4 ms·

This uses the amount of energy or carbon emissions of which country? We should make headlines this way all the time

by vmception 5y ago

seibelj 5y ago
I wonder how many millennia of using paper straws a single day of this fiasco wiped out from carbon savings.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  Paper straws are generally more energy and resource intensive than plastic straws. The switch to paper straws was theoretically about eliminating single use plastics. As someone who has done scientific surveys of beach flotsam: my personal feeling is that the switch to paper straws will change precisely nothing as far as global plastic pollution goes.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    Hold on - you’re saying that by using paper straws, you damage the earth even more than plastic ones? Plus they don’t even work? Why is this not all over the news!?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - vimy 5y ago
      Almost all the plastic alternatives are worse. Plastic is a wonder material and unfairly demonized. Instead of banning plastics we should have invested in waste management infrastructure in the developing countries where almost all the ocean plastic originates from. Probably would have been cheaper too.
      - inyorgroove 5y ago
        No mention about how most plastics contain endocrine disruptors[1], this is having a real world impact on human procreation. BPA was only the first of many boogie chemicals in this space. This is also impacting children in a way we don't understand fully yet [2]. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3572204/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3572204/
        echelon 5y ago
        The biggest impact to human procreation is globalization and falling wages amongst the working class. Survey a few millennials and ask if they'll be having kids. They don't have the time or the money. We've removed BPA, but there are plenty of other hormone analogues we're exposed to. Soy, for instance. Endocrine alteration is probably nowhere near as bad as the particulate matter we're breathing in, the amount of sugar we're consuming, or the time we're spending on our phones. All this to say that I don't think "plastics as hormones" is as bad as the other stuff we have to worry about. We should triage it appropriately.
        mike_d 5y ago
        > this is having a real world impact on human procreation Which, like it or not, is one of the best things we can do for the environment.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- vmception 5y ago
  I was thirsty at a popup in a park recently and they handed me boxed water. Since I really hate the taste of water passing through cardboard I asked for a single use plastic cup, preferably with a single use plastic straw. In those words. Nature quickly healed. I pretended that using the recycling bin would change something, but I know that nobody takes our garbage anymore.
  - llampx 5y ago
    Good job, I guess? You sure owned the libs.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Nice I snagged another one, I should start making a tally of people guessing my political affiliation on this forum since they have no aggregate chronology and respond to a single data point https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29879903&goto=threads%3Fnext%3D29879903%26id%3Dvmception%2329879903 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29879903&goto=threads%... What are you exposed to in order to come up with this stuff? The point is that paper everything is an uninspired knee jerk reaction that isn’t holistic enough to address the environmental impact
      - llampx 5y ago
        You may not like it, but your post sounded like a boomer Uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, so if you don't want that reaction, consider your words.
        vmception 5y ago
        Back in my day, China took our garbage and said they were recycling it!
throwhauser 5y ago
That many flights probably does match the fossil fuel consumption of some countries with low levels of electrification. What a tremendous waste of resources.
skinnymuch 5y ago
No one [in the west] cares about the [lack of consumption] of places like the Gaza Strip, Central African Republic, Chad, and so on. A headline referring to the consumption of Gaza or CAR would be rather obtuse with how little people know about the difficulties of either countries/areas. CAR being in perpetual civil war, Gaza being a land locked ghetto. Palestine and CAR roughly use a bit more than a combined 200 Gigawatt hours/year. That’s low double digits kilowatt hours/yer/person. For some context, the US uses 5 megawatt hours/year/person. That’s under 50K average electricity usage per year per person outdoing both countries with a combined population closing in on 150x. Obviously this is oversimplifying things but outdoing energy, carbon emissions, what have you, of a number of countries wouldn’t be difficult.

This uses the amount of energy or carbon emissions of which country? We should make headlines this way all the time

seibelj 5y ago

I wonder how many millennia of using paper straws a single day of this fiasco wiped out from carbon savings.

dghlsakjg 5y ago
Paper straws are generally more energy and resource intensive than plastic straws. The switch to paper straws was theoretically about eliminating single use plastics. As someone who has done scientific surveys of beach flotsam: my personal feeling is that the switch to paper straws will change precisely nothing as far as global plastic pollution goes.
- seibelj 5y ago
  Hold on - you’re saying that by using paper straws, you damage the earth even more than plastic ones? Plus they don’t even work? Why is this not all over the news!?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - vimy 5y ago
    Almost all the plastic alternatives are worse. Plastic is a wonder material and unfairly demonized. Instead of banning plastics we should have invested in waste management infrastructure in the developing countries where almost all the ocean plastic originates from. Probably would have been cheaper too.
    - inyorgroove 5y ago
      No mention about how most plastics contain endocrine disruptors[1], this is having a real world impact on human procreation. BPA was only the first of many boogie chemicals in this space. This is also impacting children in a way we don't understand fully yet [2]. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3572204/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3572204/
      - echelon 5y ago
        The biggest impact to human procreation is globalization and falling wages amongst the working class. Survey a few millennials and ask if they'll be having kids. They don't have the time or the money. We've removed BPA, but there are plenty of other hormone analogues we're exposed to. Soy, for instance. Endocrine alteration is probably nowhere near as bad as the particulate matter we're breathing in, the amount of sugar we're consuming, or the time we're spending on our phones. All this to say that I don't think "plastics as hormones" is as bad as the other stuff we have to worry about. We should triage it appropriately.
      - mike_d 5y ago
        > this is having a real world impact on human procreation Which, like it or not, is one of the best things we can do for the environment.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vmception 5y ago
I was thirsty at a popup in a park recently and they handed me boxed water. Since I really hate the taste of water passing through cardboard I asked for a single use plastic cup, preferably with a single use plastic straw. In those words. Nature quickly healed. I pretended that using the recycling bin would change something, but I know that nobody takes our garbage anymore.
- llampx 5y ago
  Good job, I guess? You sure owned the libs.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Nice I snagged another one, I should start making a tally of people guessing my political affiliation on this forum since they have no aggregate chronology and respond to a single data point https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29879903&goto=threads%3Fnext%3D29879903%26id%3Dvmception%2329879903 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29879903&goto=threads%... What are you exposed to in order to come up with this stuff? The point is that paper everything is an uninspired knee jerk reaction that isn’t holistic enough to address the environmental impact
    - llampx 5y ago
      You may not like it, but your post sounded like a boomer Uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, so if you don't want that reaction, consider your words.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Back in my day, China took our garbage and said they were recycling it!

throwhauser 5y ago

That many flights probably does match the fossil fuel consumption of some countries with low levels of electrification. What a tremendous waste of resources.

skinnymuch 5y ago

No one [in the west] cares about the [lack of consumption] of places like the Gaza Strip, Central African Republic, Chad, and so on. A headline referring to the consumption of Gaza or CAR would be rather obtuse with how little people know about the difficulties of either countries/areas. CAR being in perpetual civil war, Gaza being a land locked ghetto. Palestine and CAR roughly use a bit more than a combined 200 Gigawatt hours/year. That’s low double digits kilowatt hours/yer/person. For some context, the US uses 5 megawatt hours/year/person. That’s under 50K average electricity usage per year per person outdoing both countries with a combined population closing in on 150x. Obviously this is oversimplifying things but outdoing energy, carbon emissions, what have you, of a number of countries wouldn’t be difficult.