerd-nite-sf-111-butterfl...

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#132
post #119
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is actually stopping the warming involves: 1. Cutting emissions to zero. Not cutting back, zero 2. Extracting a chunk of co2 from the atmosphere and sequestering it Cutting back just means things get worse less quickly. They still get worse. To solve the issue we should be building nuclear among other things but for whatever reason the green movement has opposed the solution for decades. Even shutting down…

> for whatever reason the green movement has opposed the solution for decades. Even shutting down nuclear to use more coal. This is an amusing and antique take on things. Anti-nuclear protests were frequently in the news in the 70s and 80s. As a result, some people with views set in stone in their youth believe that environmentalists are still predominately anti-nuclear. In a strange twist of fate, this mindset is ac…

> The US President, likely motivated by a desire to own the libs and punch environmentalists in the face, plans to pour $4T into nuclear, making him an unintended climate change warrior, some say the greatest ever.

All that cash and he’s only asking for 5 GW of improvements to existing reactors and ten “new large reactors.” So what, 20 GW total? By 2030.

That doesn’t come close to satisfying an AI power consumption estimate of 68 GW by 2027 and 327 GW by 2030. [1]

[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572-1.html

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#133
post #130
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 emissions are not the driving force behind economic development. Energy is. And energy generation has been decoupled from CO2 emissions in almost every major economy, including China. Heck, in many countries economic growth has been decoupled even from energy use, with economies growing while energy use shrinks. And while technological innovation is always nice, we always possess all the technology we need to get…

While earnest, I’ve heard this claim for 30 years - that it’s simple political will. The reality is that until very recently there were only two economically viable carbon neutral energy sources. We now have four, however there are real unsolved problems with scaling three of those solutions. The only technology which can reliably solve the crises brings along its own set of externalities. It does few favors to anyon…

„There is no set of political body in the world with the capability to freeze consumption and lock billions of people into poverty.“

I don’t think this is actually necessary to manage climate change (see my point advice above about the decoupling of economic growth and energy use). But just for the sake of the argument: „freeze consumption and lock people into poverty“ is literally what happens when nation states go to war and we have managed to do that plenty of times, including for really stupid reasons, without much of a problem.

Governments are also quite happy to freeze consumption and lock people into poverty if they can somehow be labeled as undeserving and/or threatening. Plenty of that going around recently.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#134
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only path forward is technological innovation to reduce or remove carbon emissions. I’d be completely happy with technological innovations that allowed us to restore heat balance (solar radiation management, marine cloud brightening, etc). That can buy time for transitioning from fossil fuels.

The moment anyone tries anything on that scale of geoengineering, they will immediately be blamed for whatever weather-based natural disasters that follow. I just don’t see how this can work without creating massive diplomatic tensions.

Look up marine cloud brightening.

In 2022, international policy cleaned up shipping fuels. Without the sulfur, however, the “ship tracks” ceased. Without the marine clouds seeded by dirty fuels, the warming impact of shipping increased by 30%.

We could reduce it again by 70% or more without dirty fuels, with approaches like aerosolizing salt water.

Global warming mitigation will take a lot of little things. It’s not one big effort—and people won’t sue for the same reason oil companies aren’t liable for weather.

My point is that it can’t just be about carbon. That’s not actually the root cause. It’s the heat balance. We can either absorb less or radiate more. Both offer solution spaces.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#135
post #77
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if I had Elon Musk money, I'd build some kind of giant carbon capture mechanism. Perhaps I'd buy the largest basalt quarry I could find and start sequestering carbon at a planetary scale. It would cost a ton of money, but I'd do it in secret. If it worked, eventually it would show up on the scales, and I'd emerge from the shadows. This particular method of carbon capture could potentially work at a planetary…

Carbon capture is probably the only geoengineering thing you could do that isn’t going to be massively controversial. Probably not practical though. The other options mentioned like messing with the atmosphere to make it reflect more heat into space will likely cause wars due to lack of global consensus

> cause wars due to lack of global consensus

Who would attack who? Let’s say we are putting calcium carbonate into the upper arctic atmosphere to stop Greenland melt.

Who attacks?

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the southern US? How can there be native apple varieties? I thought they were all originally from around central Asia and a quick look on wikipedia confirms this

"Native" might have been an excessively strong term. I should've said there are varieties that are unique to the region even though their ancestors originally came from Asia. Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Black

Ah ok, that would be a local cultivar or landrace

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

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#137
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon capture is probably the only geoengineering thing you could do that isn’t going to be massively controversial. Probably not practical though. The other options mentioned like messing with the atmosphere to make it reflect more heat into space will likely cause wars due to lack of global consensus

> cause wars due to lack of global consensus Who would attack who? Let’s say we are putting calcium carbonate into the upper arctic atmosphere to stop Greenland melt. Who attacks?

These changes (very likely) cause major changes in precipitation. So whoever all the sudden gets a drought and famine.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#138
post #126
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think pre-industrial civilizations were super equal, or didn’t have ‘world trying to wipe us away’ issues?

Pre ag it was hard to store wealth or accumulate power so hunter gatherers may have been the most egalitarian setup in our history. Sure it’s always been a battle but they weren’t speedrunning GHG into the atmosphere.

Ghenghis Khan?

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Native" might have been an excessively strong term. I should've said there are varieties that are unique to the region even though their ancestors originally came from Asia. Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Black

Ah ok, that would be a local cultivar or landrace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrace

Thank you! I stand corrected.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#140
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> author is not talking about vegetables He's talking about growing tomatoes all the way through the article. Nothing but talking about how tomatoes grow

He does have one paragraph about tomatoes, but he also talks about Andean cacti like Browningia candelaris , "plants from places like cloud forests of Central America", Solanum pennellii , and "plants from (...) the Páramo of Ecuador". My mother was able to grow tomatoes successfully in Pohnpei, which is at 3° latitude and never gets outside the temperature range of about 23°–32°. https://weather.com/es-GT/tiempo/10d…

True, I overstated that
Post reply on HN