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Heard an anecdote from an architect in south Texas: if you have land there, and it rains enough, your land can become a protected wetland. Now you can't build o

Heard an anecdote from an architect in south Texas: if you have land there, and it rains enough, your land can become a protected wetland. Now you can't build on it.

sho_hn 3y ago
To be fair, there's also a good case for preventing people from building on land to protect ecosystems. We may not need that many rockets, and it's certainly not the only priority for society. Our tech circles tend to paint a very one-sided picture of the rules just putting roadblocks in front of us, but there's a lot of good examples both of what unregulated progress can do to natural resources, and of preservation efforts making a real difference. If I was a professional environmentalist/preservationist, I'd be very frustrated with the total lack of empathy by the tech community and their efforts (often cutting-edge science!) getting described as backwards or in the way of progress almost constantly ...
- lefstathiou 3y ago
  If you were an environmentalist / preservationist, how would you determine where the line is between what’s an appropriate level of resistance versus inappropriate (or what’s fair for spacex vs unfair for the environment)?
  - eastof 3y ago
    I am an environmentalist. The line is that SpaceX is operating a fundamentally unsustainable business. The appropriate level of resistance is that which prevents them from conducting any launches at all. Launching rockets is quite literally the last possible thing we need to achieve a sustainable and equitable future for our planet. Before you call my opinion fringe/extreme, go ahead and speak to some low-income folks at your local dive bar. You'll most likely find that 90+% of them are vehemently opposed to space missions in general, and especially SpaceX given the absurdity of traveling to Mars when we have so many low-hanging problems to fix here on Earth.
    - kiratp 3y ago
      Those same people will microwave a meal for dinner and then make breakfast eggs on an anon-stick Teflon pan the next morning.
    - LightBug1 3y ago
      But Elon needs to shake his willy around in public ... why would you seek to oppose that with your vague assertions about the hopes and dreams of ordinary folk here on earth?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - feoren 3y ago
      You don't think satellites have been a godsend for environmental conservation? Would banning space development in the U.S. help us actually fix any of those low-hanging problems? > go ahead and speak to some low-income folks at your local dive bar. Are low-income folks at a local dive bar particularly knowledgeable about the subtle tradeoffs involved in effective government regulation?
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Are low-income folks at a local dive bar particularly knowledgeable about the subtle tradeoffs involved in effective government regulation? If they were, they'd be high income. Or be about to be.
    - ElectronCharge 3y ago
      > Launching rockets is quite literally the last possible thing we need to achieve a sustainable and equitable future for our planet. I can think of a long list of other things, starting with nuclear war, that are FAR bigger concerns. Rarely have I seen such out of touch and vacuous opinions expressed with such surety… ;-)
    - georgeg23 3y ago
      It's worse than that, SpaceX is a major military contractor which had been working with the Trump administration to stage weapons in low Earth orbit. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23733/spacex-exec-says-company-would-launch-a-weapon-into-space-in-defense-of-this-country https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23733/spacex-exec-says... Also see Starshield
  - vkou 3y ago
    I would draw the line at being able to maintain a steady-state ecosystem in perpetuity. We, uh, have yet to meet that line in most of the world. Pretty much anyone draining an aquifer, or having to import more soil nutrients than are produced by their land year-over-year, is doing something that's unsustainable.
    - starbase 3y ago
      > maintain a steady-state ecosystem in perpetuity Impossible. It's not how the universe works.
      - schiffern 3y ago
        > Impossible. It's not how the universe works. The degree to which we normalize unsustainable industrial activities is impressive. We're not talking about the heat death of the universe here. Industrial society (especially industrial agriculture) is counting down toward auto-destruct sequence on a time scale of decades, not billions of years. Look at trendlines for soil erosion, aquifer depletion, cadmium soil buildup, land salinification, etc. It's oddly one-sided how people always ask if sustainable agriculture can replace industrial agriculture. By the very definition of the word "unsustainable," industrial agriculture cannot replace industrial agriculture. The impact of rockets is a tiny speck by comparison. In this case rockets will effectively preempt the slow encroach from land privatization lobbying and housing development, which would be far (far!) more destructive to the wetlands than the occasional rocket detonation or ten... Anyone who loves preserving wilderness should love rocket launch sites, as shown by the history of Cape Canaveral vs surrounding land.
        starbase 3y ago
        Whoa. You believe that soil and aquifer issues will lead to society's destruction in a matter of decades? What evidence supports that belief?
        schiffern 3y ago
        > You believe Not just me, this is the mainstream business-as-usual expectation. Collapse of breadbasket regions tends to be a Very Bad Thing. What did you think "unsustainable" meant anyway? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogallala-aquifer-because-the-government-pays-them-to-do-it-145501 https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogalla... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 > will lead to society's destruction Technically by "self-destruct" I mean that the agriculture system destroys itself, by somehow undermining its own mechanisms of support. How much of 'society' gets pulled down with it? That's up to us to decide.
  - lodovic 3y ago
    (offtopic: this is how I would ask GPT4)
- shafyy 3y ago
  Exactly. Keeping wetlands intact is very important for climate change, because draining them releases a shit ton of greenhouse gases. Of course, it's also important for biodiversity.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    Nobody is draining wetlands at starbase.
    - shafyy 3y ago
      And the only reason for that is because they're protected lands.
      - kortilla 3y ago
        No it’s not. It’s a dumb thing to do from a construction perspective.
- beanjuiceII 3y ago
  there was (yes was) lots of protected wetland near me, but the right politicians friends wanted it for warehousing now its no longer there... apparently it's ok to remove it for some projects just not others? who you know kinda thing in my experience
  - nawgz 3y ago
    Right, but the problem with that is corruption, not regulation.
    - beanjuiceII 3y ago
      yes but regulation in the power of the corrupted is worse loose/no regulation . I've not seen a solution to the corruption problem, and I've seen even the nicest most altruistic get into politics later in their careers and become corrupted. regulation can hurt more than it helps in practice even if it seems in theory it is only a tool of good
- kortilla 3y ago
  > I was a professional environmentalist/preservationist, I'd be very frustrated with the total lack of empathy by the tech community and their efforts (often cutting-edge science!) getting described as backwards or in the way of progress almost constantly ... Please list out all of the other wetlands being destroyed by space exploration. Then list them as a percentage of global wetlands or list out what would be endangered by this one location being used as a launch site.
bparsons 3y ago
The state has pretty significant water security issues. You have 30 million people and a 178 million acres of agricultural production. Maintaining some basic protections on remaining wetlands is probably a good idea. There are many things society can do without. Water is not one of them.
- caycep 3y ago
  I would say this is true.... But then, Texas politics is Texas politics, so I wouldn't be surprised if there indeed turned out to be significant abuse of protections laws for political gain...
- chr1 3y ago
  A swamp near seashore is not going to help to provide water for people or agriculture. The whole seashore is covered with swamps like this that do not have any particularly interesting ecosystems.
aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago
It's worth noting that a recent Supreme Court decision, Sackett v EPA, has somewhat curtailed the more... creative wetland designations. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf It's actually kind of disgusting how transparently the EPA has been playing their hand to maximize exploitable/monetizable authority and jurisdictional area without regard for real environmental concerns, development impact, or indeed their own legal mandate. There's absolutely an element of that organization that doesn't care either way what happens to the environment or community, they just want infinite authority under the guise of environmental protection so that you to have a reason to bribe them.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  > maximize exploitable/monetizable authority and jurisdictional area You're implying corruption for monetary gain, that is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
marricks 3y ago
Of course, Texas is notoriously pro conservation and definitely not full of people who would complain about any sort of environmental protection given the chance.
- opportune 3y ago
  Conservation in many places is about bribe-extraction and using it as a political weapon. The environment is just a useful cover

Heard an anecdote from an architect in south Texas: if you have land there, and it rains enough, your land can become a protected wetland. Now you can't build on it.

sho_hn 3y ago

To be fair, there's also a good case for preventing people from building on land to protect ecosystems. We may not need that many rockets, and it's certainly not the only priority for society. Our tech circles tend to paint a very one-sided picture of the rules just putting roadblocks in front of us, but there's a lot of good examples both of what unregulated progress can do to natural resources, and of preservation efforts making a real difference. If I was a professional environmentalist/preservationist, I'd be very frustrated with the total lack of empathy by the tech community and their efforts (often cutting-edge science!) getting described as backwards or in the way of progress almost constantly ...

lefstathiou 3y ago
If you were an environmentalist / preservationist, how would you determine where the line is between what’s an appropriate level of resistance versus inappropriate (or what’s fair for spacex vs unfair for the environment)?
- eastof 3y ago
  I am an environmentalist. The line is that SpaceX is operating a fundamentally unsustainable business. The appropriate level of resistance is that which prevents them from conducting any launches at all. Launching rockets is quite literally the last possible thing we need to achieve a sustainable and equitable future for our planet. Before you call my opinion fringe/extreme, go ahead and speak to some low-income folks at your local dive bar. You'll most likely find that 90+% of them are vehemently opposed to space missions in general, and especially SpaceX given the absurdity of traveling to Mars when we have so many low-hanging problems to fix here on Earth.
  - kiratp 3y ago
    Those same people will microwave a meal for dinner and then make breakfast eggs on an anon-stick Teflon pan the next morning.
  - LightBug1 3y ago
    But Elon needs to shake his willy around in public ... why would you seek to oppose that with your vague assertions about the hopes and dreams of ordinary folk here on earth?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - feoren 3y ago
    You don't think satellites have been a godsend for environmental conservation? Would banning space development in the U.S. help us actually fix any of those low-hanging problems? > go ahead and speak to some low-income folks at your local dive bar. Are low-income folks at a local dive bar particularly knowledgeable about the subtle tradeoffs involved in effective government regulation?
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Are low-income folks at a local dive bar particularly knowledgeable about the subtle tradeoffs involved in effective government regulation? If they were, they'd be high income. Or be about to be.
  - ElectronCharge 3y ago
    > Launching rockets is quite literally the last possible thing we need to achieve a sustainable and equitable future for our planet. I can think of a long list of other things, starting with nuclear war, that are FAR bigger concerns. Rarely have I seen such out of touch and vacuous opinions expressed with such surety… ;-)
  - georgeg23 3y ago
    It's worse than that, SpaceX is a major military contractor which had been working with the Trump administration to stage weapons in low Earth orbit. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23733/spacex-exec-says-company-would-launch-a-weapon-into-space-in-defense-of-this-country https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23733/spacex-exec-says... Also see Starshield
- vkou 3y ago
  I would draw the line at being able to maintain a steady-state ecosystem in perpetuity. We, uh, have yet to meet that line in most of the world. Pretty much anyone draining an aquifer, or having to import more soil nutrients than are produced by their land year-over-year, is doing something that's unsustainable.
  - starbase 3y ago
    > maintain a steady-state ecosystem in perpetuity Impossible. It's not how the universe works.
    - schiffern 3y ago
      > Impossible. It's not how the universe works. The degree to which we normalize unsustainable industrial activities is impressive. We're not talking about the heat death of the universe here. Industrial society (especially industrial agriculture) is counting down toward auto-destruct sequence on a time scale of decades, not billions of years. Look at trendlines for soil erosion, aquifer depletion, cadmium soil buildup, land salinification, etc. It's oddly one-sided how people always ask if sustainable agriculture can replace industrial agriculture. By the very definition of the word "unsustainable," industrial agriculture cannot replace industrial agriculture. The impact of rockets is a tiny speck by comparison. In this case rockets will effectively preempt the slow encroach from land privatization lobbying and housing development, which would be far (far!) more destructive to the wetlands than the occasional rocket detonation or ten... Anyone who loves preserving wilderness should love rocket launch sites, as shown by the history of Cape Canaveral vs surrounding land.
      - starbase 3y ago
        Whoa. You believe that soil and aquifer issues will lead to society's destruction in a matter of decades? What evidence supports that belief?
        schiffern 3y ago
        > You believe Not just me, this is the mainstream business-as-usual expectation. Collapse of breadbasket regions tends to be a Very Bad Thing. What did you think "unsustainable" meant anyway? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogallala-aquifer-because-the-government-pays-them-to-do-it-145501 https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogalla... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 > will lead to society's destruction Technically by "self-destruct" I mean that the agriculture system destroys itself, by somehow undermining its own mechanisms of support. How much of 'society' gets pulled down with it? That's up to us to decide.
- lodovic 3y ago
  (offtopic: this is how I would ask GPT4)
shafyy 3y ago
Exactly. Keeping wetlands intact is very important for climate change, because draining them releases a shit ton of greenhouse gases. Of course, it's also important for biodiversity.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Nobody is draining wetlands at starbase.
  - shafyy 3y ago
    And the only reason for that is because they're protected lands.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      No it’s not. It’s a dumb thing to do from a construction perspective.
beanjuiceII 3y ago
there was (yes was) lots of protected wetland near me, but the right politicians friends wanted it for warehousing now its no longer there... apparently it's ok to remove it for some projects just not others? who you know kinda thing in my experience
- nawgz 3y ago
  Right, but the problem with that is corruption, not regulation.
  - beanjuiceII 3y ago
    yes but regulation in the power of the corrupted is worse loose/no regulation . I've not seen a solution to the corruption problem, and I've seen even the nicest most altruistic get into politics later in their careers and become corrupted. regulation can hurt more than it helps in practice even if it seems in theory it is only a tool of good
kortilla 3y ago
> I was a professional environmentalist/preservationist, I'd be very frustrated with the total lack of empathy by the tech community and their efforts (often cutting-edge science!) getting described as backwards or in the way of progress almost constantly ... Please list out all of the other wetlands being destroyed by space exploration. Then list them as a percentage of global wetlands or list out what would be endangered by this one location being used as a launch site.

bparsons 3y ago

The state has pretty significant water security issues. You have 30 million people and a 178 million acres of agricultural production. Maintaining some basic protections on remaining wetlands is probably a good idea. There are many things society can do without. Water is not one of them.

caycep 3y ago
I would say this is true.... But then, Texas politics is Texas politics, so I wouldn't be surprised if there indeed turned out to be significant abuse of protections laws for political gain...
chr1 3y ago
A swamp near seashore is not going to help to provide water for people or agriculture. The whole seashore is covered with swamps like this that do not have any particularly interesting ecosystems.

aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago

It's worth noting that a recent Supreme Court decision, Sackett v EPA, has somewhat curtailed the more... creative wetland designations. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf It's actually kind of disgusting how transparently the EPA has been playing their hand to maximize exploitable/monetizable authority and jurisdictional area without regard for real environmental concerns, development impact, or indeed their own legal mandate. There's absolutely an element of that organization that doesn't care either way what happens to the environment or community, they just want infinite authority under the guise of environmental protection so that you to have a reason to bribe them.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago
> maximize exploitable/monetizable authority and jurisdictional area You're implying corruption for monetary gain, that is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.

marricks 3y ago

Of course, Texas is notoriously pro conservation and definitely not full of people who would complain about any sort of environmental protection given the chance.

opportune 3y ago
Conservation in many places is about bribe-extraction and using it as a political weapon. The environment is just a useful cover