WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]

pawsforthought's comments

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: The worst dam idea: evaporating the Mediterranean to power Europe

This article links to another which discusses exactly that [1] — some geological event dammed the Mediterranean from the Atlantic 6 million years ago, after which the sea mostly dried out, then subsequently the entire thing refilled in the space of a couple years in the Zanclean Megaflood (at least, there’s mounting evidence that it happened in one cataclysmic event). First the western Mediterranean filled up to Sicily, then the eastern med, via a 1500m (5000ft) high waterfall!

[1]: https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/in-search-of-a-fl...

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: The richer people get, the more meat they eat

> As if said impacts are not shared by plant agriculture

Absolutely, and use of pesticides and fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers in crop production and horticulture is also a huge problem.

Fact is though, the same quantities of calories or protein as beef or lamb require vastly more land and energy to produce than plant-based alternatives: roughly 100 times as much [1]. That’s owing both to pastureland and to the fact that half of all the world’s cereal crops are fed to animals.

Granted, livestock raised purely on marginal (i.e. non-arable) pastureland is relatively low impact in terms of carbon emissions. There’s still the factor that carbon dioxide is converted to methane, which in the short-term (that we actually care about) is much more potent in its warming effect.

That model does not represent most animal agriculture, however.

As for tropical deforestation, the United States is one of the chief importers of Brazilian beef [2], so as a country is absolutely implicated in the practice.

You’re right that clearing land for grazing is not the only economic incentive to destroy forest, but equally it cannot be discounted in its contribution to the trend.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

[2]: https://eu.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2022/01/05/brazil-ranks-...

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: The richer people get, the more meat they eat

Independence from fossil fuel use is far from the only factor determining sustainability of our agriculture, though, sadly.

Land use is a huge concern, given we already use half of the world’s habitable land for our agriculture [1], putting immense pressure on ecosystems and biodiversity due to this habitat loss.

Organic agriculture is less intensive, meaning for the same total food production, it must be more extensive — it requires more land [2].

That’s not to say there aren’t very good reasons to shift to organic agriculture. Fertilizer runoff leads to vast ocean dead zones, such as that in the Gulf of Mexico [3]. Further, we have an estimated 60 years of farming left if soil depletion continues at its current pace [4].

If we are to both curtail our land use and switch to regenerative farming methods, we must curtail meat production.

It takes around 100 times as much land to produce 1 calorie of beef or lamb versus plant-based alternatives (similar for the same quantity of protein) [5], such that we could reduce our land use for farming from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and still feed the whole world on plant-based diets.

I’m not sure if I’ve connected the dots here especially well, but I hope I’ve at least conveyed that sustainability is multi-dimensional, and goes far beyond just getting off fossil fuels — even though that is a vital step.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better-for...

[3]: https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/deadzonegulf-2021/welcome.html

[4]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...

[5]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: The richer people get, the more meat they eat

Besides fossil fuel derived fertilizers used for feed, as sibling commenters have mentioned, you’re neglecting the impact animal agriculture has on forests.

2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of tropical forest is destroyed every year to make way for beef herds [1]. That’s 41% of all tropical deforestation (which is where 95% of the deforestation occurs).

This is a disaster both in terms of the vast stores of carbon being released, and the destruction of habitat in the world’s most precious and biodiverse ecosystems.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: About communication safety in Messages

> The prevalence of digital technology means that companies like Apple and Google imposing their values is a real problem. And let's be clear, these are often very parochial values.

And sadly, beneath all the headlines about AI sentience, this is what Blake Lemoine was actually trying to draw attention to, and that executives consistently dismiss these kinds of concerns [1].

What of the consequences when these corporate values become embedded in AI that plays an ever greater role in our lives?

[1]: https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc?t=4m23s

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

It stands to reason that the nuclear lobby is out for its bottom line, but let’s not lose perspective on just how devastatingly deadly fossil fuel combustion is by comparison, killing an estimated 8.7 million people per year [1]. That’s 1 in 5 of all deaths globally.

Our perceptions of risk are massively skewed by the (literally) explosive nature of nuclear disasters compared to this silent holocaust to which we’re shockingly normalized.

From Our World in Data [2]:

> Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.

That’s per unit of energy generated.

Curiously, while most can likely name Chernobyl and Fukushima (perhaps fewer Windscale and Three Mile Island), what of the Banqiao Dam disaster, which killed an estimated 171,000 people the 1970s?

All that said, extrapolating the lethality of nuclear generation to a world with many more nuclear plants is fraught, precisely because there are so few data points.

There’s no escaping the fact that these are incredibly complex and expensive machines, which can fail in unexpected ways, no matter how scrupulously they’re designed to be passively safe — especially when compared to a solar PV park.

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...

[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: Subtitles becoming more popular, why so

Separate volume sliders would be great for nature documentaries. The BBC doesn’t half over-dramatize with their scores, yet the footage is absolutely captivating. To watch it without the music (or even, dare I say it, without Attenborough’s narration) would create a very different experience.

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: AirPods' Dirty Secret

I think you’re right, but then again, as an exercise in making the point that the AirPods’ design is deliberately adversarial, it works. Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind.

pawsforthought | 3 years ago | on: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

> you even sometimes got violence as "treatment."

For example, electroconvulsive therapy in its early days. To quote the Mayo Clinic [1]:

> Much of the stigma attached to ECT is based on early treatments in which high doses of electricity were administered without anesthesia, leading to memory loss, fractured bones and other serious side effects.

[1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsiv...

page 1
more