Methane From Landfills Is a Big Driver of Climate Change, Study Says (nytimes.com) 128
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: They're vast expanses that can be as big as towns: open landfills where household waste ends up, whether it's vegetable scraps or old appliances. These landfills also belch methane, a powerful, planet-warming gas, on average at almost three times the rate reported to federal regulators, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
For the new study, scientists gathered data from airplane flyovers using a technology called imaging spectrometers designed to measure concentrations of methane in the air. Between 2018 and 2022, they flew planes over 250 sites across 18 states, about 20 percent of the nation's open landfills. At more than half the landfills they surveyed, researchers detected emissions hot spots, or sizable methane plumes that sometimes lasted months or years. That suggested something had gone awry at the site, like a big leak of trapped methane from layers of long-buried, decomposing trash, the researchers said.
"You can sometimes get decades of trash that's sitting under the landfill," said Daniel H. Cusworth, a climate scientist at Carbon Mapper and the University of Arizona, who led the study. "We call it a garbage lasagna." Many landfills are fitted with specialized wells and pipes that collect the methane gas that seeps out of rotting garbage in order to either burn it off or sometimes to use it to generate electricity or heat. But those wells and pipes can leak. The researchers said pinpointing leaks doesn't just help scientists get a better picture of emissions, it also helps landfill operators fix leaks. Keeping more waste out of the landfill, for example by composting food scraps, is another fix. "The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that landfills are the third largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the United States, emitting as much greenhouse gas as 23 million gasoline cars driven for a year," notes the NYT. "Overseas, the picture can be less clear, particularly in countries where landfills aren't strictly regulated. Previous surveys using satellite technology have estimated that globally, landfill methane makes up nearly 20 percent of human-linked methane emissions."
For the new study, scientists gathered data from airplane flyovers using a technology called imaging spectrometers designed to measure concentrations of methane in the air. Between 2018 and 2022, they flew planes over 250 sites across 18 states, about 20 percent of the nation's open landfills. At more than half the landfills they surveyed, researchers detected emissions hot spots, or sizable methane plumes that sometimes lasted months or years. That suggested something had gone awry at the site, like a big leak of trapped methane from layers of long-buried, decomposing trash, the researchers said.
"You can sometimes get decades of trash that's sitting under the landfill," said Daniel H. Cusworth, a climate scientist at Carbon Mapper and the University of Arizona, who led the study. "We call it a garbage lasagna." Many landfills are fitted with specialized wells and pipes that collect the methane gas that seeps out of rotting garbage in order to either burn it off or sometimes to use it to generate electricity or heat. But those wells and pipes can leak. The researchers said pinpointing leaks doesn't just help scientists get a better picture of emissions, it also helps landfill operators fix leaks. Keeping more waste out of the landfill, for example by composting food scraps, is another fix. "The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that landfills are the third largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the United States, emitting as much greenhouse gas as 23 million gasoline cars driven for a year," notes the NYT. "Overseas, the picture can be less clear, particularly in countries where landfills aren't strictly regulated. Previous surveys using satellite technology have estimated that globally, landfill methane makes up nearly 20 percent of human-linked methane emissions."
Let The Robots Sort And Recycle It. (Score:3)
And use the rest as fuel.
Re: Let The Robots Sort And Recycle It. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Let The Robots Sort And Recycle It. (Score:4)
Are you saying that the free market externalizes costs like methane containment, and thus rationalizes not recycling because it's too expensive when you can just landfill your waste and let nature (or could the Fed buy climate bonds that would pay to contain it?) handle the methane?
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Well, nature is handling the methane. It is heating up the atmosphere.
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Does nature like it warmer like in the Jurrasic?
Re: Let The Robots Sort And Recycle It. (Score:5, Interesting)
Our landfill collects the methane and makes electricity (and money) from it. Smart!
Here in Florida, some of the garbage trucks run on natural gas [freightliner.com] and since natural gas is mostly methane, the landfill operators fuel the trucks with gas from the landfill.
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Our landfill collects the methane and makes electricity (and money) from it. Smart!
Here in Florida, some of the garbage trucks run on natural gas [freightliner.com] and since natural gas is mostly methane, the landfill operators fuel the trucks with gas from the landfill.
That sounds downright woke. Don't let DeSantis hear about it, he'll shut that down and make sure those trucks switch to running on American Diesel. With engines detuned so they belch clouds of black smoke.
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A lot of it is about managing consumer expectations. You don't expect the cafe to give you a brand new mug with your drink, a used one that has been washed is fine. Might even have a chip in it, or the logo be a bit worn.
How about this. Create an industry standard for reusable bottles. Instead of buying a new plastic one every time, you bring your reusable one and refill it.
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A lot of it is about managing consumer expectations. You don't expect the cafe to give you a brand new mug with your drink, a used one that has been washed is fine. Might even have a chip in it, or the logo be a bit worn.
How about this. Create an industry standard for reusable bottles. Instead of buying a new plastic one every time, you bring your reusable one and refill it.
...or we could use glass or metal containers or our liquids and then pay people a small amount per can or bottle to bring them in for recycling... nah, that would never work...
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Recycling isn't as good as reuse.
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Ideally all product lifecycles are designed for and have full reuse in mind, as it stands, most governments don't require single use plastics like the trillions of drink bottles each year to have a clear plan for their reuse. It's actually pretty dumb not to require at least packaging and drinks industry groups to implement a reasonable reuse of the bottle and packaging materials...
Yep. Problem 1 is that there are too many different types of plastic, some of which are easy to recycle, some hard to recycle but still possible, and some not recycleable (with current methods), but they're all dumped together unsorted (along with, for most places, paper and metal). Need to cut this down to just the recyclable plastics!
But, staying on topic: plastics aren't the source of methane emissions from landfills.
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"While the biodegradability of bioplastics is an advantage, most need high temperature industrial composting facilities to break down and very few cities have the infrastructure needed to deal with them. As a result, bioplastics often end up in landfills where, deprived of oxygen, they may release methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide." [columbia.edu]
Unintended consequences are a bitch.
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another aspect we don't discuss enough: petrol/fuel production probably isn't even lucrative if you don't make plastic with all the by products. They don't want to reduce it at all.
Most plastic is actually made from natural gas, not petroleum. But plastic is only about ten to twelve percent of the petroleum/natural gas industry compared to the stuff we burn; not enough to be a cost driver. If we stopped making plastic with fossil fuels, the supply would slightly increase, and thus the cost of fossil fuels would tend to go down, but not by much.
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Where'd you get the energy to do this?
Nevermind that, that's a _practical_ problem. There's a more serious problem: When will you accept that this approach is _exactly_ what has brought this mess upon us? That "oh, that's a _problem_ we gotta _fix_ it. With _more stuff_." mentality we have?
"Are you seriously suggesting we *stop solving problems*? Do you even realize how absurd this is?" OF COURSE it sounds absurd! It goes against our very nature! We _literally can not think of any other way_ to approach our
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Well, you're welcome to solve the problem with less stuff if you like. Or maybe you just have complaints and no solution, so maybe you're more part of the problem than the solution?
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The reason for our situation is that we never accept "good enough". Everything is considered a "problem" that should be solved.
I reject the notion that all difficulties in life are problems in need of a solution.
Truth is stranger than (Score:2)
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That's disposable diapers you were smelling
Lovely, eh?
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After one season, it was ripped up and capped with clay and maybe an extraction system, before installing a new lawn.
From the history [shorelinelake.com]:
In 1978, the methane recovery system began producing some 600,000 cubic feet of raw gas from a twenty acre parcel per day. The gas was scrubbed and injected into a high pressure gas main for delivery to the City. The revenue generated supported the maintenance and operation of the Park. No longer economically viable, the gas production project ceased in 1993. With the 2001 energy crisis, a new project was started that utilized the gas to power two microturbines that can each yield about 70 kilowatts.
[ The generator is at 37 degrees 25' 42.1" N 122 degrees 04' 59.0" W if you want to find it on a map ]
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Save the scraps, save the planet. Or something. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Save the scraps, save the planet. Or something. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Save the scraps, save the planet. Or something (Score:2)
That's incorrect.
https://www.edf.org/climate/me... [edf.org] is a potent greenhouse,warming in the near term.
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What you are ignoring is that the methane is converted into CO2. So, yeah, Methane has a much greater effect on climate change.
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Linky for you [fau.edu]
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"In other words its a wash."
When the other words are those of an ignoramus.
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Literally the second line of your article states "Methane has a higher effect in the short term but CO2 is longer lasting" . In other words its a wash.
100% of carbon molecules of methane end up as CO2 over time. So no, Methane is not longer lasting than CO2 because it *becomes* CO2 (plus quite a bit of H2O). It's only a wash if you imagine that Methane magically disappears. It doesn't.
Re: Save the scraps, save the planet. Or somethin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Save the scraps, save the planet. Or somethi (Score:1)
You gain nothing by trying to be polite to the willfully ignorant, either. They won't appreciate it, and they won't be polite enough to learn enough to argue in good faith.
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Except methane doesn't just disappear, it decays to CO2 and water hence it is worse. This is why it is preferable to methane off.
Re:Save the scraps, save the planet. Or something. (Score:4, Informative)
CO2 and methane are equally bad for greenhouse effect. Methane reflects more heat but CO2 lasts longer in the atmosphere so its a wash.
It's not a wash. When the methane breaks down it produces CO2 (CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H20), so when you release methane into the atmosphere you get both the greater heat retention while it's methane and the longer duration of CO2.
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CO2 and methane are equally bad for greenhouse effect. Methane reflects more heat but CO2 lasts longer in the atmosphere so its a wash.
It's not a wash. When the methane breaks down it produces CO2 (CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H20), so when you release methane into the atmosphere you get both the greater heat retention while it's methane and the longer duration of CO2.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (with citation), the above also understates the greenhouse contributions of atmospheric methane. The article mentions that when methane breaks down into CO2 and water, that breakdown often occurs in the troposphere which generally doesn't have much water. The resulting high-atmosphere ice clouds also have strong greenhouse effects. I'd have thought that high ice clouds would contribute to albedo more than greenhouse effects, but apparently not.
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Per data as recent as 10 years ago, they thought it was a wash tho removing methane would cool things down / prevent faster.
Cite?
That makes no sense. Even if they underestimated the GWP of methane in the past, it still wouldn't be a wash since CH4 breaks down into CO2. So you get the 75X warming potential (sources I see say 83X) of methane for some number of years and *then* for every CH4 molecule you get a CO2 molecule that's going to be around for many years more. Even if CH4 only had the same GWP as CO2 it would therefore still have a greater warming effect, much less at 25X, 75X or 83X.
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CO2 and methane are equally bad for greenhouse effect.
No they are not, especially since methane breaks down into CO2 over time. Methane is an order of magnitude worse in terms of global warming. The only reason we focus on CO2 releases is because we emit many more orders (plural this time) of magnitude CO2 than methane.
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Re: Save the scraps, save the planet. Or something (Score:2)
Methane breaks down into mostly CO2, so no, that's ignorant.
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Assuming you're still getting the compost out of it, sure.
Whoops, now you have to pay for the waste to be transported to a central location and back again.
If you use a composter which allows aeration then you're not going to get much methane. And aerating the compost makes it compost faster, too. Most people I know who compost aerate their compost for this reason.
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That's a good point and it's not one I was thinking about. On the other hand I wonder how efficient home composting actually is. If you have the energy or the equipment to turn the pile then it will break down aerobically. But most people do what I do; they pile it up in a corner somewhere and wait for it to rot. I grant you that it's probably more aerobic than a landfill but I'd be interested to know by how much. The landfill still has the benefit of capturing the gas, and I would be interested to know i
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Yes, it's called biogas, renewable natural gas (RNG), and other things.
And modern landfills do have provisions to capture the gas for resale as natural gas or to use locally for heating and generation.
It still emits CO2, but at least you're using it usefully for something - heat or energy - first. And if not, you should be capturing it because it's a resource you can sell.
Landfills have been capturing it for decades now be
Methane has a half life of 7 to 12 years. (Score:2)
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Here's the bad news. https://www.noaa.gov/news-rele... [noaa.gov]
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After which it becomes CO2 and water. What perspective were you hoping to give? That it's a non-issue? Because it's not.
Composting (Score:2)
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Much less if you do it right because you have aerobic decomposition and then you use the soil to grow plants.
But if you can't reuse the soil reusing the methane is better than not!
Just yesterday some freaks here were complaining about methane reuse to mine crypto as if wild flaring it were better.
Blah blah California is the worst (Score:3)
Where I live in CA, we weree given little bins to leave in the kitchen to fill with food waste. Those bags go into the yard waste bins and are removed from the landfill train. I know, I know. It's the worst and how dare they.
Re: Blah blah California is the worst (Score:2)
Same here. It was funny to see someone set their green bin out at the street next to all the huge bins.
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Same here. It was funny to see someone set their green bin out at the street next to all the huge bins.
Where I lived in the Bay Area, the green bin was the biggest, the blue bin for paper , cans, bottles was big while the grey bin for everything else was tiny. We also could go to the city composting site and get as much free compost as we wanted for our backyard gardens.
So combine it with this ... profit! (Score:2)
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As of 2020 there were 286.9 million cars. (Score:1)
"How many cars are there in the US?
In 2020, there were 286.9 million cars in the US. While car sales for the past few years arenâ(TM)t a simple upward line, other factors such as increasing car age and the need for personal mobility means amid the pandemic are making sure that the number of US cars is more or less progressively increasing."
So while it may the 3rd largest, that's about 8% the co2 put out by passenger automobiles.
And *all* transportation is about 30% of carbon emissions. So 23 million
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Yes, but how many libraries of congress is that?
Moving decomposition doesn't help. Right? (Score:2)
"Keeping more waste out of the landfill, for example by composting food scraps"
Why would composting change how much methane is released?
In Other Countries (Score:3)
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Found it weird the marketing around green waste in Australia. They emphasise garden waste. In Europe they emphasise organic waste. When I moved I was like "wait whaaaa, you throw food scraps into the green bin?"
Are they sure? (Score:2)
It's not just a bunch of hot air?
Also in arctic permafrost (Score:2)
There's apparently also a LOT of methane locked up in arctic permafrost, which is starting to thaw ...
From the 2022 NOVA episode Arctic Sinkholes [pbs.org] (S49:E1)
Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Full episode also on YouTube: Arctic Sinkholes [youtube.com]
And discussed here: Nova episode explores Arctic methane explosions [uaf.edu]
Landfills should not exist (Score:3)
It's not only the methane escaping. You have all that material, buried and left to leak lovely chemicals into the groundwater. Pretending that you can seal landfills so that they don't leak is just a fantasy. [sciencedirect.com] Takeaway from that article: landfill liners degrade *much* faster than claimed.
Sort out the big chunks of metal. Incinerate the rest, using the energy and extracting the valuable metals and minerals from the ash. Incineration destroys nearly all of the dangerous chemicals, and you are left with a tiny remnant to bury.
Re:Landfills should not exist (Score:4, Informative)
I can speak on this subject with some experience, having been involved some years ago in designing and evaluating waste collection strategies for more than a decade. Incinerators pose their own problems. First of all, they're by far the most expensive means to manage waste. Second, they have to be "overbuilt"...you size them for your needs many years in the future. In the mean time, your municipality won't generate enough garbage to keep it busy, and an idle incinerator is a vastly more expensive incinerator. Because they're so expensive to build and run, you have to keep them going as close to 24-7 as you can manage in order to maximize efficiency and minimize costs. This means importing garbage, and that means hundreds of heavy trucks per day pounding your paved roads all to hell, usually creating traffic jams as an extra added bonus. Also, controlling the various varieties of stuff that goes up the stack isn't cheap. Special and routine maintenance is an on-going project, and can affect daily tonnage. You've agreed to accept garbage from other municipalities. It doesn't stop arriving just because you need to shut down part of your facility for maintenance. It just builds up and sits there stinking. In addition, until the facility is built and opened, all you have is a massive hole in the ground you throw money into.
Landfills can also be problematic, and they most certainly DO leak, but it's easier to deal with the problems piecemeal. They also tend to be located at a distance from cities, so you don't have a steady stream of dump trucks going through residential and quasi-residential neighbourhoods.
Methane can be managed in landfills by adding an "organics" collection stream to your waste diversion plan. Nothing's perfect, so initially such organics-free landfills put out quite a lot of methane (weirdly, even more than a regular landfill). However, that level drops over a couple of years to very low levels and stays there. While that's happening, pipes can be sunk into areas where emissions are high and the methane flared off. There are several options for disposing of the organics, but that's a bit too much of a digression for right now.
I also have to let you know that incineration absolutely does NOT destroy quite a lot of dangerous chemicals, unless it's a very special kind of incinerator, or perhaps a cement kiln. Standard residential waste can be bad enough. IC&I (Industrial, Commercial and Institutional Waste) is a nightmare, and you have to deal with powerful interests willing to lobby for problematic emission standards if those guys are involved. That's not a formal part of a waste management strategy, but it is very much realpolitik.
So please believe me when I tell you "Energy From Waste", as they like calling incinerators, isn't a magic bullet.
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Excellent post covering the topic very well except for one point. If you are trucking waste to keep an incinerator at capacity then you have done something very wrong with your infrastructure, especially if they are the cause of traffic problems. A ship (heck even a small barge) can move the waste for a fraction of the emissions, a train can do it almost greenly.
There's no reason to assume 100s of trucks would be used, unless you also assume your government and infrastructure planers are incompete... ooooh
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You're absolutely right, but incinerators often can't be sited where they could take advantage of rail and ship transportation. Don't forget that you're building it for your own municipality. Taking in garbage from elsewhere is a temporary measure (though "temporary" might be up to five or six years, or even longer if growth projections don't pan out).
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In the 1800's the dump is where people brought their refuse and dumped it weekly.
Other people would come by and take useful items. Scrappers would grab wood and metal.
At the end of the day any organic material would be gathered up and sent to be boiled and peppered to make sausage for the orphanages.
Not even kidding.
Plastic diapers fouled the whole system - now it's mixed food, refuse, and industrial chemicals.
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If only we could just get prostitutes legalized... then we would find out how much damage incels caused to society !
The religious ones will not count because they end up only believing they are incels proving they are even more delusional... perhaps this is a way to flag nutjobs? So again, this reduces harm.
Next we can try to get religious people to abort unwanted children since their unwanted children grow up to become dangerous to society...
imagine people actually believing this (Score:2)
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You need to sacrifice your bulls to appease the forces in the sky that will destroy your city with extreme weather if you don't!
Haven't you read any religious scrolls?
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You are being ridiculous but it makes some people like yourself feel good; therefore, believe it and turn off your brain. Except when your ego is bruised... then turn on your brain and play lawyer because that is far easier than actual thought! A human flaw that is so much worse today...
Destroy the pseudo-science; it's not religion, it can be attacked with science and disproved... but you can't do that...
Going around lecturing about global warming is just fine and not a serious attack; it's a red herring.
Re: imagine people actually believing this (Score:2)
What kind of cars? (Score:2)
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You're obviously anti-science as you did not ask the one critical question:
Are they African or European?
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"Are they African or European?"
African cars are non-migratory
(well they aren't exported to the developed countries anyway.)
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Well colorless me surprised... (Score:2)
Stop throwing it out. Give it away. eBay it. Fix it...even if it's not "worth it"--the planet's at stake!
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I've been amazed at how much demand there is on eBay/etc. for stuff I thought was surely considered garbage: broken, obsolete, etc. Example: I'm repairing a Nakamichi audio cassette player right now and see that they command several hundred dollars. I know it's high end brand, but I would have thought "Who wants any brand of tape player these days?" Apparently someone does.
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I miss my Nak BX-300. Dropped $700 for it in 1985(ish). My dad gave it away while I was away at college.
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big (Score:2)
New definition of "big." If it's so big, let's forget about EVs and just seal off the garbage dumps.
So go back to coal (Score:2)
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Slashdot has become a caricature of itself. Well, because that's the left now, isn't it.
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Re: All those humans farting too! (Score:2)
The right was always a caricature. The left is just trying to compete.
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All those humans farting too are a big driver of climate change! We need to get rid of at least 90% of the world population in order to meet our climate goals! Let's starve them out to death and be done with it! We might have a peak when their bodies rot and decompose but we will be saved after that! -- The Davos Club
Breathing heavier causes the body to produce more CO2. CO2 is bad. Therefore, breathing heavier must be outlawed. No more exercise! No more sex! No more activity! A sleeping body with a heavy sedative produces less CO2 than a body in motion. The healthiest solution for the planet is to heavily sedate the entire population and leave them sleeping.
I JUST SOLVED CLIMATE CHANGE! HOORAY!
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I don't know if you're old enough to remember this but your post made me remember a low budget sci fi movie from the 70s, I think, where the world didn't have enough oxygen ( I don't remember why ). Folks were required to use their 'comaducer' for many hours a day so they didn't breathe as much.
It seems vaguely familiar. I remember this one and one where there was a group of kids preparing for the one hour of sunshine every seven years or something, and one of them gets locked into the school when the sun comes out. If I remember right, she was the only one of the kids to have been alive for the previous sunshine, but was too young to really remember it.
Of course, mass murder *is* what the greenies want. Never mind few to none of them could survive in a world with 500 milions.
Seems a bit hyperbolic. Though I know there are some that want to see essentially everyone but them and their support system to die off, very few