[Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

«‹›1933 »

(Thread IKs: Stereotype)

Spergin Morlock: Aug 8, 2009

poopo lol

# ? Sep 25, 2021 16:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 23, 2024 18:57

Ssthalar: Sep 16, 2007

Rime posted:

Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week. In South America, the climate future has arrived.

The Panaras River.

The Urus del Lago Poopó Indigenous community sits along the salt-crusted former shoreline of Lake Poopó in Punaca, Bolivia. Bolivia's second-largest lake dried up six years ago.

"Bolivia's second-largest lake dried up six years ago."
Lol! Lmao!

# ? Sep 25, 2021 16:52

Rectal Death Adept: Jun 20, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

sounds like you should make sure your faucets aren't dripping

# ? Sep 25, 2021 16:54

Mike the TV: Jan 14, 2008; Ninety-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine; Pillbug

Sounds like it wasn't a very good lake if it just up and dried out

# ? Sep 25, 2021 16:55

Mike the TV: Jan 14, 2008; Ninety-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine; Pillbug

Spergin Morlock posted:

poopo lol

# ? Sep 25, 2021 16:55

Koirhor: Jan 14, 2008; by Fluffdaddy

Ssthalar posted:

"Bolivia's second-largest lake dried up six years ago."
Lol! Lmao!

should of installed low flow showerheads

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:00

Egg Moron: Jul 21, 2003; the dreams of the delighting void

bowser posted:

https://twitter.com/halftroll/status/1441734323082698758?s=21

lol get wrecked vacation homeowners

or not

quote:

Because federal law prohibits FEMA from raising any homeowner�s flood insurance rates by more than 18 percent a year, it could take 20 years before some current homeowners are charged their full rates under the new system.

For example, Jennifer Zales, a real estate agent who lives in Tampa, pays $480 a year for flood insurance. Under the new system, her rates will eventually reach $7,147, according to Jake Holehouse, her insurance agent.

And that is prompting lawmakers from both parties to line up to block the new rates, which will be phased in over several years.
�We are extremely concerned about the administration�s decision to proceed,� Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and eight other senators from both parties, including the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, wrote in a letter on Wednesday to Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

nothing is ever going to change until all that poo poo is wiped off the map by the angry seas

so still lol

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:03

Egg Moron: Jul 21, 2003; the dreams of the delighting void

also, thanks democrat party! the party of science!

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:05

1glitch0: Sep 4, 2018; I DON'T GIVE A CRAP WHAT SHE BELIEVES THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS CHANGED MY LIFE #HUFFLEPUFF

Mike the TV posted:

Sounds like it wasn't a very good lake if it just up and dried out

Not a good lake from the standpoint of water

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:11

Cloks: Feb 1, 2013; by Azathoth

Egg Moron posted:

also, thanks democrat party! the party of science!

love to "believe in science"

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:12

krispykremessuck: Jul 22, 2005; unlike most veterans and SA members $10 is not a meaningful expenditure for me

I'm gonna have me a swag Bar-B-Q

Egg Moron posted:

lol get wrecked vacation homeowners

or not

nothing is ever going to change until all that poo poo is wiped off the map by the angry seas

so still lol

it�s not gonna change then either lmao

# ? Sep 25, 2021 17:50

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

being able to drive to your home

go down the stairs

or maybe take the elevator

past the friendly doorman

down the hall

to your bedroom (bottom bunk)

or maybe you want to relax in the cantina and enjoy the view?

# ? Sep 25, 2021 18:08

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

Egg Moron posted:

lol get wrecked vacation homeowners

or not

nothing is ever going to change until all that poo poo is wiped off the map by the angry seas

so still lol

Nah. Waterfront real estate is definitely going to eat it. It's already over if we're at the stage where we're seriously talking about the true costs of insuring these homes, even if there's going to be a ton of effort thrown into blocking significant flood insurance cost increases. These delays are basically a signal to big money that there's an expiration date on these properties.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 18:54

Lost Time: Sep 28, 2012; All necessities, provided. All anxieties, tranquilized. All boredom, amused.

The blockchain is hungry

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/bitcoin-miners-align-fossil-fuel-firms-alarming-environmentalists-n1280060

quote:

Four years ago, the Scrubgrass power plant in Venango County, Pennsylvania, was on the brink of financial ruin as energy customers preferred to buy cheap natural gas or renewables. Then Scrubgrass pivoted to Bitcoin.

Today, through a holding company based in Kennerdell, Pennsylvania, called Stronghold Digital Mining that bought the plant, Scrubgrass burns enough coal waste to power about 1,800 cryptocurrency mining computers. These computers, known as miners, are packed into shipping containers next to the power plant, the company stated in documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its initial public offering. Coal waste is a byproduct from decades of mining in the region, left behind in enormous black piles. Stronghold estimated that it�s currently burning about 600,000 tons of it per year at Scrubgrass.

According to the SEC filings, Stronghold plans to operate 57,000 miners by the end of 2022 � an expansion that requires buying up two additional coal waste power plants in the region.

What happened at Scrubgrass highlights a growing trend within the crypto world that alarms some environmentalists. Bitcoin mining is breathing new life into America�s aging fossil fuel power plants, creating a demand environmentalists say discourages investment in renewable energy sources at a time when shifting away from carbon-emitting sources of energy is essential.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology, essentially a shared database of transactions, where entries must be confirmed and encrypted. The network is secured by �miners� who use powerful computers to compete in an enormous guessing game that ultimately verifies the transactions. If a computer �wins� the game, it�s rewarded with a newly created bitcoin, currently worth about $40,000. The process consumes a lot of electricity, and the computers generate a lot of heat, which means they require industrial cooling systems that need even more energy.

Because of this, the Bitcoin network currently consumes more electricity than many small countries, including the Philippines, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.

�Bitcoin mining is essentially waste by design,� said Alex de Vries, a Dutch economist, researcher and founder of Digiconomist, a site that tracks the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. �It�s a system where participants are forced to waste resources to provide some level of security on the network. The more value bitcoin has, the more money it�s worth, the more we spend on resources.�

The trend has accelerated in recent months after the Chinese government cracked down on bitcoin mining, which until May was home to about two-thirds of global bitcoin mining capacity, according to research firm Rystad Energy. On Friday, China went so far to announce that all cryptocurrency transactions were illegal, which delivered another blow to the industry. But the mining crackdown already led to an influx of bitcoin mining operations into the United States, with several states, including Texas and Kentucky, welcoming them with open arms, cheap electricity and tax incentives.

�These miners don�t just need cheap energy, but a stable source of power because their machines need to run 24/7, and fossil fuel sources are best suited for it,� de Vries said. �Miners are reviving gas plants and idle coal mines in places like New York and Montana.�

Stronghold officials declined to comment because the company is currently in an SEC-mandated quiet period ahead of its initial public offering. But in a recent filing, it described its operations as �environmentally-beneficial,� pointing to Pennsylvania's classification of waste coal power generation as a �Tier II alternative energy source.� This classification allows Stronghold to benefit from state subsidies.

Waste coal piles are an environmental hazard filled with contaminants that leach into waterways, killing fish and other wildlife, and they sometimes spontaneously catch fire, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Burning it as fuel in a power plant like Scrubgrass helps clean up the waste piles, but it emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as well as other dangerous greenhouse gases.

�Simply put, we employ 21st century crypto mining techniques to remediate the impacts of 19th and 20th century coal mining in some of the most environmentally neglected regions of the United States,� the company stated in the filing.

much more in article.

It's a shame talk about accelerationism is only centered on random irony poisoned online cranks, instead of this hilarious poo poo. We're all now just going to have to do our own parts better, like using more metal straws and remembering not to be too mean on the Biden admin for oil pipelines and fracking.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 19:12

Second Hand Meat Mouth: Sep 12, 2001

Stereotype posted:

lol this video is more than a year old? someone linked it here i'm not finding the post to quote it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

the first part of this is amazing, the part mainly about how solar is fake. the end is all about how "biomass" is a huge scam. billions of subsidies stolen to massively incentivize doing tree agriculture to burn the trees. the scene with the cow and the horse i could have gone without seeing.

lol just watched this, lol sierra club lol environmental groups

# ? Sep 25, 2021 19:22

silicone thrills: Jan 9, 2008; I paint things

CNN is getting a little on the nose

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/24/europe/germany-climate-crisis-election-intl-cmd-grm/index.html

Sleeping Beauty's forest is dying. It's not the only climate crisis facing Germany's next chancellor

quote:

Reinhardswald, Germany (CNN)Gazing out from the rocky ledge of Sleeping Beauty's castle in central Germany, the countryside below stretches out in a patchwork of light and dark green forests before stopping dead.

At the heart of this lush landscape sits a swath of dry, bare earth. The ground is empty, save for a few ghostly white trunks pointing skywards.
Viewed up close, this scene in the Reinhardswald nature park is equally desolate. Brittle sticks crunch underfoot and tree stumps dot the empty landscape, which stretches over some 50 acres.
The spruce trees that once stood here have been killed by a bark beetle infestation. The insects thrive in the warmer and drier weather conditions that occur more frequently because of climate change.
"Once the bark has peeled off, the trees look a bit like bones," said Peter Meyer, head of forest nature conservation at the North-West German Forest Research Institute in G�ttingen and Hann M�nden.

Bark beetle infestations are worsened by drought conditions, since once the tree has been weakened by a lack of water, it can't produce enough resin to combat the insects.
"Then the beetle can just drill into the tree, lay eggs underneath the bark, and the larvae feed on the tree, interrupting the water supply, and that makes the tree die," Meyer explains. "Drought is the trigger for bark beetle infestations."
Germany has suffered historic drought in recent years and 2018 was the warmest since records began 140 years ago. In other parts of the country this summer, rain has fallen hard and fast, triggering deadly floods.
All of these events have put the climate crisis squarely on the campaign trail ahead of Germany's federal election on Sunday. It's the first in 16 years that won't feature Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the candidates vying to replace her are all pitching their climate credentials.
The crisis is being felt in many parts of Germany, and the country's fairy tale forests are no exception.

Germany's climate election
Rose bushes cling to the ancient walls of the 14th century Sababurg Castle, said to have inspired the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty."
On a chilly September morning, a steady stream of tourists is visiting. Their route here is lined with towering piles of logs -- all that remains of the Reinhardswald's damaged trees, cut down to halt the beetles' spread.
The winding road is dotted, too, with electoral posters; the grinning faces of political candidates adorn lampposts and road signs, marking a national election in which green issues have taken center stage.
Germany's next chancellor will face a hefty list of climate challenges as they steer Europe's largest economy toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, including the transition from fossil fuels to renewables; replacing combustion-engine cars with electric ones; and the completion of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which brings gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

The election comes just months after devastating floods in western Germany submerged entire towns and killed more than 180 people. At the other weather extreme, Germans suffered two years of extreme drought in 2018 and 2019 and watched as large parts of southern Europe were wrecked by wildfires this summer.
Scientists have warned for decades that climate change will make extreme weather events more frequent and intense, but this summer's floods created a fresh sense of urgency, prompting environment minister Svenja Schulze to declare that: "Climate Change has arrived in Germany."
All these events have led many to wonder how Germany will meet its emissions-reduction goals. The country has pledged a 65% cut in emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. There are also questions over whether Germany is doing its fair share to meet the Paris Agreement's target of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Germany is off track in achieving its emission targets. It should be at 40% below 1990 levels this year, but an increase in emissions as it recovers from the pandemic means it will miss that target.

It's a downbeat note for Merkel, once dubbed the "Climate Chancellor," to leave office on. While she has supported ambitious emission-slashing goals, her government had only planned to phase out coal by 2038, regarded as late for a developed nation. And funding natural gas -- a climate-changing fossil fuel -- through Nord Stream 2 is a sore point.
Merkel's replacement will play a leading role in shaping Europe's climate policy at a pivotal moment in the fight against global warming: In November, world leaders will gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for international climate talks, known as COP26.

"The approach that the next German government takes can have a major multiplier effect for European climate action, and EU climate leadership on the world stage," said Rafael Loss, co-ordinator for Pan-European Data Projects at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
But with just days to go before the election, it is not at all clear who will be the next chancellor. Polls put the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), led Olaf Scholz, slightly ahead of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Armin Laschet.
Whatever the result on Sunday, lengthy coalition negotiations are expected -- and the Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock, are likely to be the kingmakers, polls show, meaning climate has become a key election issue in the country.
A Greens presence in government would undoubtedly force Germany's next government to be more ambitious on climate.

A Grimm story
Baerbock's recent political advertisement was filmed in Germany's forests, a place of deep ecological and cultural importance to people here.
"Your voice decides on the last government that can actively influence the climate crisis before it's too late," Baerbock says, as a drone camera zooms high above the Harz Mountains in northern Germany -- another region ravaged by the bark beetle.
Forests are among crucial solutions to the climate crisis: They suck up much of the world's carbon and store it safely underground.
In Germany, they are the country's green lungs. Forests cover 11.4 million acres -- about a third of the country -- and capture roughly 62 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
They are also a source of wealth, providing 76 million cubic meters of timber each year, for use in everything from construction to paper manufacturing. In the last seven years the average market value for Germany's roundwood production amounted to over 3.5 billion euros ($4.1 billion) annually.
But Germany's forests are, by some measures, in their worst shape for decades.

More trees died in 2020 than in any other year on record, according to the government's annual Forest Conditions Report. The study examined 10,000 trees across the country and found that just 21% had an intact canopy -- an indication of how healthy a tree is -- the lowest percentage since studies began 37 years ago.
"Crown condition is like a medical thermometer; it shows how the trees are doing. The survey shows: our forests are sick," said Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner.
The main culprits were the bark beetles. The insects mainly attack spruces, which are the most common tree species in Germany, making up 25% of the country's forests.
Last year, around 43.3 million cubic meters of damaged timber had to be cut down as a result of bark beetle infestation, according to the Federal Office of Statistics.
Germany's spruce forests date back to the reforestation efforts of the 19th and 20th century, when degraded woodlands were restocked with this fast-growing tree species. Broadleaved forests were also converted to spruce forests.

Meyer estimates that this decimated patch of spruce trees in Reinhardswald Nature Park, within hiking distance of Sleeping Beauty's castle, is around 80 years old.
To the average passer-by, the brittle landscape looks like a graveyard of skeletal tree trunks. But Meyer, who has studied trees for more than three decades, sees signs of scraggly new growth; he says if left to its own devices, the forest can heal.
A short distance from the Sleeping Beauty castle also sits the lush Sababurg Primeval Forest.
Step amid the trees here and the temperature drops away as the sunlight disappears behind a thick canopy of leaves. Towering oaks -- some dating back 600 years -- stretch their gnarled limbs, cloaked in a shiny jacket of green moss towards the sky.
Unlike the decimated spruce forest nearby, this woodland has been spared the devastation caused by bark beetle infestation.
Experts hope forests like this one can offer clues as to which tree species may be more resistant to rising temperatures in future. So far, they have found that "oak trees appear to be more tolerant to drought and water logging, to extremes of climate, than beech trees for example," Meyer says.

A 21st century enchanted wood
Forests aren't just Germany's lungs -- they are part of its cultural heart.
The country's woods are the centuries-old backdrop to fairy tales like "Red Riding Hood," "Snow White" and "Hansel and Gretel;" the ideal, spooky setting for encounters with mythical creatures.
The stories were collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century. They have since been translated into more than 160 languages and are still read to children across the world.
The brothers' childhood home at Steinau, in central Germany's Hesse region, has been transformed into a museum.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, tourists wander around the imposing building where the family lived in the 1790s. Small children squeal with delight as a storyteller dressed as a goat tap-tap-taps on a small wooden door in the pretty gardens; nearby, seven-stone dwarves stand guard by the rose bushes.
Forests feature in at least a third of the roughly 250 stories collected by the brothers, according to the museum's curator Burkhard Kling.
One room inside the museum is dedicated entirely to forests, with dozens of tiny dioramas featuring familiar characters in woodland settings, confronting wolves or nibbling candy houses.
Kling explains why woods inspire such fear and wonder among storytellers: "It's dark. You don't know what is behind the next tree... You don't know if there's an animal that wants to catch you," but: "When you see the light behind the trees, you can find hope."

Germany's fairy-tale towns
The effects of climate change are also being felt at other stops along Germany's popular fairy tale tourist trail.
Alsfeld is known as "Red Riding Hood town," after the traditional red caps worn by girls in the region.
This picturesque spot markets itself as a must-see for fairy tale enthusiasts, attracting some 90,000 overnight visitors each year.
Its 14th century bookshop is lined with copies of "Red Riding Hood" books in multiple languages.
Nearby, a crooked half-timbered building nearby has been transformed into a house of fairy tales, complete with Rapunzel's long plait trailing from the third-story window. The gardens of the local church often play host to open-air performances of the Grimm Brothers' stories.
When not playing the grandmother in one of these "Red Riding Hood" performances, Jenny Wagner works as a tour guide, thrilling visitors with tales set in the deep, dark woods. But over the last three decades she's seen the nearby forests of her childhood change dramatically.
"When I was a young girl, we often went on hiking trips into the forest and there was a bed of leaves above you," says Wagner. "You can hardly find that anymore. If you go into the forest, you have a lot of trees that don't really carry any leaves."
The forests around Alsfeld are a big draw for visitors; Mayor Stephan Paule says without these recreational spaces the town -- and its economy -- would suffer; an important "source of revenue for the town will disappear," he warns.

Age-old tale
The challenges facing Germany's forests have changed a lot in the last four decades. So too have its environmental activists.
Meyer, a softly-spoken scientist with a knack for spotting tiny apples or mushrooms hidden amid the foliage, began studying forestry in the 1980s, at a time when acid rain was killing Germany's woods -- a phenomenon known as "Waldsterben," or forest dieback.
"It was sort of a catastrophic impression of the forests, and that we really have to act to do something," he said.
Efforts were made to clean up the coal mines and the forests revived. But the environmental calamity left its mark on Germans, who saw the woods as part of their identity.
The "Waldsterben" of the 1980s, along with concerns over nuclear power, became central to the budding Green Party's activism.

Decades on, Germany's new generation of environmental activists take a broader view of the climate crisis.
"The emotional connection my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation, has to forest is very different to my connection," explains Helena Marschall, a 19-year-old economics and politics student at Leuphana University, who is part of the Fridays for the Future school strikes against global warming.
Marschall says that while she is concerned about the state of German forests, "the climate crisis is fundamentally a question of my life, and not so much an abstract concept of nature."
Merkel is the only chancellor Marshall has ever known -- this will be the first national election in which she is old enough to cast her vote. She says the so-called "Climate Chancellor" hasn't lived up to her billing, and sees this election as a chance to "build a different kind of politics."
Just days before Germans go to the polls, the Fridays for the Future movement plans mass demonstrations across the country, with millions expected to take part.
Germany's fairy-tale forests have survived for hundreds of years -- the challenge for the next chancellor will be to ensure they are protected far into the future.

lol at Germany's emissions taking a sharp spike up while all their positive cultural history fuckin dies.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 19:27

bowser: Apr 7, 2007

Egg Moron posted:

also, thanks democrat party! the party of science!

# ? Sep 25, 2021 19:40

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Stereotype posted:

lol this video is more than a year old? someone linked it here i'm not finding the post to quote it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

the first part of this is amazing, the part mainly about how solar is fake. the end is all about how "biomass" is a huge scam. billions of subsidies stolen to massively incentivize doing tree agriculture to burn the trees. the scene with the cow and the horse i could have gone without seeing.

iirc there was a big negative reaction to this when it came out

# ? Sep 25, 2021 19:56

silicone thrills: Jan 9, 2008; I paint things

Doctor Jeep posted:

iirc there was a big negative reaction to this when it came out

I haven't watched it but I recall it was because it was ~ too doomer ~ ?

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:02

HerraS: Apr 15, 2012; Looking professional when committing genocide is essential. This is mostly achieved by using a beret.

Olive drab colour ensures the genocider will remain hidden from his prey until it's too late for them to do anything.

remember when that doc got pulled off youtube so you had to pay amazon to watch it lol lmao

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:02

jisforjosh: Jun 6, 2006; "It's J is for...you know what? Fuck it, jizz it is"

silicone thrills posted:

I haven't watched it but I recall it was because it was ~ too doomer ~ ?

That and that it only "criticizes without offering solutions"

there are no solutions

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:09

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Doctor Jeep posted:

Stereotype posted:
lol this video is more than a year old? someone linked it here i'm not finding the post to quote it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

the first part of this is amazing, the part mainly about how solar is fake. the end is all about how "biomass" is a huge scam. billions of subsidies stolen to massively incentivize doing tree agriculture to burn the trees. the scene with the cow and the horse i could have gone without seeing.

iirc there was a big negative reaction to this when it came out

Pro-click longform read - �Green� billionaires behind professional activist network that led suppression of �Planet of the Humans� documentary - Max Blumenthal�September 7, 2020

Some lines I enjoyed from this article:

quote:

A few left-wing journalists tried to push back on the attacks as well. But in almost every case, they were spiked by editors at ostensibly progressive journals. Christopher Ketcham, author of �This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West,� was among those unable to find a venue in which to defend the documentary.

�I have come across very few editors radical enough to have the exceedingly difficult conversation about the downscaling, simplification, and the turn (in the developed world) toward diminished affluence that a 100 percent renewable energy system will necessarily entail,� Ketcham reflected to me. �You see, they have to believe that they can keep their carbon-subsidized entitlements, their toys, their leisure travel � no behavioral change or limits needed � and it will all be green and �sustainable.'�

[...]

Even mainstream environmentalists acknowledge that rising reliance on renewable energy �means a lot of dirty mining� to extract the minerals required for electric batteries and solar cells. This prospect has sparked excitement within the mining industry, with the editor of Mining.com, Frik Els, dubbing Green New Deal spokeswomen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg �mining�s unlikely heroines.�

�Going all in on the green economy and decarbonisation requires siding with the greens against fossil fuels,� Els informed fellow mining industry insiders. �It means selling global mining as the solution to climate change because mining metals is the only path to green energy and green transport.�

The inevitable rush on minerals required to power the green revolution has not exactly delighted residents of the Global South, however.

Evo Morales, the indigenous former president of Bolivia, was driven from power in 2019 by a military junta backed by the United States and local oligarchs, in what he branded a lithium coup. With the world�s largest untapped lithium resources, Bolivia is estimated to hold as much as half of the world�s reserves. Under Morales, the country guaranteed that only state-owned firms could mine the mineral.

The ousted socialist leader argued that multi-national corporations supported his right-wing domestic opponents in order to get their hands on Bolivia�s lithium � an essential element in the electric batteries that provide the cornerstone to a digital economy dependent on smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. �As a small country of 10 million inhabitants, we were soon going to set the price of lithium,� Morales said. �They know we have the greatest lithium reserves in the world [in a space of] 16,000 square kilometers.�

Just before the military coup in Bolivia, a report (PDF) by the World Economic Forum�s Global Battery Alliance reported that the global demand for electric batteries will increase 14-fold before 2030. Almost half of today�s lithium is mined to produce electric batteries, and the demand for the mineral will only rise as power grids incorporate high levels of battery powered tech and the demand for electric vehicles increases.

Electric batteries are also heavily reliant on cobalt, most of which is mined from Congo, and often in illegal and dangerous conditions by child labor. In December 2019, over a dozen Congolese plaintiffs sued Apple, Google�s Alphabet parent company, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla, accusing them of �knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in Democratic Republic of Congo (�DRC�) to mine cobalt.�

This July, Tesla CEO and electric battery kingpin Elon Musk appeared to take partial credit for the 2019 military coup that forced Bolivia�s Evo Morales from power, asserting that big tech billionaires like him could �coup whoever we want.�

Hubbert has issued a correction as of 20:15 on Sep 25, 2021

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:13

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

silicone thrills posted:

I haven't watched it but I recall it was because it was ~ too doomer ~ ?

yeah something like that, i believe they managed to do a media blackout of the movie
i know my twitter timeline had a couple of threads about that at the time

edit: thanks hubbert

Doktor Avalanche has issued a correction as of 20:36 on Sep 25, 2021

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:15

Dick Valentine: Nov 4, 2009

the conclusion of the doc is that there is no possible fix for industrial civilization that can be created by industrial civilization.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:16

HerraS: Apr 15, 2012; Looking professional when committing genocide is essential. This is mostly achieved by using a beret.

Olive drab colour ensures the genocider will remain hidden from his prey until it's too late for them to do anything.

once again reminded of that gtk paper that concluded "so uh either we conjure up a new energy source from thin air or maybe perhaps we should start seriously thinking about ditching neoliberal capitalism"

lol

lmao

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:20

Clever Moniker: Oct 29, 2007

bowser posted:

https://twitter.com/halftroll/status/1441734323082698758?s=21

Thank God.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:32

Basic Poster: May 11, 2015; Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

On Facebook

Lol

Lmao

https://www.businessinsider.com/carbon-capture-storage-expensive-climate-change-2021-9

# ? Sep 25, 2021 20:48

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Basic Poster posted:

Lol

Lmao

https://www.businessinsider.com/carbon-capture-storage-expensive-climate-change-2021-9

how long until the machine pays off its own embodied energy costs?

# ? Sep 25, 2021 21:12

Rectal Death Adept: Jun 20, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

so "The World's Largest" carbon capture plant that opened manages to capture 3 seconds of yearly output in 1 year

Meaning we need roughly ...10,483,200 of them to become carbon neutral

if you ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them to superheat the air and sequester the carbon

Maybe if the world has cut emissions in half by 2050 we can double the effectiveness of the technology and only need 2,620,000 of them to become carbon neutral

if we ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them

Then we can work on dealing with the amount of climate change we have already guaranteed

# ? Sep 25, 2021 21:16

Rectal Death Adept: Jun 20, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

i think the thread should start recycling to supplement the carbon capture technology that will save us now

I got some kind of lovely weird plant straw at a restaurant yesterday #doingmypart

Edit: Uh oh

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/m/ed9ba387-e1c0-3a8b-9352-35083a489cfa/us-airlines-are-planning-to.html
US airlines are planning to unnecessarily burn 20,000 tons of CO2 per day because of FAA rules

Well if these carbon capture plants remove 4000 tons per year then this is -1825 of them

Rectal Death Adept has issued a correction as of 21:30 on Sep 25, 2021

# ? Sep 25, 2021 21:21

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

Rectal Death Adept posted:

so "The World's Largest" carbon capture plant that opened manages to capture 3 seconds of yearly output in 1 year

Meaning we need roughly ...10,483,200 of them to become carbon neutral

if you ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them to superheat the air and sequester the carbon

Maybe if the world has cut emissions in half by 2050 we can double the effectiveness of the technology and only need 2,620,000 of them to become carbon neutral

if we ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them

Then we can work on dealing with the amount of climate change we have already guaranteed

AFAIK current estimates put global manufacturing as taking place in approximately 10 million factories worldwide

so we just have to invest that amount again in things which make no profit for anyone and are an active drain on the economy

definitely, totally doable

# ? Sep 25, 2021 21:44

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

capturing carbon sounds hard just do the nuclear war thing, we've got that poo poo all built already at least

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:08

angerbot: Mar 23, 2004; plob

carbon doesn't even move, how hard can it be to capture, these dolt scientists are being outwitted by a lump of coal

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:20

bobmarleysghost: Mar 7, 2006

Rectal Death Adept posted:

so "The World's Largest" carbon capture plant that opened manages to capture 3 seconds of yearly output in 1 year

Meaning we need roughly ...10,483,200 of them to become carbon neutral

if you ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them to superheat the air and sequester the carbon

Maybe if the world has cut emissions in half by 2050 we can double the effectiveness of the technology and only need 2,620,000 of them to become carbon neutral

if we ignore the cost of building them or the large amounts of energy required in them

Then we can work on dealing with the amount of climate change we have already guaranteed

lol we're all gonna die 🤣

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:20

Jel Shaker: Apr 19, 2003

just pretend that trees are nanotechnology computers or some poo poo and get VC funding with an advertorial forbes puff piece and there you go, carbon capture that works

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:25

Rectal Death Adept: Jun 20, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

if you want VC funding the trees need to have "internet of things" connectivity

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:27

SKULL.GIF: Jan 20, 2017

Carbon capture doesn't even address anything like heat emission, pollution, or massive and rapacious fishing and agriculture to feed the 8 billion humans on the planet

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:32

Rectal Death Adept: Jun 20, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

once all the fish are dead we can just feed people beans that aren't growing right and let them drink water from the...uhhh....uhhhh

Carbon Capture!

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:34

bobmarleysghost: Mar 7, 2006

the way to deal with all of this is to chop wood, carry water, lol, lmao

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:36

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 23, 2024 18:57

Pryor on Fire: May 14, 2013; they don't know all alien abduction experiences can be explained by people thinking saving private ryan was a documentary

Methane is a way stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, like 30x so even if you magically solve carbon we're still hosed because higher temps accelerate natural methane production and people seem to love beef

# ? Sep 25, 2021 23:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

«‹›1933 »