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I'm partially curious and partially skeptical. Is this "a step in the right direction" in the same way as recycling? (i.e. people thinking 100% of recyclables a

by lhorie 6y ago

I'm partially curious and partially skeptical. Is this "a step in the right direction" in the same way as recycling? (i.e. people thinking 100% of recyclables actually get recycled vs the reality being a lot of it end up in landfills or worse, and the parallel overproduction of plastics turned into a worldwide ecological disaster)

bawolff 6y ago
Maybe its a step in the rigt direction the way aluminium recycling is (i.e. actually useful)
systemvoltage 6y ago
I don't understand how we are comparing Energy generation with specifics about how it is generated and Plastic Recycling...what's that have to do with Energy production? Totally separate things.
- res0nat0r 6y ago
  I think it is that Google says its carbon footprint is "zero", just like folks who maybe recycle 100% of everything they buy from the store, but in reality much of that isn't actually recyclable even if it has the logo on it. Thus this statement should likely be taken with a grain of salt.
- lhorie 6y ago
  GP already provided some "devil-in-the-details" line items to poke holes at carbon offsets (e.g. are all types of emissions being considered correctly) The parallel that I'm drawing is that recycling was largely touted in the 90s as the solution to the world's pollution problems, but what ended up happening is that people's impression of recycling and their actual implementations turned out to be woefully out of sync. One can argue that the long term damage of this discrepancy is that people will mindlessly buy plastic bottles of coke, ultimately contributing to the microplastics problem because they've been largely trained to think that recycling plastics works (instead of a hypothetical alternative reality where people might instead bring reusable containers to stores to buy things).
  - bawolff 6y ago
    > recycling was largely touted in the 90s as the solution to the world's pollution problems On the contrary that's not how i remember it - everyone was talking about how recycling was the worst out of reduce, reuse, recycle. However people want to clear their concious for free, so they chose recycling above all else.
    - lhorie 6y ago
      > everyone was talking about how recycling was the worst Curious to hear some of these examples. If you look at Japan, for example, they obsessively went all in on recycling. Look at how many different types of recyclables they have, the new electronics craze, the apartment complex obasans that would bring your unsorted garbage back to your unit door as a form of passive-aggressive social peer pressure, etc. I distinctly remember being taught about recycling in school, and reading about it in children's books, but reduce and reuse were at best afterthoughts, if mentioned at all. Governments spend a considerable amount on recycling education (e.g. pamphlets about what can and cannot go in a recycling bin), but the taxation incentives I'm aware of don't really paint a super convincing reduce/reuse-oriented strategy.
    - Asooka 6y ago
      Granted, I was just a child in the 90s, but I remember all the messaging on TV from cartoons and movies was "recycle, recycle, recycle". I didn't hear anything about"reduce" and "reuse" until I read about it on the internet a few years ago. There were some mentions about making sure not to waste resources, but it wasn't a named thing like recycle was.
      - wolco 6y ago
        As a child in the late 80s it was the three r's. Then the bluebox program became the focus.
ip26 6y ago
I figure it's more money ("demand") going towards carbon offsets, which should mean increasing development in offsetting ("supply"). Whether that's R&D on carbon capture, greater economic viability for carbon free energy, or greater incentives for halting deforestation, it should all be a net good in a march towards drawing down carbon emissions.

by lhorie 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago

Maybe its a step in the rigt direction the way aluminium recycling is (i.e. actually useful)

systemvoltage 6y ago

I don't understand how we are comparing Energy generation with specifics about how it is generated and Plastic Recycling...what's that have to do with Energy production? Totally separate things.

res0nat0r 6y ago
I think it is that Google says its carbon footprint is "zero", just like folks who maybe recycle 100% of everything they buy from the store, but in reality much of that isn't actually recyclable even if it has the logo on it. Thus this statement should likely be taken with a grain of salt.
lhorie 6y ago
GP already provided some "devil-in-the-details" line items to poke holes at carbon offsets (e.g. are all types of emissions being considered correctly) The parallel that I'm drawing is that recycling was largely touted in the 90s as the solution to the world's pollution problems, but what ended up happening is that people's impression of recycling and their actual implementations turned out to be woefully out of sync. One can argue that the long term damage of this discrepancy is that people will mindlessly buy plastic bottles of coke, ultimately contributing to the microplastics problem because they've been largely trained to think that recycling plastics works (instead of a hypothetical alternative reality where people might instead bring reusable containers to stores to buy things).
- bawolff 6y ago
  > recycling was largely touted in the 90s as the solution to the world's pollution problems On the contrary that's not how i remember it - everyone was talking about how recycling was the worst out of reduce, reuse, recycle. However people want to clear their concious for free, so they chose recycling above all else.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    > everyone was talking about how recycling was the worst Curious to hear some of these examples. If you look at Japan, for example, they obsessively went all in on recycling. Look at how many different types of recyclables they have, the new electronics craze, the apartment complex obasans that would bring your unsorted garbage back to your unit door as a form of passive-aggressive social peer pressure, etc. I distinctly remember being taught about recycling in school, and reading about it in children's books, but reduce and reuse were at best afterthoughts, if mentioned at all. Governments spend a considerable amount on recycling education (e.g. pamphlets about what can and cannot go in a recycling bin), but the taxation incentives I'm aware of don't really paint a super convincing reduce/reuse-oriented strategy.
  - Asooka 6y ago
    Granted, I was just a child in the 90s, but I remember all the messaging on TV from cartoons and movies was "recycle, recycle, recycle". I didn't hear anything about"reduce" and "reuse" until I read about it on the internet a few years ago. There were some mentions about making sure not to waste resources, but it wasn't a named thing like recycle was.
    - wolco 6y ago
      As a child in the late 80s it was the three r's. Then the bluebox program became the focus.

ip26 6y ago

I figure it's more money ("demand") going towards carbon offsets, which should mean increasing development in offsetting ("supply"). Whether that's R&D on carbon capture, greater economic viability for carbon free energy, or greater incentives for halting deforestation, it should all be a net good in a march towards drawing down carbon emissions.