It's specifically about your assessments of past behavior. You assume you know the rules you were following. Kripke's skeptic suggests that there is no fact of the matter. The fiction of "quadding" is just meant to illustrate this. — frank

I got this wrong. Kripke's challenge is not about epistemology. It's metaphysics. That's the point of the emphasis on facts.

Wow.

What is the proposal for how atmospheric methane is absorbed by the farm? As I understand it, plants don't make use of atmospheric methane as they make use of atmospheric CO2. (Although some species of bacteria metabolize methane.) — wonderer1

Methane oxidizes to CO2 after about 12 years.

The cows put out 1 ppm of methane. The plants take up 1 ppm of methane. That's what net-zero means.
— frank

Yes, and it also means that there is always a correlative amount of methane hanging about in the system. It doesn't just flow from the mouth of the cow into the tissues of the plant. — Pantagruel

Yes. The emissions won't be absorbed for about 12 years, but cattle farms don't last forever. After Juan retires and closes down the farm the plants still absorb the methane for about 12 years. In the end, if the farm was truly net zero, it did not contribute to global warming.

You are not grasping that this is a system and there is a definable quantity of methane within the entire system that correlates with a specific population level of cattle. Ergo any decrease in the population of the cattle is simultaneously a decrease in the associated methane level. It is irrelevant over what period of time the cattle achieve a net-zero methane balance. — Pantagruel

The cows put out 1 ppm of methane. The plants take up 1 ppm of methane. That's what net-zero means.

I think you're just basically asserting that it isn't possible for a cattle farm to be net-zero.


:up:

If cattle farming were truly net-zero, this wouldn't be true.
— frank

Yes, it would be true. This is why:
This is true. But what is not mentioned is that the more cows there are, the higher the stable amount of methane in the atmosphere is
— unenlightened — Pantagruel

I'm not seeing this. Let's say we start from today. There's an average of 1.7 ppm of methane in the atmosphere. This average covers seasonal variation. Now we'll add a cattle farm in Mexico, and it's truly net zero, which means that after 12 years, its output is entirely absorbed by its input.

Why would there be a net increase in methane?

he fact of the matter is, we should be making whatever reductions even remotely make sense and actively searching for new possibilities to do so. We have been quite content to radically disturb the biosphere haphazardly in aid of profit, we should be courageous enough to do so systematically in aid of human well being. — Pantagruel

And I repeated this same sentiment earlier in the thread. The thing is, it really doesn't relate to the argument Agree-to-Disagree made. My point is just this: his assertion is not illogical. I would need more than a vague principle to accept that cattle farming is net-zero. But if he's correct that it is, then he's right that it's not a contribution to global warming.

Ah... Now, maybe, I understand your point. I'd forgotten that I'd never encountered 57 before. Let me think... Ok, for natural numbers, the definition of "addition" can be traced back to counting. Are you saying that I can count to 56, but for any larger number I'm doing something different? — T Clark

It's specifically about your assessments of past behavior. You assume you know the rules you were following. Kripke's skeptic suggests that there is no fact of the matter. The fiction of "quadding" is just meant to illustrate this.

That sounds cozy.

If all cattle were gone, methane levels would decrease. — Pantagruel

If cattle farming were truly net-zero, this wouldn't be true. As you say, we don't know if it is. A pretty complex analysis would have to be brought to bear.

Any process that involves methane, for example, involves the transport of that methane throughout a cycle, portions of which are stored for durations in the environment. Carbon is stored and flows in such a cycle. And nitrogen. Viewing cattle as an abstract point of methane data is unrealistic. Short-term, a cow is a very-high-net methane producer. Reduce the number of cows and you must reduce the net-methane load in the environment. — Pantagruel

But it's the nature of a cycle that as methane is emitted today, the components of yesterday's emissions are simultaneously being taken up by plants. This is the argument, anyway.

I used to do aquariums, so I'm somewhat tuned into cycling and bio load on a closed system. I presently have an immortal fish with whom I have a troubled relationship. I want her to die so I can close down my last aquarium, but she's now about 4 times the age her species is supposed to live. I think of letting the bio load rise until the pH is incompatible with life, but I can't do it!

Sorry for the extraneous details.

I mean, who is to say the tribes that have a word for "one", "two" "three" "anything more than three" is wrong? If used in a way that everyone gets by, there you go. — schopenhauer1

I'll have to come back to this.

Does my behavior include my invisible, to you (and perhaps to me), mental processes? If it does, I say "I already have given you that fact." — T Clark

In the challenge, it's granted that you know everything there is to know about your mental processes.

I think the problem is that following the rules of addition are exactly the same as following the rules of quaddition up to the number 57. What in your mental processes would have been different so as to prove that you weren't quadding rather than adding?

Is this something about word-games and their context?
In another thread I was saying thus, and I think it might have some relevance about context and the meaning of terms (like plus and quus): — schopenhauer1

Yes, definitely. The challenge ends up being about the meaning of any word.

For physicists, "nothing" has a different connotation than the classic philosophical notions of nothing. It just needs zero energy to be considered "nothing" in physics I guess. And of course, that is unsatisfying in a philosophical sense that the theoretical principles and laws and fields that underlie this "nothing" still need to be accounted for. — schopenhauer1

:up:

Right. You say: "No! I've been doing addition, not quaddition. Stop embarrassing yourself, you baboon!"

Then I ask you for a fact about your previous behavior that shows that the rule you were following was addition rather than quaddition.

How did you start the heater? Did you use lighter fluid?

Sorry. There's something I'm missing. If I apply the definition of addition to 68 and 57, I get 125, not 5. What you are describing, "quus," is a different operation which is not consistent with that definition. — T Clark

You haven't been doing addition. It was quaddition.

Even if that were true, there is a certain "environmental load" to maintaining any greenhouse-gas involved process. If scale of cattle-farming were reduced, the "environmental load" would also be reduced. Which is part of the goal, I think. — Pantagruel

What kind of load?

There isn't a shred of logic in these statements. Even if it were true that output was stabile, that doesn't imply that the situation to which the output is a contributing factor is stabile. And the fact that the current number of cows won't cause "any additional" global warming just means that the ongoing amount of their ecological impact isn't decreasing. Which is the point. — Pantagruel

He's just saying that cattle farming is net-zero wrt greenhouse gas emissions. That's what we want all human operations to be. It's ok to produce greenhouse gases as long as your emissions are being scrubbed somehow.

Whether it's really the case that cattle farming is net-zero, I have no idea.

It talks about livestock emissions and whether these emissions are actually a problem. — Agree to Disagree

If you don't think we can do anything about climate change, it doesn't really matter if cattle farming is net-zero, does it?

There aren't any fossils in fossil fuels.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that in the phrase "fossil fuel" the adjective "fossil" means "[o]btained by digging; found buried in the earth", which dates to at least 1652,[25] before the English noun "fossil" came to refer primarily to long-dead organisms in the early 18th century.[26] — frank

So you were right. The rest of us were wrong.

"The theory that fossil fuels formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants by exposure to heat and pressure in Earth's crust over millions of years was first introduced by Andreas Libavius "in his 1597 Alchemia [Alchymia]" and later by Mikhail Lomonosov "as early as 1757 and certainly by 1763".[23] The first use of the term "fossil fuel" occurs in the work of the German chemist Caspar Neumann, in English translation in 1759.[24] The Oxford English Dictionary notes that in the phrase "fossil fuel" the adjective "fossil" means "[o]btained by digging; found buried in the earth", which dates to at least 1652,[25] before the English noun "fossil" came to refer primarily to long-dead organisms in the early 18th century.[26]

"Aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton that died and sedimented in large quantities under anoxic conditions millions of years ago began forming petroleum and natural gas as a result of anaerobic decomposition. Over geological time this organic matter, mixed with mud, became buried under further heavy layers of inorganic sediment. The resulting high temperature and pressure caused the organic matter to chemically alter, first into a waxy material known as kerogen, which is found in oil shales, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in a process known as catagenesis. Despite these heat-driven transformations, the energy released in combustion is still photosynthetic in origin.[4]"

Wikipedia on fossil fuels.

Being composed of carbon, coal forms a carbonaceous deposit. Having been transported and accumulated in a single deposit it is sedimentary. Having undergone metamorphosis and petrification it is a rock. Consequently it is reasonable to classify coal as a carbonaceous sedimentary rock.
Oct 12, 2015 — BC

Yes, I guess that's true. I just don't normally think of coal as a rock. Have you ever been through West Virginia and seen the huge bands of coal in the cliffs beside the highway? Awesome.

No, this is again wrong. Pressure and heat cause the fossilisation of plant matter. — Benkei

I don't think so. Let's all follow BC's lead and grow a sense of humor. :razz:

:lol:

Cool.

Turpentine from certain pine trees has been used medicinally for treatment of cough, gonorrhea, and rheumatism.

Applied topically? Or do you drink it?

Fossil fuels are fossilised plants (and some animal remnants). — Benkei

I think it's more that under pressure, fossilized organic material produces oil and coal. An actual fossil won't burn because it's made out of rock.

Also wrong. Natural tar is crude oil coming to the surface of which the lighter part evaporates leaving tar or asphalt. — Benkei

Once upon a time, all tar came from pine trees. Tar was used to coat the bottoms of sea vessels and most of it came from one of the English colonies.

You only need to know that if you're into college basketball and you want to know why one of teams is called the Tarheels.

But yes, there's another kind of tar that comes from coal.

They don't burn, Sparky, because they ain't got no carbon left in them. Fossilised carbon deposits is coal and oil and tar, and they burns pretty good. — unenlightened

Yep. It takes a bunch of pressure to turn old fossils into coal or oil.

Tar comes from pine trees.

Those plants get fossilized.

- We burn those plants. — Mikie

Fossils don't burn, Sparky. They're made out of rock.

thought that 1 billion cows must be causing a huge problem. But then I researched further and found that CO2 and methane from cows are part of the biogenic carbon cycle. There is no overall gain or loss of carbon atoms in the atmosphere due to cows (in the long-run).

Most people are spending a lot of time and resources trying to reduce emissions of GHG's from cows. It is — Agree to Disagree

I don't think most people are worried about cows. It would turn our world upside down to stop using coal and natural gas. Once we figure that out we can worry about any other contributions we're making by way of agriculture.

One thing you're not mentioning though is that cows don't usually just eat grass. They feed them corn, which requires fertilizers that put CO2 to the atmosphere.

Rainforests sequester carbon. Logging releases that carbon back into the atmosphere. It’s a cycle. Thus, there is no overall gain or loss in the destruction of the rainforests.” — Mikie

That's actually true. Young trees take up a significantly higher amount of CO2 than old trees, so harvesting wood isn't a problem if it's done sustainably, and as my recent post pointed out, we've gained a whole Amazon rainforest since the 1980s due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

It's truly your ignorance that is embarrassing. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. It just really is.

How did the livestock issue end up on your radar? Are you a farmer?

Methane emitted by ruminants like cattle, sheep and goats is recycled into carbon in plants and soil, in a process known as the biogenic carbon cycle. It’s an important natural cycle that’s been happening since the beginning of life. — Agree to Disagree

It goes up into the atmosphere first. Methane is lighter than air. But yes, increased CO2 is good for plants.

"Looking at remote sensing data from NASA's satellites, we've discovered that over the last two decades, the Earth has increased its green leaf area by a total of 5 percent, which is roughly five and a half million square kilometers—an increase equivalent to the size of the entire Amazon rain forest.". NASA

beef cattle turn low-quality feed into lots of high-quality protein for human nutrition. — Agree to Disagree

They do, but American beef promotes obesity, heart disease, and strokes. Non-American beef is much better for you.

I inject moral as a qualifier for obligation, because the topic is concerned with moral facts. — Mww

Just to add to that: morality is often pictured as a covenant. You follow the Mosaic law, and God will protect you and your family. Fail to follow the law, and God will feed you to the Assyrians. So morality is something you commit to because you have special insight about God's will. The obligation follows from that commitment, or acceptance of the covenant.

Scenarios vary, but that's usually the basic framework. If you draw the concept of moral realism away from that cultural backdrop, I think it's good to specify what you mean, just to avoid the devil in the details?

What do you think of Meno's paradox?:

"If you know what you're looking for, inquiry is unnecessary. If you don't know what you're looking for, inquiry is impossible. Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible."

If we reduce the number of cows, all sorts of things would be better, but I agree that fossil fuels are what we need to focus on.

There's no need to tell me to stop doing something that I haven't done. — Quixodian

What you haven't done is stand up for me when Benkei told me to "shut the fuck up" and when Mikie directed abusive language at Agree-to-Disagree. But this isn't the place for a discussion of your short comings. Open a feedback thread if you have anything else to say.

None of what I said constituted abuse. — Quixodian

Good. Let's keep it that way. :up:

Not true. I pointed out that he adopts the pose that acknowledges climate change BUT then says that climate science and scientists have gotten it all wrong, and that nothing can be done about it, along with irrelevant and preposterous arguments to the effect that more people die from cold than from heat, that not everywhere on the planet is hot, etc. Plainly intent on muddying the waters. — Quixodian

You're agreeing that he acknowledges climate change. Whatever else he might think, none of it warrants abuse. Ban him if you don't like him. Don't engage in a pile on with nasty language. That's just unnecessary.

Sorry. I should have split the sentences and started a new heading. Even better, make a separate post for a philosophical rant.

Saying anything about any scientific subject at least implies an expressed or unexpressed position by the speaker and further that there exists some sort of scientific support for that position.

Pro or con.
But normally, on popularized scientific topics only the pro positions are normally acceptable for fear that children might believe them. For example, If I now propose a hypothetically possible case against global warming or one for a rapidly approaching ice age, rather than being ignored it will raise eyebrows and I might be accused of ignorance or ill will. — magritte

Gotcha. It's just that a pile-on has started a couple of times on the poor guy, and I just thought that was abusive and wrong. I found that just piping up from time to time kept the yen from devaluating. :razz:

And I understand that there probably are people of ill will roaming about. It's easy enough to sort it out.

That is all irrelevant to your argument. To show that there is or there is no global warming you have to find data that is global not local, — magritte

He has never argued against global warming. One of the moderators continuously responds as if he has made that argument, even though he has repeatedly explained that he does affirm global warming. It's just confusion coming from the moderators for reasons only they might know.

Duke Energy has plans to bring a nuclear reactor online in NC

"It’s part of a newly-filed update to Duke’s 2022 integrated resource plan as the utility aims to comply with North Carolina’s emission mandates. That 2021 law requires utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The law also calls for net-zero emissions by 2050."