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Trabisnikof posted:That entirely depends on if you care more about energy inputs or material inputs. Plastic recycling can be effective from an energy perspective, as in plastics made from the recycled plastic can use less energy to make than plastics from raw inputs. Glass recycling is often very borderline and metal recycling is pretty much always worth it. It's too cost ineffective to recycle almost all plastics. It needs to be sorted by hand and if you get one bad piece in there during pelletization it will completely spoil a batch worth thousands of dollars. Even worse is if a contaminated batch makes it as far as an injection moulder, where you could end up with highly toxic gasses being vented if two blends mix. Most plastic you recycle is either sent to be burned in waste fueled generating stations, or sold to China where the do god knows what with it. Speaking from firsthand experience in injection moulding, the energy savings from using recycled materials are extremely slim. The benefit to us was that recycled blends were way cheaper to buy, because they were usually contaminated with either colourants or particulate, however we wasted a ridiculous number of hours and kilowatts tuning the production process for each source. It was not cost effective in the long run. http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/01/31/what-happens-to-all-that-plastic/ I'm not saying that recycling is bad, mind you, I'm just old and grumpy at people who think it's a magical way to save the earth. It ain't, and in the context of climate change a coke bottle in a landfill has a way smaller carbon footprint than one which is barged halfway around the world to fuel a power plant. 
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Oct 5, 2017 05:48
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Rime posted:It's too cost ineffective to recycle almost all plastics. It needs to be sorted by hand and if you get one bad piece in there during pelletization it will completely spoil a batch worth thousands of dollars. Even worse is if a contaminated batch makes it as far as an injection moulder, where you could end up with highly toxic gasses being vented if two blends mix. Most plastic you recycle is either sent to be burned in waste fueled generating stations, or sold to China where the do god knows what with it. Every time someone says it is too cost ineffective to recycle plastics, I'm reminded of this image of a bird corpse found at Midway Atoll, over 3000 miles away from mainland US.  Not everything needs to be "cost effective" to be worth it, especially since costs aren't always visible and measurable.
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Oct 5, 2017 06:31
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enraged_camel posted:Every time someone says it is too cost ineffective to recycle plastics, I'm reminded of this image of a bird corpse found at Midway Atoll, over 3000 miles away from mainland US. Yeah, these "cost analyses" frequently omit externalities, because why wouldn't they? As of right now, it would take legislation to make industry have to face the actual cost of doing business, and even that would be ineffective unless it was a globally harmonized effort. If businesses in the US for instance were made to actually pay back to society the damage they do (aka externalities), they'd just move everything to a country that doesn't require this. The globalized capitalist world simply will not allow it.
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Oct 5, 2017 10:52
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I'm not suggesting that our oceans being turned into the cesspool they've become is a more preferable alternative, either. Hell, almost all consumer sea salt is contaminated with plastic microfibers now. It is possible to say "This is bad, this is also bad, and this is really bad. ", without trying to spin one of them as a positive thing when it is not. The solution here is not to recycle plastics, it's to outright ban virtually all consumer packaging or disposable products made from the stuff. 
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Oct 5, 2017 13:44
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Also, even if you don't recycle plastics, that doesn't mean they have to end up in a bird's belly. There are worse things on the planet than landfills.
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Oct 5, 2017 13:48
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Rime posted:I have posted repeatedly in here that recycling batteries amounts to vaporizing them in blast furnaces and recovering very little of the material.. Yeah and you're still wrong!
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Oct 5, 2017 14:59
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enraged_camel posted:Every time someone says it is too cost ineffective to recycle plastics, I'm reminded of this image of a bird corpse found at Midway Atoll, over 3000 miles away from mainland US. That has nothing to do with recycling. That bird would also still be alive if that plastic was properly buried in a landfill.
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Oct 5, 2017 16:15
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Mozi posted:Also, even if you don't recycle plastics, that doesn't mean they have to end up in a bird's belly. There are worse things on the planet than landfills. I've never understood why landfills get so much hate from the environmental movement.
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Oct 5, 2017 20:53
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MiddleOne posted:I've never understood why landfills get so much hate from the environmental movement. A big reason is that at the beginning of the environmental movement we had very limited controls on landfills and often picked the most environmentally destructive places we could to stick them. Like the wetlands or on top of the drinking water aquifer. A large number of superfund and NPL sites are industrial landfills for that reason. Add on top the idea that important cultural change that landfills are where trash goes, rather than just "disappearing" when the trash truck takes it away. Waste doesn't disappear it has to go somewhere and landfills are an easy to understand symbol of that. Plus landfills are a common intersection of social and environmental justice, if we need a new landfill we're not going to stick it where rich people can smell it. Also landfills with a lot of organic waste are usually big producers of greenhouse gasses. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Oct 5, 2017 |
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Oct 5, 2017 20:59
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Trabisnikof posted:A big reason is that at the beginning of the environmental movement we had very limited controls on landfills and often picked the most environmentally destructive places we could to stick them. Like the wetlands or on top of the drinking water aquifer. A large number of superfund and NPL sites are industrial landfills for that reason. We've got a landfill near us & can confirm it does stink.. In the winter the junk that gets blown around the surrounding area is amazing. The water run off is especially disgusting & surrounding streams are horrible.
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Oct 5, 2017 21:30
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Trabisnikof posted:A big reason is that at the beginning of the environmental movement we had very limited controls on landfills and often picked the most environmentally destructive places we could to stick them. Like the wetlands or on top of the drinking water aquifer. A large number of superfund and NPL sites are industrial landfills for that reason. That's all ignoring that the alternative is for the most part burning the trash or throwing it in the ocean. I know landfills are not pretty, and if handled improperly they can be disasters for the surrounding environment, but what they are is an actual decent long-term solution for what to do with all our trash that cannot, for one reason or another, be recycled. There's no shortage of garbage land to dig ditches in on the planet and there won't be for probably thousands of years. Mostly because we'll all be dead in 150 years but details. Trabisnikof posted:Also landfills with a lot of organic waste are usually big producers of greenhouse gasses. Biogas is way more sustainable than its fossil fuel cousins since it's coming waste we'd be producing anyway. Whether a human eats bread or it goes into the waste-bin to de-compose somewhere the emissions produced are still the same. Unless you wanna get back to the whole irradiated caves discussion from a few pages back or have particular hick-ups about some the by-products being methane instead of carbon-dioxide I don't really see the problem. 
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Oct 6, 2017 06:12
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Here are a couple of articles about New York landfills: A Birder’s Heaven: Just Follow the Stench to the Landfill quote:Bulldozers push around refuse. Machinery rumbles and beeps. Trucks barrel past. All the while, birds call out like flocks of screaming children. Welcome to the Brevard County Central Disposal Facility in Cocoa, Fla. — a birder’s paradise. Where Coyotes, Foxes and Bobolinks Find a New Home: Freshkills Park quote:The world’s largest landfill is slowly becoming a park — very slowly. The conversion of Freshkills on the western shore of Staten Island into a verdant expanse of green is now in its second decade, with two more to go before it is finished.
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Oct 6, 2017 13:34
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Landfills are a huge environmental justice problem. Many studies have found landfills in the US are disproportionately sited near lower income and minority communities on a statistically significant level. Hell, the environmental justice movement is often sited as beginning with resident mobilization against a PCB landfill: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_County_PCB_Landfill Even regular landfills destroy local property values, pollute groundwater, smell awful, inhibit social activities (try throwing a BBQ when it smells like sulfur outside), collect carrion and associated scavengers, incur significant air quality degradation through combination of off gassing from the material itself and PM, etc from all the truck emissions. You can't open your windows, the stench and shame incurs psychological damage, the list goes on. Landfills loving suck. E: I admit they're probably better than alternatives such as "just burn that poo poo," but let's not pretend they're a desirable option. Lackmaster fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 02:26
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Lackmaster posted:Landfills are a huge environmental justice problem. Many studies have found landfills in the US are disproportionately sited near lower income and minority communities on a statistically significant level. Hell, the environmental justice movement is often sited as beginning with resident mobilization against a PCB landfill: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_County_PCB_Landfill you really owned the people who were like "drat gimme sum more a dat fill'd land yo" nice job :hi5:
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Oct 10, 2017 04:27
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have any of you planted a single tree yet
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Oct 10, 2017 05:06
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[quote="“StabbinHobo”" post="“477230528”"] you really owned the people who were like “drat gimme sum more a dat fill’d land yo” nice job :hi5: [/quote] I was responding to this, specifically the idea that landfills are a "decent long-term solution". The total sum of available land on the planet isn't the point. That "garbage land" is usually close to people. We're not siting many landfills in the middle of the desert or whatever. MiddleOne posted:That's all ignoring that the alternative is for the most part burning the trash or throwing it in the ocean. I know landfills are not pretty, and if handled improperly they can be disasters for the surrounding environment, but what they are is an actual decent long-term solution for what to do with all our trash that cannot, for one reason or another, be recycled. There's no shortage of garbage land to dig ditches in on the planet and there won't be for probably thousands
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Oct 10, 2017 05:30
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If we're not here to argue about petty and minute differences of perspective while the sky falls around us I don't know what we're here for 
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Oct 10, 2017 05:32
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the old ceremony posted:have any of you planted a single tree yet nah, it's pointless, death is coming soon
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Oct 10, 2017 05:46
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enraged_camel posted:nah, it's pointless, death is coming soon When life gives you climate catastrophe, make hardy-lemon wine.
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Oct 10, 2017 06:05
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I've noticed a recent trend in calling global warming "climate change" Is this to counter the morons who say "sure is cold outside, must be global warming!"?
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Oct 10, 2017 06:42
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Alpha Mayo posted:I've noticed a recent trend in calling global warming "climate change" It's because "global warming" is vague. A breakdown of the jet stream, extreme storms and rainfall, longer stationary periods of drought and inundation, and famine due to nature failing to adapt enough, is a much better all-encompassing description of how hosed we are.
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Oct 10, 2017 06:44
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I thought "climate change" was the term pushed for by right wing propagandists like Frank Luntz, because it sounds less threatening than "global warming". Global warming sounds like we're all going to slowly cook to death. Climate change sounds much more pleasant.
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Oct 10, 2017 06:59
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Lackmaster posted:I was responding to this, specifically the idea that landfills are a "decent long-term solution". The total sum of available land on the planet isn't the point. That "garbage land" is usually close to people. We're not siting many landfills in the middle of the desert or whatever. Well that's more a failure of capitalism than landfills as a concept.
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Oct 10, 2017 07:19
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So science question: Shouldn't global warming slow down? What I mean is, for each ppm increase in atmospheric CO2, shouldn't each additional ppm have less overall effect than the last? Since a hotter object radiates heat faster, wouldn't that mean the additional heat slowed down by the CO2 blanket would make its way to space faster? Basically I am wondering if going from 500->600ppm would have a smaller global warming effect than 400->500ppm.
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Oct 10, 2017 08:00
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:It's because "global warming" is vague. A breakdown of the jet stream, extreme storms and rainfall, longer stationary periods of drought and inundation, and famine due to nature failing to adapt enough, is a much better all-encompassing description of how hosed we are. Isn't "climate change" more vague than "global warming?" The problem with "global warming" is rather that it is too specific.
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Oct 10, 2017 08:25
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Alpha Mayo posted:So science question: Shouldn't global warming slow down? Setting aside further emission feedbacks like the clathrate gun, there exists a positive feedback loop with water vapor (hotter climate == more evaporation), and diminished polar caps/glaciers mean less sunlight reflected by the surface. CO2 actually has a very small effect as a greenhouse gas compared to water vapor, but it's quantity is part of the overall balance of the system. And on that topic, keep in mind that absent of further emissions, it'd still take hundreds of years to reach the new 'normal' temperature of the planet at our current atmospheric CO2 levels. So the answer to the question is, even if there were diminishing returns, as long as we keep pumping out carbon the only way this bitch can go is faster, and will only start slowing years after we stop.
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Oct 10, 2017 09:37
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Alpha Mayo posted:So science question: Shouldn't global warming slow down? It's not a linear feedback. More carbon = stronger greenhouse effect, so more IR radiation is trapped and re-emitted back to the Earth in a feedback loop. Understanding the instantaneous climate sensitivity and equilibrium climate sensitivity of carbon emissions due to this process is ongoing research.
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Oct 10, 2017 10:21
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Alpha Mayo posted:So science question: Shouldn't global warming slow down? Yes, basically, sort of. For one, the additional trapped radiation you get from the greenhouse effect, in W/m^2, is logarithmic with CO2 concentration over the range of interest (i.e 300 to 1200+). So every 100 ppm traps less radiation than the 100 ppm before it. However, every percentage increase in CO2 traps the same amount of radiation--i.e., if you go from 300-600, you get the same additional radiative forcing as if you go from 600-1200.This is pretty well established. Secondly, as you point out, a warmer earth radiates more. Since emission (in W/m^2) goes as σT^4, where σ is the Stephan-Boltzmann constant, just balancing W/m^2 in and W/m^2 out and differentiating with respect to T gives you a climate sensitivity of 1/4σT^3, which works out to around 0.25 K per W/m^2 at present temperatures, and clearly gets smaller as you increase T. This is called the Planck sensitivity, and it is accounted for in every climate model. Since this is the most obvious and fundemantal sensitivity, it often appears as λ0. Like others have posted, there are many other climate sensitivity factors that affect the overall number, including things having to do with water vapor, changes in the lapse rate (temperature vs. altitude), clouds, and surface albedo. The Planck sensitivity is the largest individual factor, but the overall sensitivity seems to be at least 2-3 times λ0. And while λ0 gets smaller with T, it isn't at all clear that this is true for the other sensitivities that make up the total sensitivity. In any case, even if the overall climate sensitivity does drop with temperature, this doesn't really matter. Climate sensitivities describe the equilibrium temperature that can eventually be expected for a given radiative forcing. The climate is not presently in equilibrium, and it certainly wont be if we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to reach 500 or 600 ppm over the next few decades. Even if we hold things at 400, it seems pretty clear that there is more warming to come before things stabilize and the end-state will be Very Bad. 500 ppm would be probably catastrophic, and 600 ppm would be mega catastrophic. The exact ratios between these varying degrees of catastrophe is just a curiosity. Also, the dynamics of how quickly or slowly we will go from our present temperature to whatever equilibrium temperature is in store for us are complicated and unclear. Even if the overall climate sensitivity drops sharply with temperature, it's totally possible that the actual warming we experience going from 400-500 ppm will be much more rapid than what we experienced going from 300-400. And finally, there could very well exist powerful, nonlinear positive climate sensitivities (i.e. tipping points) that we just haven't activated yet or have activated without knowing it. Some of these, like permafrost methane for example, may get worse and worse with temperature and may be so significant as to dominate the overall climate sensitivity. With uncertainties like this it's really hard to make any definitive statement about the temperature coefficient of climate sensitivity.
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Oct 10, 2017 11:13
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Just in case someone was feeling hopeful and hadn't seen this yet, E.P.A. Announces Repeal of Major Obama-Era Carbon Emissions Rule. ...the new stupid newbie is just cruel.
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Oct 10, 2017 16:25
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So you're saying that the efficiencies demanded by capitalist production combined with incentives to hide or ignore externalities as a structural feature is making using recycled plastics impossible. Perhaps we should forbid all plastics production unless derived from a recycled source. We'll be mining plastic for cash.
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Oct 10, 2017 16:44
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eNeMeE posted:Just in case someone was feeling hopeful and hadn't seen this yet, E.P.A. Announces Repeal of Major Obama-Era Carbon Emissions Rule. b-b-but I was told that the market had already made this decision and that nobody would ever want coal again
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Oct 10, 2017 17:02
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Alpha Mayo posted:So science question: Shouldn't global warming slow down? The oceans can only absorb so much, so in fact, the situation gets worse as the levels rise.
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Oct 10, 2017 17:20
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call to action posted:b-b-but I was told that the market had already made this decision and that nobody would ever want coal again Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels Pre-tax (the narrow view of subsidies) subsidies amount to 0.7% of global GDP in 2011 and 2013. But the more appropriate definition of subsidies is much larger (8 times larger than the pre-tax subsidies). We are talking enormous values of 5.8% of global GDP in 2011, rising to 6.5% in 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/07/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-a-staggering-5-tn-per-year
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Oct 10, 2017 17:22
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Yep, agreed, just saying that relying on market-based solutions to this problem is asinine as hell
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Oct 10, 2017 17:46
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call to action posted:Yep, agreed, just saying that relying on market-based solutions to this problem is asinine as hell actually, if the market were truly free~, then without subsidies coal would have already imploded 
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Oct 10, 2017 17:49
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Morbus posted:Secondly, as you point out, a warmer earth radiates more. Since emission (in W/m^2) goes as σT^4, where σ is the Stephan-Boltzmann constant, just balancing W/m^2 in and W/m^2 out and differentiating with respect to T gives you a climate sensitivity of 1/4σT^3, which works out to around 0.25 K per W/m^2 at present temperatures, and clearly gets smaller as you increase T. This is called the Planck sensitivity, and it is accounted for in every climate model. Since this is the most obvious and fundemantal sensitivity, it often appears as λ0. Uh, y'all got this wrong. Law of Conservation of Energy and Stefan-Boltzmann law. The Earth as a whole ain't really warming much (save for increases in solar radiation). The atmosphere at the surface of the Earth is warming. It's doing this by stealing heat from further up in the atmosphere akin to how upstream water use steals from downriver. It ain't radiating particularly more than it used to. Maybe some explanation would help (mostly recycling what I've written before here): The Earth as a whole would be approximately 254°K - below freezing - today (compared to the cooler Sun of the past). Pressure determines atmospheric mass; a good rule of thumb is that 50% of the remaining mass of the atmosphere will be below every 5.6km increase in altitude. Thus, 50% of atmospheric mass is within about 5.6km of the surface, 75% is within about 11.2km, 87.5% is within about 16.8km, and so on. More than 98% of the Earth's atmospheric mass is below about 33.6km. UAH for example defines 'lower troposphere' to be from near the surface up to about 8km. Temperature falls with altitude above the surface in the troposphere (the lowest 75% of the atmosphere), as anyone who has been on top of a mountain will understand; this lapse rate is about -6.49 °K/km. Given a mean surface temperature of 288°K, you can guess the temperature for 3/4ths of the atmosphere and about how much mass it makes up. Let's do it roughly by taking the starting temperatures and saying that's how much a particular section is (this is slightly inaccurate): 00km: 288.00°K @ 0% 01km: 281.51°K @ 11.3% * 288.00°K = 32.54400°K 02km: 275.02°K @ 10.2% * 281.51°K = 28.71402°K 03km: 268.53°K @ 09.3% * 275.02°K = 25.57686°K 04km: 262.04°K @ 08.4% * 268.53°K = 22.55652°K 05km: 255.55°K @ 07.5% * 262.04°K = 19.65300°K 06km: 249.06°K @ 06.7% * 255.55°K = 17.12185°K 07km: 242.57°K @ 06.1% * 249.06°K = 15.19266°K 08km: 236.08°K @ 05.4% * 242.57°K = 13.09878°K 09km: 229.59°K @ 04.8% * 236.08°K = 11.33184°K 10km: 223.10°K @ 04.2% * 229.59°K = 09.64278°K 11km: 216.65°K @ 03.8% * 223.10°K = 08.47780°K 77.7% of atmospheric mass totals to 203.91011°K From 11km to 20km is the tropopause, where it's roughly the same temperature and where most remaining mass is: Pause: 216.65°K @ 18.1% * 216.65°K = 39.21365°K 18.1% of atmospheric mass adds 39.21365°K This leaves about 4.26% of atmospheric mass unaccounted for; the stratosphere is above the troposphere (by some definitions it includes the relatively constant tropopause) and actually goes up in temperature with height, averaging about 250.15°K. It also makes up almost all of the remaining atmospheric mass. 4.2% of atmospheric mass adds 10.5063°K The total then is 253.63006°K, though it should be 254°K by the Stefan-Boltzmann calculation; probably this discrepancy is the stratospheric portion (warmer 9-11km range in some latitudes) or small errors in rounding from these calculations... but it's pretty close. What increasing greenhouse gases is doing is increasing the 00km temperature by restricting the flow of infrared further away. The greedy 00km portion hordes increasingly more infrared energy in order to increase temperatures, and a smaller quantity escapes to the next section. Incidentally, this is part of the problem with satellite observations - they examine large chunks of the atmosphere, and increases in the surface section are shoved together with the reduction further up in the atmosphere.
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Oct 10, 2017 23:14
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Evil_Greven posted:The atmosphere at the surface of the Earth is warming. That might be true, but it is the ocean where 90%+ of the increase in energy stored occurred: IPCC AR5 WG1, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis posted:Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting As to the drivers of Climate change, looking at the concept of radiative forcing is useful: quote:Natural and anthropogenic substances and processes that alter the Earth’s energy budget are drivers of climate change.
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Oct 10, 2017 23:30
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the old ceremony posted:have any of you planted a single tree yet 8+
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Oct 10, 2017 23:55
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Yeah actually I have planted a couple trees.
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Oct 11, 2017 00:20
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blowfish posted:actually, if the market were truly free~, then without subsidies coal would have already imploded Especially if they had to fund external costs (health, cleanups etc.).
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Oct 11, 2017 00:26
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