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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

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Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#91

Post by lm28469 »

hef19898 wrote: post #68
lm28469 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until the alternatives are cheaper. To get cheaper they'd have to exist in the first place

They do and they are? As far as electricity is concerned, that is.

I think you underestimate how widespread petroleum derivates are outside of energy. Construction materials, roads, tires, plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products, paints, inks, dyes, adhesives, sealants, lubricants, clothes, waterproof fabrics, batteries, fertilisers, medicine, tooth paste, shampoos, &c.

It's _the_ building block of modern life, unless you're in nature you can bet everything you lay your eyes on is at least partially made of petroleum or its derivates

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#92

Post by ookdatnog »

krapp wrote: post #43
RuggedPineapple wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know which one you mean, as I'm sure we all do, but it always amuses me that we refer to her as just 'Cleopatra' because... basically every queen of Egypt in that dynasty was named Cleopatra. They named the vast majority of the boys Ptolemy and the girls Cleopatra. Her mother's name is Cleopatra V Tryphaena. Her daughters name is Cleopatra Selene II. Her Fathers name is Ptolemy XII, she has brothers named Ptolemy X…

The entire Western pop cultural canon of ancient Egypt was created by a culture that ground mummies up for soup. It's not surprising that a lot of complexity and subtlety got lost in translation.

Come on, let's not be reductive. We didn't just eat them, we also ground them up to make paint!

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

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#93

Post by thaumasiotes »

defrost wrote: post #69
krapp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire Western pop cultural canon of ancient Egypt was created by a culture that ground mummies up for soup. It's not surprising that a lot of complexity and subtlety got lost in translation.

True enough; The gory history of Europe’s mummy-eating fad https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mummy-eat... The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-... but people generally don't like to be reminded.

Well, the part about grinding up mummies is true enough. Natural resources get processed.

"The Western pop cultural canon of ancient Egypt" seems to be a red herring, though; Cleopatra is not part of or associated with ancient Egypt. She would be at the tail end of the Hellenistic period or the beginning of the Roman Empire. The New Kingdom ended a thousand years before she came to power.

(Hey, why do we call it "the New Kingdom"?)

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#94

Post by AlexandrB »

retendo wrote: post #72
CM30 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things: 1. The rare instances of it going wrong look catastrophic, while the many times it does better than coal/oil/gas go ignored. Kinda like how people fear plane travel more than driving, despite the former being far safer than the latter. 2. It's more expensive to setup, so there's an economic incentive…

Isn't the number one reason that nuclear gets a bad rep because there is no compelling solution for getting rid of the waste?

There are compelling solutions, they just run into the same opposition as the plants themselves.

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

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#95

Post by tompccs »

rcbdev wrote: post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

Environmental activists are almost entirely responsible for the killing of nuclear energy in the 1970s. Much of the blame for climate change lays at their feet.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#96

Post by hef19898 »

lm28469 wrote: post #91
hef19898 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do and they are? As far as electricity is concerned, that is.

I think you underestimate how widespread petroleum derivates are outside of energy. Construction materials, roads, tires, plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products, paints, inks, dyes, adhesives, sealants, lubricants, clothes, waterproof fabrics, batteries, fertilisers, medicine, tooth paste, shampoos, &c. It's _the_ building block of modern life, unless you're in nature you can bet everything you lay your eyes on is at…

I explicitly mentioned electricity, didn't I? And getting rid of burning fossil fuels is a win I'll take every day of the week.

Don't let the perfect be the enmy of the good and all that.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#97

Post by jmyeet »

When we have people who cannot house and feed themselves, why do we expect them to care abotu what will happen to the planet in another century? We have a hopelessnes crisis.

The propaganda of capitalism has also been widly successful. Many people believe in the myth of meritocracy or that somehow markets will solve all problems or that Jeff Bezos having $200 billion instead of $100 billion while Amazon warehouse employees work in dire conditions are all good things. At the same time, very few of those people can define capitalism but will defend it anyway.

There is no fixing the climate crisis without fixing wealth inequality and giving people dignity and hope for the future. And no, I don't mean some communist utopia where everyone has the same (b3cause that's the usual straw man argument people jump to). I simply mean it has to be way less extreme than it is today.

Capitalism created this problem. Capitalism perpetuates this problem. And it won't be solved until you deal with capitalism.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#99

Post by AlexandrB »

tompccs wrote: post #95
rcbdev wrote: post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

Environmental activists are almost entirely responsible for the killing of nuclear energy in the 1970s. Much of the blame for climate change lays at their feet.

> Much of the blame for climate change lays at their feet.

That's a bit of a stretch given how much money the fossil fuel industry has spent on misinformation and greenwashing.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#100

Post by ejb999 »

unglaublich wrote: post #88

And people keep wondering why climate protesters are not asking things "nicely" anymore, and resort to blocking traffic and defacing paintings. They tried the nice way... they tried for many decades.

yea, because destroying famous works of art and blocking traffic, really helps bring people over to your side....
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