new research shows sea levels could rise 60 feet

that's weird. well here ya go, spoilered for the uninterested

  On 3/18/2016 at 9:46 PM, luke viia said:

 

that's weird. well here ya go, spoilered for the uninterested

 

 

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Are Desalination Technologies the Answer to the World Water Crisis?

Investors and policy makers are increasingly advocating desalination technologies that use seawater to make freshwater. As reviewed in an EcoSeed Special Report, the interest in desalination technologies is growing due to the fact that there is insufficient fresh water to meet the daily drinking and sanitation needs of all those inhabiting the planet.

 

Desalination involves the process of removing salt from sea or brackish water to produce drinkable water. According to the International Desalination Association, there are over 13,000 desalination plants worldwide producing more than 12 billion gallons of water a day. Although this may seem like a lot, this represents only 0.2 percent of global water consumption.

 

A report by Lux Research indicates that to meet the demands of a growing human population, worldwide desalinated water supply must triple by 2020. This report indicates that desalination is feasible, as the global water desalination market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 percent over the next 10 years.

 

While desalination is garnering considerable interest, it is not price competitive with traditional water sources. The construction, operation and maintenance costs make desalination at least three times as expensive as traditional sources.

Some argue that reverse osmosis (a method of passing saltwater through a membrane filter at high pressure) may be less expensive than distillation methods commonly used. The American Membrane Technology Association estimated that existing traditional water supplies cost 90 cents to $2.50 per 1,000 gallons produced. Brackish desalination technologies range from $1.50 to $3 for the same amount of water, and seawater desalination costs from $3 to as much as $8 per 1,000 gallons. In addition to its high cost, desalination technologies are harmful to the environment. Removing salt from seawater produces brine, which contains twice the salt of seawater; they also contain contaminants that can affect marine life when dumped back to the sea. If brine is disposed on land, it could seep through the soil and pollute water reserves underground.

 

The US Environmental Protection Agency found that desalination plants kill at least 3.4 billion fish and other marine life annually. This represents a $212.5 million loss to commercial fisheries. Desalination plants can also destroy up to 90 percent of plankton and fish eggs in the surrounding water.

 

Desalination may also be injurious to human health as reverse osmosis does remove all of the boron, which is known to cause reproductive and developmental problems in animals, as well as irritation of the human digestive tract.

 

Perhaps most troubling is the fact that desalination plants are dependent on fossil fuels which emit greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming. Paradoxically global warming increases droughts and water shortages, the very problem that desalination plants are trying to address. Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper estimated that a plant that produces 53 million gallons per day will cause nearly double the emissions of treating and reusing the same amount of water.

 

Innovations in desalination technology do offer some promise to minimize some of these problems. Universities and water treatment companies have began to develop future desalination plants that use renewable energy. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology are developing a small chip that can repel salts away from a reverse osmosis membrane.

 

Water recycling is a means of purifying water so that it can be made potable. However, as with desalination, there are problems with this approach including the amount of energy needed to power wastewater recycling.

According to the National Research Council, the redistribution of water can be more efficient and cheaper than desalination. Numerous studies support the council’s report; they indicate that management alternatives and efficiency programs can reduce water supply problems at a much lower cost, without the environmental and health dangers associated with large-scale desalination plants.

 

 

that spoiler tag destroyed my tower PC

  On 3/18/2016 at 4:13 AM, LimpyLoo said:

(Hopefully lab-grown meat doesn't fart)

gɹǝquǝuoɹc

edit: ɹǝgɹnquǝuoɹc

Rich is really taking the piss now

  On 3/19/2016 at 12:52 AM, clarktrent said:

Rich is really taking the piss now

The album must be done and he's just waiting for it to release.

Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change

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Fig. 1

Health and environmental analysis of dietary change for the year 2050. The diet scenarios include a reference scenario based on FAO projections (REF), a scenario based on global guidelines on healthy eating and energy intake (HGD), and scenarios based on vegetarian (VGT) and vegan (VGN) dietary patterns. (A) Number of avoided deaths in the dietary scenarios relative to the reference scenario in 2050 by risk factor and region. Risk factors include changes in the consumption of fruits and vegetables [ΔC(fruit&veg)] and red meat [ΔC(red meat)], combined changes in overweight and obesity (Δweight), and all risk factors combined (Total). The regional aggregation is detailed in SI Appendix, Table S3 and section SI.1). (B) Changes in food-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dietary scenarios relative to the reference scenario in 2050 by food group and region.

  On 3/17/2016 at 2:06 AM, usagi said:

I'll be sure to tell shame my cat for being immoral as soon as I get home.

 

the cruelty/awful conditions of factory farming are the problem, not the basic concept of carnivorousness. the natural world does not have these "morals". the only reason I would stop eating meat would be to stand against farming practices, not because I think eating meat is fundamentally wrong.

I've posted this one before elsewhere, and I don't want to ram it down people's throats or derail this thread (again), but if you skip to the part from 12 to 16 minutes Singer gets into where morality might come from and how it develops.

Interesting, let's talk about morality.

How many animals that we've eaten would never have had any life at all if we hadn't been farming them?

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely, or to end a living entity's life early in order to nourish your own body? Most of those animal lives would never have occurred if we didn't raise them, and their lives would have ended at some point anyway.

What is the benefit that a cow provides to the universe? Is it substantial?

Should the cow be appreciative that we provided it with an opportunity to be alive at all before we consumed it?

AI is going to ask these questions about us by the way.

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:38 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Interesting, let's talk about morality.

 

How many animals that we've eaten would never have had any life at all if we hadn't been farming them?

 

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely, or to end a living entity's life early in order to nourish your own body? Most of those animal lives would never have occurred if we didn't raise them, and their lives would have ended at some point anyway.

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:38 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

What is the benefit that a cow provides to the universe? Is it substantial?

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:38 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Should the cow be appreciative that we provided it with an opportunity to be alive at all before we consumed it?

suggesting that bringing a creature into existence for the sole purpose of food is somehow more noble than not bringing it into existence at all is all kinds of wack. you assume existing is universally worthy to begin with.

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:38 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Interesting, let's talk about morality.

 

How many animals that we've eaten would never have had any life at all if we hadn't been farming them?

 

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely, or to end a living entity's life early in order to nourish your own body? Most of those animal lives would never have occurred if we didn't raise them, and their lives would have ended at some point anyway.

 

What is the benefit that a cow provides to the universe? Is it substantial?

 

Should the cow be appreciative that we provided it with an opportunity to be alive at all before we consumed it?

 

AI is going to ask these questions about us by the way.

Ask yourself if you would clone yourself to have backup organs

Then generalize your answer to other creatures

Maybe your clone would have a great life before you knocked him out and took his organs

But that doesn't make it morally permissible

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:38 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Interesting, let's talk about morality.

 

How many animals that we've eaten would never have had any life at all if we hadn't been farming them?

 

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely, or to end a living entity's life early in order to nourish your own body? Most of those animal lives would never have occurred if we didn't raise them, and their lives would have ended at some point anyway.

 

What is the benefit that a cow provides to the universe? Is it substantial?

 

Should the cow be appreciative that we provided it with an opportunity to be alive at all before we consumed it?

 

AI is going to ask these questions about us by the way.

Do you have any idea about the terrible condition of living of cows, chicken, ect and the amount of cruelty they experience in their life and into their death.

If I were to be born here and be living into those conditions and treated that way, id consider this pretty much a hellish realm.

How many animals that we've eaten would never have had any life at all if we hadn't been farming them?

Should the cow be appreciative that we provided it with an opportunity to be alive at all before we consumed it?

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely,

Its immoral to create a life if you will treat it like shit. Morality and compassion is all about not crating suffering to other and to try to do everything you can to eliminate the known cause of suffering to others. if you create suffering to another being, its immoral to not allow better living conditions.

Its totally moral to not create the condition to life to arise. a non living thing cannot suffer. a living being will suffer if you treat it badly.

What is the benefit that a cow provides to the universe? Is it substantial?

Is it more moral to deny a life to exist entirely,