We probably won't get that far, the season should slow down going into October and it's still not clear if it'll have the legs 2005 had (Zeta finally dissipated in January) but if it does were getting to the point that we could see Mu or Nu.
The NHC is predicting tropical storm Gamma tomorrow. 2005 reached Gamma on November 18, so of it happens this would be 57 days ahead.
Teddy is only the second major hurricane, which is a lot less than 2005. Large numbers of small storms bring their own problems, however, 2020 has seen more coastal erosion than 2005, Louisiana has seen a lot of their post-Katrina work wiped out.
After the breather, the hurricane season gets back on track to remind everyone that it's still 2020 even if respiratory karma is having a run at King Ralphing a whole political party. Gamma was just named yesterday, 46 day record break vs. 2005, so still widening the lead over that year.
There's also a very high chance of Epislon this week, which formed on November 29 in 2005. Zeta 2005 was named on December 30, so 2020 has a whole three months to run up the score.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
If we could finally get off our asses and do things, there are plenty of things we could do to mitigate and slow the climate catastrophe. Like this project restoring eelgrass beds off the coast of Virginia. An area that had been devastated almost a century ago and never recovered was converted back into a healthy ecosystem by the scattering of eelgrass seeds. The seagrass beds are now sequestering thousands of tons of carbon annually while also maintaining lush biodiversity. Widespread restoration of seagrasses would not just sink carbon but help restore declining ocean ecosystems.
We just need the will to fund this and many other projects.
If we could finally get off our asses and do things, there are plenty of things we could do to mitigate and slow the climate catastrophe. Like this project restoring eelgrass beds off the coast of Virginia. An area that had been devastated almost a century ago and never recovered was converted back into a healthy ecosystem by the scattering of eelgrass seeds. The seagrass beds are now sequestering thousands of tons of carbon annually while also maintaining lush biodiversity. Widespread restoration of seagrasses would not just sink carbon but help restore declining ocean ecosystems.
We just need the will to fund this and many other projects.
A lot of the projects don't even require much funding, but instead require people to stop being actively malicious and incompetent and spending money to destroy the environment for no reason. Like restoring lakes by banning pesticides and herbicides that don't even WORK on the pests and weeds that the people are using them on on their lawns which run down to the lakes.
But, projects like the one you list do show us that there is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit to be picked.
Air Co’s new vodka, however, is garnering recognition from the scientific community
. . .
Its method only uses air, water and sunlight. “This is done by capturing carbon dioxide from the air using solid sorbent air capture technology and generating electricity from sunlight using solar panels, which also power our patent-pending electrochemical reactor,” explains Air Co. “This system breaks apart the captured carbon dioxide, along with water, over our proprietary catalysts and reforms them to produce alcohol with pure oxygen as the only by-product. This process has net negative carbon emissions, removing a half of a kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per kilogram of alcohol produced in a complete lifecycle analysis.”
Air Co’s new vodka, however, is garnering recognition from the scientific community
. . .
Its method only uses air, water and sunlight. “This is done by capturing carbon dioxide from the air using solid sorbent air capture technology and generating electricity from sunlight using solar panels, which also power our patent-pending electrochemical reactor,” explains Air Co. “This system breaks apart the captured carbon dioxide, along with water, over our proprietary catalysts and reforms them to produce alcohol with pure oxygen as the only by-product. This process has net negative carbon emissions, removing a half of a kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per kilogram of alcohol produced in a complete lifecycle analysis.”
That's not terrible pricing either. If I saw that at the store and I needed vodka, I'd get it.
That said, what do they do to offset the production and transport of those glass bottles?
Steam - Synthetic Violence | XBOX Live - Cannonfuse | PSN - CastleBravo | Twitch - SoggybiscuitPA
Air Co’s new vodka, however, is garnering recognition from the scientific community
. . .
Its method only uses air, water and sunlight. “This is done by capturing carbon dioxide from the air using solid sorbent air capture technology and generating electricity from sunlight using solar panels, which also power our patent-pending electrochemical reactor,” explains Air Co. “This system breaks apart the captured carbon dioxide, along with water, over our proprietary catalysts and reforms them to produce alcohol with pure oxygen as the only by-product. This process has net negative carbon emissions, removing a half of a kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per kilogram of alcohol produced in a complete lifecycle analysis.”
That's not terrible pricing either. If I saw that at the store and I needed vodka, I'd get it.
That said, what do they do to offset the production and transport of those glass bottles?
Glass is one of the more green materials around, but transportation is going to likely be as bad as any other drink company.
By which I mean, very efficient on a per bottle level but not green.
It's not like parking spaces in Paris are anything more than a suggestion anyway
I don't think I'll ever see worse parking than the night of a big soccer game in Europe. People were parking on the shoulders of the off ramps, the sidewalk, whatever.
Air Co’s new vodka, however, is garnering recognition from the scientific community
. . .
Its method only uses air, water and sunlight. “This is done by capturing carbon dioxide from the air using solid sorbent air capture technology and generating electricity from sunlight using solar panels, which also power our patent-pending electrochemical reactor,” explains Air Co. “This system breaks apart the captured carbon dioxide, along with water, over our proprietary catalysts and reforms them to produce alcohol with pure oxygen as the only by-product. This process has net negative carbon emissions, removing a half of a kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per kilogram of alcohol produced in a complete lifecycle analysis.”
That's not terrible pricing either. If I saw that at the store and I needed vodka, I'd get it.
That said, what do they do to offset the production and transport of those glass bottles?
Glass is one of the more green materials around, but transportation is going to likely be as bad as any other drink company.
By which I mean, very efficient on a per bottle level but not green.
Honestly I really hate this sort of "stack all the externalities into the product which is trying" sort of analysis. Transportation fuels are a totally different area of concern to vodka manufacture.
Transportation can (and by and large has to) be addressed independently of any given product. This is the same as charging an electric vehicle off a coal power grid - sure it's not the immediate gain, but it still reduces the number of action points left to address.
The big steps might have passed a bad point, though...
After this year's low, arctic sea ice is not increasing.
This is specifically the Laptav Sea, which is a major ice production area, but currently the entire arctic is at its lowest extent ever and it's slowest fall recovery ever.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Ah, existential dread, I had missed you.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
In some slightly better news, building new solar is now cheaper than running existing coal generation, according to Lazard. Accounting for the sensitivities of U.S. federal tax subsidies, fuel prices, carbon pricing and costs of capital, Solar is cheaper and more reliable than burning coal.
Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.
High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating.
The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.
High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating.
The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.
Just to be clear, my reaction is more like... *sigh*"...Awesome."
If you have any family living near the equator, you may want to do what you can to convince them to emigrate away. Maybe set some space up in your house/apartment. However shitty things are now, they're about to get a LOT worse.
My mom likes to remind me that "God is in charge" and that a massive volcanic eruption could put enough dust and ash in the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Now obviously there's a lot to unpack there, but at this point...
My mom likes to remind me that "God is in charge" and that a massive volcanic eruption could put enough dust and ash in the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Now obviously there's a lot to unpack there, but at this point...
'This story is... unconvincing. First off it’s just two scientists (no publication), one of whom has made similar (unsupported) claims before & ignores the context that permafrost & methane have been degrading in this region since it was inundated in the early Holocene.'
Again, not -good-, but not quite 'everything is doomed'.
I post this only because I am VERY prone to bursts of panic over climate change and seeing climate scientists say 'please stop freaking out - it's bad but it's not catastrophic yet' helps me relax a little more.
WATCH THIS SPACE.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
Hello thread...
I come to you hat in hand, deeply confused about the word "environmentalist" and its relationship with society and also carbon dioxide.
I grew up in a very conservative environment (lol) and somehow ended up with the notion that all "environmentalists" were effectively environmental terrorists and just misanthropes that wanted to burn the world down for no other reason than the benefit of some tree frogs or something.
That... was a long time ago.
The other day I realized that my actual positions and at least one liberal-world definition of the word basically coincided.
Could it be possible.. that I'm an environmentalist? That I've been all along?.
At a very early age I remember thinking Styrofoam was messed up. Why would be making this voluminous junk, using it exactly once, and then just burying it knowing full well it will never decompose into dirt or something useful. Even 10 year old me knew there was something fundamentally wrong with that. And the older I've gotten the more I've learned about how messed up things in so many places. Gold mines, nuclear waste, etc.
And then to the actual topic of this thread, Climate Change. I wonder if "climate change on its current trajectory is not ideal" is even considered part of "environmentalism". And that's partly because I don't really understand what this word is supposed to mean. The relevant webster entry is:
advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment
And taken literally, sure. I would advocate for those things, if asked.
But I've kind of assumed it meant something far stronger than that, like a direct prioritization of even minor environmental improvement over all other concerns, but liberals don't generally seem to use it that way. It's more like what is in the dictionary, or maybe only slightly stronger.
So that's my cultural question: What is environmentalism, what is its relationship with climate change, and does how far you are willing to go to address it or other problems, even from a purely selfish anthropocentric viewpoint, determine if that's a valid label or not?
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
You are likely to get as many different answers as there are people to that question, honestly. If we talk in the broadest arc, "environmentalism" is probably best thought of as "humans benefit directly from wildlife and wilderness in ways which are not immediately quantifiable, and therefore there is value in conserving wild areas for those animals, and not polluting them." Opposing climate change goes hand in hand with this, but climate change is itself not an environmentalist problem so much as a "Jesus fuck we're talking about the extinction of the human race if we don't change course" problem.
Now, where different environmentalists fall on the spectrum can vary from "hey, maybe having air unhealthy to breathe is bad and we should limit factory emissions" and "littering is bad" to "maybe single-use plastic is a bad idea" and "let's not mine resources in certain regions so they stay in their natural state" to "complete moritorium on all non-farm fishing to allow for fish stocks all over the world to replenish themselves some" and "ban all new construction on floodplains and in areas whose water table cannot handle it". I would consider any of the above to be environmentalists (even the first one which is a very human-centric perspective) over the industrialist perspective of "the world exists to be exploited."
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
My mom likes to remind me that "God is in charge" and that a massive volcanic eruption could put enough dust and ash in the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Now obviously there's a lot to unpack there, but at this point...
*takes note*
Nuke the volcanos??
I'm honestly starting to think that's the way it'll go (or a solar shade), as time goes on there just becomes less bad options, and as long as the option for a man made nuclear/volcanic winter are still out there - then that's a possible solution, no mind the fallout and famine due to reduction of sunlight. It's close enough to 'balances out' for certain people to still advocate against getting to that point, and when we are there - it's lose the biosphere or decades of famine. Easy choice...
I come to you hat in hand, deeply confused about the word "environmentalist" and its relationship with society and also carbon dioxide.
I grew up in a very conservative environment (lol) and somehow ended up with the notion that all "environmentalists" were effectively environmental terrorists and just misanthropes that wanted to burn the world down for no other reason than the benefit of some tree frogs or something.
That... was a long time ago.
The other day I realized that my actual positions and at least one liberal-world definition of the word basically coincided.
Could it be possible.. that I'm an environmentalist? That I've been all along?.
Yes.
As someone who grew up in a fairly conservative region based largely around exploiting natural resources (agriculture) I got the same impression you did. Welcome to realizing it was largely all bullshit :P
advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment
And taken literally, sure. I would advocate for those things, if asked.
As Jragghen said there's a lot of ways that environmentalist can be defined (which comes with all of the super fun people-who-largely-agree-with-each-other-eating-one-another's-face-off that seems to inevitably bring) but it sounds like you've found one that you agree with so I'd just roll with that.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
I wrote a whole paragraph thinking you were talking about fertilizer. I am aware of nitrogen rich ag runnoff causing things like oxygen depletion, toxic algea blooms, etc.
Woops.
I was not aware we still had any problems with pesticides. Like, other than Roundup/Monsanto chaotic evil nonsense, I thought this was a solved problem, since the only other one I thought was a problem was good old DDT.
edit: I'm totally a "This planet could support 100 billion humans if we just didn't act like idiots and let half the food grown on the planet rot on the way to market" kind of guy.
But... I'm obviously also not very well educated on these matters.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
Companies don't care that they exist 1000 years from now. They want to make money now. You don't get anything now for building something that will last 1000 years.
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
One of my classmates started a company that does micro-targeted pesticide use via robots, fully automatically. (The company also does other robot farming stuff.)
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
One of my classmates started a company that does micro-targeted pesticide use via robots, fully automatically. (The company also does other robot farming stuff.)
What is the farmers incentive to use the robots over the now available options?
Does it cut down on pesticide usage /costs or is there a policy incentive?
Companies don't care that they exist 1000 years from now. They want to make money now. You don't get anything now for building something that will last 1000 years.
Forget 1000 years from now. Far too many companies don't care if they'll exist 10 years from now.
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
One of my classmates started a company that does micro-targeted pesticide use via robots, fully automatically. (The company also does other robot farming stuff.)
What is the farmers incentive to use the robots over the now available options?
Does it cut down on pesticide usage /costs or is there a policy incentive?
Hoe will he sell it to the farmers?
Cost saving by lower pesticide use and lower labor costs. If I recall correctly they're starting with finicky crops like strawberries.
Conservative environmentalists tend to focus on obvious quality of life issues like getting rid of smog and river pollution. Stuff that affects us now, today rather than in 10-20 years and doesn't challenge theologians.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
One of my classmates started a company that does micro-targeted pesticide use via robots, fully automatically. (The company also does other robot farming stuff.)
What is the farmers incentive to use the robots over the now available options?
Does it cut down on pesticide usage /costs or is there a policy incentive?
Hoe will he sell it to the farmers?
Cost saving by lower pesticide use and lower labor costs. If I recall correctly they're starting with finicky crops like strawberries.
Misremembered. The model that's currently closest to market isn't using pesticides. It's actually using UV light, specifically to kill mildew on strawberries and grapes (for wine). It will also be able to pick them.
Here's a recent article (in Norwegian, but I'm sure google can translate it) from our labor union's trade magazine.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Indoor and compact farming are a piece of the future, but not the whole thing. As terrible as Monsanto was, companies like it have consolidated the amount of land and resources need to grow staple crops like corn by nearly 90%. I remember back in 2018 attending a panel held by NASA, Monsanto, and half dozen smaller companies where they discussed how the last two decades have improved crop yields. It was insane. NASA, and many of the smaller companies, are all in on indoor farmling like what you pictured there as its what would be needed for space/colony food production but what they have found is, so long as your water supply remains constant, it can be pretty effective for a large number of otherwise unshrinkable crop plots. Everyone agreed, though, that desalination technology and implementation was the next big hurdle for all of these systems to be workable at scale. Part of the point of the panel was to attract interest in biology and chemistry jobs in food production, and pretty much every one of the panel members concurred that bio-engineering foodstuffs, desalination engineering, and applications of photonics are the big jobs of the next two decades to throw your hat into as someone interesting in maintaining or entering the agricultural industries.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Another tidbit from that panel, Monsanto talked about their "seed chipper," a machine you pour whole seeds into that automatically sorts them to individual seeds, chips a piece off, and then tests it for DNA makeup allowing for the sequencing of thousands of seeds in about a week. NASA's person asked if they would be willing to use that to help with issues of national food scarcity and the Monsanto person laughed and said "just talking about it probably violated my NDA."
She was also required by the company to put up a three slide, 6 point font, NDA that was supposed to be binding for the audience but legally was garbage and the host and panelists kind of told her as such. She said "I'm required to do it anyway, sorry!" And did seem genuinely sheepish. Her entire presentation pretty much confirmed that while there are brilliant and nice people in Monsanto, the company itself was as shitty as expected. Or, at least, that was my takeaway. I doubt much changed when Bayer bought the company.
My mom likes to remind me that "God is in charge" and that a massive volcanic eruption could put enough dust and ash in the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Now obviously there's a lot to unpack there, but at this point...
A massive volcanic eruption would dump shittons more Co2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that would more than make up for any shading effect in the long term.
Like there is evidence that in the past periods of active vulcanism have increased temperatures and co2 levels beyond what even the maximum theoretical industrial co2 levels would probably get to. (Before that gives anyone a false sense of confidence those periods of volcano activity tend to come with names like “the great dying”.)
A big period of supervolcanic eruption activity could push carbon levels from “shitty but managable” to “post industrial arctic nomads” levels pretty easily,
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The NHC is predicting tropical storm Gamma tomorrow. 2005 reached Gamma on November 18, so of it happens this would be 57 days ahead.
Teddy is only the second major hurricane, which is a lot less than 2005. Large numbers of small storms bring their own problems, however, 2020 has seen more coastal erosion than 2005, Louisiana has seen a lot of their post-Katrina work wiped out.
There's also a very high chance of Epislon this week, which formed on November 29 in 2005. Zeta 2005 was named on December 30, so 2020 has a whole three months to run up the score.
We just need the will to fund this and many other projects.
A lot of the projects don't even require much funding, but instead require people to stop being actively malicious and incompetent and spending money to destroy the environment for no reason. Like restoring lakes by banning pesticides and herbicides that don't even WORK on the pests and weeds that the people are using them on on their lawns which run down to the lakes.
But, projects like the one you list do show us that there is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit to be picked.
That's not terrible pricing either. If I saw that at the store and I needed vodka, I'd get it.
That said, what do they do to offset the production and transport of those glass bottles?
Glass is one of the more green materials around, but transportation is going to likely be as bad as any other drink company.
By which I mean, very efficient on a per bottle level but not green.
a good small step towards what I hope is a future where cities are completely car free
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I don't think I'll ever see worse parking than the night of a big soccer game in Europe. People were parking on the shoulders of the off ramps, the sidewalk, whatever.
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Honestly I really hate this sort of "stack all the externalities into the product which is trying" sort of analysis. Transportation fuels are a totally different area of concern to vodka manufacture.
The big steps might have passed a bad point, though...
https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-years-arctic-sea-ice-is-failing-to-form-raising-a-1845462392
After this year's low, arctic sea ice is not increasing.
This is specifically the Laptav Sea, which is a major ice production area, but currently the entire arctic is at its lowest extent ever and it's slowest fall recovery ever.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/23/its-cheaper-to-build-new-solar-than-it-is-to-operate-coal-plants/
https://www.lazard.com/media/451419/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-140.pdf
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Just to be clear, my reaction is more like... *sigh* "...Awesome."
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If you have any family living near the equator, you may want to do what you can to convince them to emigrate away. Maybe set some space up in your house/apartment. However shitty things are now, they're about to get a LOT worse.
My mom likes to remind me that "God is in charge" and that a massive volcanic eruption could put enough dust and ash in the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Now obviously there's a lot to unpack there, but at this point...
*takes note*
Nuke the volcanos??
'This story is... unconvincing. First off it’s just two scientists (no publication), one of whom has made similar (unsupported) claims before & ignores the context that permafrost & methane have been degrading in this region since it was inundated in the early Holocene.'
Again, not -good-, but not quite 'everything is doomed'.
I post this only because I am VERY prone to bursts of panic over climate change and seeing climate scientists say 'please stop freaking out - it's bad but it's not catastrophic yet' helps me relax a little more.
I come to you hat in hand, deeply confused about the word "environmentalist" and its relationship with society and also carbon dioxide.
I grew up in a very conservative environment (lol) and somehow ended up with the notion that all "environmentalists" were effectively environmental terrorists and just misanthropes that wanted to burn the world down for no other reason than the benefit of some tree frogs or something.
That... was a long time ago.
The other day I realized that my actual positions and at least one liberal-world definition of the word basically coincided.
Could it be possible.. that I'm an environmentalist? That I've been all along?.
At a very early age I remember thinking Styrofoam was messed up. Why would be making this voluminous junk, using it exactly once, and then just burying it knowing full well it will never decompose into dirt or something useful. Even 10 year old me knew there was something fundamentally wrong with that. And the older I've gotten the more I've learned about how messed up things in so many places. Gold mines, nuclear waste, etc.
And then to the actual topic of this thread, Climate Change. I wonder if "climate change on its current trajectory is not ideal" is even considered part of "environmentalism". And that's partly because I don't really understand what this word is supposed to mean. The relevant webster entry is:
And taken literally, sure. I would advocate for those things, if asked.
But I've kind of assumed it meant something far stronger than that, like a direct prioritization of even minor environmental improvement over all other concerns, but liberals don't generally seem to use it that way. It's more like what is in the dictionary, or maybe only slightly stronger.
So that's my cultural question: What is environmentalism, what is its relationship with climate change, and does how far you are willing to go to address it or other problems, even from a purely selfish anthropocentric viewpoint, determine if that's a valid label or not?
Now, where different environmentalists fall on the spectrum can vary from "hey, maybe having air unhealthy to breathe is bad and we should limit factory emissions" and "littering is bad" to "maybe single-use plastic is a bad idea" and "let's not mine resources in certain regions so they stay in their natural state" to "complete moritorium on all non-farm fishing to allow for fish stocks all over the world to replenish themselves some" and "ban all new construction on floodplains and in areas whose water table cannot handle it". I would consider any of the above to be environmentalists (even the first one which is a very human-centric perspective) over the industrialist perspective of "the world exists to be exploited."
I'm honestly starting to think that's the way it'll go (or a solar shade), as time goes on there just becomes less bad options, and as long as the option for a man made nuclear/volcanic winter are still out there - then that's a possible solution, no mind the fallout and famine due to reduction of sunlight. It's close enough to 'balances out' for certain people to still advocate against getting to that point, and when we are there - it's lose the biosphere or decades of famine. Easy choice...
Yes.
As someone who grew up in a fairly conservative region based largely around exploiting natural resources (agriculture) I got the same impression you did. Welcome to realizing it was largely all bullshit :P
As Jragghen said there's a lot of ways that environmentalist can be defined (which comes with all of the super fun people-who-largely-agree-with-each-other-eating-one-another's-face-off that seems to inevitably bring) but it sounds like you've found one that you agree with so I'd just roll with that.
Great. I'm at least that, meaning I could reasonably use the E word on myself and be correct. That's ... deeply weird, actually! But I can adapt to it.
I'm probably a bit further along even. I told my liberal friend for years I liked the word "sustainability" because I felt like it better described my position... like if "sustainablism" was a word, I'd probably call myself that.
Like a lumber company would be moronic to go buy a forest, and then cut literally every tree down. Yeh sure, they'd have tons of product that year, but then what? You instead cut 1% each year, and you can run that business for a thousand years if you want. That's just common sense, right?
I think the pivot point that might be worthwhile to think about to determine where you get comfortable is pesticide usage.
The variety and quantity of food available right now would not be possible without pesticide usage (even if we have distribution problems to where not everyone gets the food they need, but that's a separate discussion). However, the pesticides themselves (and run-off from them) are absolutely devastating insect, amphibian, and other non-vertebrate animals the world over, to the degree that there's rising concerns about those same crops being able to be properly pollinated due to lack of insects being around to do so. So right now, a major environmental problem we're facing down is this: do we stop using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from insects eating it), or continue using many types of pesticides (and thus face potential famine due to crop failure from lack of fertilization)? It's effectively a problem where we may not even HAVE a sustainable option, because our population has grown to such a large size on the back of non-sustainable practices that the only way to meet demands are continuing the unsustainable practices.
The industrialist perspective would be to continue using pesticides and to try to find another method of pollination. The environmentalist perspective would vary from reduce pesticide usage (through banning the worse ones and limiting the usage of less severe ones), attempting to find an equilibrium which is less than ideal for either side but still allowing for biodiversity to just banning them all outright and trying to use other methods to control insects eating the crops.
Woops.
I was not aware we still had any problems with pesticides. Like, other than Roundup/Monsanto chaotic evil nonsense, I thought this was a solved problem, since the only other one I thought was a problem was good old DDT.
edit: I'm totally a "This planet could support 100 billion humans if we just didn't act like idiots and let half the food grown on the planet rot on the way to market" kind of guy.
But... I'm obviously also not very well educated on these matters.
You might find yourself more amenable to Robert Solow's definition of sustainability, sometimes called soft sustainable.
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One of my classmates started a company that does micro-targeted pesticide use via robots, fully automatically. (The company also does other robot farming stuff.)
What is the farmers incentive to use the robots over the now available options?
Does it cut down on pesticide usage /costs or is there a policy incentive?
Hoe will he sell it to the farmers?
Forget 1000 years from now. Far too many companies don't care if they'll exist 10 years from now.
Cost saving by lower pesticide use and lower labor costs. If I recall correctly they're starting with finicky crops like strawberries.
Misremembered. The model that's currently closest to market isn't using pesticides. It's actually using UV light, specifically to kill mildew on strawberries and grapes (for wine). It will also be able to pick them.
Pictured: Our future robot overlord strawberry farmer.
Here's a recent article (in Norwegian, but I'm sure google can translate it) from our labor union's trade magazine.
She was also required by the company to put up a three slide, 6 point font, NDA that was supposed to be binding for the audience but legally was garbage and the host and panelists kind of told her as such. She said "I'm required to do it anyway, sorry!" And did seem genuinely sheepish. Her entire presentation pretty much confirmed that while there are brilliant and nice people in Monsanto, the company itself was as shitty as expected. Or, at least, that was my takeaway. I doubt much changed when Bayer bought the company.
A massive volcanic eruption would dump shittons more Co2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that would more than make up for any shading effect in the long term.
Like there is evidence that in the past periods of active vulcanism have increased temperatures and co2 levels beyond what even the maximum theoretical industrial co2 levels would probably get to. (Before that gives anyone a false sense of confidence those periods of volcano activity tend to come with names like “the great dying”.)
A big period of supervolcanic eruption activity could push carbon levels from “shitty but managable” to “post industrial arctic nomads” levels pretty easily,