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I think there's a bit of nuance here: many things like plastics or steel are either high enough value that you can offset the CO2 with tree farming, or not too
by pasabagi 3y ago
I think there's a bit of nuance here: many things like plastics or steel are either high enough value that you can offset the CO2 with tree farming, or not too horrible in the first place. Generally, if you're going to use a hydrocarbon as a feedstock for some chemical process, there's no necessary environmental problem there, as long as the carbon doesn't end up in the atmosphere.
A lot of the really gratuitous damage is done by coal-fired power plants, and gas-burning cars. Both are readily replacable, both are only marginally more economical than their alternatives, and both put an enormous economic burden on future generations.
- Glawen 3y agoDoes it mean that their aim is France without internal combustion vehicle? That's already the EU goal, it is a bit later than their schedule but that is the target. What's their take with nuclear energy?
- pasabagi 3y agoWith protest groups, the aims tend to be more political, and less technical - the problem is not what should be done, but rather, how to force politicians to do it. With climate change, the pressing problem is that while almost everybody agrees on the broad strokes of what needs to change, we're prevaricating on the implementation. My feeling is that I wouldn't take the actual technical policy proposal stuff from the activist environmentalists too seriously - it's often not what they're interested in. What they are good at, and interested in, is forcing the problem of the coming catastrophe to the forefront of our imaginations and our conversations. Climate change is ultimately a problem of political will, not policy.