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The term "carbon negative" is getting overused a lot, and this is one example... The carbon is not removed permanently, it's stored in products that will event

by hannob 5y ago

The term "carbon negative" is getting overused a lot, and this is one example... The carbon is not removed permanently, it's stored in products that will eventually end up in an incinerator causing CO2 (or worse, on a landfill, where their degredation may cause even more harmful greenhouse gases).

Denvercoder9 5y ago
Regardless of the nuances of what "carbon negative" exactly means (and I agree it often gets misused), everytime we move a process off of using coal/oil/gas and onto using carbon that's already in the atmospheric cycle, that's a win in the fight against climate change.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Yeah, this gets missed a lot in conversations about climate but it's crucially important: the carbon cycle is a necessary part of the environment - the way we're messing it up is by emptying a long-held buffer of carbon (fossil fuels), and emitting carbon faster than it can be reabsorbed, while diminishing the reabsorption process through clear cutting, soil erosion and ecosystem destruction. Producing some CO2 is inevitable; we need the amount to be sustainable, the cycle to be balanced, and to stop emptying large carbon buffers. We can use hydrocarbons if they're made of atmospheric CO2. if anything, they serve as a temporary buffer, like a CO2 cache. I really need to get round to starting my blog on cybernetics and system dynamics one of these days; I see these kinds of misconceptions all the time across so many subjects.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    Well actually … I see these kinds of well actually forest for the trees statements all the time. Anyone who has studied global warming or taken any science class already knows about the carbon cycle.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      You probably see them in response to people saying that renewable carbon processes are bad because of CO2. Which is the erroneous view that I was correcting. You and I may know about the specifics of the carbon cycle that are being overloaded, but clearly GP was applying an incorrect mental model. Which, even if you know about the carbon cycle, you can do.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
You don’t have to remove co2 permanently to be useful, for instance, each individual tree may eventually become gas again, but if you double the size of the forest, you’ve doubled the amount of gas not currently in the atmosphere. As long as that forest exists, that carbon is captured, even as individual trees get swapped out for their gaseous counterpart.

by hannob 5y ago

Denvercoder9 5y ago

Regardless of the nuances of what "carbon negative" exactly means (and I agree it often gets misused), everytime we move a process off of using coal/oil/gas and onto using carbon that's already in the atmospheric cycle, that's a win in the fight against climate change.

beaconstudios 5y ago
Yeah, this gets missed a lot in conversations about climate but it's crucially important: the carbon cycle is a necessary part of the environment - the way we're messing it up is by emptying a long-held buffer of carbon (fossil fuels), and emitting carbon faster than it can be reabsorbed, while diminishing the reabsorption process through clear cutting, soil erosion and ecosystem destruction. Producing some CO2 is inevitable; we need the amount to be sustainable, the cycle to be balanced, and to stop emptying large carbon buffers. We can use hydrocarbons if they're made of atmospheric CO2. if anything, they serve as a temporary buffer, like a CO2 cache. I really need to get round to starting my blog on cybernetics and system dynamics one of these days; I see these kinds of misconceptions all the time across so many subjects.
- sitkack 5y ago
  Well actually … I see these kinds of well actually forest for the trees statements all the time. Anyone who has studied global warming or taken any science class already knows about the carbon cycle.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    You probably see them in response to people saying that renewable carbon processes are bad because of CO2. Which is the erroneous view that I was correcting. You and I may know about the specifics of the carbon cycle that are being overloaded, but clearly GP was applying an incorrect mental model. Which, even if you know about the carbon cycle, you can do.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

You don’t have to remove co2 permanently to be useful, for instance, each individual tree may eventually become gas again, but if you double the size of the forest, you’ve doubled the amount of gas not currently in the atmosphere. As long as that forest exists, that carbon is captured, even as individual trees get swapped out for their gaseous counterpart.