this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

180 grand for the printer? Holy cack that's peanuts. Just think what we could do if we spent the money on this sort of thing instead of giving it to politicians.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's cheaper than a sizable house, if this works it's a really cool opportunity

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The difficult bit is getting all of the utilities in there in a maintainable way I believe

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Worst case you have a meter of traditional wall on the first floor. I like the concept!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Hell, even if it was off-grid, it would be an improvement over being homeless.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I know, right? Seems like a really cool project, and for that cheap, small non-profits could get their own.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

No reinforcement? What are the upper floors made of?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

These are gadget huts. It's made of techno-hopium material.

They'll want money to do this in some poor rural area in a place where they can hardly name the native language. They think this will help poor people, but ignore the part where humans have always built shelters. If they fail to transfer the technology and know-how, then this technology is, over time, totally useless. And they will fail because such tech is usually patented and protected by IP laws.

If they try to sell this in the richer parts of the World, all they will do is make the environment and climate worse by promoting more suburban sprawl.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yep. The cheaper and easier solution to extreme housing issues is a few pallets of bricks and some mortar. This company is on a marketing campaign to try to get people in rich countries to get excited about buzzwords so they can get funding.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

The ones in Texas are built of a "high performance polymer concrete", so probably including cement and contributing to climate change. They appear to be single storey as well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you read the article you'll see they're more domes than homes

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Well, quite. They don't appear to have windows or doors either (doorways, yes, but not doors), and they have holes in the roof. Yet the article mentions "homes" about a million times.

It's almost like somebody who didn't have any knowledge of construction had the idea of 3D printing buildings. Probably in the shower.

I notice that they fill the walls with natural fibers by hand (see the photo) - so they must pause the printers at regular intervals and get a ladder to get up to the top parts. So even what we see isn't entirely 3D printed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I'm pretty sure about one third of the population of earth would be absolutely ecstatic to call that "home" and we're very lucky to consider it not to be

Also, this basic concept is how Alpine chalets are built, and they're incredibly well insulated against cold and heat

This'll be world-changing in ten years

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're being pedantic about the word "home" and whether they're fully 3D printed, and I'm not sure why. A home is a place where people live, and whether they have windows or doors is not relevant to that point. The point of the design is that they don't have to have those things, and they're considering ongoing problems like climate change; the western ideal of a "home" is actually an impractical design when you start to consider the environment as it is.

And yes, they have to infill the insulation. Nobody is claiming these homes are built without human intervention.

Are you just trying to find weird ways to shit on a thoughtful way to help people?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The things they have chosen as demonstrators have holes in the roof! They are not suitable as homes by any reasonable definition. I also think that light and security are necessary for a home. Certainly if you are trying to improve on an existing "subpar dwelling".

If they wanted to demonstrate how they can 3D print homes in rural Colombia, why didn't they print something that would be suitable to be a home in rural Colombia? They only had to load a different model into the printer, right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do you think that these might be some of the subpar dwellings that they're talking about: https://southamericabackpacker.com/exploring-slums-of-medellin-colombia/ ?

No, I'm not serious. Of course they don't need roofs or windows or multiple storeys. I'm just joking about that stuff.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

That's what I thought. Bye.