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> if at least 90 percent of the world’s new urban population is housed in buildings made from wood I put this in the category of my favorite joke with regards
by robomartin 4y ago
> if at least 90 percent of the world’s new urban population is housed in buildings made from wood
I put this in the category of my favorite joke with regards to physics in the classroom vs. real-world physics. It goes something like this:
"Assume a cow is a uniform sphere of milk, one meter in diameter"
Anyone who has studied physics to a reasonable depth understands the great disparity between the "assume..." constraints of classroom teaching (which are necessary to be able to learn) and what happens with real-world problems.
This is at that level. At least NINETY PERCENT? C'mon. I thought Disney was where fantasies are made for entertainment, not in scientific research.
We've just experienced several very large fires in California. Just one of these probably emits more CO2 than all internal combustion vehicles in the state in a day. I remember reading vegetation fires in California, in one year, emit the equivalent of 25% of the CO2 emitted by the entire transportation sector in the state during the same year. In other words, if internal combustion engine cars went away tomorrow, we would still produce so much CO2 from fires it would almost be pointless.
Now add to this the additional fires we would have to contend with if we plant millions/billions of trees. The fires would be larger and likely more frequent. They would probably destroy more property and wild life. And now, add to this entire cities built out of timber, rather than concrete. In other words, in a sense, storing the CO2 containing wood in a structure full of electrical wiring, gas lines, and other fire hazards.
Yes, that would be intelligent. Instead of creating less fire danger, increase it. Exponentially.
Like a I said, assume a cow is a uniform sphere of milk one meter in diameter and everything is possible.
EDIT:
The irony, of course, is that massive reforestation around the world is likely the only realistic way to capture CO2 at scale.
- twawaaay 4y agoExcept forest fires do not produce CO2. They release carbon that has been temporarily stored in trees and is part of the carbon cycle. On the other hand, by driving a car, you are adding to the atmosphere carbon that has not been in the cycle. Btw, for the same reason, neither planting trees nor building cities out of wood will do anything. It is awfully hard to preserve wood forever in any large quantities that would make any difference.
- User23 4y ago> Except forest fires do not produce CO2. They release carbon that has been temporarily stored in trees and is part of the carbon cycle. By that reasoning burning coal doesn’t produce CO2 either. It’s just a matter of the size of the time constant. Coal burning is just a forest fire with greater hysteresis.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- robomartin 4y agoExactly right. How many trees go into making one barrel of petroleum that we burn millions of years later?
- userbinator 4y agoCoal burning is just a forest fire with greater hysteresis. With the added benefit of providing useful power, unlike a forest fire.
- 1270018080 4y agoYes. And there is quite a bit of difference between 50 years and 10 million.
- twawaaay 4y agoActually, it is more like 300 million. The coal formed because plants produced lignin but there was no organism that was able to break it up, until fungi evolved. Now it is pretty much impossible for new coal to form in significant amount (except maybe for peat bogs) because every tree that falls will rot.
- kube-system 4y agoForest fires happen as a part of natural occurrences. Petroleum/coal is only burned due to human activities.
- robomartin 4y ago
- mcbishop 4y agoBut those burned trees pulled the fire-released carbon from the atmosphere not all that long ago. ...Vs. the carbon in fossil fuels, which has been underground for literally millions of years.
- robomartin 4y agoNot sure what your point might be. If you burn the equivalent of thirty years of forest growth and release that carbon it will take, I don't know, a thousand years to get it back. This isn't a 1 to 1 game. Nothing in the real world works with 100% efficiency. Atmospheric CO2 remain in the atmosphere for a very, very long time. Thinking we can just reach out and retrieve it --at a planetary scale-- is nothing more than a fantasy being sold to make money.
- mcbishop 4y ago> it will take, I don't know, a thousand years to get it back Is there math behind this? Even back-of-napkin math?
- robomartin 4y agoIt's easy to get a sense of proportion for these things. Example: One of the latest fires in Southern California burned through 5200 acres in about four days. What was burned easily represents twenty years of growth. Simple math: 20 years x 365 days = 7,300 days The CO2 was released in four days, therefore 7,300 / 4 = 1,825 If carbon re-capture was 100% efficient and 100% reversible (not the case), that means you need 1,825 units of time to recapture what you release in one day. I used "a thousand years" as a figure of speech to communicate that it takes a massively long amount of time to grab CO2 out of the atmosphere, no matter the source. These are not efficient processes. Even if my figure of speech is off by a factor of 100, it means the annual CO2 contribution by forest fires takes ten years to recapture. That is an unwinnable ratio. Sticking our heads into the ground and ignoring reality isn't going to solve any problems. For example, there are fires around the world that have been burning continuously for hundreds and thousands of years. And these are not small insignificant fires. If all of humanity evaporated from this planet tomorrow, atmospheric CO2 would still require tends of thousands of years to come down. These are planetary scale problems that are impossible for us to solve. The "save the planet" narratives out there are hubris at best, and money-making/power-grabbing scams at worst. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/04/16/the_underground_fires_that_can_burn_for_thousands_of_years.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/04/16/the_undergr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire What I find truly remarkable is that we can't even control these fires that burn for a century or more and we are actually buying into the idea of saving the planet. The scale of these fires, when compared to a planetary scale problem is a rounding error, laughably small. One way I think of it is: Put out all of these long-burning fires and they I'll believe we might be able to affect atmospheric CO2 at a planetary scale. Until then, it's a fairy tale. A fantasy.
- blacksqr 4y agoOur path is clear. Pave over all forests and our climate change problems are over.
- rascul 4y agoESR wrote something along those lines some years ago. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6607 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6607 Edit: Apparently his site doesn't say who he is anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
- blacksqr 4y agoIt is a dark day when the younglings no longer recognize the sacred Initialed Ones.