this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 year ago (5 children)

capitalism can't solve climate change :(

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (68 children)

Nope, especially since it's the biggest contributor to it.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

You can have industrialized production and consumerism without capitalism. Not that I'm defending capitalism, I just think our problem is deeper than what you make it, and human nature combined with unchecked technological ability to remodel out planet would yield the same outcome, no matter the dominant flavor of our economical structure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Capitalism can not solve shit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It can only provide record profits. Thats its only goal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

a quick fix: Capitalism -doesn't want to- solve the climate change :(

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not a full solution, but I'd love to see more use of compostable single-use plastics coupled with municipal biochar facilities.

It's an excellent cycle that harnesses capitalism and materialism. People buy single use plastics, then throw them away. Municipal garbage (a utility company paid for by ratepayers), picks it up, and brings it to a biochar facility. The facility pyrolizes it, making syngas (which they burn for energy which is then purchased by consumers) and biochar, which is sold as a soil amendment and happens to be carbon-negative. Excess biochar can be buried.

It's a typical capitalist create-consume economy except it's carbon-negative (when paired with decarbonized transportation like electric trains and delivery vans, and hydrogen powered garbage trucks). The more you consume, the more carbon you actually suck out of the air.

There's a few proposed loops like this which instead of fighting consumerism actually harness it to make carbon negative actions. Another one that I'm very interested in is making HVAC filters that also passively absorb carbon from the atmosphere. With electric heat pumps we already have an HVAC technology that is minimally emitting. Pair that with carbon negative filters and you're golden.

Or concrete using injected co2. It's a real thing that exists, it just doesn't have price parity with traditional carbon-intensive concrete. Imagine if just by building a building you could be carbon negative.

Again, it's not a total solution but I wish I could see more use cases like this instead of the "consume less" narrative. People are not going to consume less, that's not how people work. The only way to get people to consume less is by raising prices (which is a necessary part of the solution of course).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Why do you think pyrolyzing random plastic waste generates biochar?

It would also never be carbon negative, since it is from oil. Best case is neutral, but some carbon is burned off in the process.

Same for concrete, it is not suddenly carbon negative.