[dfabulich]

> Don't worry, somehow, they are saving the environment in all this, despite the fact that most cars these days probably put out less emissions than a family that ate too many beans.

First, this comparison is wrong. Cars generate roughly 5,000 liters of of CO2 per gallon. A human passes about one liter of gas per day, maybe two.

But even if you were right, what's the point of this comparison? We can eliminate the CO2 emissions from cars, but we can't do that to people, and we really need to cut these emissions a lot, or the earth will cook.

https://ollilaasanen.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/humans-cows-me... Humans pass 1L per day

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... Cars generate ~9kg CO2/gallon

http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight/substanc... CO2 is 1.8 grams per liter

[dlgeek]

Furthermore, human CO2 emissions come from plants as part of the normal carbon cycle - they're not an ecological problem. It's carbon-from-the-ground that's a problem.

[wyager]

CO2 is fungible.

[sadface]

Yes, but surface-level biology is pretty much carbon neutral. All of the carbon you exhale to the atmosphere comes from the food you eat, which gets its carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis.

Obviously there are edge cases, but by and large Global Warming is happening because we're pulling carbon out of the ground and putting it in the sky.

[schiffern]

The catch is, modern agriculture isn't limited to "surface-level biology."

>All of the carbon you exhale to the atmosphere comes from the food you eat, which gets its carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis.

This is true, but also misleading. When you include the nitrous oxide, methane, diesel fuel, and loss of soil carbon, agriculture is actually net CO2e positive.

>Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (24% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.

So in other words, globally our agriculture emits 5 units of CO2e for every 1 unit sequestered by photosynthesis.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/ghg_report/ghg_nit...

When you include the entire supply chain from field-to-fork (agriculture, transport, refrigeration, processing, preparation) the general rule of thumb is that 10 kilocalories of fossil fuel energy go into making 1 kilocalorie of food.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/10-calories-...

[sadface]

Great information here. This is well understood on my end. I just wanted to make a quick point because the topic was on food consumption and I don't think many people ever truly connect the dots between carbon atoms in the atmosphere -> carbon atoms in their salad -> carbon atoms in their breath (atmosphere).

[schiffern]

Indeed, and I should have been clear that I was elaborating on your excellent post, not suggesting any error/omission/ignorance on your part. My intent was to comment on the idea ("if you just consider this one fact, it could be misleading"), not to say anything negative about you personally. My apologies that it came across that way.

So no worries, and no criticism intended. After all, how could anyone say everything that's possibly relevant in one comment? And more to the point, why in hell would anyone want to? :)

[Godel_unicode]

So you agree that engine emissions are the problem then, good.

[schiffern]

I'm sorry, you lost me. What do you mean?

It is undeniable that transportation is a major contributor to the greenhouse catastrophe, accounting for 27% of U.S. emissions and 14% of global emissions.

I'm a huge proponent of electric cars and solar panels, but let's not kid ourselves that they'll solve climate change all by themselves. Those are necessary, but not sufficient. We also need to figure out how to grow food without long-term desertification of the continent.

[DannyBee]

"Cars generate roughly 5,000 liters of of CO2 per gallon."

That is a typical passenger vehicle, which is also quite old. Not a current vehicle. SEe the calculations, which explicitly states: "This is representative of the light duty passenger vehicle fleet as a whole, including both new and existing vehicles. "

I'm kind of uninterested in participating in this global hate fest further, but let me quantify this for real for you:

I have a lab certified co and co2 monitor i use as part of a supplied air system (For spraying wood coatings that contain isocyanate).

If i take a car from the late 80's or early 90's, put it in the garage with the monitor, and start it, the monitor will go off in few minutes telling me it's unsafe.

If i take a car produced today, and put it in the garage, and start it, it takes many hours before that happens. In fact, depending how well sealed the garage is, it won't happen at all.

(as an aside, this also means it's become much harder for people to commit car based suicide unless they have a very well sealed car, etc)

So i'm going to go with "This statistic is true but grossly misleading". It tells you nothing about what converting a newer car to an electric car does in terms of emissions.

Worse, given that it is mostly caused by existing vehicles, and even there, it is mostly caused precisely by the vehicles this subsidizing will do nothing to replace. It is precisely the people i talked about you need to get to drive electric cars. Not the rich people driving very up to date low-emissions vehicles anyway.

So you can cite this kind of stuff all you want. It doesn't make the plan of rich people lanes any better for the environment.

(Which is why people go for these very silly proxy and indirect support arguments to make themselves feel better).

"But even if you were right, what's the point of this comparison? We can eliminate the CO2 emissions from cars, but we can't do that to people, and we really need to cut these emissions a lot, or the earth will cook. "

I actually completely agree, but that's completely irrelevant to giving special treatment in HOV lanes to people who mostly owned cars that were not the problem anyway!

IE you'd be much better off saying "if you trade in your car from 1970 for an electric car, you get a sticker", instead of "if you trade your 2016 PZEV for a 2017 tesla, you get a sticker".

[prostoalex]

For context, after converting 50,000,000 vehicles from internal combustion to electric, the effect would be similar to eliminating 1 container ship (likely used to cargo all the materials and components necessary to build those cars). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping...

[webnrrd2k]

I don't think this is a fair comparison. The article you reference specifically mentions "one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars", but it doesn't seem to mention any comparison to Co2. The parent was talking about CO2.

It's fair to say that removing 50 million vehicles is equal to removing one container ship in terms of sulphur dioxide, or other pollutants, though

[gcb0]

congrats on winning the didn't-get-the-joke award!

his point was that hov lane is elitist, only to help car companies and rich ppl. not to fight pollution.

instead you researched if not eating beans would offset your hummer co2. geez.