6 ms·

> No mammal killing in agriculture? Good luck. Even biological agriculture farms have snake shelters to keep the vermin numbers in check. Just like the other c

by mrpopo 6y ago

> No mammal killing in agriculture? Good luck. Even biological agriculture farms have snake shelters to keep the vermin numbers in check. Just like the other comment explained, while accidental marine mammal bycatch will always happen, it's possible to reduce it drastically, at a reasonable cost. Similarly, while our agriculture cannot be completely separated from the animal world, there are low-hanging fruits. We can collectively decide that we shouldn't eat meat from animals raised in horrid conditions, and accept the condition that we can't reasonably do that without cutting a bit of the average 100kg of meat a year. A zero-carbon lifestyle is completely unattainable for the simple reason that we breathe out CO2. Zero deforestation is crazy because people rely on wood for heating in winter. Overfocusing on the ambitions of the end goal is missing the point.

crispyporkbites 6y ago
Zero carbon or negative carbon is definitely attainable. You can put more carbon back into the ground than you burn / breathe to get below zero.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  not if you want to live a modern life with all the benefits that comes from that.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    This comment isn’t adding to the conversation.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      I am sorry you feel like that. Personally I would always want to factor in some sort of ROI for the conversation to have any meaningful context. There are many ways we can "fix" things but the cost of the fix should always be measured against what it is fixing.
      - Schiendelman 6y ago
        That’s a better comment! I agree with that. What you said above was not this.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        That's exactly what I said above just in fever words. What other interpretation are you thinking about?
    - dongvsascript 6y ago
      This comment isn’t adding to the conversation. the one you replied to however, is making the point that extra carbon emissions are required by the modern lifestyle, and we would have to give up some of its benefits to attain the zero goal. hence adding to the conversation. how about if you want to have a meta discussion about the discussion, you start a separate thread no one will read, and stop spamming the discussion with offtopic comments.
  - dvdkhlng 6y ago
    > not if you want to live a modern life with all the benefits that comes from that. That seems like a rather imprecise and thereby meaningless refutation of the parent's point. IMO a more honest statement of that idea would be: "Not if you want to live a totally unconstrained life, drawing on all currently available benefits, whether neccessary or not". I do think, that "modern life" would be compatible with zero CO2 emission (for some definition of "modern life"), people would merely have to face more constraints and regulation.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      Can you define what you mean with necessary more precisely?
  - adrianN 6y ago
    No, that is not true. We know how to produce energy without fossil fuels. All carbon emission can either be completely replaced by such means, or adequately reverted.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      we do? How do you do heavy industrial production without coal, gas or oil?
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        Production of what? I've worked in one industrial plant, and they mostly just needed power and steam to run the processing equipment. If you need oil as a chemical input, you could offset that carbon or likely synthesize it. But even just reducing our fossil oil use to ingredients and not fuel would make a massive difference.
      - adrianN 6y ago
        Yeah we do. Nuclear, solar, wind. If you absolutely can't do something without releasing carbon (concrete and air travel are an example that comes to mind), you use carbon-free energy to suck CO2 from the air and sequester it. That just costs money.
        mrpopo 6y ago
        Money, and space, and natural resources for the CCS membrane / infrastructure, etc. No guarantee that none of those will run out if we try to do this at the required scale.
        adrianN 6y ago
        No guarantee until we do it, but all signs point to it easier than, say, WW2.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        It's not that simple. Less than 1% of energy comes from wind and solar and we aren't looking at more than 3-4% in 2030. Wind and solar require either nuclear, gas, coal and oil as backup. Nuclear is completely out of vogue and will take years to build. It's not just concrete and air travel it's ships, trucks, steel production, anything that require large amount of heat. You can't power a hospital based on solar and wind etc. Fossil fuels are not going anywhere until we either get fusion or some sort of fuel cell technology, but they require som fundamental breakthroughs we aren't close to meeting just yet. The problem is doing things at scale not just proving in some lab what is theoretically possible.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    16 tons of CO2 per year per capita. That's all you need to offset. We could probably manage that with a single digit cut to GDP.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    You're right that a sustainable economy will demand change. I think the problem is thinking that all the change will be bad. Some things that will have to change: - More pubic transit on trains - Less packaging and throw away plastic utensils so you might have to carry a fork with you or employ more dishwashers at restaurants - Less meat and fish consumption, returning America to its more traditional diets modulo beyond meat type substitutes. - More local production and transport instead of shipping things across the world - Less non-essential work and the travel accompanying it - More urbanization to make ecological systems more efficient - Use of LED lighting systems - Less "fast fashion" and wearing more durable clothing - Use of electric heat wherever possible - Widespread battery production - Global solar network to ship sunlight power around the world - Emphasizing power efficiency in electronics Some of these changes are fairly disruptive, but extremely mild compared to the challenges humans have faced in history such as war and starvation. Keep in mind that these so-called "modern lifestyles" that are most carbon intensive are lived most vibrantly by the wealthy (e.g. private jets, endless consumption of materials). Many people will not be hugely inconvenienced compared to their current life circumstances.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      if you want humans to change you have to come up with better solutions not just ask people to change. It's never worked and it never will.
dvdkhlng 6y ago
> A zero-carbon lifestyle is completely unattainable for the simple reason that we breathe out CO2. [..] That's a misconception that I often encounter. Note that CO2 breathed out by humans and animals has (almost) no effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. Humans consume exclusively non-fossil carbon, i.e. only carbon that was harvested from plants out of the atmosphere using photosynthesis. When we breath out we merely give back the carbon that the plant removed from the atmosphere maybe few months earlier. This is different from cars which primarily consume fossil carbon, so their exhaust puts carbon back into the atmosphere, which hasn't been in the atmosphere for at least a few tens of million years. Luckily mankind hasn't found out yet how to turn fossil carbon into food :)
- qppo 6y ago
  We've been producing food from fossil fuels for over a century via industrial nitrate production.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    This is true, but there's no physical law that says humans have to consume carbon positive food, it's a social choice not something inherent to humans.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  CO2 is fungible once it is in the atmosphere. There is no law of physics which says what can and cannot - only assumptions. Although it is a matter of scales given implementation details. Technically we turn fossil carbon into food indirectly all of the time with fertilizer and fueling agricultural vehicles but again implementation level details. We could also subsitute non-fossil sources or make it regenerative even though it wouldn't be that practical. Somebody with far too much funding and power in the literal energy over time sense could theoretically be a smartass jerk and start sequestering enough CO2 over time that lack of carbon starts to be a threat. In practice it would be less of a threat than being crushed to death by massive stacks of dollar bills.
_Microft 6y ago
> A zero-carbon lifestyle is completely unattainable for the simple reason that we breathe out CO2. Zero deforestation is crazy because people rely on wood for heating in winter. The total amount of carbon dioxide is the problem, not emissions themselves. Exhaling carbon dioxide from metabolizing produce that extracted carbon from the short term cycle makes no difference. Cars or other fossil fuel consuming processes on the other hand introduce extra carbon into the short term cycle by burning substances that contain carbon that was sequestrated long ago. This can happen indirectly, e.g. by converting oil into plastics first and later burning these plastics as garbage in a power plant. Boom, extra carbon emitted and nobody really noticed.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > people rely on wood for heating in winter. Planting trees and burning them is the perfect example of a carbon neutral thing to do. Not sure what is your point here. The problem is adding new carbon into the biosphere, as we are doing today.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    This is part of a quote, you might want to comment on the parent.
Dylan16807 6y ago
Zero-carbon is attainable because that's net carbon. Zero deforestation is attainable by growing wood in ways that don't deforest. Zero mammals killed is not going to happen. But that's still beside the point that bycatch and sustainability are completely different things.

by mrpopo 6y ago

crispyporkbites 6y ago

Zero carbon or negative carbon is definitely attainable. You can put more carbon back into the ground than you burn / breathe to get below zero.

ThomPete 6y ago
not if you want to live a modern life with all the benefits that comes from that.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  This comment isn’t adding to the conversation.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    I am sorry you feel like that. Personally I would always want to factor in some sort of ROI for the conversation to have any meaningful context. There are many ways we can "fix" things but the cost of the fix should always be measured against what it is fixing.
    - Schiendelman 6y ago
      That’s a better comment! I agree with that. What you said above was not this.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        That's exactly what I said above just in fever words. What other interpretation are you thinking about?
  - dongvsascript 6y ago
    This comment isn’t adding to the conversation. the one you replied to however, is making the point that extra carbon emissions are required by the modern lifestyle, and we would have to give up some of its benefits to attain the zero goal. hence adding to the conversation. how about if you want to have a meta discussion about the discussion, you start a separate thread no one will read, and stop spamming the discussion with offtopic comments.
- dvdkhlng 6y ago
  > not if you want to live a modern life with all the benefits that comes from that. That seems like a rather imprecise and thereby meaningless refutation of the parent's point. IMO a more honest statement of that idea would be: "Not if you want to live a totally unconstrained life, drawing on all currently available benefits, whether neccessary or not". I do think, that "modern life" would be compatible with zero CO2 emission (for some definition of "modern life"), people would merely have to face more constraints and regulation.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Can you define what you mean with necessary more precisely?
- adrianN 6y ago
  No, that is not true. We know how to produce energy without fossil fuels. All carbon emission can either be completely replaced by such means, or adequately reverted.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    we do? How do you do heavy industrial production without coal, gas or oil?
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Production of what? I've worked in one industrial plant, and they mostly just needed power and steam to run the processing equipment. If you need oil as a chemical input, you could offset that carbon or likely synthesize it. But even just reducing our fossil oil use to ingredients and not fuel would make a massive difference.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      Yeah we do. Nuclear, solar, wind. If you absolutely can't do something without releasing carbon (concrete and air travel are an example that comes to mind), you use carbon-free energy to suck CO2 from the air and sequester it. That just costs money.
      - mrpopo 6y ago
        Money, and space, and natural resources for the CCS membrane / infrastructure, etc. No guarantee that none of those will run out if we try to do this at the required scale.
        adrianN 6y ago
        No guarantee until we do it, but all signs point to it easier than, say, WW2.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        It's not that simple. Less than 1% of energy comes from wind and solar and we aren't looking at more than 3-4% in 2030. Wind and solar require either nuclear, gas, coal and oil as backup. Nuclear is completely out of vogue and will take years to build. It's not just concrete and air travel it's ships, trucks, steel production, anything that require large amount of heat. You can't power a hospital based on solar and wind etc. Fossil fuels are not going anywhere until we either get fusion or some sort of fuel cell technology, but they require som fundamental breakthroughs we aren't close to meeting just yet. The problem is doing things at scale not just proving in some lab what is theoretically possible.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  16 tons of CO2 per year per capita. That's all you need to offset. We could probably manage that with a single digit cut to GDP.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  You're right that a sustainable economy will demand change. I think the problem is thinking that all the change will be bad. Some things that will have to change: - More pubic transit on trains - Less packaging and throw away plastic utensils so you might have to carry a fork with you or employ more dishwashers at restaurants - Less meat and fish consumption, returning America to its more traditional diets modulo beyond meat type substitutes. - More local production and transport instead of shipping things across the world - Less non-essential work and the travel accompanying it - More urbanization to make ecological systems more efficient - Use of LED lighting systems - Less "fast fashion" and wearing more durable clothing - Use of electric heat wherever possible - Widespread battery production - Global solar network to ship sunlight power around the world - Emphasizing power efficiency in electronics Some of these changes are fairly disruptive, but extremely mild compared to the challenges humans have faced in history such as war and starvation. Keep in mind that these so-called "modern lifestyles" that are most carbon intensive are lived most vibrantly by the wealthy (e.g. private jets, endless consumption of materials). Many people will not be hugely inconvenienced compared to their current life circumstances.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    if you want humans to change you have to come up with better solutions not just ask people to change. It's never worked and it never will.

dvdkhlng 6y ago

> A zero-carbon lifestyle is completely unattainable for the simple reason that we breathe out CO2. [..] That's a misconception that I often encounter. Note that CO2 breathed out by humans and animals has (almost) no effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. Humans consume exclusively non-fossil carbon, i.e. only carbon that was harvested from plants out of the atmosphere using photosynthesis. When we breath out we merely give back the carbon that the plant removed from the atmosphere maybe few months earlier. This is different from cars which primarily consume fossil carbon, so their exhaust puts carbon back into the atmosphere, which hasn't been in the atmosphere for at least a few tens of million years. Luckily mankind hasn't found out yet how to turn fossil carbon into food :)

qppo 6y ago
We've been producing food from fossil fuels for over a century via industrial nitrate production.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  This is true, but there's no physical law that says humans have to consume carbon positive food, it's a social choice not something inherent to humans.
Nasrudith 6y ago
CO2 is fungible once it is in the atmosphere. There is no law of physics which says what can and cannot - only assumptions. Although it is a matter of scales given implementation details. Technically we turn fossil carbon into food indirectly all of the time with fertilizer and fueling agricultural vehicles but again implementation level details. We could also subsitute non-fossil sources or make it regenerative even though it wouldn't be that practical. Somebody with far too much funding and power in the literal energy over time sense could theoretically be a smartass jerk and start sequestering enough CO2 over time that lack of carbon starts to be a threat. In practice it would be less of a threat than being crushed to death by massive stacks of dollar bills.

_Microft 6y ago

> A zero-carbon lifestyle is completely unattainable for the simple reason that we breathe out CO2. Zero deforestation is crazy because people rely on wood for heating in winter. The total amount of carbon dioxide is the problem, not emissions themselves. Exhaling carbon dioxide from metabolizing produce that extracted carbon from the short term cycle makes no difference. Cars or other fossil fuel consuming processes on the other hand introduce extra carbon into the short term cycle by burning substances that contain carbon that was sequestrated long ago. This can happen indirectly, e.g. by converting oil into plastics first and later burning these plastics as garbage in a power plant. Boom, extra carbon emitted and nobody really noticed.

enriquto 6y ago
> people rely on wood for heating in winter. Planting trees and burning them is the perfect example of a carbon neutral thing to do. Not sure what is your point here. The problem is adding new carbon into the biosphere, as we are doing today.
- _Microft 6y ago
  This is part of a quote, you might want to comment on the parent.

Dylan16807 6y ago

Zero-carbon is attainable because that's net carbon. Zero deforestation is attainable by growing wood in ways that don't deforest. Zero mammals killed is not going to happen. But that's still beside the point that bycatch and sustainability are completely different things.