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Spoken like a true capitalist. "There's money to be made here. We must allow the corporations to take over and build 10,000-acre monoculture farms in the ocean

Spoken like a true capitalist. "There's money to be made here. We must allow the corporations to take over and build 10,000-acre monoculture farms in the ocean. This is the only way we can make a difference"

TulliusCicero 4y ago
Who gives a shit if it's capitalists or the government or an NGO? Without sufficient scale, you won't make a difference. Tiny amounts of expensive foods aren't gonna make a dent in the status quo. Keeping things small means planning to fail. "Yes, solar and wind farms are good, but only if we make very few of them, by local artisans. Wouldn't want dreaded industry to actually help save the planet."
- cassepipe 4y ago
  On the one hand I have sympathy for your point : If we're going to do something, let's make it so it makes a difference. Simple point. Industry is what allows (most of) humanity to be fed and roofed, which is apparently something we like. But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place. Now, such an amount of energy expenditure is not sustainable at a global scale. Of course we need newer/greener technologies to save us from ending up like the proverbial boiled frog but we also need to understand how we got into that place. Capitalism, whether good or bad it doesn't matter, has a logic to it and it has externalities. I find that people who pretend those externalities are a minor problem/don't exist are the ones who benefit the most from the actual status quo and who will staunchly defend against changing anything in their way of life. That's when you get lame attacks about wanting to live a cave because you say SUV are energetically absurd and should be taxed to oblivion. When you make something at scale, when you change scale you have well, scale issues. What happen when all your soil can't pump out the water ? What happens where there is no space available for pollinating insects ? Suburbia is an attempt to scale housing after all. Not great imho. Another problem we have thing is that solar and wind energy production don't just fall into your hands, there's a lot of fossil fuel baked in their making. Are we sure that the energy harvested by a solar panel over its lifetime recoup what it has needed for production ? Maybe, I have no idea. (If someone know and can chime in, I'd be interested) So you don't just get to just go big brrrr and forget That was my point. Thanks for reading.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    > But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place. The point is that seaweed is actually less intensive than other forms of agriculture, though, so replacing other industrial agriculture with seaweed agriculture is a net decrease in intensity. It's similar to EV's: you still need to damage the environment to produce and operate them, but they cause less damage than ICE vehicles, so substitution is a net win. Another comparison would be when people complain about building tall apartment/condo towers "hurting the environment". Sure, it probably does hurt compared to doing nothing, but the alternative isn't nothing, it's lower density sprawl that hurts nature far more. This is why being opposed to urban density is a fundamentally anti-environmental position. Same deal for seaweed scaling. If you're opposed to scaling up the thing that hurts the environment less, then you're in favor of hurting the environment.
    - cassepipe 4y ago
      Ok, thanks for explaining your point a little further.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

Who gives a shit if it's capitalists or the government or an NGO? Without sufficient scale, you won't make a difference. Tiny amounts of expensive foods aren't gonna make a dent in the status quo. Keeping things small means planning to fail. "Yes, solar and wind farms are good, but only if we make very few of them, by local artisans. Wouldn't want dreaded industry to actually help save the planet."

cassepipe 4y ago
On the one hand I have sympathy for your point : If we're going to do something, let's make it so it makes a difference. Simple point. Industry is what allows (most of) humanity to be fed and roofed, which is apparently something we like. But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place. Now, such an amount of energy expenditure is not sustainable at a global scale. Of course we need newer/greener technologies to save us from ending up like the proverbial boiled frog but we also need to understand how we got into that place. Capitalism, whether good or bad it doesn't matter, has a logic to it and it has externalities. I find that people who pretend those externalities are a minor problem/don't exist are the ones who benefit the most from the actual status quo and who will staunchly defend against changing anything in their way of life. That's when you get lame attacks about wanting to live a cave because you say SUV are energetically absurd and should be taxed to oblivion. When you make something at scale, when you change scale you have well, scale issues. What happen when all your soil can't pump out the water ? What happens where there is no space available for pollinating insects ? Suburbia is an attempt to scale housing after all. Not great imho. Another problem we have thing is that solar and wind energy production don't just fall into your hands, there's a lot of fossil fuel baked in their making. Are we sure that the energy harvested by a solar panel over its lifetime recoup what it has needed for production ? Maybe, I have no idea. (If someone know and can chime in, I'd be interested) So you don't just get to just go big brrrr and forget That was my point. Thanks for reading.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  > But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place. The point is that seaweed is actually less intensive than other forms of agriculture, though, so replacing other industrial agriculture with seaweed agriculture is a net decrease in intensity. It's similar to EV's: you still need to damage the environment to produce and operate them, but they cause less damage than ICE vehicles, so substitution is a net win. Another comparison would be when people complain about building tall apartment/condo towers "hurting the environment". Sure, it probably does hurt compared to doing nothing, but the alternative isn't nothing, it's lower density sprawl that hurts nature far more. This is why being opposed to urban density is a fundamentally anti-environmental position. Same deal for seaweed scaling. If you're opposed to scaling up the thing that hurts the environment less, then you're in favor of hurting the environment.
  - cassepipe 4y ago
    Ok, thanks for explaining your point a little further.