this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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I'm slightly fed up with being promised that going meat free will get me a livable planet when I retire because I have fucking delivered my end of the bargain. I want my livable planet now.
It's like
"You can improve our situation if you grab a thimble and start scooping water out of the boat now."
"There's still the giant hole in the hull that brings in a lot more water than my little thimble can deal with. What do we do about that?"
"Shut up and keep scooping :D"
Yeah. The beef thing has become the main call to action while ignoring that beef consumption has been falling since the 70's. It's also not clear how much of that carbon is part of the existing carbon cycle.
The solution is adding less carbon to the existing cycle which means stopping pumping including and especially "natural" gas.
Everything else is performative.
Only when we stop adding it to our environment can we have any hope at sequestration.
It might seem a misnomer nowadays, but it really is a good name. It replaced town gas or syn-gas, which was artificially produced at coal gasification plants through pyrolysis and pumped into homes for heating, cooking, and lighting. It was a long time until natural gas replaced it. That shit was loaded with carbon monoxide and is the reason for the old head in the oven suicide trope.
That misses the point. It's methane. Burning it releases carbon dioxide and whatever doesn't burn or leaks is directly adding methane. The heat from burning it is more heat into the atmosphere.
Since we're pumping it from underground every bit of it adds directly to the carbon cycle.
There is too much focus on what is already in the carbon cycle and while we are adding to the carbon cycle, none of it matters.