A Modest Green New Deal.

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by Ming the Merciless, Mar 5, 2019.

  1. Ming the Merciless

    Ming the Merciless Newly Registered

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    If carbon is the problem, we know that things like the rain forest and the oceans consume a ton of carbon. We also know that completely overhauling (practically destroying) western economies is not only politically untenable, it would also not reduce emissions from the two largest producers of carbon (India and China), countries which hold said status in part because they are also the world's two most populous countries. What good is destroying our economies when it won't even effect theirs and if anything, it would probably send tons of business towards those largest polluters, thereby making their polluting even worse? Insofar as the Green New Deal is possible, it would mostly be an act of moving pollution to other places, that's how a global economy works.

    With those things in mind, here's a more modest and (I mean this literally) Green New Deal: how about we plant and maintain a new rain forest or two in the largely unused swaths of land available in flyover country America. Indeed, why stop there? There are probably places in Europe that would be suitable for this as well, costing us a significant effort but one that would pale in comparison to AOC's Green New Deal. Artificial forests of other kinds (perhaps far from a rain forest but still forests in a sense) might also be maintainable in large parts of Greenland (at which point it would live up to its name?) and the maple-rich forests of Canada could be significantly expanded through artificial effort and maintenance. Australia and America's deserts might also be capable of sustaining "forests" made up of plants like cactus. When a large-scale effort is involved, even if these are only forests of cactus, those are still plants and they also absorb and process carbon. And we haven't even touched upon trying to genetically engineer or breed plants that absorb carbon from the atmosphere more quickly than a normal plant does; imagine how much carbon a "forest" of gigantic, genetically modified sansevieria (a plant which the internet tells me absorbs a ton of pollutants) could process.

    In this way, instead of futilely trying to eliminate one lesser portion of the world's carbon-producing industries, we could use those industries and the associated economies to absorb carbon naturally, thereby reducing not only our own "carbon footprints" but also those of other countries whom have, thus far, turned up their noses at the issue of climate change. Instead of playing a zero-sum game where we try to get people to reduce their own economies, we can try to get people to grow their economies while reducing carbon emissions at the same time. Imagine the tourism, the products and services produced and the jobs created by such a wealth of new and diverse artificial forests.

    Unfortunately, although I was an environmentalist at one point in my life, I have come to suspect that this issue is not really about "saving the earth" but that it is really about targeting certain industries, namely the fossil fuel industries, not because they pollute but because those industries are associated with western working class people. If I am wrong about that, why would maintaining an artificial rain forest be a worse choice economically than the apparently crazy things in the Green New Deal? The cost of maintaining some artificial forests would not only be less, it would also create many sustainable new jobs that are in touch with nature, exactly what environmentalists say that they want. It would solve both our own issues and those of other people. Instead of destroying our economies just so that the biggest polluters can pollute more, we could create new jobs while also reducing the harm that they are doing. I think this is way better than AOC's proposal.
     
  2. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    The issue is not about climate change and the death to the world in 12 years. It's is about and always has been the purpose of the far left is population control. Let's take a couple of parts of the GND. First, universal Medicare for all. And, I mean all of the world. That's what they want. By doing this, just as with Obamacare, the lives of all people will be in the hands of a very few in Government and on death panels. Rationing healthcare is the outcome of their plan. And, that leads to massive death. Second, the end to fossil fuels and cows will cause massive starvation in large populated countries such as China, Russia and the United States. Death and destruction followed by wars. Nuclear bombs falling killing massive numbers of people. Population reduction is at the heart of the GND.
     
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  3. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The irony of all the alarmism is that global warming is net beneficial for at least the next 2 - 3 deg C of warming which will take ~ 200 years to take place.
     
  4. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    Yes! And, you are correct! Most likely, before that happens, mother earth will correct herself and the warming will be reversed to global cooling. After all, if it's true that the ice from the North Pole is all melting away, that cooling will cool off the earth and possibly cause another ice age. So, I'm not worried for my children, grandchildren.........I am worried though about what I wrote that the left's clammering for reduction in CO2 will set off WW3 and the destruction and death of billions of people.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2019
  5. Jimmy79

    Jimmy79 Banned

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    I quit reading when you said you wanted rainforests in the midwest.

    You do realize that you need tropical climates for a rainforest right?

    You also surely realize the amount of food grown in that area and the fact that even a small reduction in farm land would have a massive effect on global food supplies?
     
  6. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ice ages kill. The alarmist proposal’s are politically impossible. There is no possibility that WW3 will result from their moronic plans.
     
  7. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    I would disagree. If you cause massive starvation in the world, wars will begin and that includes those with nukes.
     
  8. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But that won’t happen. Global warming is net beneficial and when the cost-benefit curve goes negative 200 years from now due to air conditioning costs based on Y2K technology the new technology may well have developed more cost effective energy sources so that inexpensive unlimited energy is possible. Today’s green energy is only economic because it’s subsidized.
     
  9. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's wishful thinking. Water would probably be the limiting factor. A lot of that flyover country doesn't have as much water.

    I support the planting of forests though.

    What you'd really have to do is buy up lands in countries like Brazil and Indonesia to keep their rainforests preserved. And stop buying biodiesel, that only incentivises them to cut down more rainforest.
     
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I appreciate your idealism but think you are woefully ignorant of ecological science and what type of plants actually grow in these different climates.

    Unfortunately some of the best areas for planting forests to hold carbon also happen to be places where all the people live.

    Where I am they've been bulldozing hundreds of acres of forest to build high density residential construction. A fact I've been lamenting but very few people seem to really care.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2019
  11. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The globe is greening naturally due to global warming and greater CO2 (~400 ppm) which moves the earth towards it's more natural level of CO2 which is ~ 2500 ppm.

    Global warming is beneficial for the human race.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2019
  12. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Already, we are being blamed in California, for not raking our forests and all that wilderness type area, just leads to wildfires, and he is not about paying for it. But the flooded prairie voted Trump, so disaster area yes.
     
  13. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Bonkers. Man saved the planet with pollution. YEAH babay.
     
  14. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    CO2 is pollution ??
     
  15. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    CO2 is not a vitamin. CO2 is not GOD or BAd in itself. The balance of gases of our planet is the concern.

    Honest to God, right wingers MUST trust that God would NEVER allow us DECENT FOLK to destroy our planet that GOD gave us yadda yadda.
     
  16. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Global warming is beneficial. Why would anyone argue that warming is a threat to civilization. All of the previous warm periods (which were warmer than today) in the current interglacial period were periods of great progress.
     
  17. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I know a hell of a lot moar about the subject than you. I have had an indoor crop, that required an artificial environment. And, I know ALL ABOUT increasing productivity with enhanced CO2 infusement.

    You are not talking to a fool. Play your game on a rube.
     
  18. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then you understand that increasing CO2 is beneficial.
     
  19. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I understand a great deal. CO2 enhancement, allows greater tolerance to heat. This is likely saving all of us humans from extinction.

    BUT, it requires enhanced conditions, to sustain. We will run out of nutrients, and, things require a hell of a lot of water.

    To say that enhanced CO2 is a GOOD, is ludicrous. IT takes a LOT of WORK, to enhance CO2 and gain productivity. And is an easy way to BURN OUT your crop, if you aren't up on the other needs that are also enhanced.
     
  20. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Increasing CO2 is absolutely beneficial as your posts so indicate.
     
  21. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Who is going to do the ENHANCED WATERING, in all our forests, prairies and such? Who is going to do the enhanced fertilizing of our forests and prairies?

    Also, who it going to enhance the oxygen carrying content of our oxygen depleted seas? And how are our plants going to supply themselves, when the water is too acid, to sustain life?
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2019
  22. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As CO2 increases water consumption goes down. Mother Nature fertilizes forests and prairies.

    The earth did just fine with CO2 at 8000 ppm. Your comments on the oceans are absurd. At 8000 ppm the oceans remained alkaline as evidenced by the deposition of limestone.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2019
  23. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The opposite is true. Water use likely triples. And that isn't even accounting for increased temps. Mother nature fertilizes at the rate it always has, not enhanced.

    Also, the indoor farmer, uses stripped water, so that nutrients can be diluted in quantities needed, as they become toxic, with naturally occurring particulates.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2019
  24. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Where do you get this BS from ??
     
  25. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actual experience. Where do you? What do you not understand? We use reverse osmosis, to create the SPACE for increased nutrients. You MUST have proper acid alkalinity, to support oxygen uptake.
     

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