|
roos are very fun to deal with, you can't farm them because they can jump twelve metres straight up in the air but you can easily encourage them to inhabit your property year-round and they will, even if you occasionally shoot them. they're deerlike in their nature and their general role in the ecosystem, but of course they look like giant rabbits, and they do the most perfect neat round little emerald shits, and i love them
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 09:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 08:26 |
|
|
I browsed the last few pages of this thread and I didn't see the UNH pee development mentioned. Is this as big a deal as it looks like to me, a lay person who wants to see the world get saved and also wants the comedy of it being saved by pee? https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/news/release/2018/11/26/unh-researchers-discover-new-materials-generate-solar-fuel-production
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 14:15
|
|
|
Nuclear War posted:I live on a sheep farm. may we please be allowed another baby? Last I checked, sheep produce even more GHGs per kilogram of meat than cows, and cows are a loving environmental catastrophe and should be banned.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 15:22
|
|
|
Hellblazer187 posted:I browsed the last few pages of this thread and I didn't see the UNH pee development mentioned. Is this as big a deal as it looks like to me, a lay person who wants to see the world get saved and also wants the comedy of it being saved by pee? Somebody call Trump and tell him we can save the world by piss.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 15:32
|
|
|
If you've been waiting for some good news on the climate front - urine luck!
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 15:44
|
|
|
So what you’re saying is if you want to save the earth you’re gonna have to drink piss?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 15:56
|
|
|
Fox Cunning posted:So what you’re saying is if you want to save the earth you’re gonna have to drink piss? What, you've never seen Waterworld?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 16:26
|
|
|
What are some environmental orgs to get involved in. USA
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 16:29
|
|
|
barkbell posted:What are some environmental orgs to get involved in. USA The Sunrise Movement is a good one to start. If you want to go more radical and frankly more awesome Extinction Rebellion needs chapters in the United States. Edit: ahahahah Extinction Rebellion's site is blocked at my work for being a "radical site". They organize city-wide strikes and poo poo cities down in the U.K. for climate change! Very radical and eco-terroristy! Edit Edit: There is a movement called Plan It Change 10 that is just starting. It was started by the creators of The Dollop and is worth looking into as well. https://twitter.com/planitchange10?lang=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4uXjHwuRZ0 friendbot2000 fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 6, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 17:21
|
|
|
barkbell posted:What are some environmental orgs to get involved in. USA The ones friendbot mentioned are good especially if you are looking to organize and protest. If you are looking for more policy action the Sierra Club can be good but it really depends on the local chapter. My local chapter is heavily involved in our county council to push changes such as walkable communities, public transport, water management, ect, and routinely stages protests and pushes policies at the state level as well. Your mileage may vary though. Also this is more for the VA/MD/DC area but I've done some work planting trees with the Nature Conservancy. They seem like a decent bunch especially if you like being outdoors. https://www.nature.org/en-us/ Also I don't know if they have volunteer opportunities but I donate to the Natural Resources Defense Council as they lobby hard for environmental causes. John Oliver gave them a shout out on his show after the election. https://www.nrdc.org/
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 17:35
|
|
|
Solaris 2.0 posted:The ones friendbot mentioned are good especially if you are looking to organize and protest. Yep, these are all good choices as well. I should add a section in the OP for groups if yall want to get to work.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 18:04
|
|
|
Hellblazer187 posted:I browsed the last few pages of this thread and I didn't see the UNH pee development mentioned. Is this as big a deal as it looks like to me, a lay person who wants to see the world get saved and also wants the comedy of it being saved by pee? Urea Is a functional chemical component in many Diesel Particulate Filters, so pee was already playing a (minor) part in saving the world. If you don’t let your DPF ‘regenerate’ at proper intervals it gets kidney stones.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 19:18
|
|
|
Hellblazer187 posted:I browsed the last few pages of this thread and I didn't see the UNH pee development mentioned. Is this as big a deal as it looks like to me, a lay person who wants to see the world get saved and also wants the comedy of it being saved by pee? I mean this is some cool chemistry research and all but its so far away from even prototyping to be basically pointless to speculate would have an impact on the climate. When someone has built a physical prototype and gives you the energy per gram factor, that's when you get excited.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 20:50
|
|
|
barkbell posted:What are some environmental orgs to get involved in. USA I'd like to throw in that being "environmental" in name isn't always necessary. For example Trout Unlimited ( http://www.tu.org ) has a conservation mission, but through the lens of making more fishing opportunities. Hopefully these type of orgs bring more people on board than pure tree hugging.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 23:08
|
|
|
A good post on reddit regarding yesterday's climate report card:quote:"Hopes that global CO2 emissions might be nearing a peak have been dashed"
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2018 23:13
|
|
|
quote:Canada and Australia look more poised to cut back on their emissions Ignoring that 'more poised' doesn't really mean anything, I'm not sure this is true at all for Australia.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 04:56
|
|
|
If Labor wins the next Australian election they might take some half-measures. Last time Labor was in government they actually did something about climate change, but their mishandling of the issue was a contributing factor to their election loss in 2013. Since then they have been scared of actually doing something and the (Murdoch-backed) Coalition has regularly campaigned on how renewables drive power prices up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 05:07
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:If Labor wins the next Australian election they might take some half-measures. Can you explain in more depth how they mishandled the issue? I ask because it seems like the carbon tax was simply a big obvious target for conservatives to rally around. Or do you mean they shouldn't have tried to implement a carbon tax on an unreceptive population, in which case I sort of agree? Carbon taxes may only be sustainable, as in they can survive more than one election cycle, in regions where there is already broad public support. Ironically this seems to be the case in places with already low emissions, the heaviest emitters unsurprisingly don't want to pay to reduce them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 05:13
|
|
|
Nocturtle posted:Can you explain in more depth how they mishandled the issue? I ask because it seems like the carbon tax was simply a big obvious target for conservatives to rally around. Or do you mean they shouldn't have tried to implement a carbon tax on an unreceptive population, in which case I sort of agree? Carbon taxes may only be sustainable, as in they can survive more than one election cycle, in regions where there is already broad public support. Ironically this seems to be the case in places with already low emissions, the heaviest emitters unsurprisingly don't want to pay to reduce them. In 2007 the Coalition under Howard had been in government for 11 years, and while they were not hated there was a perception that it was time for a change. Kevin Rudd had recently become Labor leader and his fresh, forward looking approach was incredibly popular across the country. One of his main policy platforms was to tackle climate change, which he called "the greatest moral challenge of our generation". Even the moribund Howard government had halfheartedly committed to an emissions trading scheme, due partly to the efforts of Malcolm Turnbull. Labor convincingly won the 2007 election, although to pass bills they would require the support of either the Greens or the Coalition. In late 2009 Labor proposed an emissions trading scheme. The Greens refused to support it, feeling that it was a flawed scheme that was little better than nothing at all. The Coalition, now lead by Turnbull, was wracked by internal division over the matter. Turnbull was losing popularity within his party and his support for an ETS was what pushed the conservative factions to install Tony Abbott as leader. The ETS vote failed, with Labor and Turnbull supporting it while the Greens and the rest of the Coalition opposed it. At this point Rudd and Labor were still incredibly popular (and Abbott was widely hated). The ETS itself elicited a more mixed reaction from the general public (roughly 1/3rd in support, 1/3rd against and 1/3rd "don't know") but this was partly due to the then-upcoming Copenhagen summit and a perception that waiting a few weeks would not be a disaster. Due to the way the ETS bill had failed Rudd could have immediately called an election and campaigned on passing it. Rudd dropped the issue entirely. Abbott, who had always flirted with climate change denial, proposed a vague policy of the government doing something maybe that might involve trees. In mid 2010 Labor and Rudd experienced some poll jitters. This was due to a number of factors; Rudd had backed down on major policy proposals like the ETS and an attempt to tax mining companies and Tony Abbott (backed by the Murdoch press) had aggressively attacked Rudd over his tax policies and over treating refugees too humanely. This relative drop in popularity, combined with an internal dissatisfaction with Rudd's leadership style, lead to Labor replacing him with Julia Gillard. The public was shocked by a decision they had not foreseen, had no say in and for which they felt they never got a great explanation. Gillard called an election 3 weeks later. At this point Abbott's scare campaigns and Labor's unwillingness to prosecute the issue had shifted public sentiment against carbon pricing, although it was still an open issue. During the election campaign she vowed that "there would be no carbon tax under a government I lead", and instead proposed setting up a "Citizens' Assembly" to outsource all the responsibility and unpopularity of actually creating a climate policy and delayed implementing an ETS until after 2013. The 2010 election gave no party a clear majority, forcing both Labor and the Coalition to work with the Greens and various independent members to form government. Labor was able to form government but the Greens forced them to implement an emissions trading scheme. Abbott and the Murdoch press ran with "AXE THE TAX" as a slogan from then until the next election. Labor's problems weren't just from the Coalition. Rudd still had widespread public support and his removal was seen by many as unfair. Within the party a sizeable group felt that Gillard's leadership had almost cost them the 2010 election and that they were certain to lose the next one. This lead to several years of internal destabilisation before Rudd retook office shortly before the 2013 election. Which he lost in a landslide. The ETS was repealed in 2014 and since then Labor has consistently denied that their climate change policy included a carbon tax, regardless of what was actually in it. ----- The reason I say they mishandled the issue is because Rudd campaigned on it, won massively, and then gave up while he was still hugely popular and while his political enemies were in disarray. Every future gently caress-up flowed from that point. And while I'm a Greens supporter in general I think their decision to vote against the bill in 2009 was a mistake too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 06:26
|
|
|
Solaris 2.0 posted:The ones friendbot mentioned are good especially if you are looking to organize and protest. Nature Conservancy is generally good. NRDC and Sierra Club have the issue of having a continent-sized stick up their rear end about nuclear (not just arguing nuke is not the optimal thing to expand but going full  SHUT DOWN KILLER ATOMZ) that they are probably a net drag on the climate.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 10:31
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
Ah yes, uranium mining and nuclear waste: Great for the environment. Investing in nuclear at this point in time would be a huge waste.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 10:44
|
|
|
Lambert posted:Ah yes, uranium mining and nuclear waste: Great for the environment. Investing in nuclear at this point in time would be a huge waste. Material inputs for nuclear are lower per MWh, ie there’s way more mining to go renewable. It’s just that nobody can be bothered to write thunkpieces about the evils of steel and concrete production even at vast scale. Scandinavia shows that nuclear waste is a solved problem, and it is functionally irrelevant for the environment even in interim storage bunkers like in the US. While I think it’s wrong to be against new nuclear, anyone in favour of shutting down nuclear plants early while a single coal or gas plant still exists in their country is actively evil and needs to be stood up against the wall right next to coal executives. Given the continuing failure to curb CO2 emissions it has now become just as valid to punch an anti nuke moron in the face as it is to punch a nazi in the face.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 10:54
|
|
|
I’m young enough that I will see even my rich first world society to begin cracking under the strain of runaway climate change effects (probably while we go out of our way not to do anything for the even more heavily hit poorer nations), unless we take rapid and large scale action to curb climate change and protect enough habitats to ensure our ecosystems remain resilient. gently caress crusty 1970s environmentalists who still cling to anti nuke rhetoric to avoid admitting they’re wrong 20 years after they should have shut up about it. gently caress them for dragging down too many of the newer generation of environmentalists with their regressive bullshit. And especially gently caress those environmentalists who are literate enough to read the evidence on the relative dangers of using fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear but choose not to understand even the most basic numbers showing the scale of CO2 emissions and environmental and human destruction to justify the resoundingly terrible argument of “but nuclear isn’t technically perfect, it is only a vast improvement on the same order as renewables, I don’t like nuclear so we must kill it as soon as possible” (usually coupled with more resoundingly terrible arguments about how we also can’t use any GMOs or sustainable intensification approaches ever to reduce land use because organic sounds nicer to you, etc). You don’t even have the bad argument of “but my profits” to fall back onto out of narrow self interest. No amount of bleating about how you are not just against nuclear but also against fossil fuels can justify your destructive actions, unless you are incapable of understanding that in the very least, shutting down nuclear plants cannot be allowed to happen before fossil fuel use has dropped to effectively zero. You ignore even the very cautious and conservative reports of the IPCC increasingly projecting expansion of nuclear energy to limit climate change, even though this body had been anything but a nuclear advocate for much of its existence (e: jumping from "i guess nuclear is necessary" on the "all renewable everywhere" bandwagon until it became obvious that all-renewable strategies like in Germany have been failing, now grudgingly accepting that nuclear will need to seriously expand as well), and the EU now going further in its own reports despite including rabidly anti-nuclear governments who had tried to shut down nuclear construction in other parts of the Union for a long time. You sit back, allowing yourself the luxury of advocating for policies that might have been remotely possible had we gone full-tilt renewable 35 years ago, not recognising that it is not 35 years ago anymore and falling behind the long-time nuclear critics of the UCS who have swung into nuclear advocacy after recognising we are now facing problems more serious than those even the most shoddily-constructed nuclear plants operated by idiots could ever cause. You’re choosing to destroy my future and that of the masses all across the world side by side with the most destructive companies even though you know better and just as much as them I hate you with a burning passion. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Dec 7, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 11:30
|
|
|
suck my woke dick posted:Nature Conservancy is generally good. Yea thats why I stated to check with the local chapter first. A lot of the Sierra club chapters east of the Mississippi are run by a younger generation and are more forward thinking of what needs to be done. Unfortunately the west coast chapters tend to be run by the old guard. They are more anti nuke, pro NIMBY, and generally unhelpful. As for the NRDC they are anti nuke? That’s unfortunate:( I wish the old guard environmentalist would get out of the 70s anti nuke anti development mindset.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 14:39
|
|
|
Solaris 2.0 posted:Yea thats why I stated to check with the local chapter first. A lot of the Sierra club chapters east of the Mississippi are run by a younger generation and are more forward thinking of what needs to be done. NRDC doesn't describe itself as quite as rabidly anti nuke to the same extent as some other groups (e.g. they accept nuclear research leading to hypothetical reactors in the conveniently faraway future, while groups like Greenpeace or the national-level Sierra Club even go out of their way to poo poo on fusion), so they might not be beyond saving, but as far as I'm aware they're pretty much always pro early reactor shutdowns in practice due to demanding perfection in nuclear while applying a lesser standard to renewables. Sierra is really weird, early on they were pretty pro nuke due to all the right reasons (much cleaner than coal, relatively low footprint) until they got taken over by NIMBYs and other idiots, so I guess it's good to hear NIMBYs are starting to die out in some parts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 15:12
|
|
|
Lambert posted:Ah yes, uranium mining and nuclear waste: Great for the environment. Investing in nuclear at this point in time would be a huge waste. The physical reality is renewables alone can't sustain the grid, therefore nuclear needs to be invested in. That's it. That's all there is to it. Nuclear could be as bad as the NIMBY crowd makes it out to be, and it'd still be necessary.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 15:18
|
|
|
America's current waning empire utopia (for the rich) was built on the back of externalizing toxicness to other countries or places no one cares about, either via China manufacturing or making money killing local factories and wages by exporting said manufacturing to China. I'm incredibly surprised that we haven't just externalized nuclear power to places no one cares about-- oh wait that would mean giving more nuclear power plants to China and asking nicely for them to sell us power nevermind. Also, that's not as cheap as it is for the rich to just dig up coal and burn it, so okay nevermind. Also also red states can say "COAL JOBS! NUKLER BAD" and gain votes while still giving unlimited funding to putting depleted uranium on every bullet in the military, so 
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 19:17
|
|
|
The actual dirty part of nuclear power (uranium extraction) is outsourced. I'm no expert but i think importing the actual electricity from across an ocean would come with its own set of challenges.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 19:34
|
|
|
AceOfFlames posted:What, you've never seen Waterworld? I'm with you. Compared to having to watch Waterworld, drinking my own filtered piss is a perfectly acceptable sacrifice to make.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 19:41
|
|
|
Lambert posted:Ah yes, uranium mining and nuclear waste: Great for the environment. Investing in nuclear at this point in time would be a huge waste. For the total power output and CO2 impact, Nuclear Waste is a non-issue. Especially if you conduct reprocessing, 98% of spent nuclear fuel is still viable. Conspiratiorist posted:The physical reality is renewables alone can't sustain the grid, therefore nuclear needs to be invested in. Bingo. Renewables are awesome, but are not going to be enough to kill of natural gas and coal by themselves.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 19:44
|
|
|
We have had reactor designs for decades which not only eat nuclear waste as fuel, they generate virtually none themselves (beyond the contaminated nature of the reactor itself after disassembly, of course).
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:01
|
|
|
If swear to god if I hear another environmentalist bring up cost as the core reason to not opt for nuclear I am going to go crazy. Renewables (with the exception of hydro) are only cheap as long as another power-source compensates for their intermittency problem, and the cheapest alternative for that is natural gas and coal. And that's without getting into the fact that those two do not have their negative externalities priced like nuclear does. Like do we loving care about the climate or not here. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:15
|
|
|
Any thorium-watchers? Iirc, we're not far off. Thorium reactors should make nuclear more palatable. (Different fuel with different reactor designs. Less waste, safer, cheaper.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:28
|
|
|
Nuclear activists aren't the reason why nuclear power plants are getting shut down in the US, utilities are. Fewer and fewer want to run them. The plants are expensive, complex, with a high economic risk of complete plant failure before end of life, i.e. there's a big risk someone will ruin the plant with a fuckup. If you look through the shutdowns in the last 20 years its obvious that it is the utilities shutting down plants for cost or fuckup reasons not activists. Crystal River 3 - hosed up and ruined the containment SONGS - shipper hosed up and broke the replacement steam generators Vermont Yankee - too expensive to extend the life to continue to operate Zion - replacing the steam generators was too expensive
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:33
|
|
|
Accretionist posted:Any thorium-watchers? Iirc, we're not far off. Thorium reactors should make nuclear more palatable. Yup! Trabisnikof posted:Nuclear activists aren't the reason why nuclear power plants are getting shut down in the US, utilities are. Fewer and fewer want to run them. The plants are expensive, complex, with a high economic risk of complete plant failure before end of life, i.e. there's a big risk someone will ruin the plant with a fuckup. Unfortunately, being cheap will kill us in the long run, we're going to have to accept the costs of expensive energy if we want to fight climate change, we can't do this on the cheap anymore. Also, every one of these is a testament against for-profit power generation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:38
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:Unfortunately, being cheap will kill us in the long run, we're going to have to accept the costs of expensive energy if we want to fight climate change, we can't do this on the cheap anymore. True, but if we're handing out additional subsidies then we should hand them out to renewables and storage (+efficiency and demand response) too not only to nuclear. If we're willing to further subsidize all of the zero carbon options, then that just makes renewables and storage even cheaper.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:46
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:True, but if we're handing out additional subsidies then we should hand them out to renewables and storage (+efficiency and demand response) too not only to nuclear. Agreed, fully. We can lower grid demand through rooftop solar, wind, and storage, while meeting industrial and urban needs with nuclear covering the heavy demand and non-peak hours.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:47
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Nuclear activists aren't the reason why nuclear power plants are getting shut down in the US, utilities are. Fewer and fewer want to run them. The plants are expensive, complex, with a high economic risk of complete plant failure before end of life, i.e. there's a big risk someone will ruin the plant with a fuckup. Providing the fossil fuel industry with a ready-made cover of "but nucular worse, even the treehuggers say so" is also an extremely dick move. Trabisnikof posted:True, but if we're handing out additional subsidies then we should hand them out to renewables and storage (+efficiency and demand response) too not only to nuclear. This is much more reasonable. The low-effort starting move would be to just slap power plants with ludicrous carbon taxes and have utilities sort themselves out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 20:57
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:Agreed, fully. We could certainly do that. There's a large number of different valid net-zero/zero-emission grid configurations and in the end it doesn't really matter which we do. Seeking some specific efficiency, be it cost, resource use, EROI, whatever is basically meaningless in the face of reality. It does make for good debate however, don't get me wrong!  Take rooftop solar, usually less cost/resource efficient than utility scale solar. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd make a bunch of utility scale solar and very little rooftop for those reasons. But in reality? More rooftop solar is better since the decisionmakers that are deciding to put on rooftop solar (building owners) can't decide to do utility scale solar. We're going to end up with some sort of mixed fleet and probably some of the reactors will be able to stay online, heck if they finish Vogtle they'll stay online for a while I imagine. suck my woke dick posted:The low-effort starting move would be to just slap power plants with ludicrous carbon taxes and have utilities sort themselves out. Sadly, we can't trust the utilities to even do that unsupervised. Otherwise you get the situation like in Europe where they're burning American wood instead of coal and this counts as carbon-neutral through an amazingly stupid loophole. https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-burning-counted-as-green-energy quote:Now, after replacing coal in its boilers with wood pellets shipped from the U.S. South, the Drax Power Station in Britain claims to be the largest carbon-saving project in Europe. About 23 million tons of carbon dioxide goes up its stacks each year. But because new trees will be planted in the cut forests, the company says the Drax plant is carbon-neutral. Capitalism...uh....finds a way Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Dec 7, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 21:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 08:26 |
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:We're going to end up with some sort of mixed fleet and probably some of the reactors will be able to stay online, heck if they finish Vogtle they'll stay online for a while I imagine. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 7, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2018 21:16
|
|