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For those who want the tl;dr:
Thanks. This is a nice and striking image.
But I do believe it contains some illusion in that different materials have different impacts on the environment. For instance, aggregates and parts of concrete and asphalt are way less damaging than cements, tar, bricks, plastics, metals ... all requiring more transformation which are more damaging for the environment.
So the problem is not the mass itself but rather the impact on the environment.
Not "Human Detritus" no :
(...) billion years for the first living (...) to grow (...) into the 1.1 trillion tons of biomass (...)
But all of that is outweighed by (...) concrete and other material that humans have produced (...)
Most matter in concrete is sand and gravel and is not different just by the fact it's encapsulated in cement paste.
We humans do not "produce" rock. We do break it into gravel and this doesn't change its nature. By weight, most of the stuff we have "produced" is gravel.
Let's be responsible with the real garbage and dangerous stuff we "produce" without being alarmist.
Yeah, but typically rock is left in the ground. When you dig it up and put it on top of green stuff, at some point you start having problems.
Exactly. We start having problems at some point if, for example, we built towns with too much asphalt + too much concrete and not enough trees and green spaces : this is undeniable. So, let's be careful about this.
It is necessary for people to visualise these human impacts because, for example, concrete is the most destructive material on Earth
from your link :
(concrete ...) carbon dioxide emitter (...) 2.8 billion tonnes (in 2019)
Well yes, this carbon dioxide emitted during cement production is the problem : if we could manufacture cement using solar power and capturing CO2 it wouldn't be such a big problem.
Anyway, my comment was more about rock and not about cement. ... and I agree with you that it's important to keep people interested in fighting bad dangerous products of human activity.
You could say the same about plastic, it's just oil that is refined and hydrogenated. We didn't make any of the parts we just pump it up, take them apart and put them together in a different way.
The same with concrete, it is not naturally occurring, it's something we make separating parts and putting them together again in a different way. The key part being cement which is a very heavy process to make, both chemically and energy wise.
Concrete and Cement are absolutely not natural occurring materials, and they are generally hostile to life due to their chemical caustic composition.
You can't honestly claim that for instance a barren concrete parking lot is natural.
We do maintain those barren concrete parking lots to stay as clean as possible and, because of this, they stay hostile for life ! ... but the minute we stop keeping them clean, vegetation takes over like on most barren rocks in nature. We do so because we, humans, like it like that.
Unfortunately we have also created disaster chemical zones after heavy industries have left some lands. And if we try to live there we get very sick.
i will not try to come up with a clear definition but for me something natural or artificial is not a yes or a no question, but rather a more or less question.
Also, the carbon we put into the atmosphere is the same carbon that's in the ground and the only real difference is it isn't in the ground anymore. Logic.
What I would like people to read in my previous comment is that when you make chemical changes or phase changes you can create more dangerous stuff than if you have an inert solid substance for which you only do a mechanical physical change.
Anyway, there are more important things ... I don't want you to waste too much time on this.
I wish you happy holidays (despite the state of the world). Take care.
Concrete literally involves chemical changes. How exactly do you think they get the lime?
Yes, of course I know for cement ... but you know : my comment was about gravel (agregates in the picture) and in concrete you have aprox. 10% cement.
(i have also wrote another comment about cement and carbon dioxide elsewhere in this post)
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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