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wild_turkey

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I get weirdly angry when I take the garbage out in our house every week because I don't get where all this shit comes from. I don't understand why we have so much trash. We recycle as much as possible. I think the worst thing we do as a family is clothing. Our kids have so many clothes that they quickly grow out of or move on from. We try to donate as much as possible but that's really just passing the buck onto someone else to get rid of our "trash". Then I think about all the other "crap" we donate and what happens with that stuff at some point. Then I realize, we just consume way too much. I don't really know how to break that habit. I too try to not use Amazon as much as possible. It's hard though as Amazon has helped usher out the mom and pop stores we used to buy these items from. I also try to limit overbuying grocery items so we're not wasting as much and getting so many additional pieces of trash. 

I try to impress upon my kids that all of this stuff both comes from somewhere and then eventually has to end up somewhere. They just think it's all magical. They want something, it can be ordered for them and delivered. They want water, they just open a tap and it's magically there. They flush, the water magically goes away. They have no concept of where it comes from, how it got to us, and where it eventually goes away to. All they care about is that it arrives when they want it. I fear some day they're going to have to face real shortages, especially with water. So yeah, turn the water off when you brush your teeth and drink that half glass of water you just poured. Also, finish the soft drink you opened and PUT IT IN THE F'ING RECYCLING BIN AND NOT THE TRASH, YOU HEATHENS!

Edited by mdmost
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1 hour ago, troph said:

Smaller than your McMansion. More energy efficient than 98% of any house out there. We pushed electricity out to the grid all summer at peak hours. we used grid power at night. My electric bill was probably 1/3 of the average. Fuck guys I drive an electric car. I get it I’m the devil.
 

Next conservative talking point please. 

 

Lol. McMansion. Try '80s build on a fifth of an acre. I don't think you're the devil for an electric car, I applaud it. I want to switch. 

I just think the best thing we can do for sustainability is reduce, reduce, reduce. It's still hard.

I look at other people and get grossed out by consumption. I imagine someone from Europe would look at me and be grossed out by my relatively modest lifestyle by American standards.

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9 minutes ago, mdmost said:

I get weirdly angry when I take the garbage out in our house every week because I don't get where all this shit comes from. I don't understand why we have so much trash. We recycle as much as possible. I think the worst thing we do as a family is clothing. Our kids have so many clothes that they quickly grow out of or move on from. We try to donate as much as possible but that's really just passing the buck onto someone else to get rid of our "trash". Then I think about all the other "crap" we donate and what happens with that stuff at some point. Then I realize, we just consume way too much. I don't really know how to break that habit. I too try to not use Amazon as much as possible. It's hard though as Amazon has helped usher out the mom and pop stores we used to buy these items from. I also try to limit overbuying grocery items so we're not wasting as much and getting so many additional pieces of trash. 

I try to impress upon my kids that all of this stuff both comes from somewhere and then eventually has to end up somewhere. They just think it's all magical. They want something, it can be ordered for them and delivered. They want water, they just open a tap and it's magically there. They flush, the water magically goes away. They have no concept of where it comes from, how it got to us, and where it eventually goes away to. All they care about is that it arrives when they want it. I fear some day they're going to have to face real shortages, especially with water. So yeah, turn the water off when you brush your teeth and drink that half glass of water you just poured. Also, finish the soft drink you opened and PUT IT IN THE F'ING RECYCLING BIN AND NOT THE TRASH, YOU HEATHENS!

A lot of this. It's also surprising to me because I've always been pretty minimalist. I feel like these days I can't really call myself that anymore. It just fucking accumulates. Looking in the closet from my desk, there's a router that we won't ever use. Spare pillows that get used once or twice a year, books that I won't ever look at again (but still want to keep, jic), an old computer I don't know what to do with. A telescope? WTF? 

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no, but this sumbeech is chock full of half-measures and bullshit that is pissing up a rope when brought to scale.
If you fire a bb gun a t a tank, I guess you can still say you fought back and ease your conscience.

Half-measures are better than zero measures.

One person firing a BB at a tank won’t do anything. The internet tells me a metal BB has a mass of about 0.35 grams and an M1 Abrams tank is about 65,000 kg. If all 332 million people in the U.S. fired a BB at the tank at the same time, it would be a collective total mass of 116,000 kg striking the 65,000 kg tank.

There’s a quote to the effect of “We don’t need a few people to do this perfectly, we need everyone to do it imperfectly.”
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Because people are a lot of talk and hypocrites about most things, including "sustainable" living.

Perhaps we are all hypocrites. Our very existence, all 7.9 billion of us, is bad for this planet. The worst thing most of us will ever do in terms of carbon footprint is to procreate. Each little fuck trophy we make is going to consume more and inflict damage.

We are humans and we like human things. We’re posting on this message board with devices that have a carbon footprint. Some people have boats or like to travel.

So, in light of that, should we not even try? Does troph owning a lake house make it so that she can’t participate in other actions without being ridiculed by you? Do you want to go ahead and ridicule every person here with more than one child? Should we keep drinking Fiji and Evian from plastic bottles, driving our F250s, watering our massive lawns, and just ride this ship down?

Do you have kids? What kind of world do you want them to live in? What kind of world do you want your great grandchildren to inherit?

Would you rather sit around and point out that every single person is a hypocrite? Is any discussion of trying to do a small good thing too hypocritical for you because you will point out every person’s shortcomings? I haven’t seen one positive thing from you, just showing up long enough to inject negativity.

That’s not what this is about. That attitude will be the death of humanity.
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1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

I'm not even on the stupid part of the dunning-kruger curve when it comes to ag but I think nitrogen used in fertilizer is kind of a big problem? Or, it's a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, although even just from a quick google it looks like it may be pound for pound worse but accounts for far less than carbon dioxide.

Either way, that's a thing too. I'd be interested if an @Al_4_ISU could comment generally (sorry to tag you buddy although actually I am interested) but I think generally there are a lot of farmers who are interested in adopting more "green" practices when it comes to stuff like cycling and fertilizing and what have you but the in general (and especially one with as... complicated of a landscape of regulation and incentivization/etc) there needs to be policy that helps support those kinds of choices economically. I know there's a lot of incentives around carbon intensity in ethanol production (which I think is state by state and California leading the charge) but I'm not sure how well that trickles back to the "planting crops" phase of decision making.

Again, I know just enough to be incredibly stupid on this topic but am curious about it.

We're always looking for ways to consume less resources per acre.  Most of our nitrogen comes from the old fashioned source - shit.  We use some dry urea and anhydrous ammonia as well, but the goal with nitrogen application is to get it into the plant and avoid or minimize any extra release into the atmosphere.

A lot of the bad rap farmers get for nitrogen run-off comes from large livestock integrators who are either not involved in crop production, or only raise crops as a means to dispense of manure.  Because they have more manure than land they can responsibly fertilize with it, they tend to over apply, and create the bulk of the nitrogen related issues seen in intensely row-cropped areas.

An operation like ours has more farmland than manure, so we can apply the manure we do have in a timely fashion, and an appropriate amount of ground.  This helps ensure that the soil absorbs the nitrogen and stores it through the winter to apply to the seed/plant in the spring.  A lot of our land will never get manure, and on those farms we either apply anhydrous in the fall, or dry urea in the spring and growing season.  Again, all of this is done to maximize absorption by the corn plant and minimize evaporation or run off.

At the end of the day, the guys raising corn for ethanol want to capture as much nitrogen as possible and let as little as possible evaporate into the atmosphere or run off into the water system.  Because they get more money for growing more corn.  The guys raising corn because they need to get shit out of their stock yards or barns are less concerned with this, generally, because they get paid by selling more cows and pigs.

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The argument for why half measures are bad (which to be fair, I'm not seeing in this thread) is not because it's hypocritical, but because in the long run it reinforces and perpetuates bad behaviors (doesn't encourage real change).

Examples I've read are people who think that recycling isn't a scam, for example, don't feel the need to reduce or reuse because they are making an effort to sort their household trash and recycle, and it encourages the continuation of consumption because you feel like you are doing something on one side of the ledger to, at worst, balance out the other side of your consumption/carbon output ledger. Classic example of "good is the enemy of great".

Edited by BeardIP
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Here is an interesting read on "Wishcycling"

Quote

 

If you’re like me, you’ve looked at a paper coffee cup or an empty tube of toothpaste and thought, “Is this recyclable?” before tossing it in the recycling bin, hoping someone, somewhere, would sort it out. People in the waste management industry call this habit “wishcycling.” According to Marian Chertow, director of the Solid Waste Policy program at Yale University, “a wishcycler wants to do the right thing and feels that the more that he or she can recycle, the better.”

Well, I hate to break it to you, but this well-intentioned reflex is doing more harm than good. Not only that, but wishcycling is playing a big role in the current global recycling meltdown.

 

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/08/recycling-wishcycling-china-plastics-zero-waste-bags-straws/

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15 hours ago, Zepol87 said:

Greyhound I don't like because of way too many stops but I took Turimex from Oak Cliff to Monterrey every couple of weeks for about 5 months and it was awesome. Amtrak is fun as well, took it from Dallas to Chicago one time and had a blast playing spades with some dude who just got out of prison in St. Louis, wild stories on that thing but a lot of fun

Everything bus-wise is better in Mexico, for sure. Me and my son took a 2nd Class Bluebird once for the hell of it from Tampico to Tuxpan, and we wound all up in the hills at stations in villages that looked like 1955, vendors hawking homemade candy and aguas frescas. My kid was maybe 11 but he handled pissing in the trough of a dusty cantina just fine.

My Amtrak card experience was when I was 21 riding all night from New York to Birmingham, playing Tonk in the club car with three other dudes and swilling lots of beer. When I was 21, I would drink beer until the room started to spin, then I'd go lie down and sleep after the movement stopped. Well, on a train, the MOVEMENT doesn't STOP, ok?

First time puking on a train, too.

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15 minutes ago, Wilcox Cummingtonite said:

I can barely afford my recurring expenses each month even after cutting out quite a bit of fluff (including all vacations and eating out). Does that count as sustainable?

My wife and I make nearly 200k/year gross. Our society is fuuuucked.

Wait. Is this serious?

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Serious question - does it really matter until the 4 billion people in China, India, and Africa gaf?

No takers huh?

And for the record, I like most of these ideas. Just wondering if we went to the utmost extreme and everyone in the US started living like Grizzly Adams would it even matter.
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4 minutes ago, Wilcox Cummingtonite said:

Sir boomer, there are many Millennials in this exact same boat. 

Most educated generation of all time, we fell for the scam.

Lulz. How old do you think I am? Born in mid '80s.

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5 minutes ago, tbone_ said:


No takers huh?

And for the record, I like most of these ideas. Just wondering if we went to the utmost extreme and everyone in the US started living like Grizzly Adams would it even matter.

It's a good point. On a per-person basis, US outranks them like whoa. On a total basis, they contribute the most.

How much of that in China is fueled by our consumerism?

 

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7 minutes ago, Wilcox Cummingtonite said:

Based on the ignorance and incompetence found in your first response, you definitely seemed like a Boomer.

How much was your inheritance?

Inheritance? Lol.

Sorry for thinking that people making $200K can still get by in America. 

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1 hour ago, BeardIP said:

I know I'm a hypocrite, but I manage our recycling bin carefully. I sort through family inattention and toss in the garbage that which should not be recycled and it irritates the heck out of me. when we wash dishes I wash out dirty plastic. our recycle bin is full of reasonably clean material that as far as I know can be recycled.  I get if there isn't demand it gets trashed, but I don't want to ruin a batch because we put the wrong stuff in or put in rotten milk in a milk carton in the mix. I have a friend that argues with his recycle truck guy over the plastic bags you can take to HEB but can't recycle in the bin, he tells the guy it's recyclable and that they sort it at the facility. the truck driver gave up and takes his recycling, i'm 100% positive it ends up causing most of that truck run being trashed.

on the good news front we have our trash can down to two standard sized kitchen trash bags a week for a family of 4. I'm happy about that. I'd like to add composting next not sure how to do it. we would spread on our yard.  once we do that, I'm confident the planet will be saved from destruction, thank you very much.

Edited by troph
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22 minutes ago, troph said:

I know I'm a hypocrite, but I manage our recycling bin carefully. I sort through family inattention and toss in the garbage that which should not be recycled and it irritates the heck out of me. when we wash dishes I wash out dirty plastic. our recycle bin is full of reasonably clean material that as far as I know can be recycled.  I get if there isn't demand it gets trashed, but I don't want to ruin a batch because we put the wrong stuff in or put in rotten milk in a milk carton in the mix. I have a friend that argues with his recycle truck guy over the plastic bags you can take to HEB but can't recycle in the bin, he tells the guy it's recyclable and that they sort it at the facility. the truck driver gave up and takes his recycling, i'm 100% positive it ends up causing most of that truck run being trashed.

on the good news front we have our trash can down to two standard sized kitchen trash bags a week for a family of 4. I'm happy about that. I'd like to add composting next not sure how to do it. we would spread on our yard.  once we do that, I'm confident the planet will be saved from destruction, thank you very much.

Have you seen these composting disposal systems? I need them to get a bit cheaper, but our house is on a septic system and I loathe cleaning out the drain screen that keeps all the junk from going into the septic.

image.png.2df9766c2ee3af74be51fccf12a4908f.png

 

https://sepurahome.com/products/sepura

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19 minutes ago, troph said:

I'd like to add composting next not sure how to do it.

My folks are into gardening big time.  It's taken over almost their entire yard.  They have six large, raised beds with drip lines run throughout and set on timers.

They have three composting "stations" - a little one inside.  A plastic jar about the size of a water jug with a lid for daily stuff:  fruit rinds, egg shells, etc.  Then they have a barrel outside set up on a tumbler so you have turn it.  They empty the little into the big.  Then they have a raised bed wrapped in fencing wire for larger stuff like dead plants, trimmings from the garden, etc that they turn with a shovel/pitchfork.  It's WA state go they also get a ton of precip.

 

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18 hours ago, tbone_ said:

Serious question - does it really matter until the 4 billion people in China, India, and Africa gaf?

I saw your second reply and I think this is a valid question to be asking, but it does get more into the politics of the situation, rather than the choices at the individual level.

On the one hand, the U.S. and other first-world countries have benefited tremendously from industrial and economic growth throughout the 20th century when no one was paying much attention to things like carbon emissions, clean energy, or the toxic effects of industry on our environment. And now that we do care, and we are economically in a better position to make some positive changes, we also need the entire undeveloped world to make responsible decisions, at a time when they are just getting simple luxuries like electricity and air conditioning. A coal power plant in India will do the same amount of damage as a coal plant in Texas. So I think there is a large amount of responsibility on the developed world to help these other parts of the world.

When it comes to places like China (or insert any other country that doesn't want to play ball), I think money is the ultimate motivator. Economics are currently motivating them to use the lowest cost option for electricity and other resources. We would need to shift the economics in the form of tariffs, etc. that would them motivate them to change. We may still import your plastic trinkets, but there is a 200% tariff on it due to the environmental impact of its production, which then makes it such that no one in the U.S. wants to buy those items from that particular country. That of course requires citizens in places like the U.S. and Europe to support these actions, which may be a pipe dream.

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9 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

My folks are into gardening big time.  It's taken over almost their entire yard.  They have six large, raised beds with drip lines run throughout and set on timers.

They have three composting "stations" - a little one inside.  A plastic jar about the size of a water jug with a lid for daily stuff:  fruit rinds, egg shells, etc.  Then they have a barrel outside set up on a tumbler so you have turn it.  They empty the little into the big.  Then they have a raised bed wrapped in fencing wire for larger stuff like dead plants, trimmings from the garden, etc that they turn with a shovel/pitchfork.  It's WA state go they also get a ton of precip.

 

The best one I built incorporated a rabbit hutch on the side so when they shit it would run down into the main compost. The key, and I have made tons, is make sure you don't over do one type of product. 

A simple way is Hog fence, three feet tall, connect to three T Posts so it gets air on all sides. You can make it as big as you want but I would not go over a 4 foot diameter. 

@troph if you live near the lake get some of the damn water weeds everyone bitches about. Great additive with the micronutrients. 

 

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I'll add for "composting" - chickens will damn near eat anything.  Little dinosaurs.  If you want to cut down on wasted food, give it to them.  Old pumpkins, leftover turkey bones from T-day, even deboned deer shanks, they'll strip it all down.  

As a kid, g-ma had a bucket in the kitchen, any food from people's plates were for the yard-birds.  Nothing edible went into the trash.  Her garden in the back of the house was massive.  Had a larger footprint than the house itself.  Rows and rows of massive veggies.  

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10 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I saw your second reply and I think this is a valid question to be asking, but it does get more into the politics of the situation, rather than the choices at the individual level.

On the one hand, the U.S. and other first-world countries have benefited tremendously from industrial and economic growth throughout the 20th century when no one was paying much attention to things like carbon emissions, clean energy, or the toxic effects of industry on our environment. And now that we do care, and we are economically in a better position to make some positive changes, we also need the entire undeveloped world to make responsible decisions, at a time when they are just getting simple luxuries like electricity and air conditioning. A coal power plant in India will do the same amount of damage as a coal plant in Texas. So I think there is a large amount of responsibility on the developed world to help these other parts of the world.

When it comes to places like China (or insert any other country that doesn't want to play ball), I think money is the ultimate motivator. Economics are currently motivating them to use the lowest cost option for electricity and other resources. We would need to shift the economics in the form of tariffs, etc. that would them motivate them to change. We may still import your plastic trinkets, but there is a 200% tariff on it due to the environmental impact of its production, which then makes it such that no one in the U.S. wants to buy those items from that particular country. That of course requires citizens in places like the U.S. and Europe to support these actions, which may be a pipe dream.

The bold is a very big criticism from underdeveloped or developing countries, for sure.

To the original question on population, I read this today which was interesting:

 According to the latest Census Bureau data, the US population is projected to shrink by the year 2100, which would be only the second decline in the country’s history (the other occurred in 1918 due to the Spanish flu and World War I). Annual population growth rates have dropped from about 1.2% in the 1990s to just 0.5% today. The culprits: declining birth rates and an aging population. The US could even be topped by Pakistan or Nigeria as the third-biggest country by the middle of the century, per UN projections. The anticipated shrinkage means immigration will be essential for any hopes of continued growth. And yet, the US is still growing faster than many other high-income nations, some of which, like Japan and Italy, are already losing population.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/americas-population-projected-to-shrink-by-2100-census-figures-show-3c4d60cc

To your point it's a sensitive political issue because on one hand, you need increasing population to continue the house of cards that is social science/capitalism/GDP-growth, etc. but decreasing population is obviously better for consumption and environmental purposes.

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I'd like to add composting next not sure how to do it. we would spread on our yard.


This is our setup:

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The teal bin stays under the kitchen sink and we fill it with compostable food scraps, coffee grounds, wine corks, etc. It gets emptied into the left side of the outdoor compost every 3-4 days.

The left side also contains rubbish from the garden, dead flowers, etc. We turn it periodically and use the good stuff to put back into the garden when planting.

The right side is for browns - dead leaves, paper bags, some cardboard, etc. We occasionally mix some of it into the left side to give it some more fluff and bulk.

I am very much a novice but this is our system which I believe is working.
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3 hours ago, troph said:

Here is where I am gullible - I’m hopeful we can contain development to urban areas and protect the natural world ... I think that’s below a 1% chance but one can hope.

The I-35 corridor between DFW and San Antonio will have 50 Million people by the time my kids are my age. As soon as they get situated, they are buying 5-10 acre ranchettes in the Hill Country, drilling water wells, and planting grass. The number of larger ranches in the Hill Country getting sliced and diced into mini-ranches is astonishing. The OTX Camp in Bandera, building a water themed retreat 99% dependent on sub-surface water in the middle of the Hill Country, is the epitome of selfishness and ignorance.

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3 hours ago, Woodrow Call said:

The answer to all of this ... is reduced use and scaling back population growth... as agriculture continues to experience the effects of climate change, the human population will inevitably decline... but nature bats last... Mother Nature will do it for us. 

But having been involved in this area for nearly 40 years, I've largely given up hope... ecological problems requires massive change in human behavior...  Americans are all about individual freedom and the community comes second.   

In biological terms, we call uncontrolled growth of cells a cancer. It's ultimately fatal. 

40+ years ago, I gave a speech on the biggest issue I will face as a college graduate (Mech Engr) ... Energy supply & demand. It is worse now than it was then, primarily because of the reality of the negative consequences of simply generating the energy. I understand the concept of largely giving up hope.

Our uncontrolled population growth, that cancer, will correct itself, as some point in time. 

i'll just spend more time at the ranch. Oh, wait! Seeing as how my Avatar will only look like that again is if a tropical storm/hurricane hits Texas south of Corpus ... what little hope I have is morphing into something else.

3 hours ago, Celery Man said:

a lot of farmers ... a landscape of regulation and incentivization/etc)...  there's a lot of incentives around carbon intensity in ethanol production

Ethanol to supplement gasoline production might have made sense during and immediately after the Arab Oil Embargo. It hasn't made sense in a long ass time. Corn is for eating and drinking. Another Government subsidy that alters the natural balance between supply and demand. 

3 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

I doubt anyone on this board who is college educated can say they are in the bottom half of carbon footprint when you look at everything.

Growth in technology and innovation has mades us all more efficient (the internet, smart phones, home shopping, remote working, face time meetings, etc.), all of which consume energy. The most fun thing to do with money is spend it. I probably bring down the average carbon footprint as my ranch is managed for wildlife habitat and consumes CO2 and produces is oxygen.

3 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The U.S. has a tremendously outsized impact on consumption and carbon and other non-sustainable practices. 

The US "consumes" a disproportionate amount of oil on its own, but a significant portion of that is for the export market.  Absent that, we would still have an outsized impact on consumption.  When I took our Au Pair to HEB 30+ years ago, she was amazed at all the fruits and vegetables. Why do you have so many different apples?

Why do we have so much of everything? Innovation creating supply, and demand.

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Water is the big one that most people just whistle on past...once the lake refills, nobody gives a shit again until the next drought.

Water is THE resource to be fought over, worldwide.  It's scarce ... getting more expensive: we've captured all the cheap, easy water.  The next round of water is going to cost much, much more.

The good thing is that people fight over it.  And my business is representing people and entities in those fights.

 Oh, there are solutions.  Sure, desalinization is an option.  A very pricey one, all costs considered.

Getting water from where it is to where people are?  ... you don't wanna know what a pipeline project would cost 

 The first 80% of the water we need is cheap.  The next 20% is wildly expensive.  And people complain "why is MY bill going up?"  Because 1 million people moved into the area to consume the same water sources you have consumed.  We have to obtain enough water for everyone.  That additional water is expensive.

My new solar powered water well went dry in less than 2 years because the Trinity Aquifer dropped at least 50 feet in that time.  That is bothersome, but merely an inconvenience for me. Lake Travis having an island with grass and trees on it? Whoppee shit! Wait til all the new straws start sucking water out of the Edwards Aquifer.  Wait till all the hunting ranches run out of water. Anybody with surface water isn't going to let somebody else lay a pipeline or build an aqueduct to take "their" water. I won't see it, but the shit's gonna get real down the road.  Pissed off people fighting over land and water rights? I used to watch those movies with my dad.

2 hours ago, mdmost said:

 I don't get where all this shit comes from. I don't understand why we have so much trash. We recycle as much as possible ... clothing...  we just consume way too much.  I try to not use Amazon as much as possible. It's hard though as Amazon has helped usher out the mom and pop stores we used to buy these items from.  

I fear some day they're going to have to face real shortages, especially with water. So yeah, turn the water off when you brush your teeth and drink that half glass of water you just poured. 

We (2 of us) fill a ~75 gallon container with recycle every 2 weeks, and make maybe half as much trash. When our kids were school age, much different story. School age kids drive consumption like nothing else.

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On 11/8/2023 at 11:19 PM, wild_turkey said:

 


I watched that first YouTube clip that’s critical of EVs. I don’t know if I take the guy seriously and I don’t know his credentials or political leanings, but I think his criticisms are similar to many EV opponents.

His first big criticism is that EVs aren’t charging with clean energy and are instead using predominantly fossil fuels. I share that concern, but I don’t think that’s a flaw in EV technology at all. That’s a problem with our energy sources, which is a huge separate topic. Simply put, I think we need EVs coupled with nuclear power, or greatly expanded clean energy in its various formats.

But the issue to me is that EV technology could be a tremendous step forward if the electricity sources will follow suit. Maybe it’s worth putting the cart in front of the horse here.

The same could not be said about ICE vehicles. They are by definition burning fossil fuels and will always be burning fossil fuels, and to commit to them out of fear of change is basically signing our own death sentence. We know exactly where that road will lead.

His second concern is about sourcing the lithium and other minerals to produce the batteries. Also a valid concern, but he presents no data, which makes this merely a talking point lacking evidence. And as I mentioned above, potentially new sources for these minerals (such as the Salton Sea) will become available to help that obstacle.

 

Peter Zeihan has written several books on geopolitics.  His work is well researched and he's not simply regurgitating talking points of one team even though he may not have included citations in the video.  His book Disunited Nations is very well done and I'm about to read his latest:  The End of the World is Just the Beginning.  I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, but I think he's right more than he is wrong.  

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1 hour ago, PTINS said:

40+ years ago, I gave a speech on the biggest issue I will face as a college graduate (Mech Engr) ... Energy supply & demand. It is worse now than it was then, primarily because of the reality of the negative consequences of simply generating the energy. I understand the concept of largely giving up hope.

Our uncontrolled population growth, that cancer, will correct itself, as some point in time. 

Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics "the dismal science" in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery.

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I'm lucky that my Second Trinity well is about two hundred feet from the Brazos river. It is 579 feet deep and has over 150 feet of water in it. I've always had it in the back of my mind that it could be a gold mine one day. It's good enough to bottle straight out of the pump.

CHIEF

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22 hours ago, wild_turkey said:


Half-measures are better than zero measures.

One person firing a BB at a tank won’t do anything. The internet tells me a metal BB has a mass of about 0.35 grams and an M1 Abrams tank is about 65,000 kg. If all 332 million people in the U.S. fired a BB at the tank at the same time, it would be a collective total mass of 116,000 kg striking the 65,000 kg tank.

There’s a quote to the effect of “We don’t need a few people to do this perfectly, we need everyone to do it imperfectly.”

Meh.  Only about 40% of the people would show up, if that many.  Then half of those would fire in the opposite direction.

Tank still wins.

The notion of all Americans aligning 100% on something is more preposterous than saving the planet with cars running on  magical batteries  that are delivered  from the earth fairies because of recycling offerings.

and none of this even factoring in the vast majority of the world's population who pretty much contribute to put more armor on the tank while we fire our bb guns.

This thread is basically a bunch of folks patting themselves on the back for drinking a diet coke while eating 7k calories a day.  "See.  We cut back a little..."   I'm just saying people aren't serious about making a real difference.  Then some of them even want to make me drink diet coke( use a 3 handed gas can) to support their futile struggle.  It's laughably insane.

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29 minutes ago, slorch said:

Meh.  Only about 40% of the people would show up, if that many.  Then half of those would fire in the opposite direction.

Tank still wins.

The notion of all Americans aligning 100% on something is more preposterous than saving the planet with cars running on  magical batteries  that are delivered  from the earth fairies because of recycling offerings.

and none of this even factoring in the vast majority of the world's population who pretty much contribute to put more armor on the tank while we fire our bb guns.

This thread is basically a bunch of folks patting themselves on the back for drinking a diet coke while eating 7k calories a day.  "See.  We cut back a little..."   I'm just saying people aren't serious about making a real difference.  Then some of them even want to make me drink diet coke( use a 3 handed gas can) to support their futile struggle.  It's laughably insane.

The “why bother” crowd is always interesting in these discussions. Of course we’re all doomed, but incremental improvement/change still makes some measure of difference. It’s too late to turn the faucet off, but I’m not sure that means that everyone should just say fuck it. There is some aspect of virtue signaling involved in there as well, but that still requires some amount of positive movement.

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The “why bother” crowd is always interesting in these discussions. Of course we’re all doomed, but incremental improvement/change still makes some measure of difference. It’s too late to turn the faucet off, but I’m not sure that means that everyone should just say fuck it. There is some aspect of virtue signaling involved in there as well, but that still requires some amount of positive movement.

There’s an importance in continuing to make it a goal and an ongoing practice of doing so. It creates momentum and interest that will eventually drive the breakthroughs that WILL make a massive difference.
Metaphorically, incremental steps mean you’re moving. Eventually, those steps get you to a place where you can hop in a vehicle and really cover some ground. We’ve seen many great leaps forward in the past. We need to reach some new ones.
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I don't believe any post said that any technique would solve the problem 100%. It is obvious that it will be incremental, and no one can know if it is too late regardless of the efforts. However, efforts...moving forward..."doing better" is what sets us apart from the apes. To be human is to try to move forward. Fail. Get up and dust off. Try again. You know, "The Man in the Arena". 

Edited by Not that Bob
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23 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

The best one I built incorporated a rabbit hutch on the side so when they shit it would run down into the main compost. The key, and I have made tons, is make sure you don't over do one type of product. 

A simple way is Hog fence, three feet tall, connect to three T Posts so it gets air on all sides. You can make it as big as you want but I would not go over a 4 foot diameter. 

@troph if you live near the lake get some of the damn water weeds everyone bitches about. Great additive with the micronutrients. 

 

Not following you on the water weeds? 

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21 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics "the dismal science" in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery.

Tommy C

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On 11/9/2023 at 2:37 PM, Frank Drebin said:

I piss in the backyard to save water.  I feel like I'm doing my part.

 

i also piss in the backyard. But not to save water, rather because it is awesome, true freedom.

 

Pissing outside on a cold winter night while looking up at the stars is sublime.

 

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18 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

i also piss in the backyard. But not to save water, rather because it is awesome, true freedom.

 

Pissing outside on a cold winter night while looking up at the stars is sublime.

 

User name etcetera etcetera

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On 11/9/2023 at 11:41 AM, FirstTimeCaller said:

Question for anyone that knows anything about batteries... why don't they last forever? What's the process whereby a battery holds less of a charge over time? Are they able to be renewed?

When a battery is charged or discharged, ions such as Li+ need to flow through the battery from one electrode to the other to counterbalance each electron that flows through the circuit. This is a significant amount of mass transfer that needs to be fully reversible, which is a huge ask. Basically during use, one electrode is corroding away and new material is depositing at the other end. In order for this to be reversible, the ions have to be dislodged from their new location and find their way back to where they were before. Each atom takes up space, and the materials need to accommodate atoms moving in and out repeatedly. An ideal electrode works like a sponge soaking up ions during one direction of operation and releasing them in the other. That is a huge ask.

Each electrode has a preferred state, either with or w/o ions, and will be less stable in the other state. During the less stable phase, the material will be prone to irreversible changes that reduce the overall capacity to accept ions. Maybe the material will change its bonding and lose its flexibility to accommodate the volume changes of ions moving in and out. Other times, it will find something else to react with. Most often, the metal oxide cathode is the weak point and responsible for the lifetime of most rechargeable batteries.

 

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On 11/10/2023 at 12:54 AM, PTINS said:

Global Warming:  8 billion people at 98.6 °F, approximately 30 ° warmer than the ambient temperature, generate a lot of heat, which warms the atmosphere. If everybody would simply hold their breath for 4 minutes, the problem would go away.

On 11/10/2023 at 9:06 AM, PTINS said:

We eat organic compounds, carbo-hydrates, yet scorn the use of oil and gas, hydro-carbons. Different slice of the same pie.

Quote

Society in General: Entropy is a scientific concept that matter and energy in the universe will degrade to an ultimate state of inert disorder.   I believe that is where we are heading.

 

steve-buscemi-fuck-all-that.gif

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One (of several) problems I see with wind turbines is that once they wear out in 25-30 years, the operators will declare bankruptcy unless they receive free federal money to replace/refurbish them.

I won’t take the sustainability movement seriously until they embrace new nuclear power technologies. And I’m a guy who has recycled seriously for 35 years, composts everything I can, practices “almost” 100% organic lawn care and gardening, and only bathes weekly. 

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