Comment by Etheryte
1 day ago
The whole technically zero emissions bit is not really convincing. Cattle makes up a considerable part of global emissions, to the point that there are entire industries focused on bringing that down. Surely the same would apply here?
Not the only emissions too. Faecal emissions (sorry if you're having your lunch) are locally polluting and unhygenic. It's not often recorded the mass rejoicing when cars replaced horses in cities. No longer having to step over/round piles of sh*t was a major improvement in everyone's life.
I remember some years ago waiting on my bike at some traffic lights behind a pair of police horses, which then proceeded to decorate the road in front of me with their emissions. No apologies from the officers, no attempt to clean it up. Disgusting stuff.
Apparently it doesn't count at littering.
They don’t wear “diapers”? There’s quite a few horses in my city (used for tourist entertainment) but they all have bags strapped to their behinds catching all the “emissions”.
The thing is it depends on how you define your numbers. Personally I'm a fan of the carbon-above-ground accounting, where if you grow a tree it counts as 0 emissions, and if your burn the tree for fuel it also counts as 0 emissions since there wasn't any new carbon being dug up not was any carbon permanently sequestered.
Giving credit for the tree and taking it away when it is burnt is another choice. It shifts the focus to short term effects over long term ones. Which has both pros and cons.
> if your burn the tree for fuel it also counts as 0 emissions since there wasn't any new carbon being dug up not was any carbon permanently sequestered.
Ok but ... that definition makes not a whole lot of sense, right?
The only thing that should be considered is CO2 in the atmosphere / troposphere.
I think the idea is that the CO2 emitted from burning the tree is the same as is removed by the tree growing, so it cancels out. The tree is effectively a capacitor.
Fairly irrelevant when it comes to cattle though, as it's the methane that's the problem there.
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