4 ms·

Your neighbor has the right to BBQ, there’s a point where we need to live our lives and stop advocating for denial of comfort.

tito 4y ago
This is an interesting point but I can't see any way that we create a sustainable system that works like this. Carbon dioxide is an unaccounted part of the system. Inevitably, whether it's now or in 1,000 years, a functional society will need to account for these kinds of externalities. "The bill for magical thinking arrives with unpredictable timing but thunderous force." -pmarca
pessimizer 4y ago
> Your neighbor has the right to BBQ Not constitutionally. I demand that people stop advocating for general solutions and instead focus their action on my petty personal grievances for a marginal return.
- landemva 4y ago
  Well, yes, the federal constitution provides no rights including to bbq. It is a negative document which details restrictions on government.
saalweachter 4y ago
I mean, a $15/tonne carbon(dioxide) tax would raise the cost of a 20lb bag of charcoal by $0.50, or about 3% based on a quick search. So the BBQing itself is probably not prohibitively expensive. The price of the beef burgers would go up by 7% according to Beef Magazine, 150% according to vegnews.com, and 40% according to NY Times.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  For context, here's a news article from March of this year: "The biggest food price hikes are in meats, with pork and beef up 14% to 20% compared with a year ago." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-prices-pandemic-inflation-corporate-greed/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-prices-pandemic-inflation-...
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Charcoal is carbon neutral, it's simply releasing the CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by the trees that made the charcoal. So there shouldn't be a carbon tax on charcoal.
  - gumby 4y ago
    The production of charcoal itself emits a lot of CO2
    - hedora 4y ago
      Source? Isn't it basically the same process as biochar, which has been proposed as a carbon capture technology (the idea being that you bury the resulting charcoal instead of burning it)?
      - gumby 4y ago
        Yes, as far as I can tell the footprint of pyrolysis portion is basically the same (various wild seeming claims notwithstanding) though I haven't dug into this deeply, and specifically haven't looked into it in over a decade. However on a full cycle basis the difference is biochar is typically made from local material (mostly the leftover waste from the prior year's harvest) which is right there (zero transport) and would otherwise rot and release methane and CO2 on its own, even if plowed into the field. Charcoal is made from trees, typically cut down and transported to a factory and then transported to the customer. In general I am not in favor of burning trees, enjoyable as it is on a cold night out in the forest.
unethical_ban 4y ago
That's a big woosh right there. The parent was making a an arbitrary comparison to another arbitrary and trolling comment regarding indoor plant cultivation.

tito 4y ago

This is an interesting point but I can't see any way that we create a sustainable system that works like this. Carbon dioxide is an unaccounted part of the system. Inevitably, whether it's now or in 1,000 years, a functional society will need to account for these kinds of externalities. "The bill for magical thinking arrives with unpredictable timing but thunderous force." -pmarca

pessimizer 4y ago

> Your neighbor has the right to BBQ Not constitutionally. I demand that people stop advocating for general solutions and instead focus their action on my petty personal grievances for a marginal return.

landemva 4y ago
Well, yes, the federal constitution provides no rights including to bbq. It is a negative document which details restrictions on government.

saalweachter 4y ago

I mean, a $15/tonne carbon(dioxide) tax would raise the cost of a 20lb bag of charcoal by $0.50, or about 3% based on a quick search. So the BBQing itself is probably not prohibitively expensive. The price of the beef burgers would go up by 7% according to Beef Magazine, 150% according to vegnews.com, and 40% according to NY Times.

dane-pgp 4y ago
For context, here's a news article from March of this year: "The biggest food price hikes are in meats, with pork and beef up 14% to 20% compared with a year ago." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-prices-pandemic-inflation-corporate-greed/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-prices-pandemic-inflation-...
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Charcoal is carbon neutral, it's simply releasing the CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by the trees that made the charcoal. So there shouldn't be a carbon tax on charcoal.
- gumby 4y ago
  The production of charcoal itself emits a lot of CO2
  - hedora 4y ago
    Source? Isn't it basically the same process as biochar, which has been proposed as a carbon capture technology (the idea being that you bury the resulting charcoal instead of burning it)?
    - gumby 4y ago
      Yes, as far as I can tell the footprint of pyrolysis portion is basically the same (various wild seeming claims notwithstanding) though I haven't dug into this deeply, and specifically haven't looked into it in over a decade. However on a full cycle basis the difference is biochar is typically made from local material (mostly the leftover waste from the prior year's harvest) which is right there (zero transport) and would otherwise rot and release methane and CO2 on its own, even if plowed into the field. Charcoal is made from trees, typically cut down and transported to a factory and then transported to the customer. In general I am not in favor of burning trees, enjoyable as it is on a cold night out in the forest.

unethical_ban 4y ago

That's a big woosh right there. The parent was making a an arbitrary comparison to another arbitrary and trolling comment regarding indoor plant cultivation.