Germany: SOLAR freaking roadways - below TRAINS!

[SiliconWizard]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

My point is that there is no lack of good engineers and potential real experts. They are available. The fact they are not listened to is another matter.
It's again not a matter of qualification. It's just the fact that politicians will order reports from people with an expected content. If the content matches the expectations, it gets published and acted upon, otherwise it gets right down into the trash. That happens all the time.

They do not order reports to help them decide. They decide first, and then order reports that will back up their decisions. And then all it requires to appear relevant is some nice titles, the name of a "reputable" agency, and so on. The content of such reports never get "peer-reviewed" before being even "used".

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable.

Politicians in particular, but most people in general, do not like being told that there is no "quick" fix and no easy-to-implement solution to a problem they are having. Since here the proper answers almost always imply "it's very complex, it's going to take a very long time, you can't approach it with simplistic solutions and the effects of relevant actions may not be apparent for a century or more", anyone who will claim otherwise will be favored even if it's just pure bullshit.

Then the ideology is another layer of issues.
In particular, there's something "odd" in believing that whatever mess we have made meddling with our environment is going to be taken care of with even more human meddling.

[srb1954]

Rails don’t move like that. That’s an optical illusion brought about by using a telephoto lens

And is the derailed carriage also an optical illusion bought about by using a telephoto lens?

[floobydust]

Every day humanity is using more and more energy, more crude oil, natural gas, electricity.  We do not have forever to face that fact. Those are multi-trillion $ industries not amenable to making less profit. Who wants less money? Not the energy companies.

Solar roadways are a great fantasy, money losing toy projects that flop but there was hoopla and millions $ spent and the politicians gets feels and votes. Let's all feel happy about saving the planet.
Never mind that renewables are simply not adopted widespread enough, not powerful enough to meet the green ideology.

The pandemic showed politicians overrule, distort and bias information from health professionals. It's the same for engineers (if there are any) in any Energy Ministry. "That solar roadway is shit, it will get trashed by trains in a domino-like manner and not generate useful amounts of energy."
But it looks cool, like something in a Marvel comic! Just need some Spiderman marketing. Let's do it!

[SL4P]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts and agencies. I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

No, the problem is the process for selecting those sycophants and lobbyists.

[vk6zgo]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

You really need to read up on the realist side of global warming and climate change. Not the leftist "impending doom tomorrow, we are already late" or the right wing denialist. On every measure, humanity is doing better than yesterday, less people in poverty and the growth rate is dropping. Do you want less people in the planet, the best way to do it is to lift people from poverty and educate them. There has been so much bullshit about climate change, and it is an industry, selling you this.
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag? And that's what they sell you as green. Think about it for a minute.

Maybe, if you are talking about the energy cost per bag, but the cotton shopping bag is kept at home ready for your hypothetical "20,000 times", & doesn't present a disposal problem, nor does it it end up in the ocean when those disposal efforts fail.

The CO2 thing & the disposal problem is really a "double whammy".
After years of replacing traditional packaging materials with petrochemicals it has come back to bite us on the bum.

[pcprogrammer]

My point is that there is no lack of good engineers and potential real experts. They are available. The fact they are not listened to is another matter.
It's again not a matter of qualification. It's just the fact that politicians will order reports from people with an expected content. If the content matches the expectations, it gets published and acted upon, otherwise it gets right down into the trash. That happens all the time.

You are right, there are very good engineers, but they are mostly the quiet type, and when they speak up they are ignored for sure.

They do not order reports to help them decide. They decide first, and then order reports that will back up their decisions. And then all it requires to appear relevant is some nice titles, the name of a "reputable" agency, and so on. The content of such reports never get "peer-reviewed" before being even "used".

And the general public does not see nor does it want to see it is mostly rubbish. And a bit of a shame is that it happens in the scientific community to. Papers are rushed out because otherwise they might loose grant money. Does not matter if what is in it is true or false.

Politicians in particular, but most people in general, do not like being told that there is no "quick" fix and no easy-to-implement solution to a problem they are having. Since here the proper answers almost always imply "it's very complex, it's going to take a very long time, you can't approach it with simplistic solutions and the effects of relevant actions may not be apparent for a century or more", anyone who will claim otherwise will be favored even if it's just pure bullshit.

That is true. Both that it is very complex and that people don't want to hear it. And everybody wants the problem to be solved, but when it comes down to it they don't want to do to much that interrupts their life they are used to. We still need our two to three vacations a year and preferably as far away as possible.

Then the ideology is another layer of issues.
In particular, there's something "odd" in believing that whatever mess we have made meddling with our environment is going to be taken care of with even more human meddling.

Well said. But that is what a lot of people think. "A well the government and scientists are going to take care of it all."

Others think "lets go out in space and colonize other planets, we will do better there" Yeah right, lets go and f.. up another planet or two.

[pcprogrammer]

You really need to read up on the realist side of global warming and climate change. Not the leftist "impending doom tomorrow, we are already late" or the right wing denialist. On every measure, humanity is doing better than yesterday, less people in poverty and the growth rate is dropping. Do you want less people in the planet, the best way to do it is to lift people from poverty and educate them. There has been so much bullshit about climate change, and it is an industry, selling you this.
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag? And that's what they sell you as green. Think about it for a minute.

Read between the lines of what I post and you would see that I'm neither left or right. I don't deny there is a problem but merely state that what is presented as a solution is not what it is. Nor do I advocate that we are already to late, because I don't know if that is so.

And you are right that education is the way to go, but I think we are failing in that department. The focus is still to much on growing economics instead of stable economics, meaning that production and sales has to keep going up. And even though growth rate might be dropping there is still growth in population. Expectations are a growth to 10 billion people by 2050. That is another 25% extra in less then 30 years.

Human psychology is very tricky. What about our drive for an annual raise in salary for still doing the same job. The only thing that happens is that it will also drive up prices, because your salary has to come from somewhere. Inflation and deflation, just like heaven and hell are man made principles and eventually we will pay the price for it.

And yes climate change is an industry. Definitely one selling bullshit. I don't think it is just CO2 and even when we manage to stop all fossil fuel burning it would take many, many years to see the CO2 levels drop to pre 1900 levels. The whole problem is much more complex and like in your cotton bag example all the production of the renewables have the same issues.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

[AVGresponding]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

It's related to the carbon and water footprint. Cotton plants take a lot of water. Though as I recall the number is 1000 times or something? should be easy to find out with your favourite search engine.

[jusaca]

To end this off-topic discussion:

According to a UK government report, to be more eco-friendly than a plastic bag, a cotton bag would have to be used 173 times.

Not an unrealistic to achieve value.

Regarding the argument, that this simply is the only location DB has to spare for PV: That might be true, but all those precious solar modules would still be better utilized by placing them on roof tops, where they are way better protected and yield a longer lifetime and an overall higher energy output.

[ebastler]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

[pcprogrammer]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

[Rick Law]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

It's related to the carbon and water footprint. Cotton plants take a lot of water. Though as I recall the number is 1000 times or something? should be easy to find out with your favourite search engine.

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Both 20000 and 1000 are unrealistic usage counts.  Even denim is not tough enough to be washed in a typical laundry washer 1,000 times.  Spun nylon may do it, but then you still have to consider the environmental impact of washing.  In my case, the high cost of both water and electricity prevented me from doing hand or machine wash with high regularity.  I have a less costly ($ and environmental) alternative than washing.

The small throw-away plastic grocery bags (when emptied of purchased items) also serves as my my typical daily garbage bag - it measures 15.5x11 (inches) with a 1x6 (inches) extension on each side as handle.  That was free but no longer available.   Now, I purchase small garbage bags (23.75x28 inches @ .8MIL) as food and grocery bag.  I am still throwing away 1 garbage bag a day (too smelly inside and rules prevents me from leave it outside the house).  The daily throw away bag is a much larger and thicker purchased garbage bag instead of a small and free plastic bag that I took home with my grocery.  It beats trying to get the dry out tomato scrapping off the fabric bag, or smelly chicken meat juice rotting on fabric and wasting a ton of water (and electricity) doing washing it.

[Monkeh]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

[Rick Law]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

Don't care who else may be doing it.  I just don't like runny meat juice favored bread... 

Edited to add:

(To be honest, it was my ice cream -- meat juice leaked into my ice cream once.  But I hate to admit that is one item I also ensure I am not lacking.)

I am sure many others could leave the garbage on the back - I would like that and collect garbage less frequent than daily.  But we all have our "I like to" verses the "I need to".

[Monkeh]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

Don't care who else may be doing it.  I just don't like runny meat juice favored bread...

This is a non-issue. My produce doesn't drip everywhere, perhaps buy something properly packaged and learn to pack better.

[Rick Law]

...
This is a non-issue. My produce doesn't drip everywhere, perhaps buy something properly packaged and learn to pack better.

-- ReEdited significantly because I clicked post by mistake the first time --

We have that nicely packaged (in sealed plastic) veggie as well.  I like green, I prefer un-packaged veggie.  I found packaged veggies/fruit more loaded with spray-on preservatives.  I know some fruits are even wax coated.

By the way, even when in sealed packaged (say something like celery or Romaine lettuce), I do find some left over soil and occasional bugs in the inner leaf.  Mites of course is far more common with crowns (the flowering part) of green stalk veggies.

[Monkeh]

Well then put all your nice fresh unwashed veg in a bag of its own and wash the bag with less water than you use to clean your windscreen from time to time..

My meat doesn't drip everywhere. My bread does not get soaked by items it shouldn't be near. My frozen stuff doesn't thaw. And all this without using 20 bags every shop. It always astounds me to see the waste when I'm over there.

[ebastler]

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

I would assume that the "organic" cotton scores better than the conventional variant on many of the other metrics. But while the study lists a dozen or so metrics, it only gives the scores for climate impact and ozone impact (unless I overlooked something).

But the irrigation > electricity > natural gas > halon gas > ozone depletion cascade dominates the outcome, and it seems that growing organic cotton requires more irrigation to keep the cotton plants healthy.

[Rick Law]

Well then put all your nice fresh unwashed veg in a bag of its own and wash the bag with less water than you use to clean your windscreen from time to time..

My meat doesn't drip everywhere. My bread does not get soaked by items it shouldn't be near. My frozen stuff doesn't thaw. And all this without using 20 bags every shop. It always astounds me to see the waste when I'm over there.

You must have missed the part that I need to throw out the garbage every day since I can't leave that out door.  I wrap waste nicely in knotted plastic bag kept to keep it from smelling too bad between weekly pickups.  So one way or another, I am throwing out a bag a day anyway.  It is either a "free" grocery bag from the store when it was legal, or now a purchased garbage bag first used for grocery.  Why waste water and electricity both of which has their environmental and financial cost.

By the way,  I too wish the meat I got doesn't drip.  But how well the shop packs it is not in my control.  The damn store near by would even repack the meat after cutting out the browning corners and worst -- wrapping fresh hamburger over browning ones to make the pack looks fresh).  I get my fruit and veggies from another store with much much better selections.

[tszaboo]

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Yes, I reuse plastic grocery bags, as many times as it is possible. Although my main grocery bag is a blue IKEA big yellow bag.
Drippy stuff usually comes packaged here.

[AnalogueLove1867]

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Yes, I reuse plastic grocery bags, as many times as it is possible. Although my main grocery bag is a blue IKEA big yellow bag.
Drippy stuff usually comes packaged here.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving the planet. You truly are an angel.
Early 2000's teachers at school used to discourage us from using writing paper or paper straws because they had never heard about pine plantations and assumed all paper had to come from the Amazon Jungle.
Now They are encouraging students to go back to using paper straws because plastic straws are killing all the sea animals. Now many schools give out free tablets to students because landfill is obviously better than decomposing paper.

[AnalogueLove1867]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

You care way too much about something that you claim is inevitable.
If you hate humans that much you should consider feeding yourself to a shark.
You are completely contradicting yourself and you actually do not believe in anything you are saying.
It also has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
No joke. You are the leftist equivalent to some Christians who claimed that the sinking of the Titanic was
a punishment by god for humanity being so arrogant, prideful, greedy and secular.

[AnalogueLove1867]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

Or maybe you also have to consider that people are  forced to perform researches on things that get them grants?
No grants = no money = no livelihood if you are a researcher or technician rather than a full time lecturer.
So if you were a horticulturist who knew everything there is to know about cotton you are going to include as many buzz topics as possible in order to get that grant money.
Global warming, Ozone layer, racist history of cotton picking, cotton plantations destroying native plants and animals etc etc.

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

[SiliconWizard]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

It's worse if you want to make it appear worse. You just need to use the right metrics and ignore those that are unconvenient.
It's again all part of the same ideology considering that we humans can do better in a few decades than billions of years of evolution with extremely complex and diverse interactions.