Why the focus on removing Africa's carbon footprint?
I've come to notice that a lot of inventions designed for African tribes and other struggling communities that the main focus is things like their carbon footprint, instead of things like their lack of proper health care or manufactory. Like, wtf?
Why focus on making solar equipment for water purification and food cooking and transportation and then say, "It reduces their carbon footprint," when any American driving an automobile already has a carbon footprint at least a dozen times larger than one individual? It'd make more sense to cut the carbon footprint by putting air scrubbers on factories and vehicle exhausts or investing in Hydrogen fuel cells than limiting the abilities of the poor.
Is there a red-pill meme about keeping the poor in their place I'm missing here? It just doesn't make any sense. Using a solar dish to replace bonfires that burn trash and cook food and calling that reducing the carbon footprint when doing absolutely fucking nothing about Chinese industrial pollution or American food production pollution makes no fucking sense.
Because there is over a billion people using charcoal, and that is significant?
James Miller
Reducign carbon footprint is just a side effect.
The main problem is that producing energy takes money. Electricity and gasoline aren't easy to come by when you're dirt poor. That's why all the inventions are designed to function with no fuel.
Jayden Bennett
Then target China or India and tell them to use solar or wind or geothermal power, not make fucking solar tricycles and ovens and windmills. If more power can be produced, then that power can just be applied to basic electrical appliances that'd do the job much better.
>Living where coal power is the primary source of energy. Why can't we just use scrubbers either? That'd at least solve the carbon emissions part and make coal power plants much more readily available.
My apologies, I'm not trying to just both and complain. I'm just at a failure to understand and I need it explained to me. I'm a physics and mechanical technologies major, not an environmental science or geology major.
Anthony Roberts
Because people don't really care about other people and the environment. Nobody wants to sacrifice their lives for some sort of a chance at making a new and possibly long lasting or even perpetual golden age they won't even experience in their lifetimes. What matters to them is now. They want to consume, they want to consume stuff of decent quality yet cheap, and they want it now.
Joseph Jones
Because if Africa were to go through another industrialization like China and India has, the world climate would be royally fucked.
Wyatt Mitchell
Virtue signalling isn't a meme. They hear africa is poor and climate change is bad and kind of mash it all together.
Carson Myers
it's an attempt at getting people to live frugally. It's easier there because the infrastructure just doesn't exist and its massively cheaper to roll out portable solar units than to place 100 poles to power a village.
Adrian Ortiz
Because the modern green movement is a religious cult. One of the things that they only tell insiders, or if you look hard enough, is that their goal is deindustrialization, akin to some Gaia worship nonsense, based on pseudo-science like Malthus.
Hudson Myers
The bigger problem is African infrastructure is typically looted. Oil is generally sold off for cooking, metal as scrap, etc, Kenya is a good example of this.
Anything that requires large scale infrastructure will fail since there is no law and order in the vast majority of Africa, but if you provide a contained energy source which does not require fuel, you reduce the risk of it being stolen.
Samuel Evans
Africa is yet to industrialize so there is still time to teach them how to live in environmentally friendly renewable manner. They an amazing opportunity we never had because of historical coincidences and it's no surprise most economist believe the future belongs to Africa.
Alexander Robinson
>Name fag And how do you know this? Even though the green movement is littered with hippies, there are a few practical people who understand that it is possible to reduce climate footprints while still retaining industrialisation. Making Africa renewable energy is more practical than wiring the entire continent to power grids (which will probably end up destroyed of fall into disrepair, it is Africa after all)
Sebastian Thomas
Perhaps my biggest complaint is that I hear green movement people regularly and frequently cite Mark Jacobson as the place to start, and the most knowledgeable person about actual plans to eliminate CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, the guy is a liar and a fraud, and clearly so, which means that they cannot police their own. Just for example, this is a person who said, in an offhand remark in a Scientific American article, with no context, that "nuclear produces 25x as much CO2 as wind" (approx quote). When you look into his peer reviewed papers, that number includes substantial amounts of coal ("but I thought he said nuclear"), and it also includes the CO2 emissions from burning cities from an assumed nuclear war every 30 years (or some such). Absolute dishonest shit. Guy should be drummed out of the movement entirely, but instead he's the most respected person in the movement.
Eli Rogers
Why? They haven't developed anything in the last 100 thousand years, what makes you think they will develop now? They already can't feed their own population, let alone the expected 3 billion more. They contribute nothing to the global community, no technology or advancements. Their infrastructure has never advanced since colonisation without another nation holding their hand throughout the process. The only future Africa holds is being a perpetual drain on resource and a constant hunger and conflict zone.
Leo Morris
Just like most of Europe took a thousand years, the European Dark Ages, in order to pull their heads out of their asses, and rediscover science from the ancient Greeks. Am I right?
Matthew Fisher
>from burning cities Using nuclear energy raises the risk of nuclear war dramatically so there's nothing wrong with making that assumption.
Jayden Jones
Sorry, from your first post I thought you were a climate change denier. Mark Jacobson is a complete moron with no knowledge of the economy, and a liar and a fraud.
Camden Richardson
Naw, I'm a huge nuclear proponent precisely because I believe that there is a severe and immediate and huge risk from climate change and ocean acidification.
Context is everything. If your argument really is "nuclear power use increases the risk of nuclear war", then just say that. Don't just throw out numbers like that, because to every casual reader, that means that nuclear power, in normal operation, produces 25x as much CO2 as wind. Any reasonable person would be hugely surprised that such a claim actually includes large amounts of burning coal, and outright flabbergasted that it includes burning cities from nuclear war. It's just dishonest, the way it was presented.
Elijah Peterson
Despite what you may think ,there was plenty of technological advancement during the Dark ages. Dark age technology even surpassed the ancients in some aspects, such as metal working. The renaissance was just a period of even more rapid technological advancement. This all took a thousand years. Africa had a 40 thousand year head start over everybody, they should have dominated the globe. Egypt may look impressive, but Ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley invented what they invented thousands of years before.
Eli Thomas
they can't DO anything with portable solar units.
Andrew Long
To be clear, I'm defining the European Dark Ages as approximately 300 AD to 1200 AD. I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I don't have any proper sources in front of me, except for Richard Carrier's, specifically his PhD thesis (IIRC) and several blog articles.
Isaiah Johnson
Do you know anything offhand, besides "better metalworking"? Keep in mind that the Celts were making pattern welded iron swords in like 700 BC, IIRC. Wikipedia tells me that I'm wrong, and they were doing it starting 200 AD or 300 AD, but that still works for me, because it's before the European Dark Ages. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding
Could you please be more clear? Do you happen to have citations offhand to explain what you mean?
Ayden Nguyen
This.
Blake Gomez
If you love wikipedia so much, just read the article on the Dark Ages. The label is inaccurate and the technological drop-off thing is a meme.
Cameron Watson
Naw, I'll go with Richard Carrier, his arguments, and sources. Thanks though for your suggestion! /s
Jose Lopez
I could go into massive detail. The Dark Ages saw the first mass use of steel on Earth. No other civilisation that existed could match the Dark Age Europeans for knowledge of metal forging. Things like chain-mail and welding were also invented in Medieval Europe. The Dark Ages also saw the invention of better agriculture techniques. The reason this period is called the Dark Ages is because with the fall of the Roman Empire, there was no unified language for the continent to use (Latin) and thus no written records were kept and historians don't know much about what happened (thus the term Dark Ages.)
John Murphy
>Things like chain-mail [...] were also invented in Medieval Europe.
I'm skeptical. Let me poke around for a bit. Maille armor (yay pretentious spelling) was incredibly common around the world. I'd be very surprised if the first existence of maille armor was in Europe, between 300 AD and 1200 AD.
>Things like [...] welding were also invented in Medieval Europe.
Uhh, I just posted a source (lol wikipedia) which said that the Celts were pattern welding swords before the Dark Ages. Am I missing something?
Charles Nelson
Wtf? Just read the article. It has plenty of sources, including the opinions of numerous credible historians.
Grayson Baker
Yep. As I thought. You're just pulling shit directly out of your ass.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour) >The earliest example of surviving mail was found in a chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania.[2] Its invention is commonly credited to the Celts,[3] but there are examples of Etruscan pattern mail dating from at least the 4th century BC.[4][5][6] Mail may have been inspired by the much earlier scale armour.[7][8] Mail spread to North Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Tibet, South East Asia, and Japan.
>Herodotus wrote that the ancient Persians wore scale armor, but chain mail is also distinctly mentioned in the Avesta, the ancient holy scripture of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism that was founded by the prophet Zoroaster in the 5th century BC.
HEMA is one of my hobbies (don't actually practice), so I know a little about it.
What? Again, I'm going to use the term "Dark Ages", because there was practically zero technological development in Europe between 300 AD and 1200 AD, and because there's very little recorded history, relative to before and after, and so "Dark Ages" is a perfectly reasonable term.
Gavin Collins
Specifically, some other random sources suggest that the current best guess is that maille was first used in the European context by the Celts circa 500 BC, practically a millenia before the European Dark ages.
>I said that the Dark Ages were the time period where Chain Mail was mass produced using improved metal working techniques. No, this is what you said: >Things like chain-mail and welding were also invented in Medieval Europe.
Nicholas Harris
Let's talk about one of your links. Most of the examples actually post-date the Dark Ages, and thus are irrelevant. One of the example is just flat-out wrong. Some of them are seemingly legit, but I haven't take the time to actually confirm them. These examples may also be full of shit.
For some weird reason, people are desperate to claim that there wasn't a Dark Ages when there clearly was. I blame Christian, and especially Catholic, lying apologists.
> Invented in the 11th century, spinning wheels first appeared in Asia before making their way to Europe arou 1280. Lolwut? Invented in Asia? How is this a counterexample?
> Vertical Windmill, 1185 Again, after the Dark Ages.
> Heavy Plough, 5th century Seemingly legit.
> Chimney, 1185 Again.
Hudson Martinez
Dark ages are defined as ending at the beginning of the renaissance, late 14th century. The historical definition is very loose, some say at the end of the Great Plague, some say at the end of the crusades, and some say at the Norman invasion of England.
Brandon Lopez
Ok, and the historically defensible use of the term is circa 300 AD to 1200 AD. You're arguing with me, not someone else.
Jordan Perez
I don't really trust your source, somebody who's entire article is 20% catholic hate isn't somebody who I want to trust to recognise Dark Age technology (where the catholic church dominated Europe.) Look, I probably overestimated Dark Age scientific achievement, but saying that next to no achievement was made is a major discredit
Henry James
As I said, for his domain of expertise, and this is definitely is, I'm going to defer to Richard Carrier. Call it a personal choice, based on a trust that I've developed over many years, including a (short) personal relationship. Guy is a genius, and he knows his shit.
Easton Clark
OK, you personally know him, I stand corrected. Look, I don't even know why I'm arguing about this. You clearly know your stuff. But we can both agree that it wasn't complete technological stagnation?
Jordan Moore
A literal complete lack of improvement? I agree that's excessive. A drastic and near complete lack of technological development? IMHO, a reasonable description.
Yea, no need to argue about this.
You do seem like a reasonable person. Thank you for the conversation, and please try to have a good night / good day.
Jacob Johnson
Why are people just shitposting about the dark ages and Wikipedia in this thread?
Wyatt Ortiz
No, it has nothing to do with carbon footprint. It has to do with the women needing to go out to get sticks and wood to make cooking fires and not getting raped. Literally, not joking. If you actually researched this shit, you'd have found that out in many places.
Thus, solar cookers are a big big deal for them.
Camden Richardson
>Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH >in solar thread >posting about nuclear >AGAIN
Ethan Jenkins
Africa's carbon footprint is small though?
Currently the worst offenders are China. Then come US, India, Russia etc.
No public project, be it infrastructure, economy or basic crop production can survive in (Sub-Saharan) Africa. Not a single thing has ever been contributed by them since the end of the last ice age. And there is not the slightest sign that the situation will improve without massive outside intervention.
Henry Lee
>> Heavy Plough, 5th century >Seemingly legit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carruca >The heavy iron moldboard plow was developed in China's Han Empire in the 1st and 2nd century. Based on linguistic evidence, the carruca may have been employed by some Slavs by AD 568.[1] It was present in Italy's Po Valley by 643 and—judging from the terminology in the Lex Alemannorum—in southwestern Germany by 720.[1]
The heavy plough was invented in China and reached Europe in the 5th century. t. Veeky Forums
Jaxson Morales
>using a solar reflector on the cooking surface instead of reflecting the beam to the underside of the cooking surface It's like people want to get blinded/burned.
Plus if you do it properly, you can use more than one type of fuel in the same setup. Solar on clear days, wood/charcoal/gas/etc on cloudy.
Connor Carter
>women needing to go out to get sticks Thankfully they still need to go out for water most of the time so I'll still be able to get this aids cured by raping a virgin.
Ian Edwards
I'd also like to point out that psychologically, most of those who take an active role in environmental health are idealists.
Idealists are not known for their pragmatism.
Ayden Gray
>carbon footprint
That's just a nice side effect of what they're doing with these projects. They could replace the solar/wind/etc power generator with a gasoline/diesel/wood generator, but fuels are hard to come by in many of the areas they are implementing these projects. The power infrastructures are basically slim to none as well. So the best option is one that creates energy from the sun or wind or both, and then building the rest of the project around that low energy requirment.
Josiah Ramirez
Thanks.
Easton Brooks
>people using charcoal, and that is significant It isn't. Charcoal is carbon neutral.
>Why the focus on removing Africa's carbon footprint? There isn't one?
The reason they push stuff like solar power for Africa is because it doesn't need infrastructure, which Africans don't have the competence, discipline, or orderliness to maintain, and once you have it, you don't need to keep buying stuff like fuel to use it.
>keeping the poor in their place People tried helping Africans develop in conventional ways. It doesn't work. They're not like us. The people are simply too stupid and violent. Their governments always end up being corrupt. Their technical people always end up being incompetent. If there's anything of value, they always end up fighting over it (literally fighting, with guns or machetes or fists).
You have to reduce everything to the simplest hand-labor for them, and even then it has to benefit them in obvious, immediate ways or they won't bother with it.
I got as far as this: >That the Scientific Revolution was finally completed when Christians ruled the West, was as much an irrelevant happenstance as that it occurred in England. ...and just couldn't waste more of my time reading it. The scientific revolution didn't "occur in England". Furthermore, a search for "clock" doesn't turn up even a single match.
Both garbage and irrelevant.
>Dark Ages are circa 300 AD to 1200 AD. >> Buttons, 1200 >Again, after the Dark Ages. >> Vertical Windmill, 1185 >Again, after the Dark Ages.
God, why are you such shit in every thread you post in?
Robert Cruz
And I thought the focus was on increasing Africa's carbon footprint, because once we increase the carbon footprint educated women they stop having children, and then birth rates are supposed to decrease, ultimately reducing Africa's carbon footprint.
At least that's the logic of the UN. Makes total sense if you're a retard I guess.
Anthony Anderson
Kek.
The guys paying this shill apparently have deeeeeep pockets.
Adam Garcia
>Seemingly legit. Veeky Forums here, it is more legit than you think. It expanded populations and in more places which meant they could support economies of scale and more trade so they can access low impurity iron at lower expense and greater volumes.
The Romans could never go to Sweden for example. At best they could trade for the ore through middlemen at great expense.
Ryan Moore
>solar >not trash go home ecocuck nuclear fission and fusion will always be gods
Blake Edwards
yeah let me just build a nuclear reactor for the farming village in the African bush
Christopher King
he's a hard left hippie fuccboi redditor you should have him and his ilk filtered by default
Eli Richardson
africa and it's feral population are lost causes if people were smart, and wern't overly emotional cunts, we'd do the right thing and wall off everything south of the Balkans and kill anyone going in or out
tens of thousands of fucking years of evolution trillions of dollars of infrastructure projects billions of tonnes of food aid hundreds of thousands of skilled personnel to hold their hand and help them to civilization all to produce absolutely fucking NOTHING
Cameron Lee
>Then target China or India Hold up do you think we're not???
Matthew Diaz
You can't, they wouldn't pay the taxes to pay for the nucleartard subsidies.
>nuclear fission and fusion will always be gods
Guess what powers solar...
Camden Jenkins
Could you be more specific? What expanded populations? The plough? Didn't some user upthread point out that it was invented in Asia, and imported to Europe?
As a tangential point, what you write is cool. Yay better agriculture.
Thomas Adams
I guess it's because many Africans don't have much access to a stable supply of energy, so it would be easier to make them switch to green energy
