The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Doug]

Cigarette butts are the biggest offender:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...-ocean-n903661

Add this to the list of why consuming tobacco should be illegal.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by flar

You can't seem to see.past where it goes into the trash. All that plastic will exist for centuries, and we keep making more and more. So you say burn it. In a climate change thread of all places.

It's much easier to make less of it in the first place. The specifics of the policy are mostly unimportant. What matters is the direction of the policy. During the implementation, when things hit the real world, all parties involved (including the government) will have to adapt. Less plastic and forcing effort toward making better alternatives seem like very reasonable things to do.

And you (and many other ignorant, pretend environmentalists) can't connect the dots and see the big picture. What is the actual problem with plastic going in the landfill (or being recycled)? That plastic was used to either make something else that was useful or to protect something else from being damaged. If we use less plastic, we will either have to use other materials that are more carbon intensive and environmentally damaging in their production, or accept more damage to the food it is used to protect. And the environmental cost of producing an item of food is likely far greater than the thin piece of plastic protecting it.

Sure, we could use fewer straws. But not only are they irrelevant to the problem a ban claims to solve, they are a miniscule amount of the plastic produced. And the new containers designed to replace them use more plastic! These plans are dumb. No other way to put it, but people lap them up because they can see plastic and feel like if they make that change then it lets them off the hook for everything else they do.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Doug

Cigarette butts are the biggest offender:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...-ocean-n903661

Add this to the list of why consuming tobacco should be illegal.

Fine with me, at least stop using plastic filters. See problem, find cause of problem, stop problem.

[TownGuy]

Smokers where I work will sit in their idling cars and have their smoke during their breaks if the weather isn't nice. That means +1 hours sitting in an idling car. Of course once they get out of the car where do half the butts end up? On the ground. There seems to be general trend of not giving a fuck about anything when it comes to smokers. Not surprisingly I guess...

[flar]

Originally Posted by milomilo

And you (and many other ignorant, pretend environmentalists) can't connect the dots and see the big picture. What is the actual problem with plastic going in the landfill (or being recycled)? That plastic was used to either make something else that was useful or to protect something else from being damaged. If we use less plastic, we will either have to use other materials that are more carbon intensive and environmentally damaging in their production, or accept more damage to the food it is used to protect. And the environmental cost of producing an item of food is likely far greater than the thin piece of plastic protecting it.

Sure, we could use fewer straws. But not only are they irrelevant to the problem a ban claims to solve, they are a miniscule amount of the plastic produced. And the new containers designed to replace them use more plastic! These plans are dumb. No other way to put it, but people lap them up because they can see plastic and feel like if they make that change then it lets them off the hook for everything else they do.

I'm an environmentalist now? And ignorant. And the guy who wants to burn and bury everything thinks I can't see the big picture. Wow. I don't even know what you're going on about. You just seem resistant to the idea of changing anything. Obviously what we're doing is not sustainable. Change is necessary, gotta start somewhere.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

Smokers where I work will sit in their idling cars and have their smoke during their breaks if the weather isn't nice. That means +1 hours sitting in an idling car. Of course once they get out of the car where do half the butts end up? On the ground. There seems to be general trend of not giving a fuck about anything when it comes to smokers. Not surprisingly I guess...

I'd be interested to see how many of these forest fires are a direct cause of people not discarding cigarettes properly.

[Hackslack]

This whole banning plastic debate is nonsensical, in the same way environmentalists expect the world will use less oil if Canada's resources are blocked. Another example of enviro's inability to think logically, ensuring extreme harm to Canada's economy.

[Eau Claire]

I’m waaaay behind, probably too far to catch up, but I’ll start with this, and this one is HUGE. We’ve talked about this before but there has been a renewed buzz about it this week, and maybe for the first time in the mainstream media. The best way to describe it is perhaps as a combination of the regenerative agriculture and silvopasture categories on the drawdown.org site:
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

https://www.fastcompany.com/90361030...ge?partner=rss
“One of the biggest solutions for the climate isn’t as obvious as wind power or electric cars. But if farmers make changes to the way they manage soil on farms—and that happened on farmland globally—it could theoretically suck a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, or as much as humans have emitted since the Industrial Revolution...
But while carbon-sucking machines can cost $100 per ton of sequestered CO2, changes on a farm can happen much more affordably. “For around $15 or $20 a ton, we’d be providing farmers a really compelling reason to change practices,” says Perry. Each acre might sequester two to three tons of carbon a year.”
A startup out of Boston named Indigo Agriculture wants to pay farmers this to alter their practices to sequester CO2:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/this...te-change.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.8b41277d7059
https://agfundernews.com/regenerativ...ble-is-it.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louisab.../#343250232afb

So the obvious question becomes, how could we apply this in Canada? I think governments could play a key role here. A quick calculation shows that there is enough cultivated farmland in Alberta, never mind land that might be suitable for silvopasture, to sequester all the carbon from every vehicle in Alberta plus about 50% more, for example, so the potential here is huge. Also note that Sask has about a third the number of vehicles, and twice the amount of cultivated land, so it could clean up its own CO2, plus BC’s, plus a good chunk of Ontario’s. If we take the high number of $20 ton, and generate it through a gas tax, that would be less than 5 cents per litre, and in Alberta that would make every vehicle carbon neutral.

This is a fairly simple idea, but there are a lot of details to be worked through. Canadian farmers currently use some of these practices but not all of them. What is good for regenerating soil is not necessarily good for maximising short to medium term profit, so this is where the $15 -$20/ton incentive comes in. We’d have to come up with a way to audit to make sure farmers were doing these things, or better yet would be to come up with a way to measure the carbon content of the soil, so that we would know directly how much was being sequestered. These records would also become an important part of a research project to find out which methods work best. I’m sure there are a LOT more details to be thought through as well, but the potential here is HUGE.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by flar

I'm an environmentalist now? And ignorant. And the guy who wants to burn and bury everything thinks I can't see the big picture. Wow. I don't even know what you're going on about. You just seem resistant to the idea of changing anything. Obviously what we're doing is not sustainable. Change is necessary, gotta start somewhere.

I said pretend environmentalist, because anyone that supports policy that harms the environment more than it benefits, like the single use plastic ban probably will (we don't know details yet), cannot truly care about the environment.

You still haven't specified what problem a single use plastic ban is designed to combat. If you don't even know what the problem is, how can you possibly know what the correct policy response is?

[flar]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I said pretend environmentalist, because anyone that supports policy that harms the environment more than it benefits, like the single use plastic ban probably will (we don't know details yet), cannot truly care about the environment.

You still haven't specified what problem a single use plastic ban is designed to combat. If you don't even know what the problem is, how can you possibly know what the correct policy response is?

You don't know what the policy is either, yet you are vehemently against it and think it will be more harmful than status quo without knowing the details. Methinks you just don't like it because Trudeau.

If you understood my posts, you would know that I think the direction of the policy is what's important and not the specifics. I only care about big picture and any government that wants to make a move in this direction is doing the right thing and will get my vote

[milomilo]

It's been called a ban, so I'll presume it is what it says it is. Unless it's something completely different, or watered down enough to not do anything, then it might be ok, but then what's the point?

Yeah, I prefer specifics rather than empty gestures and virtue signalling, which is what a single use plastics ban would be. But it is a democracy, and it seems your support of useless policy has a lot of company. The specifics absolutely are important, they are what decides if policy works or doesn't work.

[flar]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's been called a ban, so I'll presume it is what it says it is. Unless it's something completely different, or watered down enough to not do anything, then it might be ok, but then what's the point?

Yeah, I prefer specifics rather than empty gestures and virtue signalling, which is what a single use plastics ban would be. But it is a democracy, and it seems your support of useless policy has a lot of company. The specifics absolutely are important, they are what decides if policy works or doesn't work.

It's not a useless policy and it will be watered down. Everything gets watered down during implementation.

I've suggested before that environment would be a big campaign issue, and it looks like that will be the case. Stop using politically loaded alt right terminolgy like virtue signalling and you will have more credibility.

[milomilo]

Virtue signaling is exactly what it is, and you've been a perfect example of it's success as a political strategy. Banning single use plastics will likely cause more harm to the environment than it helps, but you fell for it - "gets my vote". The Liberals promoted a cause that you've been conditioned to support, and you'll vote for that, along with many others.

A shame, because the other part of their environmental platform that actually is good policy, carbon pricing, is less popular and could easily be scrapped with a change in government.

[flar]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Virtue signaling is exactly what it is, and you've been a perfect example of it's success as a political strategy. Banning single use plastics will likely cause more harm to the environment than it helps, but you fell for it - "gets my vote". The Liberals promoted a cause that you've been conditioned to support, and you'll vote for that, along with many others.

A shame, because the other part of their environmental platform that actually is good policy, carbon pricing, is less popular and could easily be scrapped with a change in government.

I'm a realist and a pragmatist. Your worldview is too simplistic, stop listening to pseudointellectual bs on YouTube and go out in the world get some real experience, and really think about how complex the actual world is. You don't have things figured out nearly as much as you think you do.

[milomilo]

That's all well and good, but you still haven't identified any benefit to a single use plastics ban. And given that this is a climate changed thread, haven't noticed that a ban will actually hinder, rather than help with that cause. Supporting policy like that may give people the warm and fuzzies, and help the Liberal's election chances, but if it harms the environment for no benefit, then I cannot support it.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by milomilo

That's all well and good, but you still haven't identified any benefit to a single use plastics ban. And given that this is a climate changed thread, haven't noticed that a ban will actually hinder, rather than help with that cause. Supporting policy like that may give people the warm and fuzzies, and help the Liberal's election chances, but if it harms the environment for no benefit, then I cannot support it.

I don’t think this is a good electoral strategy at all. Every week the Tories can do a photo op in front of a single use plastic people will not give up (the diaper aisle, the tampon aisle, the meat aisle). I think most supporters of this are single men who don’t cook.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by flar

How about not having so many disposable products? Build things that are meant to last. We can live without so much of the stuff around us, we don't need to replace every thing made of plastic. I would hope that most plastic things are replaced with nothing.

Ban plastic water bottles, ban plastic bags. Two examples of things we don't actually need.

Nothing will change though, because people will make up endless excuses about why we can't do this and that, and fearmonger about alternatives.

I agree, at least partially...

How about we ban all the throw-away electronic devices that can't be repaired due to design or lack of affordable parts, or at least require the manufacturers to design such devices to be easily repaired and to supply reasonably priced replacement parts (for a minimum of 10 years) so that it is economically feasible to repair them? Maybe build them better so that their buy-in price is higher, but they will last for at least 10 years? The market is filled with so much cheaply-built junk now, that is cheap to buy but blows up after a year or two, encouraging people to just throw it away and buy a new one.

For the stuff that will last longer, it's often outdated quickly and the software is no longer supported after a few years, again prompting people to toss it and buy something new.

It's time to look at the entire way that industry operates - especially the tech industry - and make requirements for their 'stuff' to last longer. As well, consumers need to educated that they don't need to have the latest greatest tech gadget to achieve happiness in life. Our throw away society extends far beyond plastic bags - but people don't seem to want to look at stuff that they personally enjoy in order to effect change, only the easy stuff that creates the appearance of making a difference. Don't believe me? Ask people you know to stop wasting energy and resources by checking their phones every 5 minutes and I'm sure you will get some interesting responses...

Regarding bottles, why not return to using glass? The beer industry has continued with reusable glass bottles all these years and it hasn't seemed to hurt them. Why not require all the soft drink and bottled water companies to collect, clean and reuse glass bottles as once was the norm?

Plastic bags? Sure, get rid of them, but first come up with an alternative that's better. As I posted 2 pages ago, but was not responded to, there have been studies that suggest that the alternatives are only marginally better, or even worse in some cases, than the plastic bags that they are intended to replace. So a flat-out ban has the potential to replace one problem with another (or more problems), and for the environment to be no further ahead in the long run... just because we want to jump at apparently easy solutions that look good to the public (on the surface, until you start to actually research the issue), and will obviously get votes.

Then there is the whole other subject of single-use plastic products that are beneficial to people's health, like plastic syringes, hygene products, etc. A flat-out ban including items like these actually have the potential to be harmful to the public.

I'm not against banning anything that's bad for the environment, or bad for people's health (like how about pesticides and herbicides?), but I think we as a society need to have some clear thinking politicians who actually work with the science community to come up with best case solutions to our problems, rather than just jumping on the popularity bandwagon to obtain votes.

Just my 2¢ on the subject...

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Eau Claire

I’m waaaay behind, probably too far to catch up, but I’ll start with this, and this one is HUGE. We’ve talked about this before but there has been a renewed buzz about it this week, and maybe for the first time in the mainstream media. The best way to describe it is perhaps as a combination of the regenerative agriculture and silvopasture categories on the drawdown.org site:
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

https://www.fastcompany.com/90361030...ge?partner=rss
“One of the biggest solutions for the climate isn’t as obvious as wind power or electric cars. But if farmers make changes to the way they manage soil on farms—and that happened on farmland globally—it could theoretically suck a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, or as much as humans have emitted since the Industrial Revolution...
But while carbon-sucking machines can cost $100 per ton of sequestered CO2, changes on a farm can happen much more affordably. “For around $15 or $20 a ton, we’d be providing farmers a really compelling reason to change practices,” says Perry. Each acre might sequester two to three tons of carbon a year.”
A startup out of Boston named Indigo Agriculture wants to pay farmers this to alter their practices to sequester CO2:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/this...te-change.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.8b41277d7059
https://agfundernews.com/regenerativ...ble-is-it.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louisab.../#343250232afb

So the obvious question becomes, how could we apply this in Canada? I think governments could play a key role here. A quick calculation shows that there is enough cultivated farmland in Alberta, never mind land that might be suitable for silvopasture, to sequester all the carbon from every vehicle in Alberta plus about 50% more, for example, so the potential here is huge. Also note that Sask has about a third the number of vehicles, and twice the amount of cultivated land, so it could clean up its own CO2, plus BC’s, plus a good chunk of Ontario’s. If we take the high number of $20 ton, and generate it through a gas tax, that would be less than 5 cents per litre, and in Alberta that would make every vehicle carbon neutral.

This is a fairly simple idea, but there are a lot of details to be worked through. Canadian farmers currently use some of these practices but not all of them. What is good for regenerating soil is not necessarily good for maximising short to medium term profit, so this is where the $15 -$20/ton incentive comes in. We’d have to come up with a way to audit to make sure farmers were doing these things, or better yet would be to come up with a way to measure the carbon content of the soil, so that we would know directly how much was being sequestered. These records would also become an important part of a research project to find out which methods work best. I’m sure there are a LOT more details to be thought through as well, but the potential here is HUGE.

BC has a couple of Agroforestry Specialists who can help answer questions about implementing this, but as far as I can tell there are unfortunately no programs in place to promote this sort of idea. Here's a brief page where they talk about it: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/i...t/agroforestry

[Glacier]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

I'd be interested to see how many of these forest fires are a direct cause of people not discarding cigarettes properly.

pretty much none. In the past 30 years there has only been one destructive interface fire in BC started by a cigarette.

What is causing a lot of fire spread is the spraying of pesticides on the forest to kill all the deciduous trees. Because conifers are a lot more flammable, the forest now burn much hotter and spread faster.

Originally Posted by Hackslack

This whole banning plastic debate is nonsensical, in the same way environmentalists expect the world will use less oil if Canada's resources are blocked. Another example of enviro's inability to think logically, ensuring extreme harm to Canada's economy.

No argument from me here. Watch this video... https://www.facebook.com/ElectConser...7592491429396/

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I agree, at least partially...

How about we ban all the throw-away electronic devices that can't be repaired due to design or lack of affordable parts, or at least require the manufacturers to design such devices to be easily repaired and to supply reasonably priced replacement parts (for a minimum of 10 years) so that it is economically feasible to repair them? Maybe build them better so that their buy-in price is higher, but they will last for at least 10 years? The market is filled with so much cheaply-built junk now, that is cheap to buy but blows up after a year or two, encouraging people to just throw it away and buy a new one.

For the stuff that will last longer, it's often outdated quickly and the software is no longer supported after a few years, again prompting people to toss it and buy something new.

It's time to look at the entire way that industry operates - especially the tech industry - and make requirements for their 'stuff' to last longer. As well, consumers need to educated that they don't need to have the latest greatest tech gadget to achieve happiness in life. Our throw away society extends far beyond plastic bags - but people don't seem to want to look at stuff that they personally enjoy in order to effect change, only the easy stuff that creates the appearance of making a difference. Don't believe me? Ask people you know to stop wasting energy and resources by checking their phones every 5 minutes and I'm sure you will get some interesting responses...

Regarding bottles, why not return to using glass? The beer industry has continued with reusable glass bottles all these years and it hasn't seemed to hurt them. Why not require all the soft drink and bottled water companies to collect, clean and reuse glass bottles as once was the norm?

Plastic bags? Sure, get rid of them, but first come up with an alternative that's better. As I posted 2 pages ago, but was not responded to, there have been studies that suggest that the alternatives are only marginally better, or even worse in some cases, than the plastic bags that they are intended to replace. So a flat-out ban has the potential to replace one problem with another (or more problems), and for the environment to be no further ahead in the long run... just because we want to jump at apparently easy solutions that look good to the public (on the surface, until you start to actually research the issue), and will obviously get votes.

Then there is the whole other subject of single-use plastic products that are beneficial to people's health, like plastic syringes, hygene products, etc. A flat-out ban including items like these actually have the potential to be harmful to the public.

I'm not against banning anything that's bad for the environment, or bad for people's health (like how about pesticides and herbicides?), but I think we as a society need to have some clear thinking politicians who actually work with the science community to come up with best case solutions to our problems, rather than just jumping on the popularity bandwagon to obtain votes.

Just my 2¢ on the subject...

Well the first thing to decide is what problem you are trying to solve, and the most important problem, the problem that actually threatens our existence, is climate change. And the easiest solution to that is just to put a price on carbon rather than arbitrary, ineffective government diktats banning things. If throw away items actually are having a large effect on climate change, then they will become disproportionately more expensive. And if they are not actually having much impact, who cares? No harm, no foul.