[PHYS ORG] Insatiable demand for cannabis has created a giant carbon footprint

CO2 is not a pollutant

 

In terms of what? Not causing asthma flare ups? Sure.

In terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere, yes.

Why do you think Venus is hotter than Mercury?

Anyways this seems like a problem that will be solved when homes slowly transition to being independent from the local grid due to solar panels, battery packs along with geothermal heat sources.

 

Well I stopped contributing to the problem as I had to quit a year for employment reasons.

Kids, don't smoke weed everyday. Treat it like alcohol where you should do it socially on the weekends.

 

MOAR phys.org threads pls!

 

Seems like the solution is to just do what Canada does and allow citizens to have one plant for each household. Everything in the US is driven around big business, and it's no shock that big businesses care about profits and mass production vs providing a sustainable product that is helps the world and it's people.



..........But what does Jonathan Turley have to say about it OP????

 

Well this explains a lot.

 

Solar Powered Grow houses can be a thing. As well as complete deregulation and the allowance of non industrial amounts to be grown in home gardens. The problem is even the "allies" of mar1juana just want to profit and tax it; they don't actually care about the environment or mar1juana's medical benefits.

 

actually this is wrong. Definitely smoke weed every day.

 

Unless you need a secret clearance and require you to do a hair follicle test...

But then I realized I was lied to because all they did was a piss test. Anyways, for me smoking everyday made me not have the urge to go to the gym or run. Also it really increased my appetite.

 

Wait.? Big growth industry uses a lot of energy?!
Shocking!

I do actually expect to see a movement to organic free range grown ganja. For that matter there are many low carbon, carbon neutral and even carbon sequestering farming techniques that could used for the mar1juana agriculture.

 

not so fast

Colorado allows 6 plants per resident, with a total cap of 12 per household. (I think that's been in place prior to commercial legalization.) However, you must grow them out of site, no outside growing. Thus, your energy efficiency will likely be worse per plant than big grows.

Even if you could do it outdoors, I doubt many home growers would do that. And Canada especially, since you'd have 365 yr growing indoors, versus the winters outdoors, dealing with extra-heating for greenhouses, etc.

 

maybe, but there will be a big increase to your Security budget to have outdoor farms, and other employee budgets / harvesters. And a lot more product-waste outdoors due to cross fertilization. Indoors is the best way to grow the good stuff, i'm pretty sure, both economically and quality-control.

(I follow the growth of supporting businesses that contribute to total taxable revenue streams for legalization, and Security is one. Now security for farms is above board and taxable, versus gangsta security for illegal farms.)

What I expect is indoor operations will just get verified as Carbon-Neutral, like many other businesses. Or certified as 100% renewable energy.

 

btw: I'm curious if that LCA study includes the output of carbon dioxide generators used indoors to maintain optimum CO2 for photosynthesis? Maybe they just assume that is a neutral wash if set properly to only generate what the plants absorb. But probably some leakage???

 

I know some of my Texan friends and family make their weekend road trips to Colorado to stock up on the oz per day you can purchase there. Makes me wonder if legalizing in Texas and other states where it's currently illegal would lower demand to produce so much cannabis in states like Colorado, thereby lowering energy consumption in that state. Energy consumption would be more spread out across all 50 states likely making the numbers less skewed where cannabis production is higher only because it's legal in specific states.

 

A cow fart in one state is same as a cow fart in another.

Mother Nature doesn't care if we spread out the production of our greenhouse gases. Earth doesn't know State lines. The industry will increase production of carbon as legalization moves production indoors (versus illegal growth supplies from outdoor farms in other countries).

It's just a fact Illegal production in Colombia (for instance) is better for the environment; that's the purpose of the study.​

The study is measuring legal indoor growth (vs carbon-friendly illegal growth) so efficiencies wrt carbon release is mitigated ... moving growth "factories" across State lines could actually worsen inefficiencies, or it could improve LCA results, we can only speculate. (But, looking at Computer Server "Farms," they are more efficient when consolidated, especially around hydro power plants.) All things remaining equal wrt energy efficiency of current growth methods in a growing industry, moving stuff across State lines does nothing except shift the Carbon Accounting from one state to another.

 

Y'all who go for the chronic on the regular should really keep an eye on the emerging research about THC and cardiovascular health, (yes, even from edibles). Not pretty. (Sorry.)

 

Don't be a buzzkill.

 

isn't that offset by regular CBD supplements