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Comment by sarajevo | Hacker News Reader

When I was young, I enjoyed every event the city had to offer. As I age, I have started seeing things differently, and my priorities have changed. I cannot party as much as before; noise and traffic bother me, and tranquil spaces have a lot of allure for me now. So, I understand the division Barcelonans are facing as they are certainly on a spectrum: some want action, while others just do not want to be disrupted. My solution was to move to a quieter place, which was a hard decision as I had to leave my beloved city to the new generations who will enjoy all the energy and craziness that makes it an amazing city.

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Personally, I'd be most concerned about pollution, such as toxic dust from tires and brakes and noxious exhaust fumes. Presumably, the roads they are closing would generate a certain amount of this in any case, but would the race make it substantially worse? Has anybody studied it?

I also think that perhaps we are well past the point where we should have stopped burning fossil fuels for entertainment.

If they are shutting down roads that normally get automobile traffic, there might be less pollution during the event.

Absolutely. This is like 20 cars on a circuit! The event itself surely doesn't cause much pollution. In F1 in general, Barcelona and elsewhere, I'd say the circus _surrounding_ it causes by far the most pollution. Logistics to/from the circuit with trucks upon trucks per team, setting up the teams' respective pits, private airplanes to/from the circuit, thousands of spectators to/from circuits, some going by yachts, many by air for at least one stint.

The race track? In the big picture, a rounding error.

I'd guess the regular traffic would just take a detour around the closed roads.

Actually, I'm now also visualizing all the surrounding roads clogged with traffic related to the race. It's not increasing my enthusiasm.

Barcelona has an excellent metro system. The trips will either go via train or not at all. And that’s a good thing.

This might be a concern if it were 24/7 but it’s a one week event with races only actively happening for a few hours a day. Any impact would be dissipated long before the next.

If they were so toxic, race tracks would surely not exist or would be so unsustainable they’d go out of business immediately from having to deal with the cleanup.

This works under the assumption that all negative environmental externalities are tracked by governing bodies in every jurisdictions, and that's simply not the case.

No, it works under the assumption that they’re tracked in literally any one jurisdiction in the world.

If it were so extremely toxic, we’d have heard about it from any of the jurisdictions where there is a racetrack, which there are thousands of around the world. Or one of the cities which already has a F1 circuit, of which there’s dozens.

It simply isn’t anywhere near the problem that GP makes it out to potentially be.

Either they're small, and the only people paying attention are a town and an insurance company, or they're so big nobody would dare (take on F1?, please).

The actual race isn't in the city. It's miles away, you can't even hear the cars while the race is on (like you can in e.g. downtown Melbourne even on the other side of the city). Nobody here in the city has a problem with it. Perhaps the residents of Montmeló where the actual circuit is do, but I don't know.

But this protest was against a demo performance this evening in the city. On a weekday night when people have to work. In a city that prides itself on sustainability and has pedestrianised many streets in recent years.

A lot of people like myself consider F1 to be nothing but a toy for big oil and billionaires with too much money to spend. It's hyper commercialised. I don't want them here either though I didn't protest. I just avoided the area. It's much harder to do if you actually live there though.

None of this has anything to do with the discussion in this thread, which is entirely about the environmental impact of the F1.

No, but I just wanted to clarify that the protests are not about that either because the races are so far away from the city. For pollution purposes they might as well be in Monaco especially because there's a mountain in between.

I'd assume the slower traffic and more people in the area would bump up pollution a bit.

Formula 1 is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030 and engines from 2026 will be run on sustainable (ethanol based) fuels. The fleet of trucks to cart them around Europe also now run on biodiesel.

> we should have stopped burning fossil fuels for entertainment.

One man's entertainment is another's livelihood. It's not like they're burning a barrel of oil for fun...

so we should have kept mad hatters yeah?

Almost everybody's entertainment involves energy, which involves pollution.

Am I no longer permitted to drive to the beach, fly somewhere for a holiday, take a boat to scuba dive, take a bus to the snow?

Come to think of it, exercise burns calories and food requires fossil fuel based chemicals and fertilizers and machinery to grow and process. Better not walk, hike, or cycle anywhere unless necessary for me to produce something toward GDP.

It would make sense not to do any of that, "drive to the beach, fly somewhere for a holiday, take a boat to scuba dive, take a bus to the snow", if it involves burning fossil fuels.

Agriculture on the other hand can't be simply abandoned. Powering equipment from non-emitting energy sources is needed.

> It would make sense not to do any of that, "drive to the beach, fly somewhere for a holiday, take a boat to scuba dive, take a bus to the snow", if it involves burning fossil fuels.

It does involve burning fossil fuels, and so does exercise because it increases your calorie requirement and food involves burning fossil fuels, so that too? Owning and using computers, phones, and internet does too, so none of that for recreational purposes either?

> Agriculture on the other hand can't be simply abandoned.

Why not?

> Powering equipment from non-emitting energy sources is needed.

It's not just powering equipment, it's petroleum used to create chemicals to grow and plastics and other products to process and create machines (tires, oils, plastic and rubber parts, petroleum based chemicals). And even if you were to "solve" carbon emissions completely, there are still many non-renewable resources being depleted and many pollutants being released, from microplastics to fertilizers and herbicides to toxic chemicals from chip manufacturing.

Define "make sense". I'm genuinely curious how you've arrived here so confidently. If it was climate change being the singular issue and nothing else matters short of actively murdering people, then any and all carbon producing economic activity should be shut down. But you're not going that far, so it seems "productive" economic activity is okay, but recreation is not. So we have to be cogs in the machine, but we can't have fun.

Not sure many would agree with you, or that even you would be able to stick to your own plan.

You seem more confident that me. What do you suggest, eight billion humans, each releasing as much pollution as they can afford, with no restrictions, increasing year on year? What effect will it have on the environment?

More confident than you about what? That is not really what I suggested, but I'm still waiting to hear your answers before we go further.

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