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What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

newhumanist.org.uk

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Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#21

Post by greglindahl »

anotherturn wrote: post #16
greglindahl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ I have no idea why people are downvoting me, so I'll just remove this comment. ]

I think you missed the point of the comment... "fear and shock tactics" have been applied to me wrt climate change, vegetarianism, etc. But all they seem to have done is desensitize me. Hence my saying that they do not work. I'm exploring whether there are things that I (and the rest of the HN audience) can do to make a dent. Right now my measure of effectiveness and productivity is almost exclusively related to dev…

I wasn't suggesting fear and shock tactics, and I agree that they don't work. My suggestion was quite different.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#22

Post by greglindahl »

prawn wrote: post #20
anotherturn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make a dent I suspect becoming a vegetarian isn't enough - you'd have to become an effective-evangelical vegetarian. So, given that fear and shock tactics are failing - how do I convince the world (or a sizeable portion of it) to become vegetarian? I heard a podcast recently about a guy working to produce real meat from plant matter. This would probably be an effective solution. By spending time otherwise used for…

I think someone would see more success convincing people to eat less meat rather than eat no meat. e.g., make red meat a special occasion thing rather than an almost nightly occurrence. This could work a little at a personal level, but any larger campaign is going to come up against industry groups with more funding and no financial reason to care about much of the environment. I don't know about the US, but in Austr…

"eat less meat" has been tried and doesn't appear to work that well.

In the US, there are lots of industries in which producers of beef, eggs, pork have to pay $$ to a marketing board that buys advertising. Needless to say, they won't buy advertising that says "buy higher quality X" or "eat less X!" The government is for it and the courts have upheld being forced to pay into it, so, there you have it.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#23

Post by im3w1l »

mathattack wrote: post #19
im3w1l wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are living the Malthusian dystopia and the solution is as trivial to state as it is impossible to implement. A global one child policy.

As societies get richer, they have less kids. And each child has more capital. This isn't a bad outcome.

That has been the trend so far. But I would be cautious about extrapolating too aggressively from that. A situation with rich people that aren't breeding is not evolutionarily stable.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#24

Post by anotherturn »

greglindahl wrote: post #21
anotherturn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point of the comment... "fear and shock tactics" have been applied to me wrt climate change, vegetarianism, etc. But all they seem to have done is desensitize me. Hence my saying that they do not work. I'm exploring whether there are things that I (and the rest of the HN audience) can do to make a dent. Right now my measure of effectiveness and productivity is almost exclusively related to dev…

I wasn't suggesting fear and shock tactics, and I agree that they don't work. My suggestion was quite different.

You seem to have redacted your comment - but if I recall correctly your suggestion was to go ahead and evangelize but asserted that I would fail because I mentioned "shock and fear tactics"?

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#25

Post by anotherturn »

wolfram74 wrote: post #17
anotherturn wrote: post #10

It's not really enough to read and upvote, but I'm at a loss as to what I can personally can do about this. So in the spirit of the askhn "how would you turn around Twitter" - let's apply the same thinking to this: "how would you fix the oceans "? There must be some practical steps that one or many of the hn audience can execute?

You can start an iron fertilization project for around 20k in boat rental fees + legal fees for illegal ocean dumping. Major companies do it for less altruistic reasons all the time.

This is an interesting suggestion - though I'm not sure of the net effect of iron fertilization? How much iron achieves what?

I guess the legal fees cover dumping of anything ranging from nuclear waste to rubbish destined for recycling? I'd assume one could get those waived if there was a proven positive effect of the fertilization.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#26

Post by sporkenfang »

im3w1l wrote: post #15
anotherturn wrote: post #10

It's not really enough to read and upvote, but I'm at a loss as to what I can personally can do about this. So in the spirit of the askhn "how would you turn around Twitter" - let's apply the same thinking to this: "how would you fix the oceans "? There must be some practical steps that one or many of the hn audience can execute?

We are living the Malthusian dystopia and the solution is as trivial to state as it is impossible to implement. A global one child policy.

Oddly, I think outright banning fossil fuel refinement and usage would do more.

Being an only child seems to be a bit psychologically damaging. I could conjecture for pages here, but suffice it to say I believe one is better off having 2-3 children or none at all. Sure there can be situations like being raised closely with cousins or friends that are similarly beneficial, but kids absolutely must have close companions near their own age -- they don't seem to fully learn to be empathetic otherwise.

This is only the opinion of one person, take it however you wish.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#27

Post by cpprototypes »

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could have immediate impact now.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#28

Post by neverminder »

im3w1l wrote: post #15
anotherturn wrote: post #10

It's not really enough to read and upvote, but I'm at a loss as to what I can personally can do about this. So in the spirit of the askhn "how would you turn around Twitter" - let's apply the same thinking to this: "how would you fix the oceans "? There must be some practical steps that one or many of the hn audience can execute?

We are living the Malthusian dystopia and the solution is as trivial to state as it is impossible to implement. A global one child policy.

I agree this would make sense in countries with high birth rates, but applying it to countries with low birth rates would just accelerate their extinction. Also partially related, but movie "Idiocracy" (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) comes to mind here.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#29

Post by zachcb »

cpprototypes wrote: post #27

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could…

That gas station would be empty 95% of the time because it wouldn't succeed.

Most people don't want to spend any extra money on things that they won't directly benefit from.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#30

Post by anotherturn »

cpprototypes wrote: post #27

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could…

I suspect that the population of every country is too price sensitive for this to make a dent. Take for example ethically produced clothing, food, etc. While they are big industries they can barely hold a candle to their less-ethical counterparts.

From what I see, relying on good intentions doesn't quite seem get us to where we need to go.

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