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> You can't keep physical copies of everything forever Actually, maybe that would be a good way to sequester carbon.
by lisper 5y ago
> You can't keep physical copies of everything forever
Actually, maybe that would be a good way to sequester carbon.
- dmurray 5y agoIt's about a thousand times more expensive per ton to store the paper in libraries in archival condition than to bury it in a bog, so not really.
- lisper 5y agoTrue, but you get value from newspapers that you don't get from bogs so it could even out.
- nkrisc 5y agoAn even more efficient way would be to just not cut down the trees to make paper in the first place.
- a1369209993 5y agoActually, that's a specific thing that does not work (at least long term). Trees die and rot if not cut down, and the carbon from that process has to be absorbed by the younger trees growing in the same space. So once a (mature) forest exists at a given location, it will no longer absorb any more carbon unless some of the trees are cut down and used for something that doesn't allow their carbon content to return to the atmosphere.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoNot at all. I suggest you walk past a paper mill sometime to truly understand how environmentally horrific they are. The one up near me finally paid to put scrubber systems on their air exhaust. Before then when the wind was blowing the right direction it made all of north portland smell like rotting cabbage. Even with the scrubbers you still smell it at the airport occasionally. Another fun detail is the parking lot workers park in has a drive through car wash/rinse device. The employees use it every shift when they leave... or at least they should if they don't want the acid fumes to eat the paint off their car. Paper mills cause far more pollution than any potential carbon sequestration benefit, which would be temporary in the long term anyhow. Books will rot unless you put them in a controlled atmosphere.
- ksdale 5y agoI don’t know nearly enough about the process to challenge your point, but I want to point out that just because something smells bad or produces acid in huge quantities doesn’t mean it’s permanently bad for the environment like unsequestered carbon emissions.
- akiselev 5y agoThe dose makes the poison and pretty much everything is toxic to a local environment at industrial scales. If the acid is stripping paint from cars faster than parking it on the beach, you can bet its a problem for the vast majority of an ecosystem that evolved alongside a freshwater river.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoThere's this thing called google that will help you resolve this dilemma. It's not even remotely in doubt.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoHere's the lot and the spray device I'm talking about: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5853027,-122.4086661,3a,75y,332.58h,90.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sd1IT3VSvVe0DVbHhy8EKIA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5853027,-122.4086661,3a,75y,...
- bpodgursky 5y agoIt might be true, but I can tell you I have hiked in a lot of completely-natural swamps that also smell like rotting cabbage.
- lisper 5y agoI'm not suggesting we make extra paper just for the purpose of sequestering carbon. The would obviously be foolish. All I'm saying is that if we are going to keep printing newspapers anyway (and at the moment we are) and the paper that goes into them is a sunk cost, then it might make sense to keep them around both for their historical value and as a carbon sink. But my tongue was part-way in my cheek when I suggested this because you'd have to warehouse an awful lot of newspapers to make a dent in the carbon problem.