Comments by "Psiberzerker" (@Psiberzerker) on "How China Broke the World's Recycling" video.

  1. This somewhat illustrates how "Carbon Footprint" can vary, from positive to negative, depending on who calculated it. A manufacturer just calculates Their Carbon Footprint. If Heinz has to meet a goal, because of government imposed limits, they just have to meet the Carbon output at the Factory. All the carbon going into that factory doesn't count. So, they can subtract the cans of crushed tomatoes that come into the factory, on diesel tractor-trailers, fueled from fuel depots, from refineries, from crude oil depots, from pumps, fueled with diesel, delivered by tanker trucks. Fueled by Diesel. That's just the cans of Tomato Paste, going into that factory. Same with a recycling plants, and the device you're reading this on. Every component that went into this device was shipped to the Assembly plant from different manufacturers, ultimately with Diesel. (From the portion that wasn't shipped in tankers to the pumps to get the crude out of the ground.) That's why "Carbon Footprint" calculations are invariably wrong, regardless of who calculates it. Because none of them count Shipping costs, because none of them can. You can't account for the Diesel used to fuel the Tanker to get the fuel to the birdhead pumps in the oil fields. That's where the Carbon Footprint is coming from: Out of the ground, and all the practically free fuel the industry wastes, pumping it out of the ground. Every single piece of every product around you, right now was shipped in on the back of that system.
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  2. A similar Top-down stat is sold to you with your car: Miles per Gallon. Even if you don't buy a VW, where they programmed their cars to lie about that statistic. It doesn't count the Barrels per Gallon it costs to get the fuel to the gas station. Let alone to the pumps to get the crude oil out of the ground, the pipeline to get it to the Refinery, and the miles per gallon to get the diesel back to the oil fields, to get it out of the ground. Now, try to imagine a black triangle, with the arrows pointed the other way. (From the green one on the side of your re-usable recycling container.) That's profitable, because diesel is practically free for the "Energy" industry. That's the bottom-up problem, literally from the ground. That we're trying to solve with products we buy, on Amazon. Delivered to your door in a brown truck from UPS. What's in that gas tank? That's right. UPS, and Amazon run on Diesel. Nobody has calculated the Carbon Footprint of that black arrow, because your life is delivered to you by it. So is every lawmaker's, and every worker's in that recycling bank. That guy that hops off the truck to pick up your recycling bin? Yeah, what did he drive to work in? That's what "Carbon Footprint" should mean, but it doesn't.
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