Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Look, I do realize that "recycling plastic" for years was just "ship to China / Mexico", so it was all a giant scam that the government helped the plastic industry perpetuate: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362

But... this struck me as weird. Recycling plastic doesn't need to help reduce carbon emissions, but rather, reduce non-biodegradeable waste that will outnumber fish by 2050: https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-problem/pla...

As CBS News reports, Lego said that it “decided not to progress” with the bricks after it “found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions,

I find this whole obsession with CO2 and "carbon emissions" to be destructive because it takes away the focus from the more pressing concerns like pollution, desertification of farmland, overfishing, collapse of natural ecosystems from rainforests to kelp forests to coral reefs, plummeting populations of insects, etc. etc. That is far far more dire than ocean levels rising by a foot, or humans having to move out of arid environments. And in this case, it's almost comical that reducing plastic pollution is measured by how much it can reduce carbon emissions.

fyi carbon emissions directly causes global warming and ocean acidification, so yes, mitigating carbon emissions IS very important to help your desertification, rainforests, kelp forests, and coral reefs

Many of these things are due to invasive species introduced by humans such as kelp forests being killed by sea urchins. Desertification has to do with capitalism and farmers racing to the bottom depleting the soil of nutrients - just like the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression wasn’t caused by global warming. Desertification has been going on for 40 years now

https://www.freethink.com/energy/desertification-desert-gree...

This is exactly what I’m talking about — we should be focusing on solving these issues without waiting for the climate change to reverse!

I think you're being a little selective in trying to show your point. Human-driven climate change is the biggest driver of ecological damage. Even the article you link to is based on a report that climate change is the biggest driver of desertification worldwide.

I agree with you that land management can mitigate desertification, the same way hunting invasive species can help protect native biodiversity.

This doesn't mean it's wrong to focus on climate change, and by extension, carbon emissions. If anything, they demonstrate that we should focus on climate change. It's like scaling an internet technology company: we want to build something small that has a massive impact.

Reducing carbon emissions will by far have a greater impact than trying to eradicate sea urchins from the pacific northwest. It is just as feasible as better land management. And for things like coral reef bleaching, which I'm personally very interested in, it's unclear if there's any other solution.

Insofar as these things are a threat to human civilization, when that breaks down and stops polluting the recovery will be fairly rapid. Also, a bunch of these problems (eg ecosystem collapse) are driven by climate change.

That is far far more dire than ocean levels rising by a foot

People who write things like this tend to think of a peaceful shoreline but with slightly less beach/cliff, completely neglecting the way tides work. The water doesn't stay evenly distributed.

Im surprised the responses to you are in disagreement, this seems like the obvious and clear takeaway to me. Climate change and other issues of habitat destruction and pollution are very interconnected, but they're not the same. Carbon is not the only environmental issue.

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