Curse

Xue Yi Liang · Nov 22, 2005, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturo02

actually, the third world countries do a lot more damage to the world's ecosystem then the US or Canada. They often have little enviromental regulations.

Yes! I didn't want to blurt that one out at first. I've been waiting for someone to say it. The impact of 3rd world countries is much greater. And, in order to address this, you have to do something about the culture, resources and source of income for them - and it's not an easy thing to do.

That's just one of the many facts that people don't talk about.

zoozoc · Nov 22, 2005, 05:41 AM // 05:41

I assume your talking about the amazon in south america.

Arturo02 · Nov 22, 2005, 08:58 AM // 08:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xue Yi Liang

Yes! I didn't want to blurt that one out at first. I've been waiting for someone to say it. The impact of 3rd world countries is much greater. And, in order to address this, you have to do something about the culture, resources and source of income for them - and it's not an easy thing to do.

That's just one of the many facts that people don't talk about.

yah, what people don't realize is third world countries are not held to the same pollution/enviromental regulations as developed countries or their economy will falter.

Omega_2005 · Nov 22, 2005, 09:35 AM // 09:35

I think we have to save the forests, but the unfortunate thing is were too [CENSORED] up to do a damn thing that it's becoming increasingly inevitable that the forests will be burnt and destroyed. All due to one thing

GREED

Sister Rosette · Nov 22, 2005, 11:39 AM // 11:39

BURN IT ALL.

What was we talkin about?

Xue Yi Liang · Nov 22, 2005, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sister Rosette

BURN IT ALL.

What was we talkin about?

nothin.
just helping the OP with his homework

Align · Nov 22, 2005, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturo02

actually, the third world countries do a lot more damage to the world's ecosystem then the US or Canada. They often have little enviromental regulations.

The problem was the amount of resources used though, not the pollution the production caused. Not enough fertile ground to support the agriculture of that many people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris

Here's my point
Why bother trying to save the rainforest when...
-It's gonna die out anyway.

By that logic you should commit suicide now. What's the point in living if you're going to die anyway?

As for the actual question.. Well, we kinda need resources, so we can't just go all ZOMG STOP TEH RAINFOREST CUTTING DOWN and make everything fine, it'd probably take huge amounts of money and pressure to do it. Plus people are lazy.

_necroangel_ · Nov 22, 2005, 07:46 PM // 19:46

I vote to save the rainforest cuz really, don't be inconsiderate...Hello people! Think monkies! What would happen to all the monkies?...

Aracos79 · Nov 22, 2005, 07:52 PM // 19:52

If anyone thinks what American companies do is/was bad... I would invite them to take a look at the former Soviet Union. Not even Haliburton at its worst managed to KILL an entire lake... or render entire segments of the Urals uninhabitable... or leave nuclear powered ships rusting alongside piers in open water... or blow up a nuclear power plant... or, well you get the picture.

Xue Yi Liang · Nov 22, 2005, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by _necroangel_

I vote to save the rainforest cuz really, don't be inconsiderate...Hello people! Think monkies! What would happen to all the monkies?...

But monkies like to hurl poopoo at people and like to do obscene things to each other in front of children at the zoo...

Divinitys Creature · Nov 22, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

I think we should save the rainforests, by planting more trees than are cut down. Sustainability FTW. We need oxygen. We need resources. We can have both.

The problem is, just planting a few seeds costs a little money. A little money greedy folks would rather not pay.

Xue Yi Liang · Nov 22, 2005, 10:01 PM // 22:01

"The environmental movement abandoned science and logic somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as mainstream society was adopting all the more reasonable items on the environmental agenda. This was because many environmentalists couldn't make the transition from confrontation to consensus, and could not get out of adversarial politics. This particularly applies to political activists who were using environmental rhetoric to cover up agendas that had more to do with class warfare and anti-corporatism than they did with the actual science of the environment. To stay in an adversarial role, those people had to adopt ever more extreme positions because all the reasonable ones were being accepted."

- Dr. Patrick Moore PhD - cofounder of Greenpeace (who left the organization due to a change in it's goals and abandonment of scientific ethics)

BrandonIT · Nov 22, 2005, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Actually, reforestation is a primary expense for many companies in the lumber industry. Coming from Louisiana where lumber is a primary export, I have seen it for myself on land owned by relatives and on public land. Trust me, they know where their money comes from, and they don't want to lose it.

BTW, recycling is good, but can't provide for all our needs. There are some manufactured paper products that simply HAVE to come from new, untreated wood pulp.

I'm very impressed with the discussion here. Some of the facts that many in the environmental movement like to blatantly ignore have been put out here (3rd world pollution, ongoing reforestation, plankton oxygen).

Keep it going, it's been a very interesting read.

Zaklex · Nov 23, 2005, 12:06 AM // 00:06

And yet no one has brought up the splitting of water molecules to make both hydrogen and oxygen. Yes, it consumes tons of energy at the moment, but as the process is perfected and energy consumption is reduced this addresses 3 problems at once.

1. Hydrogen for fuel cells
2. Oxygen
3. recombining in the atmosphere to form water again

Oh look, it recycles itself, how novel.

Divinitys Creature · Nov 23, 2005, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Hydrogen for fuel cells recombine with the same amount of oxygen that was produced. So that has a neutral effect. BUT: hydrogen is primarily made via burning fossil fuels which means carbon dioxide is still released. A side note: if you make the hydrogen by electrolysis of water, the power generated in a fossil fuel power station is up to ~80% efficient (IIRC) compared to a theoretical maximum of ~40% for internal combustion engines used in cars. Also the water vapor made by fuel cells is warm and water vapor is a greenhouse gas itself (not sure the scale of the issue this could cause just passing on the info).

Biodiesel is carbon neutral because it captures carbon from the atmosphere and then the same amount is released in a continual cycle - as opposed to fossil fuels which release carbon that had been locked away for a long time. So by switching to that you use crops to remove carbon from the atmosphere and provide fuel and it's renewable. It probably won't help the cause of rainforests though :P

BrandonIT · Nov 23, 2005, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinitys Creature

Biodiesel is carbon neutral because it captures carbon from the atmosphere and then the same amount is released in a continual cycle - as opposed to fossil fuels which release carbon that had been locked away for a long time. So by switching to that you use crops to remove carbon from the atmosphere and provide fuel and it's renewable.

Interesting, I did not know this about Biodiesel. I think there is a new plant here in North Texas that does that. They are encouraging us to bring our used turkey grease to them after Thanksgiving so they can make diesel fuel out of it. I'm assuming they are referring to the biodiesel you mention.

MSecorsky · Nov 23, 2005, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farthest Point

In Social Studies we were having a debate on it.

Would you destroy or save the rainforest?

The rainforest creates MASSIVE amounts of the worlds Oxygen supply while removing HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases to do so.

Debate over. Save it or die. :P

As for the Hydrogen/Oxygen from water... ideally would be to use non-polluting energy renewable resources to provide the power for electrolysis. Solar, geo-thermal, wind...

And don't worry about added water vapor. The earth has a way to get rid of excess water vapor in the atmosphere.

Divinitys Creature · Nov 24, 2005, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrandonIT

Interesting, I did not know this about Biodiesel. I think there is a new plant here in North Texas that does that. They are encouraging us to bring our used turkey grease to them after Thanksgiving so they can make diesel fuel out of it. I'm assuming they are referring to the biodiesel you mention.

Well, used cooking oil can be used in engines (usually helps if it is pre-warmed in the tank). I guess you could call vegetable oil biodiesel. Normally biodiesel is the oil you directly refine from crops like rape seed. Also the DOE made a study where you could grow algae that yields ~50% oil content on lakes or tanks of water. The area needed to replace the US oil needs is some tiny fraction of desert land. This is a good article on the subject. Here's a key paragraph:

Quote:

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

Align · Nov 24, 2005, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrandonIT

Actually, reforestation is a primary expense for many companies in the lumber industry.

Wait, isn't the rainforest being cut down to make room for people to farm, rather than for wood?

Divinitys Creature · Nov 25, 2005, 10:05 AM // 10:05

I think it's a bit of both. There is a lot of clearing for grazing land not farming IIRC. This is because the soil left behind after rainforest is cleared is very fragile and isn't good for farming (for long anyways) because it depends on the trees and the rest of the ecosystem to be so fertile.