Sustainability, green technologies, garbage sorting, electric cars, healthy water, CO2, and climate changes

Mario Stipčević, I think it is just you. Perhaps start out finding evidence for your claims before you demand it from others.

Dear Henrik Rasmus Andersen , i think you reversed the theses, just as conspiracy theorists would do. They typically pull a claim out of nowhere and then say: "Disprove it!". For example, at first, there were no electric cars, consequently no claims of any sort. Then they came out with a label "environmentally better, lower CO2". So it is not up to me to disprove this claim, but to them to prove it, right? Just a small window on falseness of that claim. My kids learned in auto-school that in Germany they calculated that CO2 imprint of 1 km travel of electric car is 2.5 times higher than that of gasoline-based car. Why? Itis not difficult to see why if you know where electric energy is comming form and corresponding conversion efficiencies. And that is only CO2. Electric cars are more costlx to produce in terms of energy and pollution (e.g. digging and purifying rare earth and lithium). It is an extremely energy-demanding, dirty and polluting technology. They are also difficult and pollution-expensive to recycle because an electric car is just a one-ton pack of most toxic materials you can think of, intrincately mixed togehter. While a hydrocarbon-fueled car is mostly iron and aliminum: melt it and you have new raw naterials at lowest possible extra polution, even much less that getting the same amount from ores.

But please, feel free to prove anything you think is provable.

Mario Stipčević

You don't seem to be aware of why green technologies are being advocated. Here is a Ted Talk which explains just how catastrophic the situation is: https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_what_the_fossil_fuel_industry_doesn_t_want_you_to_know?language=en

Enjoy!

Between us: this guy on TED talk is an absolute nut-case. No argumentation no premises and no conclusions. I could not find a single sentence that follows from what has been said before. Yet, I lost a lot of my time listening to that crap - that is exactly how climate environmentalists operate. They want to wear you down.

Did you read what I just stated about electric cars? Even if we believe for a minute that C02 has anything to do with winds, rains and droughts (well, quite a diapason of contradictory consequences right? Blaim it all on CO2! Does it also cause fungal nails?) THEN why advocate trashy and ultra-CO2 producing (and pollitung but that is another topic) electric cars?

If you want to state something concrete and support it with facts, please do so.

Mario Stipčević, Where is your facts then? Already 3 posts and I don't count a single reference from you.

Mario Stipčević,

The figure show the comparison of gasolin and electric cars in my location a few years ago. So electric cars emit about ½ the CO₂ overall of a fossil car, considering fuel and construction. Another time or location would be different because cars develop and electricity generation mixture vary with location and time.

The count is I provided 3 references and you are still at zero. Perhaps Aleš Kralj can help you with your local data.

Aleš Kralj, “H2 has been proven a GH gas,” Please provide this evidence. I will have to scrap my spectroscopy theory text book if this is correct.

Henrik, that picture and study are funny. They are questionable at least.

First, how can electric car generate CO2 when driving, at all? As far as I understand, an electric car works as a kitchen mixer: you plug it into the wall, click a button and it starts rotating. Where would CO2 come from?

Mario Stipčević, It seems you do not have a basic understanding about this area so we are not going to have a scientific discussion. Comparing environmental alternatives such as gasolin and electric cars is done with a concept method called comparative LCA (life cycle assessment) which is highly standardiser (e.g. ISO14040). It is the basis of the 3 examples I referred above. The litterature contain many papers about applying this for different countries e.g: http://www.academicstar.us/UploadFile/Picture/2019-6/2019621211837365.pdf

Mario Stipčević "Where would CO2 come from?" Sorry. If you do not know already I don't see a realistic way I can explain it. Perhaps you think about it for a day and ask again if you cannot figure it out.

Henrik, do not avoid argumentation. Let us go step by step and you will see where YOU are wrong. Of course I know ALL, but you do not. And I am trzing to teach you.

So, where does CO2 comes from when a full-electric car is driving? You think you know? Let us hear it! I am not asking abpout pre-sales CO2 cost. But from the second you turn the car on and start to travel.

Aleš Kralj Serbia or Croatia? Makes a huge difference for the soundness of electric cars as Serbia has a horrible mainly lignite coal based power supply, while Croatia is supposed to have a lot of hydropower and a share in your (Slovenia) local nuclear plant.

Aleš Kralj Even naming H₂(g) indirect GHG stretches the definitions. A real GHG absorb IR, each with its unique spectra, and the effect is additive and easy to calculate for Earth even with high school math in an Excel sheet. One have to be a retard not to understand it.

Messing with radical chains and lifetimes of molecules in the atmosphere is influenced by almost everything else in the atmosphere including the landscape, season and local emissions of other pollutants. Just look at methane and how much the relative e-CO₂ estimates has changed over the latest few decades.

Mario Stipčević “ANY proof of any such claims? So they obviously need not to be proven, right?”

NO comments

Evidence for what?

On February 14, 2023, the European Parliament, in a tight vote (340 votes for, 279 against, and 21 abstentions) decided to only authorize, from 2035, the sale of vehicles emitting no CO2. In other words: ban on the sale of new vehicles equipped with combustion engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, or others; paving the way for 100% electric cars. However, for various reasons, industrial, technological, economic and even environmental, specialists and professionals openly criticize the new regulations the European Union wants to impose. The most virulent criticism comes from the manufacturers, as evidenced by the positions taken by their managers, such as Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, Olivier Zipse, CEO of BMW, and Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault, who find neither more nor less, that "the electric car imposed by law is not the solution".

Very interesting topic @Jamel Chahed, thank you! What made EU parlamentaries to this decision? More interestingly who voted for and who against? Is there some explanation WHY, like "we want less CO2 in the atmosphere and we believe that electric cars can do that even if only replaced in Europe which has the lowest CO2 footprint per capita in the developed world anyway (so making it smaller in EU wont change shit!)"? Is this decision made on any citable reasonable study or simply after "a beautiful morning drinking Sangria in the park"? Why is CO2 mentioned in the decision in such a limiting scope as being exhausted from the left back corner of a car: is it not the overall CO2 emission that we care about? What is exactly the motivation, if any? Because let us not forget that europarlamentaries are a blunt people: they have been meticulously selected for that mental profile. Remember the EU directive limiting the size of cucumbers which they come up with? And the faith of it? Well - this one will not stick either!

Nevertheless, let us now open a discussion. What would happen to Europe if all cars are replaced by electric cars? Tomorrow. Would it weaken Europe? Is there an infrastructure and if not how much CO2 it costs to build and maintain it? I do not wish to pay 40k for a car equivalent of what everybody else on Earth will have for 10k! Can all CO2 exhausting vehicles even be replaced, for example industrial and civil engineering machines? How much they contribute to CO2? It is nice to have one electric Tesla proudly marching through the city. And already now, electricity is more expesive than gas. What would happen if we only had electric cars? I do not want to pay 10x times higher price per kilometer than the rest of the world because they can burn natural gas in their cars and I cannot!

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

The invisible hand of the market is all the more effective in creating profit and wealth when there are poor, needy, left behind, ignorant and submissive people. The invisible hand of the market is all the more effective in the creation of profit and wealth when there are areas of lawlessness, corruption, and famines where it is possible to exploit and over-exploit natural and human resources. , to pollute the water, the soil, and the air, to export weapons and poisons

This review [1] of the book “Sustainability perspectives: science, policy and practice” entitled "A Global View on Sustainability" provides a detailed view on the various challenges and opportunities for environmental development by considering theoretical and applied aspects of sustainability science, policy implications, and management practices in several countries around the world.It synthesizes current knowledge, provides perspectives, and describes diverse approaches and innovations aimed at dealing with the environmental crisis, which is primarily caused by anthropogenic activities" [1] A global view on sustainability: a review of the book “Sustainability perspectives: science, policy and practice” by Peter A. Khaiter and Marina G. Erechtchoukova (eds.), Springer Nature Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, 1st ed. 2020, 362 pp

Euro News (released 2 hours ago), Court case over climate inaction against 32 countries opens at the European Court of Human Rights. "Six young people from Portugal will take on 32 countries in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Wednesday for failing to protect them against climate change. The historic trial is the first time so many countries will have to defend themselves in front of any court in the world. All 27 European Union member states, the UK, Turkey, Russia and Norway are among the defendants. The Portuguese youth, aged between 11 and 24, say governments’ inaction on climate change breaches their human rights and discriminates against young people...."

In line with the previous post: The Climate Change and Human Rights issue is not a recent topic. The well-cited Article [1] by Limon, 2009, "Human rights and climate change: Constructing a case for political action" provides an "overview of the international movement to draw linkages between climate change and human rights" and "summarizes our current understanding of the nature and extent of those linkages." The article also tries to answer "whether human rights principles should be integrated into climate change policy?" and "how the international community might usefully and practically operationalize the human rights-climate change interface?"

[1] Limon, M. (2009). Human rights and climate change: Constructing a case for political action. Harv. Envtl. L. Rev., 33, 439. Available on:

Toward a Green New International Economic Order. This is what Chapter [1] by Bowles and Andrew (released two days ago) "Global Extractive Bargains for Green New Deals" tries to put into perspective. "Many national governments, regional bodies and political parties in the Global North have advanced various versions of ‘Green New Deals’ (GNDs) designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions to meet climate change objectives. Taken together, these would involve a shift away from fossil fuels and an increase in energy from solar and wind sources as well as an expansion of ‘clean’ forms of transportation such as electric vehicles (EVs). The shift to renewables and EVs, however, will require a rise in extractivism in other parts of the global political economy especially in the Global South to supply the minerals required to power this shift. We argue that the implied ‘parallel bargains’ accompanying the GNDs are problematic and propose a new lens for global extractive bargains based on a Green New International Economic Order."

[1] Bowles, P., Andrews, N. (2023). Global Extractive Bargains for Green New Deals. In: Bowles, P., Andrews, N. (eds) Extractive Bargains. Frontiers of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan,

I agree with the book "A Global View on Sustainability" which says that humanity is on an unsustainable path. I cannot read the rest of the book which is a payware. And I think this is in the core of the problem: PAYING for stuff that we do not need and which will not solve a global problem of polution. Electric cars are just a way to move a problem from one topic (CO2) to another (global warming by energy dissipation) while at the same time rising the overall polution bugdget. Let me just give a small illustration.

How to power an electric car. Where does the electricity come form? Well, let us say from solar cells. Sun is absorbed,. converted into clean energl and cars get moving - fine, no CO2 anywhere in sight! BUT, how to create cars? How to create solar panels and where to install them? How to manage the waste? Let us forget about all that for the moment and pretend that CO2 cost of all that is zero. Why is CO2 a problem in the first place? Because sunlight that would normally bounce off Earth is captured by CO2 and converted into heat. Not all, but some of it. After all CO2 id not opaque , in fact itis quite transparent, so ot won't convert much visible light into heat, no matter what thes say to you. See? That happens when you start to use your little gray cells (assuming you have some!). Using brain is not a sport of the day anymore. We generally do not do that. We want to outsource this to AI. Anyway, this is why we hate CO2 - it damn heats the planet! Fine. Now, what happens when we install solar pannels to power EV? Well, when sunlight hits a solar cell, almost ALL of it gets absorbed. Remember, solar pannels are black, meaning nothing escapes. (Turn ON the Brain!) So solar cells do not prevent "some" sunlight from escaping Earth like CO2 does: they keep it ALL. Wow - how did I miss that? Next, conversiion efficacy to electricity is 16% at best, meaning that 84% of incoming solar radiation IMMEDIATELY GOES INTO HEAT, heating the atmosphere at the ground level. (They must have been lynig to me all the time... it is really refreshing to turn my brain ON from time to time and check things for myself...) And unlike CO2 which has a lifetime, solar cells do not: they are there and do their vicious heating whether you use them or not, at a constant level, around the clock, forever. The rest 16% of solar energy is converted from DC current to AC current, transporded by grid and then converted back to DC for charging EV battery which has an in-out efficeincy of less than 70%. With all that conversion losses, we convert to heat almost all of the incoming Sun energy before even switching the EV on. The small amount of usable electric energy from that process is then used to move the EV car around. And guess what: all this moition energy eventually gets converted to heat (because it IS a motion, so it moves air molecules, wow my elementary school physics does come in handy!) and transferred to the atmosphere. So, any EV heats the atmosphere to the full possible extent. No energy involved is converted into anything but heat transferred to THE ATMOSPHERE. So you see, we do not need CO2 to generate global heating. As long as we pump energy into atmosphere, it gets - SURPRISE - hotter!

Globally speaking, as long as you want to move around a 2-ton Tesla to transfer a tiny individual of 70 kg (plus one lb of apples and one head of lettuice bought in a local show which was the motivation for this movement in the first place) from point A to point B, that is a CRIME against our environment! It does not matter what tech you use, enev if you use horses or energy of you muscles: it could be 10% better or worse: it won't change anything in the end.

So you see, as long as one switches brain ON it is plain to see that no solution offered today against the global warming problem is a solution to anything. There are simply too many of us and we want to use energy like crazy. The only thing we could do is to stop using technology. And hat is the price we will never be willing to pay: even if it takes us all to the grave.

Nevertheless, while running for the grave, why not take money from pockets of naive and live like a king? There comes activism: sell expensive adverse solutions claiming benefits that just arent there. Electric cars are one of such. Solar cells as energy plants are the second example. "Clean" heat pumps that pump internal Earth heat directly to the atmosphere ate the third example. There are many more. Some people even "sell" natural gas as a "green" solution - as we remember under a pressure from Germany EU adopted the resolution that burning natural gas is "green" while electricity from nuclear power plants is not.

Mario Stipčević: “After all CO2 id not opaque , in fact itis quite transparent, so ot won't convert much visible light into heat, no matter what thes say to you.”

While CO₂ does not absorbe visible light (as the sun emit) it absorbe infrared light which is that Earth emit back to space. Indeed, CO₂ is not opaque because your eyes cannot see infrared light.

Mario Stipčević " ....There are simply too many of us and we want to use energy like crazy. The only thing we could do is to stop using technology. And that is the price we will never be willing to pay: even if it takes us all to the grave...... "

Yes, it is true what you said. It is like a banana fish story in the novel (A perfect day for Bananafish) or those extinct dinosaurs who were gone unlike little critters because they were too big and too food (energy) demanding. The problem is that wood, then coal, then fish oil, then fossil fuel and then uranium, is the fuel that is finite and localized, require energy for extraction and produce waste (last one is very polluting, toxic and dangerous to operate) therefore it can be controlled and distributed at any price. That gives you the power because you can impose on others the dependency on that energy for their existence. We are limited like dinosaur since we cannot break away from it because we keep doing the same mistake again and again. CO2 is in excess now and this is the reason we suffer. We had a warning of global warming in early 1900's but we did not anticipated it or planned a work around it. And today we have the same irrational drive for nuclear technology. Nuclear energy generate isotopes continuously and because of these species' long half-life, they are circulated more and more over time in all life forms. In this process it will lead to break down of all life forms (including humans) once it will reach a saturating point. It is happening because of our ignorance or like before we believe in economy and success without regard to the consequences. Most technologies advance for military reason and then they get translated into civil use for profit. Businessmen are trained and care about one thing...profits..We hardly investigate long term consequences or we just don't have knowledge and tools for it. Just recently in 2000's we found out that exhaust fumes (even the invisible one ) is responsible for dementia (besides lung cancer) in city and near main streets population (due to iron nanoparticles from pistons and brakes). Another example, only with advanced technologies scientists found out that plastics contain chemicals that are endocrine disruptors that interfere/damage sex orientation in all life forms. Even rare biological substances can do that. Initially it was assumed it was upbringing or other violent circumstances. Transition to "green" technology will be chaotic and probably more damaging than what fossil fuel did after seeing news in public and scientific community endorsing nuclear technology.

Explanation to your last post: 1) "green" means for some people a carbon free emission. 2) For others "green" means emissions/ waste that is non-toxic. For group 1 but not for group 2, nuclear energy is "green". For me I am in group 2 but also according to principle of group 1, nuclear energy is not "green". You have to get uranium, process it, deliver it to the power plant, and rid of waste and all those activities require fossil fuel and therefore emits CO2. Water dams and windmills do not have that problem. Thus is why we should be paying attention to the environment very carefully for early little disruptions because nature does not know bargaining or diplomacy.

P.S. I agree with you..... 2-ton vehicle for 70 kg merchandise to move around makes us look very "advanced" indeed. This is not a vehicle of the future.

The paradox of Electric Vehicles. Excerpts from: https://www.smartgreenpost.com/2021/10/06/the-paradox-of-electric-cars/ ".. one of the buzzwords if you will, is electric cars. This could be a good start, or just a way of hiding behind a finger, clearing one’s conscience, and perhaps saying that one has done everything possible to avoid the climate disaster we are heading for. For two reasons.

The second reason is linked to the failure to address the choice of electric cars with an integrated and supply chain strategy: it is true that these cars are powered by electricity, but most of this energy is still derived from power plants that are (still) based on coal"....

"Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), by combining several energy resources, are considered as a crucial solution to decrease fossil fuel consumption and improve the environmental challenges. The existence of an alternative energy resource and the internal combustion engine together provides optimal power distribution among them to maximise power usage and minimise fuel consumption." Excerpt from:

Azim Mohseni, N., Bayati, N., & Ebel, T. (2023). Energy management strategies of hybrid electric vehicles: A comparative review. IET Smart Grid.

No Mario - it is not just you.

Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy: Mining for electric-powering minerals has left 23 million people exposed to toxic waste, 500,000km of rivers polluted and 16 million acres of farmland ruined

A rush to mine lithium in Nevada is pitting climate advocates and environmental groups against each other

Lego says making bricks from recycled bottles produces more carbon than new plastic

Wind Farms Cause More Environmental Impact Than Previously Thought