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Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

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Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#21

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

hannob wrote: post #11
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?

> And buy products from where instead? Buy less products overall. > I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat? The most effective thing is probably less carbon intensive transport (that means first and foremost flying). But less meat (or better no meat) is still among the more impactful things.

Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single-occupant cars.

The majority of people do not fly multiple times per week.

Having said that, I do agree with the main thrust of your comment: consume less.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#22

Post by justaguyhere »

codebolt wrote: post #15
O_H_E wrote: post #6

Looks like a great way to incitive developing countries to reduce their emissions. Although when the developing countries' tax payer start complaining, it's going to be hard to defend these expenditures.

As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.

I generally agree, but we are at such a bad position now where any and all attempts need to be made to preserve our planet. It might not be fair for westerners to pay for such initiatives, but lets remember that most western countries have outsourced manufacturing to developing nations in Asia/Africa etc and have turned a blind eye to the shitty practices of these companies as long as it suited them (aka, as long as the products are cheap)

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#23

Post by kibwen »

est31 wrote: post #12
XorNot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less beef, specifically. On a practical level cutting out meat entirely can actually increase emissions because you can raise farm animals off of human inedible parts of plants like stems and other marginal food (i.e. parts we don't get any nutrition from). Beef however is one of the worst conversion methods in this regard, but animals like chickens and goats are quite efficient.

Insects are most efficient btw, but there are cultural reservations about them in the west.

If Silicon Valley can propel nutrient sludge like Soylent into notoriety, then I'm sure it can do the same for cricket nuggets. :P

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#24

Post by adrianN »

codebolt wrote: post #15
O_H_E wrote: post #6

Looks like a great way to incitive developing countries to reduce their emissions. Although when the developing countries' tax payer start complaining, it's going to be hard to defend these expenditures.

As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.

Natural rain forests are just not economically productive. No matter what industry you promote in Indonesia, they can always make extra money by cutting down the forest.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#25

Post by inferiorhuman »

codebolt wrote: post #15
O_H_E wrote: post #6

Looks like a great way to incitive developing countries to reduce their emissions. Although when the developing countries' tax payer start complaining, it's going to be hard to defend these expenditures.

As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.

The Guardian had a really interesting blurb about palm oil[1]. One of the takeaways is that as bad as palm oil is, other plants consume far more resources to produce equivalent amounts of oil. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Soy has already wreaked havoc on the Amazon, and Bolsonaro in all his septic glory is a staunch advocate of destroying as much of the Amazon as he can in pursuit of short term profits.

The other blurb[2] I read recently was about Maya Bay. A situation like this is a bit more amenable to ecotourism and whatnot than palm plantation... but still it's a daunting task to try to preserve the environment in a country that's very dependent upon it for short-term sustenance.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/19/palm-oil-ingred...

2: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_beach_nobody...

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#26

Post by kaybe »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #5
StreamBright wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products.

And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#27

Post by varjag »

nabla9 wrote: post #20
samatman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the sole producer of certain electronic components, this is not viable at present. Granted if you really really want to reduce your personal emissions, stop using technology from post-1950, maybe buy some land...

> China is the sole producer of certain electronic components I don't believe this is correct in meaningful sense. Do you have any examples? China assembles many components, but that's not something that can't be moved to elsewhere. Vietnam is already replacing China. Best way to deal with exported CO2 emissions is to put carbon tax on imports and not to try to control where they are manufactured.

Nearly all passives, generic active components, and a bulk of the cheaper processes ICs are being produced in China for a while now. PCBA production is another issue, but much of it happens in China too.

Vietnam doesn't seem to be really that different from China in politics, environment or other respects. It is hard to see how moving things from China to Vietnam is an improvement.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#28

Post by fghtr »

kaybe wrote: post #26
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#29

Post by varjag »

richardhod wrote: post #19
codebolt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.

As a Western developed nation inhabitant, you and indeed most HN readers benefit enormously for your rich lifestyle on past carbon emissions by your predecessors, which those in that country have not benefitted from. This is a good way to incentivise those countries who - quite reasonably - feel it's unfair that they don't get to use up any of that carbon to develop their nation towards a rich modern lifestyles. So,…

Norway did not contribute all that much to carbon emissions directly. The electric grid historically been and still is hydro, and the country was never really industrialized in the first place.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#30

Post by kaybe »

duopixel wrote: post #16

When I first moved to Europe I was struck by just how domesticated the land is. I can sleep in the open without being afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders, wolves or bears. Even when land is "wild", the larger mammals will be rabbits, deer, wild goats and such. Excepting natural parks, hunters are the only predators. At least in Spain, a tremendous percentage of land is put at the service of mankind. The dehesas give…

Don't underestimate the wild pigs though!

Actually a great part of European biodiversity depends on the cultivation of the land. The natural state would be forests and swamps. Grazing leads to open lands with a multitude of grasses, other small plants, bushes, hedges and solitary huge trees, which support different insects and birds.

In Germany we have a biome type, Heide (seems to correspond to heath [0]), that was created by degrading the land by removing the good topsoil to fertilize fields (as opposed to field rotation which was used in the south), and which is now a valuable habitat for many species.

However, much of this also depends on a non-intensive cultivation, where less-than-ideal areas (rocky, too steep, too wet..) are left alone or only used occasionally (eg to cut the hedges). This kind of use is going down, which is ap problem.

Another thing that changed my mind in the last few years: Even the Amazon region, which in the West has this aura of untouched wilderness, was recently found to have been heavily populated and changed by humans in the past, eg to make the ground more fertile in some areas. The key is to work with the forest, not against it, and there is so much we can do.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath

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