Role Model Bhutan Takes Zen Approach To Climate Change 181
HughPickens.com writes: Matt McGrath writes at BBC that Bhutan, the strongly Buddhist country where up to three-quarters of the population follow the religion, is the only country in the world considered a role model by the Climate Action Tracking organization. Bhutan has put forward the concept of "Gross National Happiness", that represents a commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan's culture based on Buddhist spiritual values instead of western material development gauged by gross domestic product (GDP). Bhutan's Constitution mandates its territory to be at least 60% covered by forest – the vast carbon sink a boon for its balancing of humanity and nature. Right now over 70% is under trees, and so great are the forests, that the country absorbs far more carbon than its 750,000 population can produce. As well as inhaling all that CO2, the Bhutanese are pushing out large amounts of electricity to India, generated by hydropower from their fast flowing rivers. The prime minister says that their waters hold the potential to offset 100 million tonnes of Indian emissions every year. That's around a fifth of Britain's current annual outpourings.
Bhutan has embraced electric vehicles and the government envisages the capital city Thimpu, as a "clean-electric" city with green taxis for its 100,000 citizens — Bold plans for a city that at present doesn't have any traffic lights! "We see ourselves on the one hand being able to use electric cars for our own purposes, to protect our environment, to improve our economy, but also to show in a small measure that sustainable transport works and that electric vehicles are a reality," says Tshering Tobgay. ""In Bhutan the distances are short, electricity is very cheap and because of the mountains you can't drive exceedingly fast, so all these combined to provide us with the opportunity for the investment."
According to Dr Marcia Rocha, it's not just a question of Bhutan being spectacularly endowed with natural advantages. "I think they are a country that culturally are very connected to nature, in every document that they submit it's there, it's just a very important focus of their politics." "We may be small, our impact not huge, but we always try many conservation projects," says Kinlay Dorjee, mayor of capital Thimphu. However the modest Bhutanese Prime Minister rejects the idea that his country is the leader of the climate pack. "I feel that calling Bhutan a role model is not appropriate, every country has their own sets of challenges and their own sets opportunities."
Bhutan has embraced electric vehicles and the government envisages the capital city Thimpu, as a "clean-electric" city with green taxis for its 100,000 citizens — Bold plans for a city that at present doesn't have any traffic lights! "We see ourselves on the one hand being able to use electric cars for our own purposes, to protect our environment, to improve our economy, but also to show in a small measure that sustainable transport works and that electric vehicles are a reality," says Tshering Tobgay. ""In Bhutan the distances are short, electricity is very cheap and because of the mountains you can't drive exceedingly fast, so all these combined to provide us with the opportunity for the investment."
According to Dr Marcia Rocha, it's not just a question of Bhutan being spectacularly endowed with natural advantages. "I think they are a country that culturally are very connected to nature, in every document that they submit it's there, it's just a very important focus of their politics." "We may be small, our impact not huge, but we always try many conservation projects," says Kinlay Dorjee, mayor of capital Thimphu. However the modest Bhutanese Prime Minister rejects the idea that his country is the leader of the climate pack. "I feel that calling Bhutan a role model is not appropriate, every country has their own sets of challenges and their own sets opportunities."
Ethnic Cleansing (Score:5, Informative)
In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled or forced to leave most of its ethnic Lhotshampa population, one-fifth of the country's entire population, demanding conformity in religion, dress, and language .[55][56][57] The decision was motivated by the concern that the fast-growing Nepali minority were starting to revolt for a separate independent state, recalling similar events that caused the collapse of the nearby kingdom of Sikkim in 1975.
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What's that got to do with climate change?
Re:Ethnic Cleansing (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing. But it's got a lot to do with "gross national happiness". The beatings will continue until morale improves, indeed.
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Who said anything about beatings? Isn't that more the style of the USA in their offshore Cuba based torture camp?
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"In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled or forced to leave most of its ethnic Lhotshampa population"
But I'm sure they happily hiked across the border all of their own volition, singing cheerful songs and thanking the citizens of Bhutan for their kind welcome.
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Just like people in Guantanamo are on holiday?
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Yes, exactly like that.
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They threw people out of the country who wanted to carve the country up and take a slice for themselves? The nerve!
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Are you familiar with that new-fangled notion of "self-determination" and "human rights"? I understand that it's only a little bit more than a century old, so you might have not heard of it in your corner of the globe.
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I mean, name a country where a group of people, indigenous or otherwise, have not been expelled, mass murdered, or otherwise displaced, discriminated against, or marginalized.
Bhutan (Score:1, Informative)
Bhutan is not a role model for anybody.
They exported or exterminated their ethnic minorities in the 1980's and 1990's to make a racially pure, and religiously uniform society. They banned television until the early 90's. Their king and queen routinely scout European tourists for orgies.
Modern Bhutan is the equivalent of the United States exporting or exterminating its blacks (the lowest achieving socioeconomic group), banning immigration and only allowing the most beautiful tourists in for sexual abuse, and
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"Modern Bhutan is the equivalent of the United States exporting or exterminating its blacks (the lowest achieving socioeconomic group), banning immigration and only allowing the most beautiful tourists in for sexual abuse, and then reaping the rewards. "
So basically Trump's platform?
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But without all the bankrupt casinos.
The reason GDP is used (Score:2)
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Off topic wrt Bhutan, but... I find GDP a particularly frustrating statistic, especially when trotted out as GDP per capita at PPP and used as a comparator between countries. It tells you nothing about the income distribution within a country -- a slave plantation, for example, would have a pretty decent income per capita. Median income per capita would be a far more meaningful statistic in so many ways.
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Even better, median income per capita, mean income per capita, standard deviations for both. There's not really a good excuse for using just the one number - not like it takes a lot of extra bi
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Off topic wrt Bhutan, but... I find GDP a particularly frustrating statistic, especially when trotted out as GDP per capita at PPP and used as a comparator between countries. It tells you nothing about the income distribution within a country -- a slave plantation, for example, would have a pretty decent income per capita. Median income per capita would be a far more meaningful statistic in so many ways.
Depends what you are comparing. GDP per capita makes sense if you are comparing productivity as in the original article, after all the slaves are being productive, they just aren't being compensated fairly for their work. If you want to compare citizens average wealth then GDP per capita can be very misleading as per your example.
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GDP isn't a measure of worker productivity either, though. Often it's a measure of how much oil you've got.
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a slave plantation, for example, would have a pretty decent income per capita.
Case in point: Equatorial Guinea looks like a first world country by per capita GDP, but the majority of the people live in extreme poverty.
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While happiness should be a goal, it can never be the primary goal because it is not self-sustaining. You can dope up the entire population on morphine and they will be extremely happy. They will also die within a month because nobody is producing the food they need to survive.
You could make up an equally unreal scenario for GDP. Like you made the entire population into slaves, and have them working all the hours they are not sleeping, and feed them almost nothing. Except, unlike your scenario that's not unreal, it's actually been done for example to build Japanese railways during WWII.
For sure, Gross National Happiness is the better measure. Because actually the goal of happiness does exclude people dying prematurely. Bereaved people are not happy people.
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Unfortunately, any numerical measure, whether GDP or happiness index or whatever, can be manipulated. And once it is used to measure the performance of government, politicians, and economies, it will be manipulated. For example, you can increase the GDP arbitrarily by simply turning traditionally non-economic exchanges (child care, food preparation, etc.) into economic ones.
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Let's say everyone stops washing its own dishes ; instead, everyone will do next door neighbor's dishes and be billed for it, let's say for $100 a month. 10 million households do this, so the GDP has increased for $1 billion a month, or $12 billion a year. Yet not anything new was done. Perhaps that explains the "service economy" :).
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Isn't that what I just said?
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I wanted to be redundant by saying the same thing again, so as to be redundant.
Lol wait... (Score:4, Funny)
...Has Bhutan been seized by Buddhist Fundamentalists?
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the amish are fundamentalist christians, but they are strictly nonviolent
we have to talk about *violent* religious fundamentalists
which also exists in buddhism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and of course there are many violent jewish, christian, and muslim fundamentalists, which is the source of many of the problems in the world
sick anglocentrism bro (Score:2)
* not all buddhism is zen buddhism
* there's nothing buddhist or enlightened about the mentioned policies and approaches
* fucking shit eating headline, it should be forcibly changed just for the stereotypes
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Butan has a trade deficit of â36 Million.
The USA has a trade deficit of $540 Billion.
Massive trade deficit? You don't know what you are talking about.
Dig out concrete from quarries?
Here's a picture of a Bhutan Gypsum mine. It's pretty much like a Gypsum mine anywhere else in the world. What, did you imagine they were digging with their hands?
http://www.druksatair.bt/wp-co... [druksatair.bt]
You're an idiot.
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Sigh, like the mixup between democracy, capitalism and Communism.
Zen is a method of/for meditation, and not a religion.
Buddism is a religion.
Surely many combine it, but there are also plenty of Zen Christians (Dominican orders e.g. or Benedicts) Zen Shintos or simply Atheists who do Zen meditation.
And yes, there are also Shinto - Buddhists etc.
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Happiness for most, but not all... (Score:2)
I'm sure all of the wildlife that live in the rivers take a different point of view to lots of rivers being blocked and used for electricity... or for the animals that lived in the areas flooded.
Or did people forget that not so long ago, it was environmentalists that opposed damming rivers?
The motto of the true environmentalist should be : first, do no harm... it would avoid so many mistakes being made today by people claiming to help "the environment".
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You're failing to distinguish environmentalists and conservationists.
Environmentalists are completely behind dams where they do more good for the environment than harm. That's not changed.
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Environmentalists are completely behind dams where they do more good for the environment than harm.
I am also all for rubbing the bellies of Unicorns for luck. What a shame that is so infrequent.
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Well that's your opinion. Happily environmentalists aren't ruled by your opinion.
Hydropower? (Score:3)
Hydropower is evil. It kills fish and alters the flow o rivers downstream (holy rivers to some). And it screws up the natural distribution of sediments and nutrients to land downstream.
At least that's what all the fish huggers tell us about our hydropower.
Good for them... (Score:2)
Density (Score:2)
Bhutan has a population density of 18/km2, the world land population density is 47/km2, including infertile areas. So what applies to Bhutan may not apply to everyone unless we decide to reduce world population by 2/3.
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Re:Density (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that it's a poor country makes it all the more creditable that they are taking climate change seriously.
What's America's excuse?
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Climate change isn't a socialist principle, it's a scientific fact. If you're opposed to socialism, you just weaken your argument by denying science. It suggests all the other right wingers are ignorant too.
Externalising costs (Score:3)
Who will make these electric cars?
Not the Bhutanese: they do not have the heavy industry required to extract the basic elements for a rechargeable car, make the components, or assemble them into a whole. If they want to keep all that closeness to nature, they won't want to develop a complex heavy manufacturing, ore processing, chemicals processing, based industry.
That will be done somewhere else. Bhutan will be fine. China, or India, or Vietnam, or USA, won't.
This plan is just as selfish as the USA importing cheap iPhones made in environmentally-degraded China.
We all externalise costs (Score:2)
Why?
But Buddhism is not really a Religion (Score:3, Interesting)
Example: Sam Harris, is an atheist (actually he doesn't like that word though) who supports much of buddhism ideas (but is also critical of some of buddhism)
Buddhism and non religious people are compatible with each other... becuase buddhism is not about worshiping an invisible man in the sky
Disclaimer: I am not a buddhist and don't want to be, as I reject the label.
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Fucked up buddhists. Everybody knows that money==happiness. What are they teaching their children?
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How not to be fucked-up capitalists.
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whoosh!
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Re:Facepalm (Score:4, Interesting)
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Do you not think some belief systems are better than others? If not, do you not think some belief systems are more conducive to life, happiness, thriving than others?
I believed that trite "all beliefs are equal, valid, and true in their own way" hogwash when I was younger, but you're never going to see religiously motivated violence from Jainism [wikipedia.org], for example. So can you tell me by what metric a Muslim theocracy would be as good as a Buddhist theocracy? Even the most obvious metric falls down--you might say
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> but a Muslim Theocracy (for example Iran)
Because the Dalai Lama would never want his own nuclear arsenal??
Was that so hard??
Not all "theocrats" are created equally..
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All the CO2 they consume during growth they reproduce when the trees die and rot.
Actually not all the carbon will be released. The dead plants will rot and slowly turn to soil. Some of the carbon will be trapped in the soil and slowly over time go deeper and deeper. The coal and oil burned today are mostly rainforests plants and they grew like 300 million years ago (if I remember correctly). Regardless of specific age, it's way before the dinosaurs and the saying about burning dinosaurs for fuel is not based on facts.
Also if they release as much carbon as they consume in their lifetime,
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It's not a given that forests act as carbon sinks, or at least as good ones. See for example this article [oxfordjournals.org];
"Conventional wisdom has long held that tropical rainforests act as a sink for carbon dioxide, cleansing the atmosphere of a major greenhouse gas. However, biologists studying the forests of Costa Rica are finding that rising temperatures are causing trees to grow less and to pump out more carbon dioxide, adding to an accelerating pattern of global warming."
Added to variations in the amount of carbon se
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Complicated stuff indeed, and not at all the "zero-sum" that angel'o'sphere imagines.
There's also the various uses of wood that man has. When it's burned it may release CO2, but it's better than digging coal out of the ground and releasing that CO2. When it's used for building or other manufacture, it locks away carbon for decades or potentially centuries in the item.
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So why don't we cut down forests, bury the carbon our own way, and then plant more trees?
What do they teach these kids? (Score:2)
Do you think coal was placed into an unchanging earth 6000 years ago before some puny God retired or do you think the earth is a changing thing with ongoing processes such as buried vegetation becoming coal?
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try reading the statement again, all the way to the end this time.
Re:Facepalm (Score:5, Informative)
The coal and oil burned today are mostly rainforests plants and they grew like 300 million years ago
Actually, they are mostly plants that grew in swamps, with water that had very little oxygen or nitrates. When the plants died, and sunk into the muck, they didn't decompose because of the lack of oxygen. This does not happen in rainforests. Rainforest soils contain very little organic material, which is one reason they quickly erode when the vegetation is cleared or burned off.
Clearly plants release more oxygen than they consume.
This is only true if you ignore the CO2 exhaled by the animals that eat the plants. A mature forest sequesters a lot of carbon, but it does not continue to sink more.
One scheme to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, is to plant fast growing pine trees on plantations, harvest them every decade or so, and burn them to produce electricity, and then sequester the resulting CO2 in shale formations where the CO2 reacts with the rock to form solid carbonates. The trees are then replanted. There are plans (heavily subsidized by British taxpayers) to do exactly this.
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Of all the land-based plant habitats, peaty wetlands would do the best job of sequestering carbon for long periods of time. Just don't go around digging the stuff up and burning it.
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Incorrect. Oil comes from oceanic deposits like coral reefs. Coal comes from terrestrial deposits, like swamps which may or may not be in a rainforest.
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The microbes of 300 million years ago were still not very good at breaking down wood. They've become better since then. The rate of coal formation has dropped dramatically. That would be fine if we weren't digging up and burning so much coal.
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Also if they release as much carbon as they consume in their lifetime, they would take up the oxygen they released, leaving nothing to animals or humans. Clearly plants release more oxygen than they consume.
That is nonsense.
The amount of oxygen on this planet is fixed. Either it is bound to CO2 or something else or it is in the atmosphere as O2.
Plants simply inhale CO2 (over day time), fix the C and exhale the O2.
If the rot (after dying) the fixed C is concerted back to O2, except if by a landslide the tree
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Even more facpalm
Clearly plants release more oxygen than they consume.
Sorry, you dummy: how should that be physically or chemically be possible?
You plant a seed, a plant grows (nice how the same word means so different things) and then it is producing O2 ... from what exactly?
Read a damn book about science ... does not matter which one. It will enlighten you.
The quote above is the dumbest thing I I have read here on /. since years ... unfortunately you are not alone, I have to make that claim every 3 months
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biology calling: plants both consume and produce oxygen.
the short version (without getting into the multiple types of photosynthesis and endless variation between plants) is that plants respire too, just like animals. and respiration is the chemical interaction of oxygen and food to create energy. This particularly happens at night, when photosynthesis isn't happening, so the plant burns sugars to produce energy.
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/ge... [ucsb.edu]
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That is correct.
Nevertheless, the amount of oxygen they "consume" is neglectible in relation to the amount they "produce".
If you already know so much, I wonder why you don't now that.
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The carboniferous period (coal seams) was before mushrooms. Now the fungi decay fallen wood, very little carbon gets sequestered - coal is a non-renewable resource.
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Growing forests is not a zero-sum game. Yes, when a tree dies and rots, the carbon in it largely (but not entirely) returns to the air. But if I have X acres more forest, I have locked up the carbon that's in those X acres of forest. The carbon that is released by dying trees gets balanced by the new trees that replace them.
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Building new forests captures a bit of CO2. (a)
Afterwards it is a zero sum game, the new forest dies, and perhaps new plants/trees grow immediately and consume the CO2 set free. However you are now limited to the level you already have reached with (a).
The misconception of most people is: the forest is sucking CO2 out of the air continuously indefinitely. Increase the forest and you increase the speed of this "depletion". Which is wrong, as as soon as the trees start dying you get the CO2 back.
So bottom lin
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If you think that all the CO2 that vegetation such as trees takes in is given off when it rots, how do you explain where the hydro-CARBONS in fossil fuels came from?
You didn't really think that through, did you.
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The hydro carbons of fossile fuel are not "rotten" ...
but mainly wood that got "covered with earth", sucked down into the earth and converted there.
You didn't really think that through, did you.
Did you?
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The hydro carbons of fossile fuel are not "rotten" ...
Well indeed. That's why your zero-sum game claim was nonsense.
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Are you to dump to grasp it?
Every tree which is not converted to coal or oil, or more precisely: which is not covered by water or earth, for what ever reason, produces exactly the same amount of CO2 after it dies as it used up during growth: so yes, it is a zero sum game No idea about what you want to argue.
It is only not a zero sum game if YOU somehow manage to grow a tree and then remove it from the environment by burying it air tight somewhere ...
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Are you to dump to grasp it?
Always funny when someone misspells an insult.
Every tree which is not converted to coal or oil, or more precisely: which is not covered by water or earth, for what ever reason
That's not every tree then is it. So it's not 100%. So it's not a zero-sum game. If you understand what zero-sium means.
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Then show me a tree in our times that is not rotting and converted back to CO2 ... good luck.
But I get it, you only want to nitpick ... but are to dump or to lazy to point that out.
For me it does not matter if 1% of the trees we plant right now might be sucked down into the earth and not immediately be converted back to CO2.
For me it is still a zero sum.
If that matters for you, I hope you never have to make political decisions.
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Or you know you could make something useful like paper and when you are done store it underground (ie landfill) to sequester the Carbon.
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The worst outcome is burning wood. Of course, forest fires have their advantages but burning wood for heat puts everything back in the air.
For goodness sake don't tell the greenies or wood-burning-stove-merchants that. They are contantly (here in the UK anyway) trumpetting that burning wood is ecologically sustainable. In fact that would only be true if trees were planted and grew as rapidly as they were burned, which they are not.
Around 1000 AD lowland Britain was largely covered by forest. By 350 years later (time of the Black Death) most of it had gone. In fact there was a looming crisis in that the population was becoming unsustaina
Re:My Zen approach (Score:4, Interesting)
burden them with higher energy bills
Since 2010, I have cut my home energy use in half. I switched to all LED lighting, added insulation to my attic, replaced the central heater & A/C with spot heating/cooling, and bought a Samsung Smartthings hub to turn off unused devices. This did not cause "higher energy bills". Due to tiered pricing, my energy bill is about 1/3rd of what it was five years ago.
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Tell a poor family to do the same. Just buy all this stuff instead of healthier food or a reliable used car. Except they rent, so they can't. They're stuck paying higher energy bills.
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If their apartment complex covers utilities then the complex may be interested in efficiency upgrades. At any rate, as a poor renter with a small space I use far less energy than the wealthy so my electricity bill is $20 a month. Need to raise that to $25 to save the planet? Alright.
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They keep demanding more and more, but no matter how much they take, the planet never gets "saved".
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It's easier to get great reductions on improvements if your house is poor to begin with
My house was not inefficient to begin with. It was about average. I know this because PG&E includes a comparison on every bill, telling you how you compare to other houses in your neighborhood. I went from about 50% to the top 5%. Last month I was at 4%. Once my teenage daughter moves out, I expect to move to the top 2%.
Cutting my energy consumption in half was not particularly hard. It is fun, in a geeky way, to be able to turn things on and off with just my voice. The smart hub has a published
Re: My Zen approach (Score:4, Interesting)
You did all that for only $500? Did you miss a zero?
No. The SmartThings hub was $99 on Amazon. LED bulbs are $2 each on eBay. The attic insulation was loose fiber, and I rented the blower from Home Depot for $40.
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LED bulbs are $2 each on eBay.
From what I have seen, $20 is more like the price, if not more.
What? Even Walmart has them for under $4 ... and those include a lot of fancy packaging that the eBay bulbs lack.
Re:Putting lazy capitalist-first nations to shame. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
They's just an excuse for nobody ever doing anything to make the world better. Presumably you throw litter in the street, because after all, you as one person couldn't possibly make a difference.
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you are an idiot making symbolism over substance same as article. People like you are the real reason nothing is done, because you only go for emotional victories rather than anything with technical merit
It matters what the big producers of this planet do, China, Japan, USA, etc.
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No. People like me are why things ARE done. Because I act personally, and I campaign, and I congratulate those who do the right thing.
You do nothing. Because you couldn't give a shit.
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You are self-deluded, nothing you have done is of any consequence to reducing world's pollution or changing the growth of fossil fuel use. That lies in the realm of engineering, of people like me. I have done work in power plants that have zero carbon emissions, that's actual real step toward the goal. "Activism" is not.
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By that token, you are responsible for the genocide of the native Americans. What are you doing to atone for your crime, NostalgiaForInfinity?
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Wrong on all accounts.
The massive deforestation of the European continent (from 90% prehistoric to less than 10% today) has been a huge contributor to carbon in the atmosphere
Neither is the puny amount of wood burned any comparison to the amount of oil/coal burned nor are we down to 10% of woods.
In fact we are up to 60% - 80% again since decades, depending on country.
This is an inconvenient truth for Europeans, because if you take that into account
Wrong.
Europeans prefer to ignore this massive historical
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Well, I'm glad you at least agree implicitly that countries ought to be held responsible (1) for the carbon released by deforestation relative to natural, prehistoric levels, and (2) need to be charged for the capture deficit resulting for the forest cover that is missing relative to natural, prehistoric levels.
One can quibble about the percentages later, but suffice it to say: no matter
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Europe clearly has undergone massive deforestation at the hands of its inhabitants, and the resulting carbon that was released into the atmosphere,Actually, forests hold more carbon than the entire atmosphere. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/0 [fao.org]...
:D
Might be, more reason not to burn them
They also capture the equivalent of 30% of all man-made emissions (about as much as oceans).
That is wrong in both ways.
The CO2 consumption of woods and oceans are a zero sum game. They release as much as they consume, except fo
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Europe clearly has undergone massive deforestation at the hands of its inhabitants, and the resulting carbon that was released into the atmosphere,
And since the 1960ths the forests in the industrialized world have been regrowing till today to a level we had around 1600. There are plenty of stories and satellite photos/maps about this.
We have a "high forest level", the highest since centuries.
Actually, forests hold more carbon than the entire atmosphere. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/0 [fao.org]...
Might be, more reaso
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In fact, that's exactly what happens: forests and oceans sequester carbon and remove it from the atmosphere. As a result, atmospheric CO2 concentrations drop. That continues to the point where temperatures drop so low that much of the land and ocean gets covered in ice and carbon capture by forests and oceans becomes so slow that it is balanced by carbon releas
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How nice, but utterly irrelevant to my point. Europe used to be 90% old growth forest. Now it's less than 10% old growth forest, plus a lot of flimsily reforested areas that don't actually sequester much. Europeans should be held responsible both for the historical carbon release and the lack of sequestration. The fact that Europe isn't quite the environmental shithole it used to be is irrelevant when it comes to the global carbon balance.
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Now it's less than 10% old growth forest
That is wrong.
And as pointed out already: the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that comes from lost forests is neglectible in comparison to fossil fuels.
Your chain of arguing makes no sense. The lost european woods are a drop compared with the woods lost every year in south america.
The fact that Europe isn't quite the environmental shithole it used to be is irrelevant when it comes to the global carbon balance.
That is complete nonsense.
Your other post
In fact, that's
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You know you're on Slashdot when the troll posts are indistinguishable from normal behaviour.