That’s just the reality of allowing presidents to serve two terms though. There’s an incumbent advantage, so to forgo that for the sake of choice every 4 years for both parties vs 4-8 years for both parties is a tradeoff. It’s just part of the reality of the framework.
I disagree, a vote for Biden is a vote for his whole apparatus - appointments, advisors, the people at EPA trying to regulate PFAS and carbon, etc. I’m happy to support the majority of this coalition because they are doing some good stuff. I don’t understand the need to try and paint Biden voters exclusively as anti-Trumpers, it just serves to gloss over the good that is going on.
Slippery slope would be the person comparing self-inflicted heat stroke whilst supporting a fascist climate denier to getting cancer. Let’s make sure nobody ever has to face consequences for their actions ever again, what a noble fight! Thank you for making the world a better place.
You need to learn about nuance. Thanks for letting us know that shadenfreude is bad, karma is bad, fuck around and find out is also bad, do stupid stuff and win stupid prizes is bad, irony, also bad, leopards eating faces, beleive it or not, bad. Let’s all pour one out for aggressive drivers getting speeding tickets, all the bullies out there who got punched back, and anytime justice is a served while we’re at it. If someone displays any emotion besides unbridled empathy for adults inflicting misery on themselves in all situation, bad!
How is it underrated? I’ve heard nothing but accolades from social media, the press, and owners themselves.
There are lots of folks working on maritime (and aviation) decarbonization, it’s not being ignored. It’s just harder than decarbonozing other sectors because they can’t just electrify like you and I can do with our cars and homes. The solution is likely to be synthetic fuels of some sort, ammonia, hydrogen, biodiesel, etc. We’re seeing sails come back, there have been innovation hull designs, etc. You could even call tarrifs a partial solution here because building locally reduces shipping needs. It’s just not as cheap/easy as installing solar panels/wind/batteries though. We need policy to drive change here, which puts it on a different level than the personal responsibility measures. I absolutely agree we need to do all of the above though.
As to the source, I don’t know but it’s cited in government records everywhere. They have a good handle of how much fuel is produced everywhere, we know exactly what ships exist and where they go in real time globally, we know how efficient they are, so it doesn’t seem nebulous enough to me to have any real doubt in. NASA can probably track all their emissions from space too.
Why don’t you actually prove that the dangers are significant before writing them off? Just because it’s flammable doesn’t mean it’s dangerous, so just saying flammable = “bad idea” isn’t a good enough argument. We have been using isobutane for years for refrigerators. And propane for years for refrigerated cases. They are already here. There are low charge limits in place already, and guess what - these appliances aren’t blowing up and killing people. There are monobloc propane heat pump systems all over Europe and Asia already. CO2 does require high pressures, but that can be engineered.
We already have literal methane being piped into multiple appliances in people’s homes, often unvented, we have people driving around with 20+ gallons of gasoline next to their children in SUVs, we have wiring in every wall of buildings that can all start fires, we have batteries in our pockets and cars and bikes, etc. We have UL and TUV and other groups certifying equipment for safety, let them do their jobs instead of writing off these critically important solutions. The status quo isn’t good enough and the chemical industry has a dog shit track record.
So dramatic. There’s a difference between shadenfreude and celebrating death.
Love to see it. Unfortunately we’re still early in the phaseout of HFCs via Kigali, and the chemical companies are doing their best to inject HFOs (and resulting PFAS) as far and wide as possible. We all need to shift to natural refrigerants ASAP. If you’re buying a refrigerator, make sure it’s r600a, a heat pump, r290 or r744, etc. Say no to HFOs (and HFCs).
This isn’t a “different political opinion”. Climate change isn’t an opinion, period. A different political opinion is supposed to mean a different policy solution to a specific problem, not wholesale ignoring reality.
Yes. Use stainless steel, cast iron, and carbon steel. You can cook everything with these just as easily once you learn some basic cooking skills.
I don’t think the issue is whether it’s effective in isolation (clearly we can alter the environment), it’s the fact that it’s likely to be used as a shitty band aid to continue emitting carbon and it’s likely to have unforseen consequences. We need to stop burning fossil fuels, all of them, immediately.
Shiping represents about 10% of the 25% of global carbon emissions from transportation, so 2.5%, similar to aviation. Yes, it’s a problem but it’s not the boogeyman you seem to think it is.
You seem to supporting the concept though. More people didn’t keep voting left, they voted center/left which sounds like has been moving right, so things stayed the same/went right. Who you vote for matters too - we have multiple opportunities to vote between “dems”. To me OPs comment is a simple truism - we can’t move left by not electing leftist individuals (and parties by extension). Any other strategy is some pie in the sky game theory.
This feels like semantics though, of course there is an end accompanying the beginning of the next one. So we’re on track to cause mass extinction (I’m talking biodiversity in general, not human), i.e., the end of the Holocene by your logic, and something new is starting, which some folks are calling the anthropocene. The question is whether the industrial revolution and it’s carbon consequences are enough of a step change to define the end of the Holocene and start of something new. I think what we’ve caused is likely as consequential as exiting the last ice age, which is the start of the Holocene. And the Holocene wasn’t ever defined as the age of humans, so tying the extinction of humans to it seems silly - you seem to be creating an entirely new definition of the Holocene here.
This seems like an attempt to shift the blame to another group you don’t identify with. We collectively did this. Humans have been clearing forests and altering ecosystems for millennia, and the only thing that really changed is industrialization and the ability to easily extract massive amounts of fossil fuels from the earth. Technology made that possible, and once the cat was out of the bag it became very difficult to put it back in. Sure capitalism sucks and all that, but humans, organized by country and loosely in competition with each other, were bound to fuck this all up regardless of whether the Soviet Union or the US or the British Empire or China was “in charge”. It’s a prisoners dilemma stacked on expectations of comfort. And sure a global authoritarian government exclusively focused on sustainability could pull this off, but people sure as shit wouldn’t like it, so here we are. Capitalism and it’s effects to undermine solutions in the name of profit are absolutely making it worse, but to place exclusive blame on capitalism seems naive and ignores human nature itself.
This article touches on the idea of an event, which aligns with your language around a transition. That seems appropriate to me, e.g. the industrial revolution would be the event that kicked off the next epoch. Considering the profound impact we’ve had on the planet since the industrial revolution, it seems like a reasonable place in time to assert that a new epoch has begun, however. It has clearly started to take shape. We have already done 1.5C of warming, with all signs pointing to much more to come. Biodiversity is already plummeting and will continue to drop. It’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that we’ve created a deviation from the Holocene normals and are simply calling this new thing something else, something undefined but clearly underway and likely to be as disruptive as any epoch change in the past. It’s an observation that we’ve fucked things up, but it’s not surprising that geologists aren’t ready to make the leap to a formal name, especially one randomly invented by a dude in an off the cuff comment and not through the scientific process.
This article says cheese can be a part of the planetary diet. They aren’t recommending veganism in this piece, they are focusing on whole foods over processed foods primarily, while also advocating plant based food and advocating for e.g. chicken over red meat.
Is that why pedestrian deaths are increasing in the US and are at an all time high, while decreasing everywhere else? Pay attention to the data instead of pretending that everyone proving your wrong is a European urbanite (I’m American btw, not that it fucking matters). US vehicles are way too big and they are fucking dangerous, period.
https://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safety-fatalities-governors-association
Great, we’re in agreement that self contained appliances can all use propane and isobutane then. That covers refrigerators, freezers, heat pump waters heaters (not split ones though, heat pump dryers, and a bunch of commercial refrigeration products like display cases at grocery stores. That was a good chunk of my comment.
What were seeing in e.g. Europe is monoblock heat pumps, where it’s also self contained and not split and they use e.g. a glycol mix as to transfer heat between inside/outside. This has pros and cons of course, but it solves the propane danger for a split system with a larger charge by keeping the propane outside. The con is freezing climates where there is risk of pipes bursting during power outages, but that’s manageable with failsafes. For true split systems, I agree that propane is problematic and CO2 is more promising. But we don’t have to use split systems everywhere either. I’m not aware of any reason we can’t add mercaptan to propane, unless it messes with the refrigerant characteristics. The low psi methane pipes can also easily make a bomb out of your house because the supply is unlimited, so I don’t see that as more dangerous than a fixed (low) charge in a sealed system.
We can solve these issues though, and my point is that the work involved is worth it to eliminate the dangers of synthetic refrigerants. I appreciate your perspective, thanks for the conversation!