I just got a CO2 meter and checked the levels in my house and went down a rabbit hole trying to address the issue. Apparently it would take 249 areca palms to offset the carbon RESPIRATION of one adult.

So okay 249 trees just for me to breathe, not to mention the rest of the bad things we all do.

So how can this math ever balance? 249 trees just to break even seems like an impossible number. Then all the flights I have been on, miles driven, etc.

I feel like that’s… Way too many trees. Is it hopeless or am I missing something?

  • Cheesus@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    You’re not supposed to. It is a marketing ploy from oil and gas companies to shift the blame from corporations to individuals for their pollution.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The oil and gas companies and their “environmentalist” buddies.

      We could have prevented climate change with nuclear power in the 1990s.

      Even without solar and wind (they were too expensive at the time) or carbon taxes, Sweden and France managed to get emissions down to 5 tons per capita with old nuclear and hydro technology. If all rich countries had done the same thing, climate change would have been a non-issue.

      We can still solve it today with today’s technologies: solar, wind and battery technology has evolved and become affordable. Carbon taxes are politically feasible. And old nuclear technology is becoming more acceptable and gearing up.

      Sure, try to help by reducing your energy use where possible and investing in things like home insulation and energy efficient heating and transportation.

      But the actual big things that need to be done can only be done by politicians, to force economies to change.

      • charliespider@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Even without solar and wind (they were too expensive at the time)

        This is true and I’m not disputing this fact, but had the oil companies not interfered with and killed off any attempts at alternative energy sources, things may have been quite different.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        carbon taxes are politically feasible

        Not in the United States, they’re not. I actually work with politicians as a climate lobbyist and carbon taxes are a complete non-starter.

      • ZodiacSF1969@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        Batteries are not quite there yet. It’s still quite a large investment to build massive batteries that can help small to medium towns for short periods of time. As an EE I’m hoping we make a breakthrough soon that will allow us to increase their energy density. Either that or move to different liquid fuels, which have an energy density advantage.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I don’t know is mistype or not, but I find that both “braking” their heads and “breaking” their heads work in this context.

  • beaubbe@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Breathing does not create Carbon, it is only transformed.

    There are basically 2 pools of carbon. The carbon already in circulation in the athmosphere, plants, animals and so on, roaming at the surface. That Carbon can be CO2, or other mollecules, but there is always a fixed amount. You breathing is simply borrowing the carbon for a bit and putting it out again in the air when exhaling.

    The second pool is carbon locked away in the ground, as coal, oil and whatnot. That carbon is OLD and is not supposed to be in the first pool. When you burn oil, the carbon from the 2nd pool ends up in the 1st one. You cannot really offset it because even planting trees just transforms it as wood for a bit, but if the tree burns or rots, the carbon goes back in the air. The only option long term is to send the carbon back in a locked state in the second pool.

    But for you, just reduce the amount of carbon you move from pool 2 to pool 1 to help the earth. Cut on oil, gas, coal as much as you can. The rest is basically irrelevant.

    You can compare it to the water cycle. You are at a lake with a pump, and pump the water from the lake back into the lake. You can keep going forever and will not cause the lakes to rise since the water is pumped from there anyway. BUT, if a mega corporation starts pumping from underground sources and dumping it in that lake, it would overflow for sure. And they would blame you for all the water you are pumping.

    • triarius@programming.dev
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      2 years ago

      This is a really important insight. To add to it: back when the carbon from Pool 2 was in the atmosphere, dinosaurs were roaming the earth and it was a lot hotter than it is now.

      This is obviously a simplification, it but it drives home the point that once the carbon is out of Pool 2 it will cause global warming. The only way to stop that is to stop moving carbon from Pool 2 into Pool 1, ie stop fossil fuel mining.

      Of course we could try to move carbon from Pool 2 to Pool 1, but it took the Earth millions of years to do that, and many of the plant species that did it are now extinct. Perhaps once we’re exinct, they might evolve again.

      • Skua@kbin.social
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        2 years ago

        Yes, carbon sequestration is the term for it, but none of them are currently practical to do on a scale that would mitigate the effects of the fossil fuels we burn. Growing trees is an example of this, as they do lock up carbon in the process of growing, but they’re kind of a risky prospect since if the tree dies and rots or is caught in a wildfire then it releases the carbon again. Another option is literally just sticking it back underground in mines or oil wells, but of course that takes a lot of energy to do and then whole point of burning fossil fuels is to get energy so this one is currently a bit self-defeating. They’re things that might be helpful to do if we succeed in transitioning to clean energy and have an excess of it available

        • beaubbe@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          If we can get nuclear fusion to work, that would be the kind of things that would then make sense to do. I can only hope that we figure it out as soon as possible.

          • Skua@kbin.social
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            2 years ago

            Absolutely. Or even just excess capacity of wind and solar, to be honest. Whatever works, so long as we don’t need it to replace fossil fuels and it isn’t itself making more CO2 to lock away the CO2

  • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    One thing that the carbon neutral concept overlooks is that the world is perfectly capable of absorbing the carbon output of a single person.

    For average individuals we are not able to overwhelm the world with our carbon output. There is a carbon cycle and as CO2 increases in the atmosphere, plants grow faster and bring it back to a stable median.

    It is massive industrialization that has overwhelmed the capacity of the earth to absorb the excess carbon dioxide created by humankind.

    What you should do is spend your money on companies that have embraced carbon neutrality or being carbon negative, purchase items from low carbon companies, and be reasonable and responsible with your use of energy, including fuel and electricity.

    When you have opportunities to vote for environmental initiatives, you should vote for them.

    While you should be conspicuous of your carbon footprint in the environment that we have, you should also know that your ability to actually fix the issue is practically non-existent. The only thing that is going to fix the issue is government ruling that forces industries to stop polluting the environment at the rate that they are doing even if it causes our economy to decrease.

    The only way for such initiatives to ever happen is if the population becomes carbon conscious and pushes for such initiatives. If enough of us do enough then the people in power will move to come towards us and make changes that will help keep them in power.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    2 years ago
    1. Folks generally don’t consider offsetting their own breath, that’s extreme.
    2. The vast majority of oxygen comes from phytoplankton in the ocean.
  • lasagna@programming.dev
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    2 years ago

    The world has its own CO2 cycle so it’s not that we need to reach 0, we just need to reach a balanced emission threshold. Though at this point we will also need to aid this process with further removal.

    The issue is mostly that we are outputting too much. Shipping industries, energy production, other transport such as cars and planes. These industries are a big part of the problem and the ones fueling (e.g. oil) them are the ones most interested in your feeling of hopelessness, as then they have free reign over their actions.

    The world has and will get hotter. There will be more disasters. But it’s unlikely to be the end of civilisation. The more we act now, the fewer people will suffer.

    It’s not a hopeless cause at all. Look at our tech now vs 100 years ago. Humanity has the means to do it.

  • WhoRoger@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    There’s a lot of greenery on Earth - seaweeds recycle a huge amount of CO2, as are all the plants we use and eat. It would be completely enough, especially as we keep killing off all the other animals that produce CO2.

    It’s just unfortunate that we’re destroying the oceans too, and agriculture is a heavy industry with more polution. And while we kill off the harmless or useful wild animals, we replace them with livestock, and you know where that is going.

    As individuals, we really can’t do much in this regard. I guess you can do more biking instead of driving, reusing older products, buying local, stuff like that, but this really won’t make a dent when industries keep using the dirtiest possible processes to save a cent, or if nuclear power keeps being lobbied out.

  • Nora@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    Become a vegan activist and if you convince a few people to go vegan you can actually become carbon negative.

    Also plant some trees.

  • CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago
    1. A quick Google search says there are 3 trillion trees on Earth. So that’s 500 trees per person but as mentioned before things like algae and other sources make up more.

    2. The carbon from your breathing is carbon neutral since all the carbon in your body comes from food which comes ultimately comes from plants. However the carbon dioxide used to produce and transport your food is where the excess comes from.

    3. If you want to minimize your carbon footprint it’s more about understanding which behaviors contribute the most. Eg an economy flight from the US to Europe is like 1.5 tons of CO2. That’s like years of respiration.

    4. Of course the problem is hard to solve as an individual. Maybe there just needs to be assignable liability for certain activities and the correct legal and economic system setup to optimize better for ecological issues.

  • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Net zero is less of a number and more like a notion. Is existing in our environment with the least climatic influence a good thing? One way to achieve that would be lethal pandemic. We don’t know what our true impact is and may never know. Net zero in practical terms means reducing energy consumption and pollution. It inevitably implies reducing the population and finding an alternative to capitalism. We may have to revert to a more primative life whether we want to or not.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    2 years ago

    The main problem is that all the fossil fuel is carbon that has been trapped in a non-gaseous state (solid for coal, liquid for oil) for millions of years. Stuff that, under normal circumstances, would probably never get released back into the atmosphere.

    So, for all intents and purposes, the only way to try and be carbon neutral is to offset your fossil fuel consumption. Not only trees, but also algae, which have a hard time thanks to all the shit we throw in the ocean, plus the overfishing. As others pointed, companies love throwing the term around to smoke their endless destruction in the name of FUCK TOMORROW, PROFITS NOW!

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Just try to act responsibly. Don’t drive if you don’t have to, recycle, start a compost heap. If you spend all day worrying about the “carbon footprint” of your own breathing then you’ll just end up driving yourself crazy and blowing all your money on online scams