7 ms·

That's patent nonsense. The problem is not consumption/destruction per se, but the fact that we destroy more than what the planet can build out of solar energy

by pygy_ 13y ago

That's patent nonsense. The problem is not consumption/destruction per se, but the fact that we destroy more than what the planet can build out of solar energy. We're burning the reserves and the means of production.

sliverstorm 13y ago
What, precisely, is nonsense about my comment? Brushing something off as nonsense and saying vanishingly little else is not exactly a compelling argument. Also, did you read my parent? Parent was not talking about sustainability and burn rate vs. incoming solar energy or production rate. Parent was talking about mental anguish brought about by the costs his existence poses on the planet- at least, that's what I heard.
- pygy_ 13y ago
  The anguish of the parent comes from the fact that the common industrialized lifestyle is not sustainable (he refers to ocean acidification aka net carbon dioxide surplus). If our lifestyle was sustainable, I don't think he'd feel any anguish, but you'll have to ask him to be sure. re. nonsense, paragraph per paragraph: 1) biking is more energetically efficient than walking. 2) eating any kind of meat daily is not sustainable in the long run, and thus not intelligent (which does not prevent me from eating some, from time to time). 3) You ignore the notion of sustainability. Having some impact does not matter, as long as you stay beneath the sustainability threshold. 4) Your 100 / 110 ratio seems to come out of nowhere. Do you have any data to support it?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Riding a bicycle is very energy efficient, but it still has externalities. Which was part of my point, everything does, even the most efficient choices. I presumed my parent was not primarily concerned with sustainability due to bits like dead orangutans and I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal. Sympathy and orangutans are not really part of the sustainability picture, which is a separate and large issue I don't intend to dive into right now. Eating meat can be sustainable. I'm pretty confident if we all ate crickets, there would be practically no sustainability concerns, and we can't all eat quinoa as our protein source anyway. Chile is not able to grow enough quinoa to feed the world (quinoa is a picky plant) The 100 / 110 is purely invented as a thought experiment, but I consider it to be representative. Your daily BMR is ~2000 Calories. Engaging in activity, sports, games, or mental exercises do increase your caloric consumption for the day, but your body adjusts quickly and your additional caloric consumption for the activity falls quickly into the hundreds of calories for all but the most strenuous activities. Plus, the more strenuous (calorie-expensive) the activity, the more likely you are to take rest days, which lowers your average daily caloric consumption.
    - pohl 13y ago
      I'm having a hard time trying to imagine how financially-incentivized systematic removal of the habitats of species after species after species can be considered anything but unsustainable.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        People who are concerned about sustainability decry the collapse of fisheries & fish stocks, or the environmental impact of industrialized chicken farming. People who are concerned about ethics decry the destruction of pandas, orangutans, tigers, and gorillas. None of these are good, but we don't eat pandas, so which examples of habitat destruction are used is informative.
        dredmorbius 13y ago
        Species extinction speaks to fundamental underlying changes to the ecosystems in which those species live. Yes, telegenic megafauna capture hearts, but really, as apex predators or other apex species, they're the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak (and my isn't that an unsustainable metaphor...). But the waste being laid to oceans: 80% depletion of fish stocks, mass strandings of numerous cetaceans, algae and jellyfish blooms, starfish wasting diseases, and the sudden disappearances of birds, seals, and sea lions, all suggest something is going very, very wrong. And those systems are crucial for life on Earth -- human and otherwise.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        Jesus Christ, I KNOW. But which environmental issue a person chooses to talk about gives us clues to what they are thinking about. My parent's choice of orangutans suggested he was not currently worrying about long-term sustainability of ocean fisheries. I KNOW. But, difficult as it may be to believe, sustainability still isn't what I was talking about. And, no, that doesn't mean I believe it isn't a problem.
        13y ago
o_s_m 13y ago
What about the materials used in the solar panels, in addition to the process used to make them.
- pygy_ 13y ago
  I was referring to photosynthesis, not solar panels.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Noting that parent was referring to net primary productivity (on which, Jeffrey Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine", is very strongly recommended: http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange...), the sustainability of various renewable energy technologies is an open question. But here's the dilemma as I see it: • Modern technological civilization is predicated on abundant cheap (high EROEI) energy sources. Technology follows from, rather than leads to, energy availability, and hence isn't an answer. • For reasons of both depletion (peak oil / gas / coal) and pollution (greenhouse gasses, AGW, mercury and other emissions), continued use of fossil fuels isn't viable. We've already heat peak conventional liquids (oil), and global total peak oil production is likely within 5-15 years. Gas follows shortly after, coal likely by the late 21st / mid 22nd century assuming demand doesn't collapse entirely (which would generally indicate a collapse of civilization). • If you want to continue a technological civilization of some sort, then you've got to find alternative high-grade forms of energy. Likely a mix of electrical generation (highly fungible) and limited liquid or solid fuels production (for transport and storage needs). Capacities to produce both are fairly constrained. • The alternative is ... a non-technological level of civilization. Likely a collapse in both technological levels and population (from famine, disease, war, the usual). Which means that the future of humanity will be relying on solar power -- collected and stored by plants. And be living in a drastically depleted environment in which many ores and mineral resources, as well as water, topsoil, and ecosystems have been hugely depleted. "Rebooting" civilization would be at best very, very difficult. • I like a technological civilization, don't get me wrong. But I don't see it as sustainable. And there's nothing in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, or geology which say the Universe owes us our standard of living. Answering your question about solar PV: the economics look difficult, and numerous people who are convinced of peak oil and climate change suggest that they may well not work, see Ted Trainer, John Michael Greer, Charles A.S. Hall, and Gail Tverberg among them: "Renewable Energy: No Solution For Consumer Society" http://www.countercurrents.org/trainer240411.htm http://www.countercurrents.org/trainer240411.htm But that doesn't exactly leave us with good alternatives, and my feeling is that PV or other high-grade solar technologies (solar thermal, Stirling or related engines) are worth pursuing with our remaining fossil fuel reserve (we really should have been pursuing these decades ago). What's your alternative? Enjoy your day.

by pygy_ 13y ago

sliverstorm 13y ago

What, precisely, is nonsense about my comment? Brushing something off as nonsense and saying vanishingly little else is not exactly a compelling argument. Also, did you read my parent? Parent was not talking about sustainability and burn rate vs. incoming solar energy or production rate. Parent was talking about mental anguish brought about by the costs his existence poses on the planet- at least, that's what I heard.

pygy_ 13y ago
The anguish of the parent comes from the fact that the common industrialized lifestyle is not sustainable (he refers to ocean acidification aka net carbon dioxide surplus). If our lifestyle was sustainable, I don't think he'd feel any anguish, but you'll have to ask him to be sure. re. nonsense, paragraph per paragraph: 1) biking is more energetically efficient than walking. 2) eating any kind of meat daily is not sustainable in the long run, and thus not intelligent (which does not prevent me from eating some, from time to time). 3) You ignore the notion of sustainability. Having some impact does not matter, as long as you stay beneath the sustainability threshold. 4) Your 100 / 110 ratio seems to come out of nowhere. Do you have any data to support it?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Riding a bicycle is very energy efficient, but it still has externalities. Which was part of my point, everything does, even the most efficient choices. I presumed my parent was not primarily concerned with sustainability due to bits like dead orangutans and I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal. Sympathy and orangutans are not really part of the sustainability picture, which is a separate and large issue I don't intend to dive into right now. Eating meat can be sustainable. I'm pretty confident if we all ate crickets, there would be practically no sustainability concerns, and we can't all eat quinoa as our protein source anyway. Chile is not able to grow enough quinoa to feed the world (quinoa is a picky plant) The 100 / 110 is purely invented as a thought experiment, but I consider it to be representative. Your daily BMR is ~2000 Calories. Engaging in activity, sports, games, or mental exercises do increase your caloric consumption for the day, but your body adjusts quickly and your additional caloric consumption for the activity falls quickly into the hundreds of calories for all but the most strenuous activities. Plus, the more strenuous (calorie-expensive) the activity, the more likely you are to take rest days, which lowers your average daily caloric consumption.
  - pohl 13y ago
    I'm having a hard time trying to imagine how financially-incentivized systematic removal of the habitats of species after species after species can be considered anything but unsustainable.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      People who are concerned about sustainability decry the collapse of fisheries & fish stocks, or the environmental impact of industrialized chicken farming. People who are concerned about ethics decry the destruction of pandas, orangutans, tigers, and gorillas. None of these are good, but we don't eat pandas, so which examples of habitat destruction are used is informative.
      - dredmorbius 13y ago
        Species extinction speaks to fundamental underlying changes to the ecosystems in which those species live. Yes, telegenic megafauna capture hearts, but really, as apex predators or other apex species, they're the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak (and my isn't that an unsustainable metaphor...). But the waste being laid to oceans: 80% depletion of fish stocks, mass strandings of numerous cetaceans, algae and jellyfish blooms, starfish wasting diseases, and the sudden disappearances of birds, seals, and sea lions, all suggest something is going very, very wrong. And those systems are crucial for life on Earth -- human and otherwise.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        Jesus Christ, I KNOW. But which environmental issue a person chooses to talk about gives us clues to what they are thinking about. My parent's choice of orangutans suggested he was not currently worrying about long-term sustainability of ocean fisheries. I KNOW. But, difficult as it may be to believe, sustainability still isn't what I was talking about. And, no, that doesn't mean I believe it isn't a problem.
        13y ago

o_s_m 13y ago

What about the materials used in the solar panels, in addition to the process used to make them.

pygy_ 13y ago
I was referring to photosynthesis, not solar panels.
dredmorbius 13y ago
Noting that parent was referring to net primary productivity (on which, Jeffrey Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine", is very strongly recommended: http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange...), the sustainability of various renewable energy technologies is an open question. But here's the dilemma as I see it: • Modern technological civilization is predicated on abundant cheap (high EROEI) energy sources. Technology follows from, rather than leads to, energy availability, and hence isn't an answer. • For reasons of both depletion (peak oil / gas / coal) and pollution (greenhouse gasses, AGW, mercury and other emissions), continued use of fossil fuels isn't viable. We've already heat peak conventional liquids (oil), and global total peak oil production is likely within 5-15 years. Gas follows shortly after, coal likely by the late 21st / mid 22nd century assuming demand doesn't collapse entirely (which would generally indicate a collapse of civilization). • If you want to continue a technological civilization of some sort, then you've got to find alternative high-grade forms of energy. Likely a mix of electrical generation (highly fungible) and limited liquid or solid fuels production (for transport and storage needs). Capacities to produce both are fairly constrained. • The alternative is ... a non-technological level of civilization. Likely a collapse in both technological levels and population (from famine, disease, war, the usual). Which means that the future of humanity will be relying on solar power -- collected and stored by plants. And be living in a drastically depleted environment in which many ores and mineral resources, as well as water, topsoil, and ecosystems have been hugely depleted. "Rebooting" civilization would be at best very, very difficult. • I like a technological civilization, don't get me wrong. But I don't see it as sustainable. And there's nothing in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, or geology which say the Universe owes us our standard of living. Answering your question about solar PV: the economics look difficult, and numerous people who are convinced of peak oil and climate change suggest that they may well not work, see Ted Trainer, John Michael Greer, Charles A.S. Hall, and Gail Tverberg among them: "Renewable Energy: No Solution For Consumer Society" http://www.countercurrents.org/trainer240411.htm http://www.countercurrents.org/trainer240411.htm But that doesn't exactly leave us with good alternatives, and my feeling is that PV or other high-grade solar technologies (solar thermal, Stirling or related engines) are worth pursuing with our remaining fossil fuel reserve (we really should have been pursuing these decades ago). What's your alternative? Enjoy your day.