Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell"
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Indivdual possibilites: not eating meat (or only from organic sources). Skipping the vaccation where you need to take a plane, go to destinations where you can drive. Compost heap or worm box to get wet WET waste out of the garbage. Avoiding throw away diapers (stay at home mums). Home owners: Solar panels, insulation and a smaller fridge (you do not need such a HUGE fridge if shops are nearby).
Starting a garden if you can. If possible do car sharing and commute with others.
Planting a tree.
Repairing things (or paying for repair) and avoiding buying new things. Buying solid durable quality goods - instead of cheap things that have to replaced soon (which triggers not only waste disposal but the new product must be manufactured and transported and housed, the storage facilities and streets also need energy).
Having a smaller fridge - it helps to avoid food waste.
Pushing for responsible waste management at the local level. To install community recycling (also smaller gadgets, they contain copper etc), glass, metal, paper. Aluminium !!, wood, and ceramics / concrete / bricks.
Pushing for recycling lessons for children, if they grow up with a positive attitude, they will do that automatically as teenagers and adults.
Organic waste should be collected separately (they do that in Europe), but homeowners can have a compost heap and do not need a green ton. And in an appartment one can have a worm box (it does not stink and is not gross, if you do it right).
Where I worked the office building had quite some organic waste in the regular waste - I collected it (mainly food, if people ate fruits, or warmed up food in the coffee kitchen and of course lots of ground coffee). And put it on a compost heap mixed with carbon rich organic waste. In winter I put it into the green ton (it is normal for households to have it, but for some reason not required for offices and companies).
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Carbon capture (soil) and to a degree planting more trees (think alley cropping: rows of trees between fields and pastures that are wide enough to allow for modern machines like tractors or combines. - 10 - 20 % space devoted to tree rows does do not even reduce profits and later those trees are an additional source of food, fodder and / or of income). Also hedgerows. Organic farming has many other benefits beyond carbon capture (water, fertility) and is only slightly more costly (5 - 20 % at least for plant based food). That seems a lot - it is not if the buyer have enough income to afford it. And the higeher prices also result in economic opportunities. It also means people can flock into the rural areas, have a homestead grow a lot of food for themselves and sell the surplus. The higher food prices work in their favor - they create income.
Would create TONS of jobs in rural areas, create wealth, reduce housing costs in urban areas. Less pressure, people do not flock into the cities, less pressure on the job market in the centers, so higher wages - Do the oligarchs and colluding politicians REALLY want that ?? I f people are fed up wit a minimum wage job in the city they could be done and head for the countryside. Relative labor shortage anyone ?Landlords having fewer renters (which should bring prics down or at least stop the explosion).
Organic farming (ideally in form of permaculture) gives developing countries an edge: They have cheap labor, and can replace fossil fuel with human labor. In rich nations permaculture famers smartly use natural synergies to have good yields with acceptable input of labor. They tend to concentrate on perennials ( perma culture) so they do not have to slave away every season with planting, weeding and what not. A fruit tree or bush once established needs little care and the roots go deeper so less need to water, especially trees can often reach the groundwater or soak up moistue from surrounding soil. It does not have to be WET, just some humidity (capillary effects).
Plants that live and give yields for 2 or a few years (or come back by themsleves) allow for less input of human labor.
Carbon capture devices need energy to build and do not get better over time. Soil does does get better, and soil life takes care of the work. Content of "organic soil matter" = carbon in humus, is the gold standard for soil. It would certainly NOT cost 10 trn to capture carbon by organic farming practices and growing more trees and would provide a LOT of other advantages on top of it. (when they grow trees capture a lot of carbon, which would buy us time for 30 years or so. And if they do not decompose but are used to replace concrete ! they are sequestered away.
But that is good for the economy in general, it is a scheme for small farms and homesteaders (in rich and poor countries). Helps also those who stay in the cities. Lots of people would do modestly to fairly well - but no one gets rich of it.
These small farmers are not going to hire lobbyists or employ former politicians.
So the most obvious solution is not even talked about.
And yes, that has to do with capitalism which always pushes for and ends up with monopolies and and an oligarchy. Until the masses rise up. The labor movement (but only in the developed countries) after being brutally opposed for 150 years. FDR and the NewDeal. The united left parties in the U.S. and all unions pushed FDR (strikes, marches all over the place, a massive union membership drive in 1932, the year he was elected) - but he was willing to listen and was a halfway decent ally of the lower classes. In Europe it needed TWO WORLD WARS to get the oligarchs to resign themselves to the equivalent of the New Deal.
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5:00 actually we DO KNOW how to feed 10 billion people while sequesterig carbon away in stable form (in the soil for 100 or thousands of years - humus and terra preta). The improved carbon content also improves the ability of soil to withstand erosion, to soak in and STORE water (while retaining pore structure and aearation).
Improved soil (which will always go hand in hand with more stable carbon In the soil) draught, flood and fire proves the land.
It is not high tech, it has been done many times (on a large scale now in India and in the 1990 in the Loess Plateau in China) and it is not even that costly - even IF you need earthworks and waters storage (ponds, dams) and infiltration devices like swales or leaky leirs (Australia, Natural Sequence farming).
Those earthworks - if set up correctly (and there are blueprints and trainings, that has been done for decades with modern machines, and there is traditionl knowledge) can easily last 100 years or several hundreds years. Swales (water infiltration trenches) and ponds might need some clearing from time to time - in population rich countries that needs human labor, no machines, they are not depending on outside financing for that. They are set up for once, if done correctly and adjusted for the local environment (as per the many blueprints) the benefits are immediate, considerable and increasing. So it is not hard to motivate the villagers, if they know what they have to do to maintain it.
If they got help to set it up - and that is often a combination of old knowledge with new insights and pulled off with modern technology (earth digging machines) and sometimes the help of civil engineers (dams for instance, stability, safety and long term functionality, it is bettter to bild them in a way that they will not have to be cleared all the time. The know how exists. Whether it is the modest or the more elaborate measures.
In developing countries it could be often done - and IS done - with shovels and simple measures. Planting trees, grasses with deep roots, putting in obstacles like crescents of stones, twigs and branches stuck into the soil to slow down water before it becomes erosive runoff running down a slope. If the water volume is not too high, and the angle is not too steep, very "primitve" measures work. Intrerestingly the villagers do not figure it out by themselves. It needs an unified effort of the village.
In India the government NREGA program and the Panneer foundation encourage such projects.
Slowed down water can soak into the soil. good soil holds water.
Good soil is never bare (mulch or always plants growing on it) which avoids a lot of evaporation.
Water that cannot be held by the soil but is slowed down - soaks into the underground water table and replenishes aquifers. Which in turn feed into new (or restored !) springs and creeks. that can make the difference between 1 or 2 harvests in subtropical and tropical regions. Think India.
All in all it would be better to use earth diggers and machines (and civil engineers if it is more tricky, think more slope or high volumes of water that can come within short time, or soil that is more critical) - and use human labor for the finishing touches, planting trees, securing the edges etc.
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