'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math'

[cichlisuite]

1 hour ago, zkom said:

All this shit should be rethought and romantic notions of environmentalism, like organic food, should be put under debate and scientific inquiry.

Not sure to whom is the "romantic" remark aimed at, but that logic is just upside down. Isn't more romantic that you receive a cucumber in Finland that travelled the distance of the circumference of the Earth, just so that people can sit on their asses and then throw it away as a surplus, because they are used to that and attach no value to it? There are substantial scientific studies in favor of locally grown food and the nation's food self-sufficiency available everywhere, just look it up. I can understand people having no time or desire to cultivate a garden, but then that is the new luxury they will have to accept and afford, the "new romantic" if you like. It's not just the politics that need to act now because of the global changes, it's everyone, you, me, your friends, your gf or wife...but it's always easier to shift blame and responsibility onto someone else while you sustain the same standard of living as before. That is romantic. There is little romance in cultivating a garden, you need knowledge and work, and get your hands dirty, and sometimes the yield will not be good. But somehow the narrative has shifted that the only hard working and realist people are found in cities and offices, and that is just bubble perception. It's actually the other way around, even more so today and in the years to come.

Regarding eating veggies in winter: people have been making winter supplies since the dawn of agriculture, you know, put it in jars, freezing, damp sand, cellars, drying, granaries, etc. You don't need scientists to know that, it's ancient knowledge that was forgotten because of the romantic capitalism.

With well-thought programs you can make villages and cities self-sufficient, it'a just a matter of will and organisation. But, boohoo that's evil communism! It's not, you can make it work under any system you want, if you want.

[auxien]

2 hours ago, zkom said:

Local production isn't always the most carbon efficient unfortunately. Living in Finland my carbon footprint is lower if I buy an air transported cucumber from Spain rather than a locally grown one because the local cucumbers are cultivated in green houses that use electricity. And if it's also supposed to be seasonal I don't really know what I'm going to be eating for the winter? I guess traditionally Finns didn't eat any fresh vegetables during winter, but rather something you could store in cellars like potatoes and other long lasting root vegetables. Also they didn't live very long. This isn't just a problem with arctic and sub-arctic environments but also for example arid environments that might require massive infrastructure for irrigation.

We should just eat the most carbon efficient food where the calculation is based on both production and transportation footprint. This also probably means giving up on "organic" food because it requires more resources than more efficient methods. Organic food's impact on climate can be 50% higher due to less efficiency.

All this shit should be rethought and romantic notions of environmentalism, like organic food, should be put under debate and scientific inquiry.

i think the idea of local food thinking is more that someone in your position shouldn’t eat cucumbers. eat what you can grow there easily and possibly even grows there naturally, and by small farmers, etc. 

[Enthusiast]

Nuremberg trials for the oil and gas industry. Examples need to be made.

[Cryptowen]

12 minutes ago, auxien said:

i think the idea of local food thinking is more that someone in your position shouldn’t eat cucumbers. eat what you can grow there easily and possibly even grows there naturally, and by small farmers, etc.

kinda into this idea tbh. my understanding is that people's digestive systems usually respond better to the foods that naturally grow in their area (maybe this applies mainly to people whose anscestors have been living in the same area for many hundreds of years, but at the very least things like local honey offer better protection against local allergins etc). and really a person shouldn't just have free access to every kind of food imaginable. you should be given access to a small variety of foods based on your location (enough to still cover basic nutrition requirements obv). this would force people to get more creative with their cooking, and add a sense of mystery to the culinary experience. There would be this sense that there was an entire world of other foods out there that you would only ever hear vague rumours about. maybe on very rare occasion you would actually get to try one (like how people used to get oranges for christmas). fusion restaurants are a crime against humanity

Spoiler

32 degrees out todaay

 

[zkom]

18 minutes ago, cichlisuite said:

Not sure to whom is the "romantic" remark aimed at, but that logic is just upside down. Isn't more romantic that you receive a cucumber in Finland that travelled the distance of the circumference of the Earth, just so that people can sit on their asses and then throw it away as a surplus, because they are used to that and attach no value to it? There are substantial scientific studies in favor of locally grown food and the nation's food self-sufficiency available everywhere, just look it up. I can understand people having no time or desire to cultivate a garden, but then that is the new luxury they will have to accept and afford, the "new romantic" if you like. It's not just the politics that need to act now because of the global changes, it's everyone, you, me, your friends, your gf or wife...but it's always easier to shift blame and responsibility onto someone else while you sustain the same standard of living as before. That is romantic. There is little romance in cultivating a garden, you need knowledge and work, and get your hands dirty, and sometimes the yield will not be good. But somehow the narrative has shifted that the only hard working and realist people are found in cities and offices, and that is just bubble perception. It's actually the other way around, even more so today and in the years to come.

Regarding eating veggies in winter: people have been making winter supplies since the dawn of agriculture, you know, put it in jars, freezing, damp sand, cellars, drying, granaries, etc. You don't need scientists to know that, it's ancient knowledge that was forgotten because of the romantic capitalism.

With well-thought programs you can make villages and cities self-sufficient, it'a just a matter of will and organisation. But, boohoo that's evil communism! It's not, you can make it work under any system you want, if you want.

What I meant with romantic environmentalism is that we can't just rely on things feeling natural. There needs to be hard numbers on how harmful they are to the climate. Organic farming IS less efficient than conventional farming meaning it uses more land, water, manpower, etc. Are there positive sides to organic farming? Yes. Healthier food and more biodiversity maybe? Do they balance out the higher carbon footprint and larger cultivation area? I don't know. But this should be studied before we switch to a farming system that might bring 50% more carbon emissions.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't trust the feeling of "naturality" when deciding on what's environmentally responsible. A hikikomori-type living alone in a small box apartment with his waifu pillow collection, eating mass produced food and never going anywhere maybe has a smaller carbon footprint than a hippie-type environmentalist living in a private farm in the countryside where he needs a car and produces more CO2 to heat the place and cook, even though the latter lifestyle feels more natural and closer to Earth or something.

And I know about gardening or farming, I spent my childhood summers on potato fields and foraging berries from forests. And I think the potato farming was pretty dumb to be done individually (driving back and forth for a few kilos of potatoes etc, probably makes more sense if you actually live close to the field..). Driving a private car to a forest to pick berries is also a bit questionable but maybe better than buying exotic imported fruits? It was mostly to save money and had really nothing to do with the environment. Fresh forest berries are fucking expensive in the supermarket.

But I'm all for small scale farming in cities, like using the balconies and rooftops. Everyone moving to countryside and all the required new infrastructure and cutting down natural carbon sinks to accommodate them and their small scale farms? I don't think that's a good idea.

[MadameChaos]

Nobody said everyone has to grow their own food you fucking moron. 

[zero]

the problem I have with the local foods movement (or "locavore" as I've seen it referred to) is that locally grown veggies, eggs, honey, etc. sold at farmers markets are way too expensive to justify going there on a regular basis. I love the idea behind buying locally produced goods, but am always sorely disappointed any time I go to a farmers market because everything there is priced too high. seems like farmers markets here are catering to the Whole Foods crowd, and not the average consumer. 

[zkom]

48 minutes ago, Cryptowen said:

my understanding is that people's digestive systems usually respond better to the foods that naturally grow in their area (maybe this applies mainly to people whose anscestors have been living in the same area for many hundreds of years, but at the very least things like local honey offer better protection against local allergins etc).

I've heard this before, but wouldn't it mean that I would need to go hundreds of years back into the diet people used to have? I mean if I just went back to the pre-industrial diet it would be mostly potatoes, which didn't become a popular here until the beginning of the 19th century so it wouldn't make much sense to eat them. I guess it would be then mostly turnips, wild berries and occasionally a bear or elk.

Edited August 10, 2021 by zkom

[cichlisuite]

32 minutes ago, zkom said:

What I meant with romantic environmentalism is that we can't just rely on things feeling natural. There needs to be hard numbers on how harmful they are to the climate. Organic farming IS less efficient than conventional farming meaning it uses more land, water, manpower, etc. Are there positive sides to organic farming? Yes. Healthier food and more biodiversity maybe? Do they balance out the higher carbon footprint and larger cultivation area? I don't know. But this should be studied before we switch to a farming system that might bring 50% more carbon emissions.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't trust the feeling of "naturality" when deciding on what's environmentally responsible. A hikikomori-type living alone in a small box apartment with his waifu pillow collection, eating mass produced food and never going anywhere maybe has a smaller carbon footprint than a hippie-type environmentalist living in a private farm in the countryside where he needs a car and produces more CO2 to heat the place and cook, even though the latter lifestyle feels more natural and closer to Earth or something.

And I know about gardening or farming, I spent my childhood summers on potato fields and foraging berries from forests. And I think the potato farming was pretty dumb to be done individually (driving back and forth for a few kilos of potatoes etc, probably makes more sense if you actually live close to the field..). Driving a private car to a forest to pick berries is also a bit questionable but maybe better than buying exotic imported fruits? It was mostly to save money and had really nothing to do with the environment. Fresh forest berries are fucking expensive in the supermarket.

But I'm all for small scale farming in cities, like using the balconies and rooftops. Everyone moving to countryside and all the required new infrastructure and cutting down natural carbon sinks to accommodate them and their small scale farms? I don't think that's a good idea.

Sorry, dude, but you are mistaken. Huge farming surfaces might be efficient in the economic sphere, but that is the only efficiency it will ever achieve. Huge mono culture is devastating to the local biome and has immense domino effect on the surrounding environment. It uses maximal land available, heavy farming mechanization, huge amounts of water, huge amounts of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that affect consumer health, as well as pollinators and supporting biodiversity, polluting the groundwater, etc. A 10 meter by 10 meter soil patch can sustain a family and all you need is your muscle strength once each year to prepare the soil and put the seed in. It's a day's work. But now, because of large-scale farming and global logistics, the price of food is dependent on oil prices, and lower nutrition factor is detrimental to health, that, along with the chemicals, put a burden on the nation's health expenses.

In case of self-sufficiency, you don't need to grow every kind of vegetable or fruit. You can exchange goods, and on the countryside, between close friends and family, that is standard practice. Every year we exchange many cases of vegetables because of the surplus and none goes to waste.

Quote

And I think the potato farming was pretty dumb to be done individually (driving back and forth for a few kilos of potatoes etc, probably makes more sense if you actually live close to the field..)

Back in the days this sort of work was organized with entire neighborhood helping. If I have a potato field you can come help for a day, you receive some exercise, get a case or two of potatoes, and when you apples or grapes are ripe, I can come and help you out the same way. By end of the day we eat and drink, play songs and sing, and everyone is happy. This sort of thing was what used to connect communities. You can still do that today, you know, instead of sitting at home watching youtube. It's not a domain of some past centuries.

Quote

But I'm all for small scale farming in cities, like using the balconies and rooftops. Everyone moving to countryside and all the required new infrastructure and cutting down natural carbon sinks to accommodate them and their small scale farms? I don't think that's a good idea.

There have been ideas and initiatives to develop urban architecture that supports all kinds of farming, and by clever urban planning you can achieve even larger spaces. Personal traffic should be banned from cities anyway. Bikes and public transportation and parks and gardens should come back into urban planning equations.

[zkom]

6 minutes ago, cichlisuite said:

Sorry, dude, but you are mistaken. Huge farming surfaces might be efficient in the economic sphere, but that is the only efficiency it will ever achieve. Huge mono culture is devastating to the local biome and has immense domino effect on the surrounding environment. It uses maximal land available, heavy farming mechanization, huge amounts of water, huge amounts of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that affect consumer health, as well as pollinators and supporting biodiversity, polluting the groundwater, etc. A 10 meter by 10 meter soil patch can sustain a family and all you need is your muscle strength once each year to prepare the soil and put the seed in. It's a day's work. But now, because of large-scale farming and global logistics, the price of food is dependent on oil prices, and lower nutrition factor is detrimental to health, that, along with the chemicals, put a burden on the nation's health expenses.

I agree that the biodiversity and pollutant problems might be a bigger problem than whatever is gained in carbon efficiency. Biodiversity and ecological collapse might actually be a bigger future problem than the climate change. I still think however that just looking at the carbon numbers organic farming is worse.

See for example here: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50129353

Or here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-more-organic-farming-could-worsen-global-warming

Quote

But a new study out this week challenges this narrative, predicting that a wholesale shift to organic farming could increase net greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 21 percent.

Or here https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/see/news/Pages/Organic-food-worse-for-the-climate.aspx

Quote

Our study shows that organic peas, farmed in Sweden, have around a 50 percent bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed peas. For some foodstuffs, there is an even bigger difference – for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat the difference is closer to 70 percent

Quote

The reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used. To produce the same amount of organic food, you therefore need a much bigger area of land. 

 

The ground-breaking aspect of the new study is the conclusion that this difference in land usage results in organic food causing a much larger climate impact. 

 

[ignatius]

13 minutes ago, cichlisuite said:

Personal traffic should be banned from cities anyway. Bikes and public transportation and parks and gardens should come back into urban planning equations.

initially when the highway system was being designed in USA the intention was to connect cities to each other but keep the highways on the outskirts of metropolitan areas and not go right through cities etc.. i guess sort of like the german autobahn???  Eisenhower was more than disappointed when the highways started carving up cities in the blueprints. 

as for food.. portland and the willamette valley are good examples of how regional food can supply a place (and beyond). some of this is historical and can be credited to oregon's slow growth and being a small state etc.. but also in the 80s the city created and urban growth boundary to help prevent sprawl. this forced developers to reclaim property inside the beltway and turn it into neighborhoods.. it also meant that farmers couldn't partition up their land and cash in to developers who would build suburbs. the farms still exist. and it means there's lot's of local food grown to supply restaurants and grocery stores. also kept the place connected to its roots and helped keep a more diverse economy. 

not everyone is happy about the urban growth boundary but it's one of the big reasons portland is what it is. it's notoriously difficult to expand the boundary to allow for more development. so, infill happens meaning "upzoning".. which is also a double edged sword at times and something not everyone is happy about but it mostly works. 

[zkom]

21 minutes ago, cichlisuite said:

Back in the days this sort of work was organized with entire neighborhood helping. If I have a potato field you can come help for a day, you receive some exercise, get a case or two of potatoes, and when you apples or grapes are ripe, I can come and help you out the same way. By end of the day we eat and drink, play songs and sing, and everyone is happy. This sort of thing was what used to connect communities. You can still do that today, you know, instead of sitting at home watching youtube. It's not a domain of some past centuries.

Been there, hated it, lol.

[sheatheman]

Yeah I mean ban all plastics and start up nuclear internationally. Either that or let famine stabilize the earth after 20 years or so. 

[sheatheman]

I really think we need a dozen or so dictators to agree on a global plan, and execute.

[cichlisuite]

1 hour ago, zkom said:

I agree that the biodiversity and pollutant problems might be a bigger problem than whatever is gained in carbon efficiency. Biodiversity and ecological collapse might actually be a bigger future problem than the climate change.

See for example here: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50129353

Or here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-more-organic-farming-could-worsen-global-warming

Or here https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/see/news/Pages/Organic-food-worse-for-the-climate.aspx

 

 

Quote

"The assumptions behind the study's conclusion that there will be a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions under organic are fundamentally flawed," said Rob Percival of the Soil Association.

Clearly, large scale "organic" farming with established procedures cannot be a solution, and it looks like the old maxim: If you have a hammer, every problem is a nail.

I don't know why you're trying to convince me that somehow a personal garden for each family creates a larger carbon footprint than heavy farming mechanization and global logistics supporting it (transport planes, shipping, rails, trucks, vans....). It's not only that: you have nitrogen fertilizer chemical factories, there are 1.4 billion cattle in the world producing 40% of all methane (methane is more severe warming greenhouse gas than CO2), which had a huge surge since the industrial revolution in our atmosphere.

Quote

I still think however that just looking at the carbon numbers organic farming is worse.

This kind of corpartmentalized thinking is the root of the problems we are facing today. You cannot isolate segments of a system that are inherently connected and co-dependent. It's similar to "I don't care if it fucks up the water, it creates a nice check balance for your shareholders."

Quote

Been there, hated it, lol.

Understandable. Have a nice day.

Edited August 10, 2021 by cichlisuite

[cichlisuite]

2 hours ago, ignatius said:

initially when the highway system was being designed in USA the intention was to connect cities to each other but keep the highways on the outskirts of metropolitan areas and not go right through cities etc.. i guess sort of like the german autobahn???  Eisenhower was more than disappointed when the highways started carving up cities in the blueprints. 

as for food.. portland and the willamette valley are good examples of how regional food can supply a place (and beyond). some of this is historical and can be credited to oregon's slow growth and being a small state etc.. but also in the 80s the city created and urban growth boundary to help prevent sprawl. this forced developers to reclaim property inside the beltway and turn it into neighborhoods.. it also meant that farmers couldn't partition up their land and cash in to developers who would build suburbs. the farms still exist. and it means there's lot's of local food grown to supply restaurants and grocery stores. also kept the place connected to its roots and helped keep a more diverse economy. 

not everyone is happy about the urban growth boundary but it's one of the big reasons portland is what it is. it's notoriously difficult to expand the boundary to allow for more development. so, infill happens meaning "upzoning".. which is also a double edged sword at times and something not everyone is happy about but it mostly works. 

As far as I'm familiar with Eisenhower (as head of SHAEF) and his presidency, he was a capable man with sound strategy. I could be mistaken, as I'm no expert (and the devil is usually in the details).

There are examples of good environmental / urban practices all around the world. Unfortunately they get little recognition or traction because the status quo serves too many interests, and people are massively uneducated in this regard. I also believe it comes down to media (not) spreading awareness and sowing inspiration enough. If the media went about informing people about good environmental practices with the same vigor as they are spreading fear and divide things would look much much different. And with media I don't mean only news, but documentaries, case studies, educational programs, etc. But I think we all know what that is the case.

[cern]

There are always some people doing seriously big money destroying our world, and they are not gonna give it up. 


 

Edited August 11, 2021 by cern

[zkom]

13 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

I don't know why you're trying to convince me that somehow a personal garden for each family creates a larger carbon footprint than heavy farming mechanization and global logistics supporting it (transport planes, shipping, rails, trucks, vans....).

I'm not even sure if I'm arguing for or against anything. Just thinking by writing. Obviously some small scale organic sustenance farming is very close to carbon neutral or maybe even negative if done correctly.

Not trying to argue here against small scale farming but as a kind of example how to do it badly with primitive methods is how it was done historically here in Finland: people used slash-and-burn farming, then depleting the soil and moving to the next spot to burn down. This method is still used around the world for sustenance farming. It's not just the modern methods using machinery that can be bad.

[cichlisuite]

59 minutes ago, zkom said:

I'm not even sure if I'm arguing for or against anything. Just thinking by writing. Obviously some small scale organic sustenance farming is very close to carbon neutral or maybe even negative if done correctly.

Not trying to argue here against small scale farming but as a kind of example how to do it badly with primitive methods is how it was done historically here in Finland: people used slash-and-burn farming, then depleting the soil and moving to the next spot to burn down. This method is still used around the world for sustenance farming. It's not just the modern methods using machinery that can be bad.

Oh I see, yea, slash and burn style is only really sustainable if it's done to support small and far-between populations. On a larger scale, this thing is causing more harm.

[prdctvsm]

[Berk]

Facepalm has never been this appropriate

[usagi]

"the effect may be considerable in a few centuries"

2021:

[Enthusiast]

[ignatius]

was 102 yesterday. going to be about the same today. tomorrow it MIGHT cool down a little bit but only because some smoke from the fires will blot out the sun when/if the winds change. 

[ambermonk]

Meanwhile it's been cloudy and rainy up in Alaska with low 50s F/ 10s C in the mornings. Much cooler summer so far than two years ago.

At this point I'd say it's luck more than anything. Never mind the rapidly receding glaciers.