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> there's much bigger impact to be made if they work from the top down Exactly. Germany banning plastic straws while simultaneously funding a new natural gas p

> there's much bigger impact to be made if they work from the top down Exactly. Germany banning plastic straws while simultaneously funding a new natural gas pipeline feels very much like they just want it to seem like things are improving.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Disposable plastics are a problem first and foremost because they cause proliferation of microplastics in the biosphere. This is an issue, but it's not an important issue right now. It's likely harmful to biosphere and to us in the long run - but as of today, there's no noticeable harm being done that can be tied to microplastics, which suggests any negative effects are weak. Climate change, on the other hand, is a civilization-ending threat. We keep burning more fossil fuels, and it's quite likely our grandchildren will get to starve to death. Preventing this should be our absolute top priority. Microplastics can wait. It's like trying to administer first aid to an accident victim who has a nasty skin cut on their arm, and a leg that got cut off below the knee. Yes, that skin cut is painful and it needs treating to prevent infection, but it can wait - the first priority is to deal with the leg, before the victim bleeds out.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  > Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Things that everybody is going to notice first-hand have an outsized impact on public consciousness. When combined with democracy, this has nasty consequences. For politicians banning plastic straws is a no-brainer: easy to ban, no real impact on anything, and everyone is going to notice it and feel like something is happening. Same for plastic grocery bags and cutlery. Do it and maybe you'll grab some of those Green votes, same play as the Energiewende. Meanwhile if you make industry even just .1% more efficient the impact is larger by orders of magnitude but nobody is going to notice, first-hand, right now. So it's pointless when you only care about votes. Which is sadly a main feature of democracy.
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    Do you have any better alternatives to a democracy?
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      There doesn't seem to be any good one. GP described what's a clear systemic failure inherent in the current implementation of the system. This doesn't mean we have to throw the system away - figuring out how to mitigate this problem would work too. On this, I don't have any solid ideas. In a way, it's a marketing problem: maybe there's a way to make people more receptive to reality than to feel-good but ultimately meaningless actions? I sometimes wonder if governments shouldn't have an official propaganda department, with an official website, explaining in layman's terms the reasoning behind various laws being introduced. You'd go to a page for plastic straws ban, and see the government's official word on why it was drafted, what problem it's meant to solve, how it attempts that, and how they track the results. Of course, everyone would have a field day debunking every single article from a million different angles, but at least it would serve to anchor the discussion. And it would be a place for a smarter politicians/parties to explain why increasing efficiency of some industry by 0.01% is a huge win by the current administration - hopefully leading to more such actions in the future. There's a thin line between giving clear explanations and patronizing the citizens, but I think governments need to start walking it - as it is, politics is way too complicated for regular people to follow in any meaningful sense, other than repeating soundbites.
    - read_if_gay_ 5y ago
      Nope, I'm just noting a failure mode.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      Republicanism, lots of little democracies competing against one another for citizens, yet united when it comes to things like national defense. The US was originally designed to be a constitutional republic but a growing federal government has degraded it to more of a simple representative democracy.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  Crowded, rich countries that responsibly burn garbage & waste still have a serious issue with dioxins generated by burning plastics. You can filter some of it, but usually areas around these plants have much higher than normal dioxin levels. That said, I like the balance in your comment about the known effects of microplastics. At the moment, it is just a hype story. Honestly: No one really knows, but we should continue to seriously monitor and research the issue. I have heard that stretchy clothing (aka "ath-leisure") causes a lot of micro-fibres to be shed during laundry. This is simiar to microplastics, as most ath-leisure is made with synthetic materials that are essentially refined oil (as plastics).
thiago_fm 5y ago
Natural gas is great. It doesn't generate as much pollution as one might think. Other than fully clean energy like hydro and solar, it is one of the best.
- paulmd 5y ago
  it doesn't generate much in terms of particulate emissions (eg it's not dirty like diesel) but it's quite bad in terms of greenhouse effects. the natural gas pipeline network leaks a relatively large amount of the gas that transits it (it's on the order of several percent per year) and because it's such a distributed problem it's not economical for companies to fix it purely on a cost-savings basis. And natural gas (methane) is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - it is #2, behind only carbon dioxide in overall impact on the atmosphere, and something around 100x as potent as CO2 over a 100 year lifespan. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/the-us-natural-gas-industry-leaking-way-more-methane-than-ever-before.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/the-us-natural-gas-industry-... new studies suggest the leak rate is around 2.3%, which is about twice as high as previously predicted - and at 3% you have offset all the benefits compared to coal generation. Again, obviously that's still better in terms of particulate emissions/acid rain, but you wouldn't be doing any less global warming. So it is still significantly bad in terms of greenhouse effect, not nearly the panacea the fossil-fuel industry would like to present it as. (and conversely - the fact that it's such a distributed problem makes it difficult/expensive to clean up. you can capture CO2 and particulates from a point source - it's expensive and it sucks but you can do it. But you can't stop 2 million miles of pipes from leaking a little bit at every fitting.) the only saving grace is that methane does oxidize relatively quickly, on the order of tens of years, whereas CO2 is pretty much there forever. but if we're still pumping out more natural gas into the atmosphere 10 years later, that's not really the fix people think it is. Again, it's 100x more potent over a 100 year lifespan than CO2, the "long term" picture isn't all that rosy either.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    slight addendum to the above - I should have said "not dirty like fossil-diesel". I'd like to make the point that synthetic diesels like biodiesel are extremely clean in terms of particulates and is in fact one of the more interesting "bio-fuels" (although of course there are always problems with any approach that puts food in direct competition with fuel for feedstocks).
throwaway2037 5y ago
I'm confused by the second part <<funding a new natural gas pipeline>>. I assume you are talking about Nord Stream 2. Switching from brown coal to natural gas can reduce carbon footprint by about 50%. This is a good stepping stone to reduce the huge amount of brown coal that Germany uses for power. Also, the reduction in NOx and SOx is huge by switching from brown coal to natural gas. Another big win for public health. Do I misunderstand your point? Germany has limited places to harvest wind (North Sea) and limited solar resources. How else can they reduce their carbon footprint? I guess they can build massive solar arrays in Libya and then build the world's largest long-range DC power line to Munich? (No joke: Singapore might do this with Australia.)
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  It seems you argue it’s a stepping stone, then you argue there’s no other way. Both of these can’t be true. But if you ask me, the long term answer is nuclear. I know it’s controversial but many of the issues are blown out of proportion.
  - daddylongstroke 5y ago
    I would argue, that when you take a holistic view of the complete environment, including the soils and subsoils where our food largely comes from, the only long term answer you're left with is to de-civilize and go back to hand tools, local living, and animal transport for the rare times it's needed.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Disposable plastics are a problem first and foremost because they cause proliferation of microplastics in the biosphere. This is an issue, but it's not an important issue right now. It's likely harmful to biosphere and to us in the long run - but as of today, there's no noticeable harm being done that can be tied to microplastics, which suggests any negative effects are weak. Climate change, on the other hand, is a civilization-ending threat. We keep burning more fossil fuels, and it's quite likely our grandchildren will get to starve to death. Preventing this should be our absolute top priority. Microplastics can wait. It's like trying to administer first aid to an accident victim who has a nasty skin cut on their arm, and a leg that got cut off below the knee. Yes, that skin cut is painful and it needs treating to prevent infection, but it can wait - the first priority is to deal with the leg, before the victim bleeds out.

read_if_gay_ 5y ago
> Public consciousness seems to lack the ability to prioritize issues. Things that everybody is going to notice first-hand have an outsized impact on public consciousness. When combined with democracy, this has nasty consequences. For politicians banning plastic straws is a no-brainer: easy to ban, no real impact on anything, and everyone is going to notice it and feel like something is happening. Same for plastic grocery bags and cutlery. Do it and maybe you'll grab some of those Green votes, same play as the Energiewende. Meanwhile if you make industry even just .1% more efficient the impact is larger by orders of magnitude but nobody is going to notice, first-hand, right now. So it's pointless when you only care about votes. Which is sadly a main feature of democracy.
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  Do you have any better alternatives to a democracy?
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    There doesn't seem to be any good one. GP described what's a clear systemic failure inherent in the current implementation of the system. This doesn't mean we have to throw the system away - figuring out how to mitigate this problem would work too. On this, I don't have any solid ideas. In a way, it's a marketing problem: maybe there's a way to make people more receptive to reality than to feel-good but ultimately meaningless actions? I sometimes wonder if governments shouldn't have an official propaganda department, with an official website, explaining in layman's terms the reasoning behind various laws being introduced. You'd go to a page for plastic straws ban, and see the government's official word on why it was drafted, what problem it's meant to solve, how it attempts that, and how they track the results. Of course, everyone would have a field day debunking every single article from a million different angles, but at least it would serve to anchor the discussion. And it would be a place for a smarter politicians/parties to explain why increasing efficiency of some industry by 0.01% is a huge win by the current administration - hopefully leading to more such actions in the future. There's a thin line between giving clear explanations and patronizing the citizens, but I think governments need to start walking it - as it is, politics is way too complicated for regular people to follow in any meaningful sense, other than repeating soundbites.
  - read_if_gay_ 5y ago
    Nope, I'm just noting a failure mode.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Republicanism, lots of little democracies competing against one another for citizens, yet united when it comes to things like national defense. The US was originally designed to be a constitutional republic but a growing federal government has degraded it to more of a simple representative democracy.
throwaway2037 5y ago
Crowded, rich countries that responsibly burn garbage & waste still have a serious issue with dioxins generated by burning plastics. You can filter some of it, but usually areas around these plants have much higher than normal dioxin levels. That said, I like the balance in your comment about the known effects of microplastics. At the moment, it is just a hype story. Honestly: No one really knows, but we should continue to seriously monitor and research the issue. I have heard that stretchy clothing (aka "ath-leisure") causes a lot of micro-fibres to be shed during laundry. This is simiar to microplastics, as most ath-leisure is made with synthetic materials that are essentially refined oil (as plastics).

thiago_fm 5y ago

Natural gas is great. It doesn't generate as much pollution as one might think. Other than fully clean energy like hydro and solar, it is one of the best.

paulmd 5y ago
it doesn't generate much in terms of particulate emissions (eg it's not dirty like diesel) but it's quite bad in terms of greenhouse effects. the natural gas pipeline network leaks a relatively large amount of the gas that transits it (it's on the order of several percent per year) and because it's such a distributed problem it's not economical for companies to fix it purely on a cost-savings basis. And natural gas (methane) is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - it is #2, behind only carbon dioxide in overall impact on the atmosphere, and something around 100x as potent as CO2 over a 100 year lifespan. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/the-us-natural-gas-industry-leaking-way-more-methane-than-ever-before.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/the-us-natural-gas-industry-... new studies suggest the leak rate is around 2.3%, which is about twice as high as previously predicted - and at 3% you have offset all the benefits compared to coal generation. Again, obviously that's still better in terms of particulate emissions/acid rain, but you wouldn't be doing any less global warming. So it is still significantly bad in terms of greenhouse effect, not nearly the panacea the fossil-fuel industry would like to present it as. (and conversely - the fact that it's such a distributed problem makes it difficult/expensive to clean up. you can capture CO2 and particulates from a point source - it's expensive and it sucks but you can do it. But you can't stop 2 million miles of pipes from leaking a little bit at every fitting.) the only saving grace is that methane does oxidize relatively quickly, on the order of tens of years, whereas CO2 is pretty much there forever. but if we're still pumping out more natural gas into the atmosphere 10 years later, that's not really the fix people think it is. Again, it's 100x more potent over a 100 year lifespan than CO2, the "long term" picture isn't all that rosy either.
- paulmd 5y ago
  slight addendum to the above - I should have said "not dirty like fossil-diesel". I'd like to make the point that synthetic diesels like biodiesel are extremely clean in terms of particulates and is in fact one of the more interesting "bio-fuels" (although of course there are always problems with any approach that puts food in direct competition with fuel for feedstocks).

throwaway2037 5y ago

I'm confused by the second part <<funding a new natural gas pipeline>>. I assume you are talking about Nord Stream 2. Switching from brown coal to natural gas can reduce carbon footprint by about 50%. This is a good stepping stone to reduce the huge amount of brown coal that Germany uses for power. Also, the reduction in NOx and SOx is huge by switching from brown coal to natural gas. Another big win for public health. Do I misunderstand your point? Germany has limited places to harvest wind (North Sea) and limited solar resources. How else can they reduce their carbon footprint? I guess they can build massive solar arrays in Libya and then build the world's largest long-range DC power line to Munich? (No joke: Singapore might do this with Australia.)

read_if_gay_ 5y ago
It seems you argue it’s a stepping stone, then you argue there’s no other way. Both of these can’t be true. But if you ask me, the long term answer is nuclear. I know it’s controversial but many of the issues are blown out of proportion.
- daddylongstroke 5y ago
  I would argue, that when you take a holistic view of the complete environment, including the soils and subsoils where our food largely comes from, the only long term answer you're left with is to de-civilize and go back to hand tools, local living, and animal transport for the rare times it's needed.