“We need new technologies that can be controlled by a megacorporation to make a select few rich, not things that individuals can do or use that can break the hold of existing monopolies”
And thus the shilling for nuclear power began.
“Veganism”
Let’s reign that in just a bit to Vegetarian for now. Incremental steps.
You can totally incrementally step towards veganism. That doesn’t mean that veganism isn’t the correct end goal.
To be fair, a lot of the new technologies people talk about regarding this are some of these things, but improved. For instance, better batteries or solar cells, recent improvement to which has already had a pretty notable impact (for instance, better solar panels making solar energy cheaper, which makes even entities concerned only with profit more likely to adopt it.)
Usually it’s just an excuse to do nothing, hoping for a magical technology that saves us from all our problems
Thorium reactors are the Hyperloop of energy generation!
The biggest technology needed is actually excavators so we can dig ditches everywhere to soak up rain water and refill aquifers. Also building retaining walls, terraces and swales using permaculture style water management to reforest degraded grazing lands.
I think we need those excavators do dig our own graves, because this will probably not happen.
nuclear power should definitely be one of those technologies listed
The Problem with nuclear Power is, that there isn’t a guarantee for reasonable pricing. There simply isn’t any experience on how much it really costs to build new power plants.
If you want to take a deeper look into the topic: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/05/what-does-nuclear-power-really-cost/
Can you defend it on economic grounds, rather than outdated talking points used against Greenpeace in the 90s?
You mean like the economically grounded notion of having a survivable environment?
I mean that we have solutions that don’t have it’s history of cost and schedule overruns.
we have solutions that don’t have it’s history of cost and schedule overruns.
Which of those solutions are presently available for large scale implementation, and guarantees baseload coverage with no significant CO2 emissions?
In a sufficiently large grid you will always have wind and in a global grid you’d also reliably have solar as base load.
Furthermore the base load can be reduced significantly with smart sheduling of energy usage.
Finally nuclear is no gurantee of baseload coverage. Nuclear power plants require a lot of water for cooling, like all thermal power plants do. With climate change the reliability of rivers providing enough water and the water being cool enough to not cause an ecological desaster downstream is becoming less and less reliable.
Many nuclear power plants at supposedely stable rivers had to be partially or fully shut down in the last summers. Nuclear power under climate change is not a stability factor. It is a risk factor to the grid.
In a sufficiently large grid you will always have wind and in a global grid you’d also reliably have solar as base load.
Yes, except even with an interconnected European grid we’re still not there. While I can’t speak for how much landmass needs to be covered, we need to expand the capacity of the grid quite a bit. I’m not sure where the bottleneck in Germany is now, but a few years ago Danish wind power couldn’t be exported much further than Hamburg. Since then the Bundesnetzagentur seems to have been handing out expansion permits left and right, but a grid expansion just across the EU sounds like a fever dream.
Furthermore the base load can be reduced significantly with smart sheduling of energy usage.
Sure, and we’re being “motivated” by paying a larger transmission fee during the evening peak in Denmark. But still I haven’t heard of people doing much more than not running their dryer during peak or maybe scheduling their EV’s charging later. For smart grids to actually work we need distributed energy storage. People still need heating during peak. And as I’ve stated elsewhere in this thread, storage is expensive. What I wrote about was almost going off-grid, which is insanely expensive, but storage will still be too expensive for most and impractical for many. So most people will just pay the increased price for the power, and not make the huge investment in storage.
Finally nuclear is no gurantee of baseload coverage. Nuclear power plants require a lot of water for cooling, like all thermal power plants do. With climate change the reliability of rivers providing enough water and the water being cool enough to not cause an ecological desaster downstream is becoming less and less reliable.
Firstly, that depends on the implementation. You mention rivers, and your instance is a “.de”, which explains your argument. But in a country like Denmark we have enough coast to build nuclear power there. Which was what was proposed back the 70s and early 80s.
Secondly, the time when we require the most power generated by power plants is during winter. As you yourself pointed out, the shutdowns occurred during the summer.
Don’t let the deliberate sabotage by german politics distract from the necessity and ability to change the grid.
In a well interconnected European grid with extensive use of Offshore Wind potentials we can easily get there. It is not a lack of viability but a lack of political will. If you look at Germany, the largest donors to political parties are usually property investment groups and fossil (including nuclear until recently) power companies.
Putting nuclear plants at the cost comes with it’s own can of worms. Corrosion, Floodings, Coastal stability… And in regards to the grid you run into the same issues like with offshore wind. Finally with the increase in temperatures through climate change the energy demand in summer will also rise, with the need to actively cool houses more and more. In the southern US, the grid usually fails in summer, not in winter.
I’d reserve judgement on that until they start building grid level battery storage on a scale an order of magnitude bigger than current setups.
I won’t, because nuclear already proved it can’t do it, so we look elsewhere.
Flow batteries are not that hard to ramp up.
None of these options are “that hard”, but until some storage is built on the multi-gigawatt scale, any conjecture on real build cost is a waste of time.
Why do we need gigawatt grid level storages?
What about decentralized storages, e.g. a battery in your home in conjunction with solar power, or using your car battery? A lot of the arguments against renewable energy comes from demanding the electricity grid to follow the same principals as it did under fossil fuels. But a fully renewable grid can be governed by different principles.
none of these are the solution. Nuclear is the solution.
How about corporate, political, and economic accountability?
We can throw the transgressors into the nuclear reactor, two mutated birds, one stone, so to speak
Who do we throw into the reactor when the majority of people DEMAND something that is only possible with massive destruction of nature, horrendous waste of resources and horrible immoral practices?
If we kill all the “evil” factory farm owners, but still demand cheap meat every day, we’ll end up reinventing that same horrible system.
We have the technologies. The list goes on and on and on. We just need to employ them instead of waiting further for magical fixes.
Posting and liking memes is great, but real change comes from actions. If you are as concerned as we are about climate change, please consider joining or supporting climate activists near you.
Thanks!
We don’t need new technologies to overcome the issue of global warming itself; we need them to overcome the issue of human nature. People (in the population level sense, not individually) are not good at long term thinking. Solving global warming with current technologies will require a change in lifestyle from just about everyone. It’s the kind of change that will have no perceivable reward to most people. That’s why a lot of those solutions like biking, veganism, etc, will never catch on.
I am vegan btw but the amount of people who say apathetic shit like ‘one person can’t make a difference, it’s all the corporations fault, wah’ is honestly depressing. We get the society we ask for and until people start asking for something different nothing changes.
They also only ever believe that when it’s about work THEY have to do. If it’s about other people, or it’s about things that directly affects them, the tune suddenly changes.
I can’t, as an individual, end rape culture. Is that therefore an excuse to keep making rape jokes, defending rapists etc.? Obviously not, but by the logic of “people against individual change” it’s entirely logically consistent. As long as I say “rape culture bad”, I can keep supporting it. I just have to wait for magical “systemic change without individual change” to rain down from heaven.
On the human level, people won’t as capitalism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, do you drive? Stop driving you can’t because you have work that’s in the next town over? Get a job that’s closer? Stop buying non seasonal goods from your local supermarket? Stop buying random shit with air miles on it.
We can all make these changes but people won’t because our monkey brains seek the fastest root to serotonin therefore government must harshly regulate at the corporate level. Build infrastructure at the civil level.
A world where everyone does the best they can to avoid and/or fight against bad systems is absolutely the ONLY POSSIBLE WORLD where positive change can happen.
How else would the world change if not through individuals choosing to do the right thing? Are really expecting the same people that have fucked us(rich/politicians) to spontaneously develop a conscience and change the world out of the goodness of their hearts?
Before you bring up guillotines, those ALSO require individuals to make personal choices and changes and take risks.
I have a super mixed reaction here. On one hand, it’s a good attitude as an individual to do what you can. OTOH, is it apathetic to realize that one billionaire’s private jet adds more pollution than a thousand vegans can offset by being parsimonious with their consumption?
To keep a livable Earth, we need high-level systemic change to move the needle on that dial, not just a few thousand people making extreme sacrifices (tradeoffs? I shouldn’t talk about being vegan as a sacrifice, lol) in lifestyle.
Edit: I’m thinking partly of celebrities booking commercial flights instead of flying private jets, but I’m also thinking about multinational corporations doing stupid things. CVS printing mile-long receipts, Amazon (or others) shipping tiny things in ginormous boxes, or hey, the expectation that every product on a retail shelf must be shrink-wrapped.
You have to think practically: When has systemic change ever happened without individuals choosing to make a change? Never!
It’s the same for voting, or boycotting or unionizing or even guillotining. The french kings head didn’t spontaneously fall off, it involved many individuals making a choice, risking their life and even dieing.
We have seen, that people and societies are extremely adaptable to changes in lifestyle. The transformation of the Netherlands to a cycling -friendly country for example. Car free city centers. People were very opposed to them before. But once the changes were made, people were happy with them and adapted to the new options. There’s also negative examples where people adapted to new negative lifestyles such as car centric cities. Or smog, pollution, garbage landfills, or rivers that one is not allowed to swim in due to pollution. People are surprisingly adaptable to new conditions. We just have to do it.
Only way to stop climate change is to STOP CONSUMING SO MUCH
Best way to stop consuming is to stop having children
mhh. nope.
Best way to reduce consumption is preventing rich people from obscene over consumption. Do you know how many average children could grow up and life a lifetime on the emissions of Tylor Swifts private jet tours? (Arbitrary example, because it has lots of attention right now. Goes for the lifestyle of most rich and super rich people)
What if I told you, on the world stage, “rich person” encompasses most Americans.
What if i told you with renewable energy, public transit mobility, an end to the 9to5 and consume excess hamster wheel, proper recycling and sustainable products everyone could life a good life, many americans even a better life?
The world has enough ressources to sustain a larger human population and give everyone the means to a decent life. It is solely in the way things are done right now, in particular the obscenely rich, that are unsustainable.
- sustain a larger human population
No, we are way over budget on people as it is. Sustain means ‘indefinitely under current conditions’.
Can you point me to a dictionary that specifies, that it can only refer to the current conditions?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sustain
It suggest as meanings to maintain, to provide, to encourage… In the meaning of provide and maintain there is no limit to current conditions.
I have laid out the conditions under which the world can sustain such a human population. I find it linguistically wrong to limit it in such a way, that only the current situation is permissable. This is directly contradictorary to any use in relation to future like planning.
E.g. “we plan the building to sustain a 6.5 earthquake” would be wrong under your criteria, as neither the building, nor the earthquake exist at the point of that statement…
Veganism isn’t better for the environment than significantly reducing the total amount of consumed meat. Animals play an important, difficult-to-replace role in making agriculture sustainable. Animals can be herded on land that’s difficult to farm on, animals can consume parts of farmed plants that humans cannot, and animals produce products that humans cannot replicate without significantly more work.
Edit: I see a bunch of vegans who aren’t really engaging with the argument. To be clear, anyone who makes statements about how things are right now to try to disprove this is probably arguing in bad faith. I’m not responding to comments anymore because, while it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong, y’all aren’t making any good points.
Furthermore, I’m not anti-vegan, but now I’m tempted to be. So many people I’ve engaged with have displayed all of the worst vegan stereotypes I’ve heard about. I’ve always assumed it was chuds making shit up, but no I just hadn’t met any of the terminally online creeps in the vegan community yet OMFG.
Yes, we need to significantly reduce the amount of consumed meat (maybe not insects, if we consider them meat). A step towards more vegan and vegetarian food would definitely be necessary. Yes, not everyone needs to be vegan. But we need to consume way more vegan and vegetarian food.
Insects are meat. Why are you so keen on eating bugs?
I’m not keen on eating bugs, most of them just are similar in environmental damage as vegan food. Insects are also already in almost all processed foods because they are small and almost everywhere. They just don’t fall in the same category as what we in the western civilization typically consider meat (as a food).
There is a general consensus that insects are not considered equal in terms of animal cruelty like mammals, as they have much smaller and simpler nerve systems.
In regards to ecological imprint insects have a much better feed to food ratio and you can feed them much more things than to grazing animals.
In vegan communities insects are very much extended the same moral considerations as other animals. What you’re advocating is a form of speciesism, which is something better avoided as much as possible.
Anti-specieism is an argument often brought by vegan fascists, arguing that killing humans is no worse than killing mosquitos.
Also the concept of avoiding specieism fails the moment you look into nature. Is the cat that eats a mouse a speciest? Should you let mosquitos bite you and transmit diseases because killing them would be speciest? Are the farmers in Southern Africa that are plagued by locusts speciest for trying to protect their harvest?
Probably you would consider these examples as legitimate. But what about the building of the house you reside in? The production of your electronics, your energy usage…
It is impossible to make a consistent value frame of what is acceptable killing of animals and what isn’t, if you deem an individual fly as equally protectworthy as a sheep or a human.
Vegan fascists? The people who are trying to put an end to the forced captivity, continuous torture, rape, exploitation, commodification, and perpetual holocaust-levels of slaughter of virtually every species of animal that is not human, are fascists?
Here’s the most commonly accepted definition of veganism:
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”"
Emphasis added. The vast majority of vegans do not believe that killing a mosquito is exactly equivalent to killing a human, and even of the people who do, it’s intended to imply that all species lives are important, that the mosquito’s life is seen as equally valuable to the human’s. The only reason such a proposition seems abhorrent to you is because you’re looking at the mosquito through the lens of your carnist supremacist mindset, which is to see the mosquito as something worthless and thus conclude that a human’s life is considered by vegans to be equally worthless.
But again, like everyone else vegans take anti-speciesism only as far as is practical. We just do it better. The mosquito bite is easy. If you know mosquitos are around, it’s wise to wear repellent, and take other appropriate precautions depending on your circumstances. Maybe modify your environment if possible to be less of a breeding ground for them, if it’s bad enough. If you’re dealing with a particular mosquito, odds are they have already bitten you, so how is the lethal carnist reaction any more protective against a disease that may have already been transmitted, than simply blowing on the mosquito to get them to fly away?
Locust infestations happen because of shitty agricultural practices. If you’ve got a plot of land that’s full of nothing but copies of one tantalizing crop, then of course it’s going to be an obvious buffet for a vast amount of insects. Are veganic farming or veganic permaculture methods extreme? Or is it more extreme that our most common monocultural methods of farming are causing so much pollution that it’s bringing so many vital pollinators to the brink of extinction?
You make the same erroneous argument that many other carnists make, which is the idea that because vegan values can’t always be practiced perfectly, that somehow automatically means the entire ethical framework is without merit. But that’s obviously nonsensical. To the individual mosquito or mouse, it makes all the difference in their entire little lives, whether they incidentally pestered a vegan or carnist. It’s been estimated that a single vegan living their values results in about 200 fewer livestock animals being slaughtered every year. Is it extreme to live in a way that would end factory farms forever if we all embraced it, or what about the lifestyle that created them in the first place?
Nearly every half-baked gotcha that carnists try to catch vegans in has a common-sense practical answer. The example of predation in wild areas is a point of contention in vegan communities, whether we should intervene or not and ultimately make rather significant changes to the natural world, but presently it doesn’t really matter, because there are so many other obvious abuses that need to end.
Veganism only looks extreme from the deluded perspective of carnism. But in reality going vegan is like becoming sober, and recognizing how disturbing it was to live the way that so many continue to.
Vegan fascists? The people who are trying to put an end to the forced captivity, continu…
Those guys:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/evb4zw/why-so-many-white-supremacists-are-into-veganism
And those guys (German Article):
https://www.belltower.news/vegane-nazis-wie-rechstextreme-mit-ihre-ernaehrung-ideologisieren-91901/
Veganism is good for climate, biodiversity, health and animal welfare. We really don’t need to eat animals or animal products to have good meal and live a happy life. The good thing is that humans are omnivores, with a free choice of what to eat. Please choose wisely, not only for your own mental and physical health, but also for others, living now as well as in years to come.
Not everyone can eat a pure vegan diet. We are omnivores. We don’t get to pick, we must eat it all to stay healthy.
Everyone needs nutrients they can digest. The source doesn’t matter under these conditions. Excluding rare medical cases, everyone can get all required nutrients from non-animal sources, ergo everyone can have and live a perfectly healthy life on a vegan diet.
Meat has more than just protein. It has so many micronutrients that your body needs that you would have to take a shit ton of supplements to just come close to it. Sure, you can survive without those micronutrients. But why go through all the trouble?
that you would have to take a shit ton of supplements to just come close to it
If you would’ve taken a dive into healthy vegan diets, you would know that this isn’t true.
But why go through all the trouble?
I thought we already established that in the comments here.
So do it. While some people would argue vefpganism is ideal, the important part is “less meat”, especially less beef. I’d give kudos to anyone who eats one less beef meal per week: chicken is much easier in the environment than beef, or ne less meat meal,
The word Ideal is very generic. Ideal to who? What is ideal? Your health? The climate? Your bowel movement?
Meat contributes a ton of CO2. 15% of global output in just beef alone. Pork and Chicken is better.
Instead of pickering over words we could just acknowledge the underlying facts.
Those who can, and most people in western industrialized countries can, should reduce their meat consumption. For most of them veganism is a viable option, especially as there is easy access to doctors checking as well as supplements if there is difficulties.
There is no intrinsic need for animal protein or fats for a healthy diet.
The reduction of meat or even the total mandatory switch to all vegan diet won’t stop climate change since it’s such a small % in the total carbon footprint compared to our energy needs.
Your tribalism thoughts should be better focused on things like our need for clean energy like nuclear and solar.
I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, nor do i propose a mandatory switch to such diets. I also don’t mind people who primarily eat meat, as they are still traditional herders or hunters like in Central Asia or parts of Africa. But you know what these people don’t do? Fly on vacation twice a year, go on cruises, drive 20.000 km or more a year, consume 5 MWh of electricity per person and year…
The current way of animal farming with the current meat consumption results in about 10-17% of global GHG emissions. That is about the same emissions like all road traffic.
And unlike cars, where you could reduce the emissions effectively by using EVs, you simply cannot change a cow from emititting substantial amounts of methane, and the effects of the land conversion necessary for it’s feed.
Finally the argument, that X source of emission would be irrelevant to target since it is so small on the global scale is the prime whataboutism argument to not adress any emissions. “Oh our country is only making 1% of global emissions, we don’t have to change.” “Oh our industry could cut emissions in half in three years, but what about the other industry?”
People in western countries eat way too much meat. Any reduction to that is good, be it by reducing your meat consumption significantly or by switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
I don’t really care. Abusing (using) animals for food and work is cruel anyway, if me not doing that because I think it’s wrong is good for the environment, great! If it’s not, fine, but it’s not why I do it.
That’s the thing. Ethics and impact on the environment can be two different things. If you decide to go that way, you’re fine. Do it. However we need animals for stated reasons. We have to eat less meat/generally consume less animal products.
We also need to stop overproducing everything. America makes far too much corn, because/and the industry is heavily subsidized.
The amount of food waste in North America is astounding. Completely unnecessary.
True. That’s the same with everything. As long as it is worth to produce stuff just to throw it away we will damage our planet more and more.
We don’t need animals to consume plants we can’t, because plant food is soooo goddamn more efficient on every metric. We can drastically reduce land, water and energy usage AND still feed way more people with plant foods. We simply do not need to eat animals.
Any form of “sustainable” animal farming I’ve read up on end up being still less resource efficient than plant foods, AND obviously massively reduced output. So we’re truly talking about vegan vs. an ounce of meat a week. That’s not a difference worth defending, considering the other obvious ethical issues.
Finally, why do you feel that it’s important to argue for “99%” veganism? Do you genuinely believe people don’t understand that less is better, but none is best? Do you apply the same argument to other ethical issues, like feminism? Being 99% feminist is a big improvement, but constantly arguing for it in favor of feminism (aka 100%) would obviously look ridiculous. Finally, don’t you realize the humongous difference between “we should abuse animals for our pleasure less” vs. “we shouldn’t do that”? A whole class of racism disappears if we get rid of the association between “animal” and “lesser moral consideration”.
Have fun eating grass, drinking nonpotable water and eating roots and stalks and rotting vegetables…you militant vegans are hilarious.
Yes because calling out the bullshit is a strawman, you might wanna go read your own links lol.
See above.
Yes you really told me, damn…thanks for the discussion you’ve changed my mind.
If you were open for a discussion and for the possibility to change your views, you wouldn’t have used bogus arguments. I just wanted to point those out, as it is probably meaningless to waste my time in a discussion with you anyway.
20 years ago a few key technologies were still missing, like grid storage battery technology. But there are multiple promising ways now. Unfortunately lack of massive funding for research and development and patents means we’ll have to wait another 20 years to produce them really cheaply on the free market. Otherwise it would be unfair to the poor inventor! /s
Aren’t flywheel energy storages (invented by James Watt and improved over time) not suitable energy storages for electrical grids?
