Nothing really matters until we stop pulling carbon-based fuels out of the ground and lighting them on fire.
I say it all the time. The only possible way to keep carbon from outside the carbon cycle from entering the carbon cycle is to stop taking carbon from outside the carbon cycle and putting it into the carbon cycle. No amount of coal plant filtration or growing trees or building wind farms will take carbon from inside the carbon cycle out of the carbon cycle.
400 ppm is too much, and the mechanisms for putting that carbon in the ground is gone and never coming back. The best we can possibly do is stop making it worse, and we won’t, because everyone wants to have a whole chicken in their fridge that’ll end up rotting because the availability of goods, whether we’ll actually consume them or not, is the most important thing in the world.
…but on the chicken part. Do people really routinely overstock on perishable items? Like, you can misjudge, but if you keep throwing food out because it’s gone bad, surely you’d adjust your purchasing habits?
You would think, but yes, a lot of people really do routinely buy more perishables than they need.
I owe my perspective on it to this essay. It doesn’t talk about money wasted when food goes bad, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I read it—I didn’t just pay $1.86 for those green onions, it also cost me $1.86 worth of green onions when I threw them away.
People don’t even notice how much money they waste on food they never ate because once that 2 lbs of bacon is in their fridge, they no longer assign a dollar value to it. When that bacon goes bad without even being opened, they didn’t lose $10, they lost 2 lbs of bacon, and the thought that enters their head is “I should get more bacon”
I say it all the time. The only possible way to keep carbon from outside the carbon cycle from entering the carbon cycle is to stop taking carbon from outside the carbon cycle and putting it into the carbon cycle. No amount of coal plant filtration or growing trees or building wind farms will take carbon from inside the carbon cycle out of the carbon cycle.
400 ppm is too much, and the mechanisms for putting that carbon in the ground is gone and never coming back. The best we can possibly do is stop making it worse, and we won’t, because everyone wants to have a whole chicken in their fridge that’ll end up rotting because the availability of goods, whether we’ll actually consume them or not, is the most important thing in the world.
renewables does replace carbon cycle addition energy. We need energy. We don’t need nationalist or national oligarch energy.
You’re not wrong.
…but on the chicken part. Do people really routinely overstock on perishable items? Like, you can misjudge, but if you keep throwing food out because it’s gone bad, surely you’d adjust your purchasing habits?
You would think, but yes, a lot of people really do routinely buy more perishables than they need.
I owe my perspective on it to this essay. It doesn’t talk about money wasted when food goes bad, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I read it—I didn’t just pay $1.86 for those green onions, it also cost me $1.86 worth of green onions when I threw them away.
People don’t even notice how much money they waste on food they never ate because once that 2 lbs of bacon is in their fridge, they no longer assign a dollar value to it. When that bacon goes bad without even being opened, they didn’t lose $10, they lost 2 lbs of bacon, and the thought that enters their head is “I should get more bacon”