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Salt Fish posted:That's like saying fracking isn't a problem for global warming because people could drill for oil before it was innovated. We're talking about a powerful tool that accelerates the issue. Fracking could accelerate global warming because it allows previously unavailable stocks of fossil fuel to be exploited. However I'm not sure through what mechanism GMOs are supposed to accelerate the loss of crop diversity, which others have pointed out is caused by the spread of monoculture and industrial agriculture through the increasing use of commercially produced seed. Low diversity hybrids started replacing traditional varieties long before GMOs were on the field. When you say they accelerate the issue I assume you mean increase the incentives for switching to an intensive monoculture, and maybe they do. However making the issue about GMOs is a distraction, one could ban all GMOs and still lose 95% of crop diversity (whereas banning fracking would definitely limit total possible carbon emissions). If you want to protect crop diversity you should actually focus on what's causing the losses, rather than make the issue about something only tangentially related.
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Jan 4, 2016 07:31
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Although there is a strong case to be made that fracing has actually helped the climate by replacing coal plants with gas plants. It also has done a lot more to keep oil sands in the ground compared to anything else.
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Jan 4, 2016 07:34
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Trabisnikof posted:Although there is a strong case to be made that fracing has actually helped the climate by replacing coal plants with gas plants. It also has done a lot more to keep oil sands in the ground compared to anything else. True at least for the short term. But I'm trying to make a point about corn here, not quibble over analogies 
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Jan 4, 2016 07:48
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Squalid posted:But I'm trying to make a point about corn here, not quibble over analogies I would suggest you might want to go to the thread for making points about corn. Because I'm going to keep trying to discuss climate change in this thread. 
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Jan 4, 2016 08:25
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El Perkele posted:Wasn't your original claim that green-led governments cannot lead to effective environmental conservation? I don't see how this proves that it any way. Countries with very strong green parties (e.g. Germany) are implementing completely bone headed policies that are either brought forward when greens are in a coalition government or loudly cheered on by greens. This is not just the nuclear exit, which was originally decided by a green/social democrat government before Merkel's flipflopping between shelving the nuclear exit and shutting down everything ASAP, but also fetishising small scale grassroots action beyond being an effective tool to get people involved in climate change action or conservation and turning it into an insane decentralisation fetish and the idea that every action should exclusively be evaluated by its local origins and impacts. The latter leads to our glut of tiny worthless nature reserves that keep becoming more poo poo due to being tiny which is only just starting to be corrected because the deficiencies of this approach are now blindingly obvious. Even worse, any large scale infrastructure necessary for the German renewable rollout such as large scale power lines or hydro reservoirs is opposed not only by NIMBYs but also by outraged greens who can't see the forest for the (moderate number of felled) trees and do their best to make their own overly expensive idea completely impossible to implement.
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Jan 4, 2016 09:16
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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e: El Perkele posted:That's just pure insane bullshit and you know it. Salt Fish posted:Unfortunately we don't live in the alternate universe where GMO technology is used in a thoughtful perfect way. We live in *this* world where its used in imperfect ways. Just like a gun is not "just a tool" and has social and cultural connotations more significant than its literal form, so too do GMO foods. replies moved into the GMO/farming/etc. thread. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 09:47
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computer parts posted:No? I'm curious to hear how though . I don't think you understand the concept of "genetic diversity" and how it applies to agriculture. Crop genetic diversity acts as a buffer and a safety mechanism in case of unforeseen environmental changes, ranging from pathogens to something like "increasing ozone concentration in lower athmosphere causes XYZ" to "nuclear war". Genetically homogenous populations can flourish in suitable conditions, but genetically heterogenous populations can survive adverse conditions. You speaking about "biodiversity" in terms of different varieties "optimized" for different conditions makes it look like you believe genetic diversity is something that can be just introduced when necessary. It most emphatetically is not. Genetic diversity is acquired through random mutations, genetic drift, pure chance and selection by environmental pressures. This means that different strains/breeds/races/[whatever term you wish to use here for a lineage] are highly different in sequence and as a result have differing pheno- and genotypes. The differences in genome are large enough that is is completely possible to reconstruct the phylogeny of South American maize landraces for the last 10 000 years or so. To artificially introduce this sort of level of genetic complexity while still producing a viable specimen is currently well beyond our theoretical capabilities. You cannot recreate genetic diversity in short term, and long term - well, it's usually at least centuries. So. To maintain a level of genetic diversity to a similar level to thousands of different breeds you have to artificially construct specific GM breeds of these original cultivars and breed them. And then you have to maintain a vast number of GM breeds. And since GM crops are usually designed to be So while it is theoretically possible to construct an immensive library of modded breeds and maintain them in parallel with their non-GM counterparts, it's A) expensive B) usually unnecessary C) ridiculously expensive D) still doesn't maintain genetic diversity due to stochastic and bottleneck effects unless you continuously introduce new clones into the crop which... must breed... So that's why I called your comment insane bullshit, sorry. It's pretty much against every evolutionary genetics 101 material ever published, unless implemented in a way that is either ludicrously expensive or completely irresponsible. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 13:06
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Instead of insisting people don't talk about A you should say something interesting about B, for example answering my earlier question about climate change blogs.
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Jan 4, 2016 14:10
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Salt Fish posted:Instead of insisting people don't talk about A you should say something interesting about B, for example answering my earlier question about climate change blogs. can you repeat that question please
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Jan 4, 2016 14:19
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El Perkele posted:And since GM crops are usually designed to be sterile This isn't true at all and it really colors the rest of your post. Why aren't you bothering to respond in the GMO thread where we've had a rather in depth discussion of this to begin with?
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Jan 4, 2016 15:21
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Ok I replied in the GM thread
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Jan 4, 2016 15:42
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I would also suggest discussing GMO-related subjects in the dedicated thread, since it's likelier to have people knowledgeable about the subject, and it seems like a lot of these points have already been covered there.
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Jan 4, 2016 16:59
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Solkanar512 posted:This isn't true at all and it really colors the rest of your post. Why aren't you bothering to respond in the GMO thread where we've had a rather in depth discussion of this to begin with?  shows what happens when you mostly deal with transgenic organisms in a place where sterility is the norm. GMO discussion to GMO thread then
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Jan 4, 2016 17:16
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I have thought of best way to stop Global Warming. We must all together give up our luxuries, no more use our cars or buy new one. We must destroy our computer, the cellphone, our air conditioning. We will need to give up our meats. This will end Global Warming because we will return to the ways of life more in-line with natures. 
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Jan 4, 2016 23:13
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OK but you go first
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Jan 4, 2016 23:58
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Shayu posted:I have thought of best way to stop Global Warming. We must all together give up our luxuries, no more use our cars or buy new one. We must destroy our computer, the cellphone, our air conditioning. We will need to give up our meats. This will end Global Warming because we will return to the ways of life more in-line with natures. Back-breaking subsistence farming and dying at age 40, in other words?
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Jan 5, 2016 00:04
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-Troika- posted:Back-breaking subsistence farming and dying at age 40, in other words? Subsistence farming isn't that bad if you know what you're doing and have land that isn't total poo poo. Plus, you actually get to chill out once in awhile.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:07
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Trabisnikof posted:Although there is a strong case to be made that fracing has actually helped the climate by replacing coal plants with gas plants. It also has done a lot more to keep oil sands in the ground compared to anything else. Isn't this mitigated by the massive release of methane into the atmosphere when fracking well linings inevitably fracture? I'm not aware of a comparative analysis in terms of long-term damage, but methane is something like 72x more damaging in terms of warming potential than CO2.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:14
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Radbot posted:Subsistence farming isn't that bad if you know what you're doing and have land
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Jan 5, 2016 02:24
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Isn't this mitigated by the massive release of methane into the atmosphere when fracking well linings inevitably fracture? I'm not aware of a comparative analysis in terms of long-term damage, but methane is something like 72x more damaging in terms of warming potential than CO2. US regulations on fraced wells has significantly improved since the practice started, "green completions" is the law now, which means dealing with methane among other things. Still way way better than coal.
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Jan 5, 2016 03:08
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Trabisnikof posted:US regulations on fraced wells has significantly improved since the practice started, "green completions" is the law now, which means dealing with methane among other things. That's not a very high bar 
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Jan 5, 2016 09:43
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-Troika- posted:Back-breaking subsistence farming and dying at age 40, in other words? I thought we were to stop climate change? It is the only solution. You cannot live the Western life but save the Earth, this is truth I have discovered. We must all relinquish our decadent life styles, return to proper life, eat rice and drink water. Use the toilet in the grass.
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Jan 5, 2016 11:17
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Shayu posted:I thought we were to stop climate change? It is the only solution. You cannot live the Western life but save the Earth, this is truth I have discovered. We must all relinquish our decadent life styles, return to proper life, eat rice and drink water. Use the toilet in the grass.
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Jan 5, 2016 11:37
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Shayu posted:I thought we were to stop climate change? It is the only solution. You cannot live the Western life but save the Earth, this is truth I have discovered. We must all relinquish our decadent life styles, return to proper life, eat rice and drink water. Use the toilet in the grass. Now all you need to do is to convince a few billion people to off themselves. Paleo anarchist unabombers are so incredibly retarded I have a hard time believing they're an established branch of that very dumb tree.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:09
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We're producing energy in a way that's harmful to the environment but that doesn't mean we have to stop producing energy. In the 1980s we were using CFCs for refrigeration and it was depleting the ozone layer. Now we don't anymore - and yet we still somehow have refrigerators.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:48
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Shayu posted:I have thought of best way to stop Global Warming. We must all together give up our luxuries, no more use our cars or buy new one. We must destroy our computer, the cellphone, our air conditioning. We will need to give up our meats. This will end Global Warming because we will return to the ways of life more in-line with natures. Getting rid of all meats means we should also get rid of many imported vegetables and fruits. We'll have to increase the amount of arable land quite significantly and be ready to deal with increased soil exhaustion and drought. No longer using cars means food distribution will get a severe hit, with most likely too many wasted crops in area's with much arable land and severe lack of food in area's without. For the area's that aren't able to produce varied crops in order to make sure their population gets the required nutrients, supplements need to be provided. All of this will also have, without question, a large impact on the availability of products derived from animals. Batham fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 13:16
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Anosmoman posted:We're producing energy in a way that's harmful to the environment but that doesn't mean we have to stop producing energy. In the 1980s we were using CFCs for refrigeration and it was depleting the ozone layer. Now we don't anymore - and yet we still somehow have refrigerators. No you see ~system change~ should be the first goal of conservation rather than just doing things that conserve the environment regardless of whether they help bring about the end of kkkapitalism/materialism/globalisation 
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Jan 5, 2016 13:23
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Friendly Tumour posted:Now all you need to do is to convince a few billion people to off themselves. Paleo anarchist unabombers are so incredibly retarded I have a hard time believing they're an established branch of that very dumb tree. Why you want people to die so much? Batham posted:Getting rid of all meats means we should also get rid of many imported vegetables and fruits. We'll have to increase the amount of arable land quite significantly and be ready to deal with increased soil exhaustion and drought. Yes I agree we should increase arable lands. When we do that people can make their own food and not need to drive because food right there, no need to drive to the store. People don't need too much variety, just some rice and bean maybe a little spice for flavor, it's simple earth life, don't you know? blowfish posted:
No because we will eat from the earth not create pollution. Farms now make a lot of poison foods that will kill when eaten. Why burn things? No need, we live in world without need of electric.
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Jan 8, 2016 08:04
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"Throw away your technology and slave away on the farm from before sunrise till long after dark", cried the idiot luddite from behind his monitor. "Back-breaking manual labor builds character!" You might want to ask the people of Cambodia how well that sort of thing works out in practice. Hint: It doesn't.
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Jan 8, 2016 08:09
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Shayu posted:Why you want people to die so much? Turn your monitor on.
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Jan 8, 2016 08:28
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Shayu posted:Why you want people to die so much? Are you trolling or just a colossal retard? Increasing arable lands is a terrible idea because farmland even when farmed less intensively cannot support most biodiversity. You will destroy all remaining primary habitats that are not literally the side of a cliff and kill off entire ecosystems on the way, and people will hunt everything edible that remains to extinction because natural prey populations don't recover faster than billions of people can sharpen sticks and stones. Protip: pollution is not the only thing destroying the planet. Farms as they exist now make what kind of poison foods exactly?
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Jan 8, 2016 10:34
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I wonder if climate change is an indication of the diminishing capability of humans to understand and control as individuals the civilization they have created and the world that civilization interacts with. It was only until the invention of the atom bomb that humanity was first presented with a problem that could end humanity if humanity collectively failed to confront it. But the scale of the problem was limited by the fact that enriching weapons-grade uranium and assembling a nuclear arsenal were and still are only really possible with a massive, organized state apparatus (and thus developing a nuclear arsenal is also obvious to outside nations and allows for reaction). These states that develop nuclear arsenals usually have clear, defined geopolitical goals and thus what they would use nuclear weapons for is also usually clear and defined (at least more so than a random terrorist group). Not everybody can make a nuclear weapon and contribute to the problem of nuclear proliferation. However, climate and ecological change present a broader, more complex, and more difficult kind of problem because it is a byproduct of the very processes by which civilization sustains itself and grows. We all, in some way, contribute to the problem of climate and ecological change. Effective action on climate change requires action not only by states, but by corporations and individuals on a global scale. Climate and ecological change, for many people especially in the developed world, is also not as evident and visceral as nuclear annihilation, and requires individuals to have some knowledge of climate science, deforestation, energy generation, agricultural land use, pollution, and other issues. Climate and ecological change are highly systemic problems with modern society and thus require a solution from multiple fronts of public policy. Already it becomes quite difficult for your average voting citizen, and maybe even policymakers, to have a full grasp of the issue and its solution. I apologize for the ramble, but I wonder even if civilization can survive the anthropocene, if humanity might in the future present itself with a problem that is beyond the mental capacities of ordinary humans to fully understand and thus present a solution to. A probably well-known example. E: I thought about writing this post after reading this. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 11:09
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blowfish posted:Are you trolling or just a colossal retard? The unspoken assumption of a lot of the folks who want to regress mankind to a pre-industrial state is that a) they won't be included and b) they'll be the people in charge of the planet of peasents.
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Jan 8, 2016 18:51
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-Troika- posted:"Throw away your technology and slave away on the farm from before sunrise till long after dark", cried the idiot luddite from behind his monitor. "Back-breaking manual labor builds character!" But we must save the world.
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Jan 8, 2016 18:53
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Shayu posted:But we must save the world. Yeah, from you.
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Jan 8, 2016 18:54
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Shayu posted:But we must save the world. Adapting to and mitigating climate change will in fact require more organization, more technology and more un-natural human interventions. We will need more steel, more concrete, more mines and new farms. The idea that by reducing productivity we would get better resource usage is backassward.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:03
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Shayu posted:But we must save the world. Humans are part of the world too.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:35
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-Troika- posted:Humans are part of the world too. In fact, if a Universalist Unitarian Rapture happened today, climate change would do far more damage to the rest of the world than if we continue to live here but adapt and mitigate.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:56
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blowfish posted:Are you trolling or just a colossal retard? This is an important point, the vast majority of land capable of supporting large scale agriculture is already under cultivation. The majority of land that isn't is either arid pasture land that can't sustain cereal crops or tropical forests currently sequestering billions and billions of tons of carbon. As the population grows in size and wealth over the next century people are going to need much more food than we have today. In the last century humanity put millions of additional acres of cropland into production, doing that today will necessarily come at the cost of carbon emissions of a catastrophic scale. In order to preempt the loss of the world's forests, humanity must massively increase the productivity of existing cropland while reigning in population growth. One way of increasing the efficiency of existing agricultural production is to turn fewer of our cereal crops into animal protein. In 2013 roughly 36% of U.S. corn production was used as animal feed. Depending on the animal, grain is converted to meat and dairy at an efficiency of between 3-40%, a highly inefficient system that doesn't so much meet the nutritional needs of the population as satisfy a desire for luxury items. Red meat like beef is most sustainable when feed on natural fodder on range land too dry or steep for intensive farming, and agricultural policy should reflect that.
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Jan 8, 2016 21:16
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Squalid posted:This is an important point, the vast majority of land capable of supporting large scale agriculture is already under cultivation. The majority of land that isn't is either arid pasture land that can't sustain cereal crops or tropical forests currently sequestering billions and billions of tons of carbon. As the population grows in size and wealth over the next century people are going to need much more food than we have today. In the last century humanity put millions of additional acres of cropland into production, doing that today will necessarily come at the cost of carbon emissions of a catastrophic scale. In order to preempt the loss of the world's forests, humanity must massively increase the productivity of existing cropland while reigning in population growth. This is the thing that bothers me greatly about climate change. Population growth dictates that we need to increase productivity on existing cropland, but some models of future yields under current climate scenarios suggest that US yields could decrease by anywhere from 31-79% by the end of the century. Right now scientists are working toward a consensus, but no one really knows for certain which is troubling. What is likely to happen under a shifting climate is either we're going to need to develop new, hardier crops or change the types of crops we produce (and hope for the best). It's hard not to resign yourself to the "well, we're doomed" point of view. Aves Maria! fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 21:30
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