Forests and carbon capture

[Black Aeronaut]

Rajvik.

You know about the guy that lived right under Mount St. Helens?  When it was still a beautiful place?

You're being him right now.

... modifying our energy sources and output won't reverse the changes of the past few centuries. It won't reverse the damage caused by global industrialisation and a population of over seven billion.

It's too late for that. The damage is done. The ice caps are melting, droughts are getting longer, weather at both ends of the temperature scale are getting worse. Hell, last month Australia had some of the worst flooding its ever had, while simultaneously fighting massive bushfires in the same damn state. It's no longer about reversing a documented downward spiral. It's about slowing it down and minimising the damage.

You defeat yourself with your own argument.

Yes.  It is about slowing things down as much as we can.  You DO realize the sort of project it would be to relocated everyone that's south of Georgia, pretty much the entirety of the Mississippi River Valley, half of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, and pretty much all of the Texas Gulf Coast Region?  And don't forget the Sacramento Valley.  That's about to turn into a small inland sea.  And this is to say nothing about the Atlantic Seaboard.

The costs of cutting absolutely everything that we can fucking PALE in comparison to the nightmare that's coming, and every red cent we spend to stave it off for even a minute is going to be time and money well spent.

At San Antonio in particular: enjoy all your concrete in the tunnels.

You're not paying any attention to the geography here.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I live at an elevation that's twice as high as the one you're at right now.

You're conflating us with Houston and New Orleans.  Which are right at sea level.  And where they paved over massive areas that were once wetlands.

That's not our problem here.  We only need to worry about what Mother Nature can dump on us from above.  And you know what?  The more of that, the better.  The Edwards Aquifer is more like an underground river than an aquifer, collecting all the water from a massive range and piping it all out through a handful of springs.  Our water is literally on a use-or-lose basis.  We actually had to make an ARTIFICIAL aquifer in order to be able to stave off the worst droughts, and we were only able to do that because of some very fortunate geology and geography.

A good part of the emissions is from the manufacturing process.  These days we use natural gas because it's perfect for shooting a huge jet of flame up a 50-meter long rotating kiln to heat the klinker to the point that it starts to become hydrophobic.  It also has the benefit of being far less pollutinguting than fuel-oil.  But I doubt that electric can do the job as effectively.

And if you want to shut down cement plants just because of the carbon emissions?  Then you better be willing to do the same to all the mines here in America.  They may not be as prolific, but I'm pretty sure that, per capita, they dump just as much (if not more) carbon into the atmosphere than the cement plants.

In regards to conservation for both biological diversity and farm land, the author that wrote that article must have not been looking at the figures carefully enough.  We produce far more food than we actually need.  A good portion just winds up going to waste, and the issues with starvation here in America have more to do with the economy and our stubborn refusal to let go of the Objectivist-based economic system than the carrying capacity of the environment.  We have carrying capacity to spare for the moment, though vertical farms are gonna start looking attractive once entire states start slipping under the water.

Also, you think it's crowded here?  Have you been to Europe?  THAT'S crowded.  Meanwhile, Texas can eat all of Germany and have a bit of France for dessert, and we still have nowhere near the population density of those two countries.  And this despite having THREE of America's ten most-populous cities.  So that's an issue for the Europeans to worry about.  Us?  Not so much.  I'm all for conservation, but I'm also realistic about building for the demands of growth.  The only way you're gonna blunt that is if you follow China's example of population controls (the newer ones, that is, after they realized just how badly they fucked themselves with their one-child policy).  Good luck selling that one.

I'll admit that water is a big issue in regards to concrete.  Funny thing, though?  We're learning that, in truth, the less water you use, the stronger your concrete is.  Which is why we've started forming concrete the way the Romans used to - very little water, pound it into shape - or otherwise use super-plastifiers that make a tiny bit of water go a long long ways.

Be glad that we stick with reinforced concrete, though, instead of building massive arches and domes.  We use far less that way.

Like it or not, concrete is going to be here to stay.  There is no other building material that is as effective as it is.

---

Look guys.  I get where some of you are coming from.  Some of you are worried about the destruction of habitats.  Some of you are worried about how we're going to support ourselves.  Some of you are worried about the expenses involved.  And some of you think that we're all lying liars that lie just because you think there's some kind of conspiracy at work.

In the first case... That's a strictly case-by-case basis.  For here in America, Houston and New Orleans are great examples of how not to develop your city.  The issues they have in, say, Seattle are not the same issues they have in NYC, which are not the same issues at hand in San Antonio.  There are different topologies, geologies, and geographies at work in each city, and a blanket-solution will only make things worse.

The second case... I think it's not as big of an issue you're making it out to be.  Respectfully, compare our agricultural output with how much food we actually need.  There is no issue at stake here for the moment, and the issues we ARE having can be addressed through better governing our economy.  Maybe later on it may be more of an issue... but not right now.  The carbon emissions are a far bigger fish that we need to concern ourselves with.

The fourth case?  It MIGHT actually be helpful for our economy if we actually started spending the money to stave off climate change and laying in preparations for what is looking to be the inevitable.  These are going to be massive undertakings of civil engineering the likes of which no one has ever tackled before.  It will put the 'Raising of Chicago' to utter shame.  

(Seriously, look that shit up if you wanna see some serious Looney Toons level shit in public works.  Here's a taste in the spoiler below.)

Spoiler

From the Wikipedia article:

Traveller David Macrae wrote incredulously, “Never a day passed during my stay in the city that I did not meet one or more houses shifting their quarters. One day I met nine. Going out Great Madison Street in the horse cars we had to stop twice to let houses get across.” As discussed above, business did not suffer; shop owners would keep their shops open, even as people had to climb in through a moving front door.

FRICKIN'.  LOONEY.  TOONS.

And I won't even address the last case.  The outright dismissal of my arguments does not even dignify a response.