5 ms·

The things you are describing are not going to make a material difference. Ground all plane travel, permanently. Ground all car and truck transportation that is

The things you are describing are not going to make a material difference. Ground all plane travel, permanently. Ground all car and truck transportation that is not electric, permanently. No electricity generation except by solar, wind, wave, nuclear, etc., permanently. Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently.

StephenSmith 2y ago
AKA kill half the worlds population
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I have a head sci-fi story of us creating a super powerful AI that solves almost all of humanity's and the Earths problems by curating a selection of 250,000 ideal humans, and then killing everyone else. A quarter million good people living in a near perfect world propped up by AI robots with essentially infinite resources. I'm almost positive I wouldn't make the cut, the top .003% has gotta be a higher bar than me to clear, hah. But still fun to think about.
  - nescioquid 2y ago
    In the early 20th century, arguments against eugenics included pointing out that natural selection works through environmental pressures. Selecting for traits we value currently may well paint us in a corner should the environmental pressures change in some way. I guess that might hint at a fly in the ointment to drive the plot...
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      The AI would determine the ideal traits/mix of traits, not humans.
      - nescioquid 2y ago
        woosh
  - antifa 2y ago
    Maybe the plot twist should be that the AI makes a big deal out of the selection process, then instead just kills those 250,000 people.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
Sounds like solutions straight out of https://play.half.earth/ https://play.half.earth/
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
So, your plan is to get rid of both artificial fertilizers (use methane for Haber-Bosch), and natural fertilizers (livestock manure)?
- phreeza 2y ago
  The methane feedstocks for Haber-Bosch probably don't come from cow stomach though, right?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Presumably they'd come fracking shale. But if you want to hook up a few million hoses to cowbutts, I'm not stopping you.
- yareal 2y ago
  It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. You've constructed a strawman.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. You don't even understand. The methane's mostly for the hydrogen, used to make ammonia or some other nitrogen compound. There are other ways of making this, Birkeland Eyde, for instance, but there like one third as efficient, at best. This means people starve. You might make the case that we could efficiently use livestock manure as a substitute (it's the green solution), but not if you're going to turn this into Planet Vegan. Given the necessity of animal manure, it's difficult to think that "get rid of all the livestock" stems from anything other than bizarre vegan tendencies. If you absolutely have to get rid of the livestock, so be it, but then you really do need the fossil fuels. Pick, it's one or the other as far as I can tell. > And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. Nope. You've got livestock (hogs, poultry, etc), or you've got fossil-fuel-based Haber-Bosch. I'm not even really aware of any science fiction concepts "other paths".
pstuart 2y ago
Solutions that are not "acceptable enough" are not solutions, they are notions. We can still "have it all" -- flight, meat, etc., if the right incentives exist; this too is more notion than solution but is the only possible path. We can make "sustainable" fuel, and cattle can be fed seaweed and restricted to existing range lands (i.e., don't destroy more forests). A key problem is that this issue and associated solutions have been artfully politicized by their incumbent stakeholders so a significant portion of the population will resist these efforts purely out of spite.
JPLeRouzic 2y ago
> "Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently" A dangerous idea, there are fewer cattle than humans on Earth, even if we add sheep, goats and pigs, there are still more humans. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts

StephenSmith 2y ago

AKA kill half the worlds population

Workaccount2 2y ago
I have a head sci-fi story of us creating a super powerful AI that solves almost all of humanity's and the Earths problems by curating a selection of 250,000 ideal humans, and then killing everyone else. A quarter million good people living in a near perfect world propped up by AI robots with essentially infinite resources. I'm almost positive I wouldn't make the cut, the top .003% has gotta be a higher bar than me to clear, hah. But still fun to think about.
- nescioquid 2y ago
  In the early 20th century, arguments against eugenics included pointing out that natural selection works through environmental pressures. Selecting for traits we value currently may well paint us in a corner should the environmental pressures change in some way. I guess that might hint at a fly in the ointment to drive the plot...
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    The AI would determine the ideal traits/mix of traits, not humans.
    - nescioquid 2y ago
      woosh
- antifa 2y ago
  Maybe the plot twist should be that the AI makes a big deal out of the selection process, then instead just kills those 250,000 people.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

Sounds like solutions straight out of https://play.half.earth/ https://play.half.earth/

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

So, your plan is to get rid of both artificial fertilizers (use methane for Haber-Bosch), and natural fertilizers (livestock manure)?

phreeza 2y ago
The methane feedstocks for Haber-Bosch probably don't come from cow stomach though, right?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  Presumably they'd come fracking shale. But if you want to hook up a few million hoses to cowbutts, I'm not stopping you.
yareal 2y ago
It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. You've constructed a strawman.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. You don't even understand. The methane's mostly for the hydrogen, used to make ammonia or some other nitrogen compound. There are other ways of making this, Birkeland Eyde, for instance, but there like one third as efficient, at best. This means people starve. You might make the case that we could efficiently use livestock manure as a substitute (it's the green solution), but not if you're going to turn this into Planet Vegan. Given the necessity of animal manure, it's difficult to think that "get rid of all the livestock" stems from anything other than bizarre vegan tendencies. If you absolutely have to get rid of the livestock, so be it, but then you really do need the fossil fuels. Pick, it's one or the other as far as I can tell. > And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. Nope. You've got livestock (hogs, poultry, etc), or you've got fossil-fuel-based Haber-Bosch. I'm not even really aware of any science fiction concepts "other paths".

pstuart 2y ago

Solutions that are not "acceptable enough" are not solutions, they are notions. We can still "have it all" -- flight, meat, etc., if the right incentives exist; this too is more notion than solution but is the only possible path. We can make "sustainable" fuel, and cattle can be fed seaweed and restricted to existing range lands (i.e., don't destroy more forests). A key problem is that this issue and associated solutions have been artfully politicized by their incumbent stakeholders so a significant portion of the population will resist these efforts purely out of spite.

JPLeRouzic 2y ago

> "Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently" A dangerous idea, there are fewer cattle than humans on Earth, even if we add sheep, goats and pigs, there are still more humans. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts