On Sustainable Sustainability

[dds]

I'm breaking several personal rules by posting here. Most important to me among them is that I'm actually taking the time to do it. I seldom find it worth my time to shoot an opinion out to the depths of the Internet, that cesspool of whack jobs and flame wars. But, the skeptoid podcast is actually pretty decent... decent enough that it's worth my time to critique it. I've listened to about maybe a third of the podcasts in the last week or so, and found most to be quite valuable. Most fact checking I've done on the podcasts seems to check out, and Brian Dunning's b.s. meter seems, refreshingly, very well-developed, a few biases aside.

Now on to my bones to pick. Today, it's the sustainability podcast. I'll agree, as claimed in the podcast, that the use of "sustainability" as a marketing buzzword is silly at best. It drives me nuts. But the podcast never made a useful positive definition of what sustainability actually IS. The traditional description of sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." And it addresses many topics less trivial than toothpaste or "sustainable music," e.g., oh, agriculture, water issues, poverty, infrastructure development, etc. (google “sustainable development issues site:un.org”). Instead, the podcast took several straw-man hits at the fuzzy sentiments of overly-idealistic "environmentalists" (used pejoratively) and left it at that. That is, while correctly denouncing marketing buzzword use of the term "sustainability," it left no well-defined, positive alternative.

Let's move on to some factual errors. First ethanol then hay bales.

Ethanol. Some of this is a repeat of what others have said on the skeptoid.com page. Ethanol is produced in a reasonably closed cycle, so that the CO2 emissions are recaptured by future crops. The podcast should have mentioned this. I agree that as the production cycle is currently structured, the use of fossil fuels in the production of ethanol is ridiculously large, but of course, in time the production cycle can be converted to ethanol as well. Thus, in the long term this is not a good objection. There are, of course, plenty of objections to ethanol (that have been mentioned in the ethanol podcast). The best is that getting ethanol from corn is just not that efficient and takes a lot of land to grow. Corn is a staple crop and diverting it to ethanol drives food prices higher, a consequence directly in contradiction with sustainable development. But, making a case against ethanol should not be made with factual errors.

Using hay bales for in residential housing, while odd, is not a bad idea. And summoning the "big bad wolf" to dispute the point is much too rhetorical for a self-proclaimed skeptic. I'm claiming professional expertise on this one and will say that I am aware of research on the mechanical and fire-resistant properties of hay bale construction. In my expert opinion, the material performs well enough to be suitable for low-rise residential construction, if one were inclined to go that route. I don't know what the overall environmental trade offs are, and whether it can in the large scale be a sustainable material, but that is what the argument should be about... not the big bad wolf.

[Quath]

I was trying to come up with something more interesting than "I agree with all your points" but so far that is all I have come up with. :)

[Frying Dutchmen]

I'm breaking several personal rules by posting here. Most important to me among them is that I'm actually taking the time to do it. I seldom find it worth my time to shoot an opinion out to the depths of the Internet, that cesspool of whack jobs and flame wars. But, the skeptoid podcast is actually pretty decent... decent enough that it's worth my time to critique it. I've listened to about maybe a third of the podcasts in the last week or so, and found most to be quite valuable. Most fact checking I've done on the podcasts seems to check out, and Brian Dunning's b.s. meter seems, refreshingly, very well-developed, a few biases aside.

Wow thanks for gracing this place with your post and pray




Now on to my bones to pick. Today, it's the sustainability podcast. I'll agree, as claimed in the podcast, that the use of "sustainability" as a marketing buzzword is silly at best. It drives me nuts. But the podcast never made a useful positive definition of what sustainability actually IS. The traditional description of sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." And it addresses many topics less trivial than toothpaste or "sustainable music," e.g., oh, agriculture, water issues, poverty, infrastructure development, etc. (google “sustainable development issues site:un.org”). Instead, the podcast took several straw-man hits at the fuzzy sentiments of overly-idealistic "environmentalists" (used pejoratively) and left it at that. That is, while correctly denouncing marketing buzzword use of the term "sustainability," it left no well-defined, positive alternative.

Brian was on the money about Sustainability being a buzz word, even your people use it as a buzz word. It's nothing more then a buzz word. Since the fact you can't sustain the environment let alone a city.



Ethanol. Some of this is a repeat of what others have said on the skeptoid.com page. Ethanol is produced in a reasonably closed cycle, so that the CO2 emissions are recaptured by future crops. The podcast should have mentioned this. I agree that as the production cycle is currently structured, the use of fossil fuels in the production of ethanol is ridiculously large, but of course, in time the production cycle can be converted to ethanol as well. Thus, in the long term this is not a good objection. There are, of course, plenty of objections to ethanol (that have been mentioned in the ethanol podcast). The best is that getting ethanol from corn is just not that efficient and takes a lot of land to grow. Corn is a staple crop and diverting it to ethanol drives food prices higher, a consequence directly in contradiction with sustainable development. But, making a case against ethanol should not be made with factual errors.

How is it captured? Are you adding the trucking into the plant and trucking to petrol stations?


Using hay bales for in residential housing, while odd, is not a bad idea. And summoning the "big bad wolf" to dispute the point is much too rhetorical for a self-proclaimed skeptic. I'm claiming professional expertise on this one and will say that I am aware of research on the mechanical and fire-resistant properties of hay bale construction. In my expert opinion, the material performs well enough to be suitable for low-rise residential construction, if one were inclined to go that route. I don't know what the overall environmental trade offs are, and whether it can in the large scale be a sustainable material, but that is what the argument should be about... not the big bad wolf.

Wonderful, sending people to the third world must be good.

[dds]

Trolls will not be fed in my reply.

Brian was on the money about Sustainability being a buzz word, even your people use it as a buzz word. It's nothing more then a buzz word. Since the fact you can't sustain the environment let alone a city.

Did you read what I wrote? "I'll agree, as claimed in the podcast, that the use of 'sustainability' as a marketing buzzword is silly at best. It drives me nuts." So to reiterate. I agree that the word is used as a buzzword, and I dislike that it is used as such.

May I ask exactly what you mean by "your people"? I am unaware of having identified myself with a group. The way I hear you say "your people" suggests that you have disdain for whoever you think that my people are.

Now, in what context does the word sustainability make sense as an intelligible and meaningful word? In the context of development for one. It is the same thing as saying that sprinting for the distance of a marathon is not a pace that can be sustained in the long term, or that spending money in excess of income cannot be sustained in the long term. Similarly, building a society's infrastructure, if it produces excessive waste and contaminants and uses up resources too quickly, is not sustainable in the long term. Sustainable development, on the other hand, is development whose pace could be sustained indefinitely.

As a shortcut, calling a process that respects principles of sustainable development a "sustainable process," while a shortcut, is a perfectly reasonable use of the word.

How is it captured? Are you adding the trucking into the plant and trucking to petrol stations?

I assume you're asking how the CO2 emissions are recaptured. The CO2 emissions are recaptured during photosynthesis, when the plants absorb CO2 from the air producing energy and creating O2 as a byproduct. If the burned fuel is made from a plant, the CO2 emitted during combustion of that fuel is absorbed by crop from which the new fuel will be made. The CO2 from this new batch of fuel will be absorbed by the following crop, etc.

Regarding the trucking issue. As I said in the post, "as the production cycle is currently structured, the use of fossil fuels in the production of ethanol is ridiculously large, but of course, in time the production cycle can be converted to ethanol as well." So yes, I did take in to account the trucking, and agree that as the process is currently conceived, there is much fossil fuel that goes into production of ethanol. This is bad, and is a serious objection to the use of ethanol as a fuel. However, the truck ran on ethanol, then no fossil fuels would be used in the production of ethanol. Some of the ethanol produced would go into the very production of ethanol, representing of course a reduction in efficiency, but the CO2 would still be reabsorbed.

Wonderful, sending people to the third world must be good.

First off, let's not insult the third world. Frankly living in the third world can be just fine. I've done it. Living in abject poverty is something else, but the industrialized nations enjoy a standard of living far beyond what is necessary for a quality life, IMO.

But to address the issue at hand, hay bale housing is not some sort of poverty-level housing. It makes the walls a bit thicker. That's the biggest architectural hurdle, but for the most part, it looks like just another house. The walls are plastered and are in that way similar to residential timber construction common in the US and elsewhere. You can make your hay bale house as swank as you want. Hay bales are just another construction material that has advantages and disadvantages, but one of the disadvantages is not that one is sent to the third world for living in one.

[Frying Dutchmen]

I assume you're asking how the CO2 emissions are recaptured. The CO2 emissions are recaptured during photosynthesis, when the plants absorb CO2 from the air producing energy and creating O2 as a byproduct. If the burned fuel is made from a plant, the CO2 emitted during combustion of that fuel is absorbed by crop from which the new fuel will be made. The CO2 from this new batch of fuel will be absorbed by the following crop, etc.

Regarding the trucking issue. As I said in the post, "as the production cycle is currently structured, the use of fossil fuels in the production of ethanol is ridiculously large, but of course, in time the production cycle can be converted to ethanol as well." So yes, I did take in to account the trucking, and agree that as the process is currently conceived, there is much fossil fuel that goes into production of ethanol. This is bad, and is a serious objection to the use of ethanol as a fuel. However, the truck ran on ethanol, then no fossil fuels would be used in the production of ethanol. Some of the ethanol produced would go into the very production of ethanol, representing of course a reduction in efficiency, but the CO2 would still be reabsorbed.

Okay, that's wrong first off I mentioned about trucks trucking it around the place, second if you reabsorded co2 into the fuel wouldn't that mean more co2 burnt off from the engine using it?



First off, let's not insult the third world. Frankly living in the third world can be just fine. I've done it. Living in abject poverty is something else, but the industrialized nations enjoy a standard of living far beyond what is necessary for a quality life, IMO.

But to address the issue at hand, hay bale housing is not some sort of poverty-level housing. It makes the walls a bit thicker. That's the biggest architectural hurdle, but for the most part, it looks like just another house. The walls are plastered and are in that way similar to residential timber construction common in the US and elsewhere. You can make your hay bale house as swank as you want. Hay bales are just another construction material that has advantages and disadvantages, but one of the disadvantages is not that one is sent to the third world for living in one.

I'm pretty sure people in the third world wouldn't care what I have to say, also I think they wouldn't mind because industrialized I know that must scare you. Also Hay bail housing would be high maintenance which would involve calling the hay bail people to come fix the cracks and tears to the structure.

You talk about how people are enjoying a standard of living far beyond what is necessary. Since you are expressing yourself as a moral authority on this please list what we don't need.

[dds]

Okay, that's wrong first off I mentioned about trucks trucking it around the place

In my reply to you I should have referred to the "production and transportation cycle." To review things we both seem to agree on: To get ethanol fuels to the tank we currently use fossil fuels in processes such as harvesting the crops and sending the ethanol to the pump by truck. It's sort of dishonest to claim that ethanol is an alternative to fossil fuels when it takes so many fossil fuels to get it to the tank.

However, and this is important, if these fossil-fuel-burning phases were to be converted to ethanol, it could be claimed that ethanol is indeed a legitimate alternative to fossil fuels (by definition, ethanol is not a fossil fuel). This is not to say that it would be a better alternative, environmentally speaking. My guess is that it would still not prove to be a stellar alternative - a few reasons that come to mind are that it is inefficient in terms of energy content, inefficient in terms of the fuels necessary in transportation, reduces food supply.

Go back to my first post. The only claim that I made on this matter is that ethanol as a panacea is a notion that should be questioned, but that it should be questioned without use of factual errors. In a long term sense, the idea that fossil fuels must be used in its production and transportation is incorrect.

second if you reabsorded co2 into the fuel wouldn't that mean more co2 burnt off from the engine using it?

No. I'd like to consult an expert on the exact numbers, but the basic notion is that the chemical reaction that causes plant growth takes in N units of CO2 (or the separate carbon and oxygen atoms in proportion). Thus at harvesting, the plant contains at most N units of CO2. By the time it becomes a fuel it contains at most N units of CO2. When it is burned, at most N units of CO2 can be released into the air. These N units become part of the input for the new crop. The cycle repeats.

Can somebody who knows better corroborate or refute this?

I'm pretty sure people in the third world wouldn't care what I have to say, also I think they wouldn't mind because industrialized I know that must scare you.

What are you saying?! I'd like to reply to your comments, but I can't when I can't understand them.

If you're curious to know, for what it's worth, I generally favor industrialization as an avenue for improving the lot of humans and especially the developing world. Industrialization cannot be separated from the socio-political structures it operates in. It can be harmful as well as beneficial depending on the context. (Let's not discuss this further in this thread - it's off topic.)

Also Hay bail housing would be high maintenance which would involve calling the hay bail people to come fix the cracks and tears to the structure.

This is not true. Read up, then reply. I know you think it's a terrible idea, but it's not that ill-conceived. The hay bales are firmly tied together and covered with weatherproof materials. A timber house is an otherwise flimsy pile of wood, tied together in the right way and covered with weatherproof materials. They're really quite similar in many respects, except (most importantly) our biases. A hay bale house or a timber house is not going to just start moving and cracking. Anything that causes cracking in a hay bale house - foundation movement, earthquakes or tornadoes - will also represent a danger to a timber structure, or for that matter concrete or steel.

I'm not discussing this further if you don't show proof of having done your homework and read into it.

You talk about how people are enjoying a standard of living far beyond what is necessary. Since you are expressing yourself as a moral authority on this please list what we don't need.

Expressing an opinion does not make one a moral authority. Thankfully. I don't really feel like taking on the Herculean task of listing the excesses (for lack of a better word) I see in the world. But I'll turn it around and ask you, do you really think that most of what we have at our disposal in the "first world" is really that necessary to living a fulfilled life? When it's contrasted with the slums of Calcutta, do I really need to get that new iPhone? I answer "no" to that question. Do I answer "yes" to a plethora of other similar questions? Of course (my personal consumption patterns have little causal influence on others' misery). But I do try to keep things in context. I do try to view what I have as a good fortune. I do try to appreciate it. I don't try to assuage the guilt by telling myself stories about how I deserve or need the latest and greatest gadget on the market. (Again, this is off topic. If we're going to discuss it further, make it a new thread)

[briandunning]

I think there's very little actual disagreement on this page. Let's not argue for argument's sake. Keep in mind that probably everyone here agrees on 95% of these issues. We're much more teammates in the fight against pseudoscience than we are adversaries. Don't get bogged down in minutiae.

And FWIW, I have no problem with haybale houses, despite my tongue-in-cheek comment about the Big Bad Wolf. I'm sure the insulation factor is fantastic and they're probably cheap to build. My problem is with using the marketing term "sustainable" since the obvious implication is that other construction methods are not sustainable. I can't think of any construction methods that are not every bit as "sustainable" as hay bale construction. Trees are renewable resources.