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Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

qz.com

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Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#71

Post by dougmany »

siilats wrote: post #14

The article title is misleading though. It was for 1 day that they emitted more. So overall about 1% of us emissions if you average for the year or 100 times less.

It is also misleading in that burning trees and burning fossil fuels is very different in terms of global warming. The carbon trees are made of was extracted from the air as the tree grew so the net added to at atmosphere is zero. The carbon from fossil fuels was nicely sequestered before it was dug up an burnt, adding to total carbon concentration in the air.

Edit: OK I read the second half about peat and yes, the peat was sequestered before the fire so that is not good.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#72

Post by mikeash »

planfaster wrote: post #69
mikeash wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. The result is massive pollution, widespread health problems, and global climate change. And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy.

> We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will ? I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!

I was talking about pollution in particular, not every possible conceivable action.

For times and places where pollution was not regulated, look at just about anywhere before 1900 or so.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#73

Post by paublyrne »

mikeash wrote: post #48
masklinn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title implies continuous superiority of indonesian emissions, not that they out-produced the US emissions for a peak day (or 20, out of 365)

I don't see it. Maybe because I already knew that the fires aren't a continuous thing?

Title says 'per' day, meaning each day, implying continuity.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#74

Post by masklinn »

tomphoolery wrote: post #64
nostromo wrote: post #45

So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences. Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming. Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

How about we figure out a way to make palm oil somewhere else? Is it really that hard?

Yes? Making any oil takes lots of room, palm is actually one of the most space-efficient productions (according to wikipedia it's 38% of the total vegetable oil production for 5% of the vegetable oil farmland), however it grows in tropical climates competing with existing old-growth native forests and the demand for it grows exponentially.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#75

Post by bostonpete »

lisper wrote: post #62
nostromo wrote: post #45

So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences. Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming. Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too. Sigh. There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population. Either we control it, or the laws of physics will do it for us.

> Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too.

Well, you can milk anything with nipples.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#76

Post by guelo »

nostromo wrote: post #45

So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences. Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming. Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

Wrong. The biggest consumers of Palm Oil are China and India, and the main driving factor is price. Palm oil is cheap. It has nothing to do with the FDA's position on trans fat.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#77

Post by whatgoodisaroad »

oberstein wrote: post #65
Alkim wrote: post #5

I was just in Singapore for the past few days, after living there for several years. It really is awful this year. The haze did make the laser show from the top of the Marina Sands really spectacular. ;-)

Are there any engineering efforts[1] being proposed or actively worked on by Singapore to solve this issue? Every now and again I hear about the hazes forcing everyone in Singapore to wear masks and stay indoors as much as possible until the hazes dissipate. That state should be unacceptable for a first world city. [1] Like, a giant sci-fi ocean-fan... Or a military solution of invading their neighbors and running th…

> That state should be unacceptable for a first world city.

Happens in Los Angeles.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#78

Post by mrob »

scythe wrote: post #49
cjensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

Not all greenhouse gases are the same. One of the unfortunate things about agriculture is that it's a major source of nitrous oxide, via fertilizer decomposition, and methane, via mostly cattle. Both N2O and CH4 are drastically more potent GHG than CO2, essentially because the atmospheric concentration of those gases is already much lower, so the proportional impact of N2O/CH4 emissions is much greater. CH4 emissions…

CH4 emissions could also be greatly reduced by switching from cows to marsupials. Emissions are not zero as sometimes claimed, but research on wallabies [1] found emissions "between 25 and 33% of what can be expected from ruminants fed the same diet".

[1] https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/p...

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#79

Post by refurb »

khuey wrote: post #19
krisroadruck wrote: post #12

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

The article says the fires are especially bad because they're burning peatland this year, which is releasing trapped hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.

Peat contains hydrocarbons? Are you sure?

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#80

Post by masklinn »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #22
dymk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. It would be nice if we could sequester the carbon already in the air in trees. The benefit is two fold: More trees, and removal of carbon that is already in the air from burning fossil fuels.

You cannot just infinitely accumulate trees. In a steady state, forests neither sequester nor release carbon.

> In a steady state, forests neither sequester nor release carbon.

In a steady state, forests are carbon stores, same as coal veins, oil reservoirs or methane clathrate.

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