Climate Change - The Languish 'Community' Responses?

[Sheilbh]

Failing to recycling isn't a significant cause of climate change, more a token of general pollution and wastefulness of resources. So not sure why it's brought up so much with regard to global warming, other than as a convenient council of despair - 'Look recycling doesn't work, it's a scam, so why should I bother to do it and likely other environmental schemes are also.

As Shelf and others here have said he we should be concentrating on the big ticket items, like household heating with gas, road transport, making agriculture more efficient especially as per land usage, finding alternatives to growing aircraft emissions and consuming less?

I'd add that plastic is one of those.

There's an amazing piece of analysis by Our World in Data that in terms of plastic waste in the oceans it seems that under 1% comes from Europe - about 5% comes from North America. Over 80% comes from Asia. In part no doubt that's because of individual actions like recycling and no-one wanting plastic straws. But I think that part of it is actually that there are market and regulatory pressures that are forcing a change away from plastic in Europe and North America - while in Asia there's less and many countries (especially South-East Asia) are poorer and less able to make/enforce changes in regulations and I'd bet that 90% of that plastic trash is coming from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever etc. It's cheap and it's reliable.

I think it's another thing where the big control is in the hands of companies and they need to be forced to change it by the state. And of course plastic isn't just waste, it has a huge carbon footprint.

[The Brain]

In India you have more than one billion people who just toss plastic trash into the street. I suspect it's the same in some other Asian countries.

[Josquius]

Plastic waste is only tangentially related to global warming but its definitely a serious environmental issue in its own right.

[mongers]

Failing to recycling isn't a significant cause of climate change, more a token of general pollution and wastefulness of resources. So not sure why it's brought up so much with regard to global warming, other than as a convenient council of despair - 'Look recycling doesn't work, it's a scam, so why should I bother to do it and likely other environmental schemes are also.

As Shelf and others here have said he we should be concentrating on the big ticket items, like household heating with gas, road transport, making agriculture more efficient especially as per land usage, finding alternatives to growing aircraft emissions and consuming less?

I'd add that plastic is one of those.

There's an amazing piece of analysis by Our World in Data that in terms of plastic waste in the oceans it seems that under 1% comes from Europe - about 5% comes from North America. Over 80% comes from Asia. In part no doubt that's because of individual actions like recycling and no-one wanting plastic straws. But I think that part of it is actually that there are market and regulatory pressures that are forcing a change away from plastic in Europe and North America - while in Asia there's less and many countries (especially South-East Asia) are poorer and less able to make/enforce changes in regulations and I'd bet that 90% of that plastic trash is coming from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever etc. It's cheap and it's reliable.

I think it's another thing where the big control is in the hands of companies and they need to be forced to change it by the state. And of course plastic isn't just waste, it has a huge carbon footprint.

Plastic is certainly totemic, but it's only part of the wider problem because the fractional distillation of oil is an amazing process, barely anything in a barrel of oil is wasted and it's utilised in so many sectors of the modern world.

What do we make and repair our roads with, either heavy oil products* or concrete, those seem to be the difficult current choices.

Shelf, if you ever have a chance to look around an oil refinery,do, it's an awesome spectacle.



* though quite a bit of waste glass is now included into some road tarmacs/finishings.

[Sheilbh]

Plastic is certainly totemic, but it's only part of the wider problem because the fractional distillation of oil is an amazing process, barely anything in a barrel of oil is wasted and it's utilised in so many sectors of the modern world.

What do we make and repair our roads with, either heavy oil products* or concrete, those seem to be the difficult current choices.

Shelf, if you ever have a chance to look around an oil refinery,do, it's an awesome spectacle.



* though quite a bit of waste glass is now included into some road tarmacs/finishings.

I would love to.

When I was in a law firm one of our clients was National Grid and a partner I worked with got a tour of the National Grid control room which I got embarrassingly excited about - never got invited myself and have since moved on

But it looks like this - she did have photos - and just seems very cool to a geek like me

[mongers]

I would love to.

When I was in a law firm one of our clients was National Grid and a partner I worked with got a tour of the National Grid control room which I got embarrassingly excited about - never got invited myself and have since moved on

But it looks like this - she did have photos - and just seems very cool to a geek like me

Oh that's rather neat. 

[Syt]

When I was in a law firm one of our clients was National Grid and a partner I worked with got a tour of the National Grid control room which I got embarrassingly excited about - never got invited myself and have since moved on

Pfft, looks cluttered. Not like this Soviet one in Riga in the 70s.

[Berkut]

Failing to recycling isn't a significant cause of climate change, more a token of general pollution and wastefulness of resources. So not sure why it's brought up so much with regard to global warming, other than as a convenient council of despair - 'Look recycling doesn't work, it's a scam, so why should I bother to do it and likely other environmental schemes are also.

As Shelf and others here have said he we should be concentrating on the big ticket items, like household heating with gas, road transport, making agriculture more efficient especially as per land usage, finding alternatives to growing aircraft emissions and consuming less?

I'd add that plastic is one of those.

There's an amazing piece of analysis by Our World in Data that in terms of plastic waste in the oceans it seems that under 1% comes from Europe - about 5% comes from North America. Over 80% comes from Asia. In part no doubt that's because of individual actions like recycling and no-one wanting plastic straws. But I think that part of it is actually that there are market and regulatory pressures that are forcing a change away from plastic in Europe and North America - while in Asia there's less and many countries (especially South-East Asia) are poorer and less able to make/enforce changes in regulations and I'd bet that 90% of that plastic trash is coming from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever etc. It's cheap and it's reliable.

I think it's another thing where the big control is in the hands of companies and they need to be forced to change it by the state. And of course plastic isn't just waste, it has a huge carbon footprint.

Exactly - this is what frustrates me. So much of this comes from virtue signalling more then any actual desire to look at the tough reality.

Poor countries don't fucking care about the climate. In fact, caring about the climate is almost exclusively a luxury of the wealthy.

This goes back to my thread about the need for people to recognize the power of lifting people out of poverty worldwide. It's not just the right thing to do, it's absolutely necessary to address global problems.

Just look at Argentina. They are burning down their rain forests as fast as they can, and they do not fucking CARE what anyone else thinks about it, even if it is pretty obvious that the long term detrimental effects are going to be born by them more then anyone else!

[Tamas]

Yeah the rainforest thing is one thing that always irked me. I mean obviously they should be preserved, but wasn't much of Europe a big bloody forest as well? We got rid most of it, built wealthy economies in its place, and then we started telling the rest of the world to stay poor and undeveloped otherwise they endanger our lives of comfort and luxury.

[The Brain]

Yeah the rainforest thing is one thing that always irked me. I mean obviously they should be preserved, but wasn't much of Europe a big bloody forest as well? We got rid most of it, built wealthy economies in its place, and then we started telling the rest of the world to stay poor and undeveloped otherwise they endanger our lives of comfort and luxury.

Europe didn't have rainforests, silly.

[Tamas]

Yeah the rainforest thing is one thing that always irked me. I mean obviously they should be preserved, but wasn't much of Europe a big bloody forest as well? We got rid most of it, built wealthy economies in its place, and then we started telling the rest of the world to stay poor and undeveloped otherwise they endanger our lives of comfort and luxury.

Europe didn't have rainforests, silly.

We had more than enough natural forests and vegetation, marshes etc we got rid of so we could prosper.

[The Brain]

Yeah the rainforest thing is one thing that always irked me. I mean obviously they should be preserved, but wasn't much of Europe a big bloody forest as well? We got rid most of it, built wealthy economies in its place, and then we started telling the rest of the world to stay poor and undeveloped otherwise they endanger our lives of comfort and luxury.

Europe didn't have rainforests, silly.

We had more than enough natural forests and vegetation, marshes etc we got rid of so we could prosper.

Rainforests are the Earth's lungs. It's in the name. Rain. Forest.

[Admiral Yi]

I'd add that plastic is one of those.

There's an amazing piece of analysis by Our World in Data that in terms of plastic waste in the oceans it seems that under 1% comes from Europe - about 5% comes from North America. Over 80% comes from Asia. In part no doubt that's because of individual actions like recycling and no-one wanting plastic straws. But I think that part of it is actually that there are market and regulatory pressures that are forcing a change away from plastic in Europe and North America - while in Asia there's less and many countries (especially South-East Asia) are poorer and less able to make/enforce changes in regulations and I'd bet that 90% of that plastic trash is coming from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever etc. It's cheap and it's reliable.

I think it's another thing where the big control is in the hands of companies and they need to be forced to change it by the state. And of course plastic isn't just waste, it has a huge carbon footprint.

In my experience 99% of 3rd world trash is plastic bags.

[Josquius]

Yeah plastic bags are a big problem. It's why Rwanda and I think some other African countries now have banned them.

Europe didn't have rainforests, silly.

Akchualllyyyyyy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperate_rainforest

Yeah the rainforest thing is one thing that always irked me. I mean obviously they should be preserved, but wasn't much of Europe a big bloody forest as well? We got rid most of it, built wealthy economies in its place, and then we started telling the rest of the world to stay poor and undeveloped otherwise they endanger our lives of comfort and luxury.

You see this excuse a lot but the problem with it is when Europe did this we were a lot less informed about the negative effects it would have. There was little conception that cutting down the forests might have a lasting impact.

Additionally nations looking to develop today have far more options than in the 19th century. Slashing down the forests for mineral extraction is neither the only nor necessarily best way to go.

[crazy canuck]

Btw, carbon emissions by source in the EU in 2019:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/999398/carbon-dioxide-emissions-sources-european-union-eu/

You have to go after the big items in order to effect real change.

Focusing on the small stuff, IMO, is almost Machiavellian in that it is a way to distract from the actual problems and their solutions.

Now, part of tackling things like road transportation and electricity and heat production is getting people who consume those things to change their behaviors. But that isn't going to happen in any way that can actuallly make a difference by just asking people to change. Some will, but most will not, and even those who do change won't do so enough.

No, you have to change their incentives. Charge a hell of a lot more for gas, and invest more in better alternatives. The consumption of energy....well, that is probably just not possible to reduce in any real way. I mean, I doubt it has EVER happened in all of human history. Humans are going to keep consuming more and more and more energy. The trick there isn't to reduce energy consumption, but to produce energy more cleanly. Which means embracing nuclear.

I agree that the fundament economics need to change - and fast.  Really the only effective way of doing that on the time limit we are working with is the imposition of carbon taxes.

I don't think nuclear is the answer now.  It was a possible answer 20-30 years ago but it takes to long to build those plants and we simply don't have enough time left before we hit 1.5C and then 2C increase in warming.

Regarding the general discussion of plastics and recycling generally.  Mongers nailed it, it is a good way to reduce local landfill capacity problems, but it in no way addresses climate change.  It does not even address the problem of plummeting fish populations.  That is a problem of overfishing and warming.  Recycling programs may, in hindsight, actually be harmful as they fool people into thinking they are doing there part.  If people really want to play their part they need to exert pressure on politicians to make the necessary systemic changes.

As to your question Mongers - I started doing most of what I can do on an individual basis over 5 years ago - hell I even went vegan.  And if we all reduce our meat consumption and use electric where clean electric is available then that will make some small difference but not even close to what we need to achieve to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.   At the risk of repeating myself, we need government action on a large scale to regulate and tax away the economic incentive to produce those emissions.