The Climate thread

[RomaVicta 29784]

3 hours ago, mdmost said:

Everything's great. We're doing great. We're so f'ed.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2023/07/12/1187045050/fresh-air-for-july-12-2023-the-earths-deadly-new-climate-regime?showDate=2023-07-12

That's were I got my little fact. Thanks for posting a link.

[Biff Tannen 45494]

5 hours ago, mdmost said:

Everything's great. We're doing great. We're so f'ed.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2023/07/12/1187045050/fresh-air-for-july-12-2023-the-earths-deadly-new-climate-regime?showDate=2023-07-12

A couple of excerpts:

Quote

And we know, you know, as - with as much certainty as we understand gravity, that when we burn fossil fuels and put CO2 into the atmosphere, it heats things up. But how fast that happens, what the actual kind of cascading effects of that will be are still very, very unclear. And so the big idea here is that we are not going back to where we were, no matter what we do. We are moving into a different world, and we need to grasp that idea.

Quote

 if you tried to quantify how much heat that is absorbed by the oceans every day just from our warming planet, it's the equivalent of three nuclear bombs every second. I mean, it's hard to bend your mind around that, but it's true.

Quote

I went to Antarctica to look at enormous glacier there called Thwaites Glacier, which is often described as the sort of cork in the whole - in the wine bottle of the whole West Antarctic ice sheet, which, if it melted, would raise sea levels about 10 feet, which - 10 feet of sea level rise is catastrophic for virtually every coastal city in the world. And for a long time, scientists thought there was nothing going on there in Antarctica

Quote

And then scientists started to understand that as the ocean changed temperature by just one degree or so, where the bottom of the glaciers meet the ocean, that change in temperature allowed this warming water to get underneath these glaciers. And as it gets underneath these glaciers, it starts to melt them from below. And as it melts from below, they begin to fracture. And the possibility that they will kind of essentially fall apart like a big tumble of ice cubes and fall into the southern ocean very quickly has arisen. And that would rapidly escalate sea level rise. That would have enormous implications. And I went down there on a ship with some scientists to look into this. And the short version of it is we found out that, yes, this is happening.

Good times.  

[mdmost 42864]

What scares me the most in all this is that we just have a huge fraction of society that does not want to do a single thing to reverse or slow this down. In the 1970s to 1980s, scientists warned people about the hole in the ozone layer and if it kept increasing just how dangerous that would become for all life on this planet. They narrowed down that CFCs were causing this so we got together as a planet and banned or reduced these CFCs in a whole host of industries. And since we did that, the ozone layer improved. I'm simplifying this of course but it's the general outline of what transpired.

If that same issue came up today, there is no doubt that we'd have outrage merchants telling us that this was a conspiracy and one side of the aisle would be scoffing at the idea of any industry in America needing to take the financial hit to improve the planet. We have so much more access to data now but we're so much more fractured and incapable of action. I'm sure we had skeptics back then but a lot of nations got together to make changes to do what was necessary. We don't seem capable of doing that any longer because it's "political" to ask people to conserve now. 

That Fresh Air show pretty much states that we just need to get ready for this because the heat is increasing and we seem incapable of doing what's needed to slow it down. 

[pyrohornIII 4809]

In the past decade land around Gregory Texas has become very popular for industrial development.  Having been arable land for cotton, corn and sorghum for over a century, it is now valued for its elevation compared to the land currently used for industry in Corpus Christi and the surrounding area.  That land sits on a bluff that's 25 to 30 feet higher.   Huge chunks are being sold off to corporations like Exxon and others at exorbitant prices.  

A good friend of mine who lives in the area says it's because these corporations know the sea levels are going to rise, and they want what will eventually be waterside wharfage.  

They know it and are prepping for us while funding studies that say it's not happening.  And they'll just build more plants that will exacerbate the problem instead of helping it.  And the good folks of San Pat county will continue to talk about Trump saving 'Murica from the deep state.  

[Neonmoon 38127]

It’s going to continue getting worse and the dumbs will continue to deny it. They will keep saying “it’s hot in Texas in the summer you pussies”. It all depends when each person individually has had enough. Some will eventually tire of living indoors for 3 months of the year because it’s 105+ everyday. Then they will move. This will continue as a trickle for decades. Eventually when it’s 120+ in the summer every day, even some of the holdouts will think, maybe it is real, but doubt it. 

[Nivek 16859]

Don't look up.  Don't trust those thermometer lies.  It's cold outside in Houston.  

Edited July 14, 2023 by Nivek

[hookem2010 2600]

It's kind of cool to be one of the generations that gets to experience the beginning of the end of a 300,000-year story though, right? Right?!?

The warming itself may not directly kill (most of) us immediately, but I'm sure we're going to be real chill about food/water scarcity, climate refugees, etc.

[troph 24562]

2 hours ago, mdmost said:

What scares me the most in all this is that we just have a huge fraction of society that does not want to do a single thing to reverse or slow this down. In the 1970s to 1980s, scientists warned people about the hole in the ozone layer and if it kept increasing just how dangerous that would become for all life on this planet. They narrowed down that CFCs were causing this so we got together as a planet and banned or reduced these CFCs in a whole host of industries. And since we did that, the ozone layer improved. I'm simplifying this of course but it's the general outline of what transpired.

If that same issue came up today, there is no doubt that we'd have outrage merchants telling us that this was a conspiracy and one side of the aisle would be scoffing at the idea of any industry in America needing to take the financial hit to improve the planet. We have so much more access to data now but we're so much more fractured and incapable of action. I'm sure we had skeptics back then but a lot of nations got together to make changes to do what was necessary. We don't seem capable of doing that any longer because it's "political" to ask people to conserve now. 

That Fresh Air show pretty much states that we just need to get ready for this because the heat is increasing and we seem incapable of doing what's needed to slow it down. 

I’ve thought about our ozone success many times in relation to climate change and I can only hope that even though we are fucked for now that we will start waking up and doing something about it. Dumb hope I know.

[jimmyjazz 45557]

I'm new to this thread, or at least haven't read it in awhile.

I just had a little argument with a former HS classmate who spouted the "manmade climate change is a complete hoax" angle.  His proof was that sea level at Plymouth Rock has been constant for 4 centuries.  I immediately smelled a rat, looked it up, and sure enough it's a far right conspiracy theory.  It takes another click to find the truth, which is that Plymouth Rock has actually MOVED over the years, and has even been moved, but beyond that, the truth that feet of tidal change swamps inches of sea level rise can make it trivially easy to produce photographic "proof" that the sea level is the same now as it was centuries ago.

I won't get into the "NASA is all in on Muslim advocacy" argument trying to refute satellite data showing some 8 inches of sea level rise over the past 120 years or so.  I only have so much patience.  Stupid burns.

[elfenix 34171]

CFCs didn't have more money than god*## which allowed a 35 year disinformation campaign to be waged brainwashing the most gullible segment of society into thinking that the only way to be an american is using CFCs and anything else is some sort of socialist plot

 

 

 

 

*and 75 years of practice even before that doing basically the same thing

## and the manufacturers had other lucrative lines of business

Edited July 14, 2023 by elfenix

[pyrohornIII 4809]

It didn't hurt that DuPont's patent on R-12 was expiring about the time that R-12 was labeled the worst CFC villain.  Usher in 134-A.  

[Biff Tannen 45494]

On 7/13/2023 at 10:46 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I'm new to this thread, or at least haven't read it in awhile.

I just had a little argument with a former HS classmate who spouted the "manmade climate change is a complete hoax" angle.  His proof was that sea level at Plymouth Rock has been constant for 4 centuries.  I immediately smelled a rat, looked it up, and sure enough it's a far right conspiracy theory.  It takes another click to find the truth, which is that Plymouth Rock has actually MOVED over the years, and has even been moved, but beyond that, the truth that feet of tidal change swamps inches of sea level rise can make it trivially easy to produce photographic "proof" that the sea level is the same now as it was centuries ago.

I won't get into the "NASA is all in on Muslim advocacy" argument trying to refute satellite data showing some 8 inches of sea level rise over the past 120 years or so.  I only have so much patience.  Stupid burns.

Dude, you have way more patience than me.  I will not have this argument with people anymore.  If you don't believe that we are changing the climate, you are being willfully ignorant and/or conspiratorial.  It is a waste of time to engage. 

You may as well be arguing whether or not the sky is blue.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Biff Tannen

[Mdhorn 5911]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Dude, you have way more patience than me.  I will not have this argument with people anymore.  If you don't believe that we are changing the climate, you are being willfully ignorant and/or conspiratorial.  It is a waste of time to engage. 

You may as well be arguing whether or not the sky is blue.

Same stance applies to anti-vaxers. 

[4th&Five 41460]

12 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm new to this thread, or at least haven't read it in awhile.

I just had a little argument with a former HS classmate who spouted the "manmade climate change is a complete hoax" angle.  His proof was that sea level at Plymouth Rock has been constant for 4 centuries.  I immediately smelled a rat, looked it up, and sure enough it's a far right conspiracy theory.  It takes another click to find the truth, which is that Plymouth Rock has actually MOVED over the years, and has even been moved, but beyond that, the truth that feet of tidal change swamps inches of sea level rise can make it trivially easy to produce photographic "proof" that the sea level is the same now as it was centuries ago.

I won't get into the "NASA is all in on Muslim advocacy" argument trying to refute satellite data showing some 8 inches of sea level rise over the past 120 years or so.  I only have so much patience.  Stupid burns.

I'm surprised these folks haven't moved from "it's a hoax" to "there's nothing we can do to stop it now anyway."

[YChang 3430]

Even if you don’t believe it’s man made… it’s just so selfish to not think about how to preserve and heal the environment that we all live in. 

[bolverk 29399]

Apologies for cross-posting myself from the DeSantis thread, but this should go here.

 

The sad fact is that during the late 1990s, there wasn't much of a gap between Republicans and Democrats on climate change. Now, fewer Republicans than ever recognize that it's happening and is a threat and that humans are to blame.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/343025/global-warming-attitudes-frozen-2016.aspx

 

Just imagine what could've been accomplished.

 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

2 hours ago, YChang said:

Even if you don’t believe it’s man made… it’s just so selfish to not think about how to preserve and heal the environment that we all live in. 

This.  I've never understood the "fuck the environment" mentality.  Why would you not want to recycle and not breathe exhaust fumes and not throw trash everywhere?  It's always been bizarre to me.

[Willfully Horn 7913]

IF we are going to make progress trapping Carbon, we will need to plant. And reclaim desertified lands.

It will be helpful that new growth traps more carbon than old growth, and that reclaiming land starts with grasses, which feed animals folks spend money to consume.

 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

which feed animals folks spend money to consume.

Americans especially will not give up eating beef or pork.  If we could cut beef and pork consumption, it would go a long way in this fight, but it just will not happen.

[RomaVicta 29784]

Hamburgers, Mandrake? Wholesome American hamburgers? How does that fit in with your post Reagan liberal conspiracy?

[Huckleberry 32701]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Americans especially will not give up eating beef or pork.  If we could cut beef and pork consumption, it would go a long way in this fight, but it just will not happen.

A significant percentage of beef and pork will be grown in labs within 50 years. 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Americans especially will not give up eating beef or pork.  If we could cut beef and pork consumption, it would go a long way in this fight, but it just will not happen.

Just wait until foodies discover cabrito burgers.

Edited to say that, because I could, I watched season one, episode one, of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and the very first place featured in that show was a shack in Tarpley, TX, that served cabrito burgers.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Willfully Horn
Csb

[Biff Tannen 45494]

1 hour ago, Huckleberry said:

A significant percentage of beef and pork will be grown in labs within 50 years. 

The beef and pork councils (read: lobbyists) may have something to say about that.  Not to mention ranchers.

[Nivek 16859]

The modern business practice of cheap goods/labor from across the seas is a major contributor as well.  Those ocean-going vessels are major polluters. 

[troph 24562]

https://www.facebook.com/natebargatze/videos/197086245294900/?app=fbl
 

y’all seen this? It’s pretty funny. I’m glad a guy like this is talking about it.

[Biff Tannen 45494]

3 hours ago, troph said:

https://www.facebook.com/natebargatze/videos/197086245294900/?app=fbl
 

y’all seen this? It’s pretty funny. I’m glad a guy like this is talking about it.

I’ve seen Nate bargatze, but I refuse to click on a Facebook link

[Neonmoon 38127]

14 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

The beef and pork councils (read: lobbyists) may have something to say about that.  Not to mention ranchers.

When lab grown costs come down, no one will give a shit what they say. 

[WhatTheBuck 28711]

17 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

grasses, which feed animals folks spend money to consume.

Not much. Most of the animals we consume are fed with corn and soy products, including animals that evolved to live on a diet of grass. Sometimes their feed contains the processed remains of their dead relatives. We feed them food their bodies weren’t designed to eat so they tend to get sick. So we feed them antibiotics. 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

19 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Not much. Most of the animals we consume are fed with corn and soy products, including animals that evolved to live on a diet of grass. Sometimes their feed contains the processed remains of their dead relatives. We feed them food their bodies weren’t designed to eat so they tend to get sick. So we feed them antibiotics. 

And then that bacteria becomes resistant and we get superbugs. Yes, I think it’s a fine idea. 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

6 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Not much. Most of the animals we consume are fed with corn and soy products, including animals that evolved to live on a diet of grass. Sometimes their feed contains the processed remains of their dead relatives. We feed them food their bodies weren’t designed to eat so they tend to get sick. So we feed them antibiotics. 

If we want to reclaim grassland from the desert, and we should want to do that, we will need new business models, ones that wring whatever assets possible from the endeavor. I’d prefer not to have that message morphed into a defense of the meat industry. Thanks.

[WhatTheBuck 28711]

2 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

If we want to reclaim grassland from the desert, and we should want to do that, we will need new business models, ones that wring whatever assets possible from the endeavor. I’d prefer not to have that message morphed into a defense of the meat industry. Thanks.

I’m not defending anything. Just pointing out that for most of the meat we eat in this country, and the milk we drink, grass doesn’t play a significant role in the food chain.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20344]

59 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I’m not defending anything. Just pointing out that for most of the meat we eat in this country, and the milk we drink, grass doesn’t play a significant role in the food chain.

You realize that all cattle graze in grass pastures, right?  Finishing them in feedlots only takes up the last 4-6 months of their lives, usually. 

 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

2 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

You realize that all cattle graze in grass pastures, right?  Finishing them in feedlots only takes up the last 4-6 months of their lives, usually. 

 

Uh.  You sure?

[Doc Sam Beckett 5784]

What's odd to me, is it seems like the people most concerned about climate change don't even have kids. It's anecdotal and your mileage may vary, but it really seems like the people I know who actually care, shouldn't care as much as the ones who are leaving behind offspring....you have kids, you should fucking care more than me about the fucking environment 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

1 hour ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

What's odd to me, is it seems like the people most concerned about climate change don't even have kids. It's anecdotal and your mileage may vary, but it really seems like the people I know who actually care, shouldn't care as much as the ones who are leaving behind offspring....you have kids, you should fucking care more than me about the fucking environment 

Yep.  No kids here.

[RomaVicta 29784]

11 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

What's odd to me, is it seems like the people most concerned about climate change don't even have kids. It's anecdotal and your mileage may vary, but it really seems like the people I know who actually care, shouldn't care as much as the ones who are leaving behind offspring....you have kids, you should fucking care more than me about the fucking environment 

That is very interesting, indeed. 

We watch a great many home remodeling shows and another show (excellent, actually) on Peacock called Escape to the Chateau. In the former, it's all about family space, family visiting, and entertaining where you can throw in friends. In the latter, most of the people who've bought old, largely decrepit are restoring them to be wedding venues and BnBs.

Watching both types, I have to contain my impatience with the tiresome focus on family or having a wedding be the crowning event in a person's life. The one is the gateway to the other. Hooray, we're meeting our most basic instinctive desire as vectors for DNA! Once the kids come, they become the focus of these little worlds where the inhabitants often gleefully disengage from any larger world except for cursory attention.

I'm overly harsh? I'm not so sure when it comes to broader views. I think the actual demands on parents, the powerful love for their children, and a culture of wanting to escape and/or be entertained all the time creates a vortex that takes some effort to escape even if you're mildly inclined to try.

Advertising and movie plots rely on family pull, so they appeal to that and magnify its omni-importance. I cringe in disgust imagining story meetings at studios where an executive must inevitably take any plot, say a dirty bomb has been placed on a middle floor of the new WTC requiring our protagonist to lead the way to a solution, and say, "I think we need to make this more personal! Maybe, the protag's daughter is on a field trip on the top floor? Huh? Then she calls the protag in terror. The protag then says he/she will get her home safe. She's doubtful, but the protag says, 'I promise.' " 

Yes! Genius! The audience won't care about some other character not in the family at risk. Who really gave a shit about Sandra Bullock in Speed or any of the crew in Alien? They weren't family!

So we undistracted rogues with dead-end DNA (how the world will lament no direct descendants of RomaVicta!) seem to pay more attention as a group and give more of a shit. 

Some will answer with anecdotes of how they care and have families at the same time. In fact, they would do anything for little Bill and Courtney! Certainly true. But look at the sea of gas guzzlers on their way to work every morning. See the hordes of families gathered in churches to reinforce their disbelief and denial of reality. Watch us drown or starve or suffer as warming seas rise and amber waves go dry and yellow far from the shore.

The humans will be huddled with their families wondering how they can have weddings and more children. DNA will not be denied. It doesn't care, so why should anybody else?

[jimmyjazz 45557]

If there is any correlation between parenthood and climate change skepticism, I would surmise it's more about age than it is family status.  I highly doubt the left and the right have significantly different breeding characteristics, but there is certainly more support for the theory of man-made climate change on the left.

What I suspect is happening is that young people in general are more comfortable with the idea, in part because it isn't challenging a previously held point of view.  Humans are notoriously resistant to change.  Young Americans naturally have fewer kids, so the anecdote may seem significant, but I doubt there's really any "there" there.

[hookem2010 2600]

As a parent of one child, my concern for the climate and environment has not waned. However, perhaps my action has, hopefully temporarily, decreased. 

Prior to the baby, I had quit a job in medicine to pursue a career in natural resources to at least feel like I was attempting to make a difference. This got put on hold in order to care for our child, and my remaining free time is not usually spent working/volunteering outdoors, calling reps (lol, it's Texas), etc. 

Once the little one (or two, my max), are fully into daycare/school, I hope to make my way back into that sphere, whether it be on an employed or volunteer basis. 

So I think having young kids especially can shift priorities inward for a time. I hope in my case this is short-lived, and perhaps allows me some time to zero in on the most productive/efficient way to be actionable on climate, while being present and a positive example for my child.

It would really help if local/state/federal governments put more of a priority on this shit. It may be a great opportunity to break into the job market for a lot of careers, but it's pretty fucking difficult to do so for something that actually matters.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20344]

World's largest cruise ship, Icon of the Seas, is undergoing sea trials right now.  If there is a climate crisis there's nothing we can do so we might as well go on a cruise!

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

Could be that climate crisis was baked in to people’s choice to not have kids.   I would think anyone coming of age after gen x would have it as part of their consciousness. 

[bolverk 29399]

5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Could be that climate crisis was baked in to people’s choice to not have kids.   I would think anyone coming of age after gen x would have it as part of their consciousness. 

My daughter's 23, and she told me it's a conversation she's had with her friends. She says she'd like to have a kid someday, but just one. Others in her circle have told her they're not interested in bringing any into this world.

[Gap03 3285]

25 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

World's largest cruise ship, Icon of the Seas, is undergoing sea trials right now.  If there is a climate crisis there's nothing we can do so we might as well go on a cruise!

That MFer is going to make one helluva artificial reef when a Cat 5+ takes it down within 5 years of being put into service ...

[WhatTheBuck 28711]

21 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

You realize that all cattle graze in grass pastures, right?  Finishing them in feedlots only takes up the last 4-6 months of their lives, usually. 

For an animal with a lifespan of about a year-and-a-half, six months is a third of their life, when they’re consuming the bulk of their feed. And that’s just cattle raised for slaughter. Dairy cows get the bulk of their calories from feeds other than grass. And chickens raised on small family farms will eat grass if it’s available but grass is non-existent in the diets of chickens raised on factory farms.

The transition from small family farms to large scale industrial agri-business has involved a significant removal of grass from the food chain in the meat we eat and the milk we drink. I grew up in Amish country where the farms look a lot like the ones that appear on the packaging we see in the grocery stores while the contents of those packages were produced in a setting completely foreign to what’s depicted on the label.

This is kind of interesting. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes a visit to an industrial organic chicken farm. In each shed, nearly the length of a football field, they raise 20,000 chickens. There are doors leading to a small patch of grass outside that runs the length of the shed. But the chickens only live for seven weeks and those doors are closed for the first five. The chickens are conditioned to feed and water in the shed and never venture outdoors during the last two weeks of their lives. But since USDA regulations only require that they have “access to the outdoors,” they can be sold as free-range chickens despite the fact that they’ve never even stepped on a blade of grass. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8881]

7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

If there is any correlation between parenthood and climate change skepticism, I would surmise it's more about age than it is family status.  I highly doubt the left and the right have significantly different breeding characteristics, but there is certainly more support for the theory of man-made climate change on the left.

What I suspect is happening is that young people in general are more comfortable with the idea, in part because it isn't challenging a previously held point of view.  Humans are notoriously resistant to change.  Young Americans naturally have fewer kids, so the anecdote may seem significant, but I doubt there's really any "there" there.

I don't know about that. Birth rates in urban areas (read "godless liberals") is usually lower than rural areas (read "real America"). But I have no idea if more kids=cares about the future of the environment.

[RomaVicta 29784]

7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I highly doubt the left and the right have significantly different breeding characteristics, but there is certainly more support for the theory of man-made climate change on the left.

A lot of interesting thoughts follow my post.

jimmyjazz, I was really addressing the lack of action and push for action. I made have been unclear because I follow a post about concern over the problem. Even the people that care about this don't mobilize in the face of incontravertible evidence of what is to come. Not all of them are stupid.

They're just preoccupied and focused on the little world around them that has always been a certain way and will always remain a certain way. It is difficult to imagine the world as it may become and what it will mean to the little world they believe they can sustain. 

I wish I could afford an electric car, but I can't. I do plan to get a vehicle that gets more than double the mileage of our primary vehicle, an old Lexus SUV. That will go some way towards doing my part to halve carbon output within 7 years. That kind of move would seem to be within the grasp of a great many people, but you don't see huge family SUVs decreasing in number either on the roads or in TV commercials.

Our culture is not designed to face disagreeable circumstances. We take out huge loans to buy vehicles that poison the air and heat our world. Few have the will to face hard truth will decisive action that calls for sacrifices. You'll lose votes to the panderers who are owned by the auto industry. 

It's a vortex that I don't see being escaped. A new, terrible world will force itself upon humanity before anybody adapts. Averting catastrophe isn't on the agenda.

[RomaVicta 29784]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

For an animal with a lifespan of about a year-and-a-half, six months is a third of their life, when they’re consuming the bulk of their feed. And that’s just cattle raised for slaughter. Dairy cows get the bulk of their calories from feeds other than grass. And chickens raised on small family farms will eat grass if it’s available but grass is non-existent in the diets of chickens raised on factory farms.

The transition from small family farms to large scale industrial agri-business has involved a significant removal of grass from the food chain in the meat we eat and the milk we drink. I grew up in Amish country where the farms look a lot like the ones that appear on the packaging we see in the grocery stores while the contents of those packages were produced in a setting completely foreign to what’s depicted on the label.

This is kind of interesting. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes a visit to an industrial organic chicken farm. In each shed, nearly the length of a football field, they raise 20,000 chickens. There are doors leading to a small patch of grass outside that runs the length of the shed. But the chickens only live for seven weeks and those doors are closed for the first five. The chickens are conditioned to feed and water in the shed and never venture outdoors during the last two weeks of their lives. But since USDA regulations only require that they have “access to the outdoors,” they can be sold as free-range chickens despite the fact that they’ve never even stepped on a blade of grass. 

Automakers used to have to meet fleet fuel economy standards and prominently display MPG in ads and on the sticker. Trucks fell outside of the fleet requirement because they were considered work vehicles. They were then marketed as personal vehicles and made into luxury vehicles. I think, but I'm not sure, that SUVs also fell outside of the fleet fuel economy standards for the same reason.

I don't even know if there are fuel efficiency requirements anymore. We'll see if we can follow California's lead on vehicle reform. Maybe there will be some mitigational value to it. I'm sure Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP will follow suit for the good of the country. 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

For an animal with a lifespan of about a year-and-a-half, six months is a third of their life, when they’re consuming the bulk of their feed. And that’s just cattle raised for slaughter. Dairy cows get the bulk of their calories from feeds other than grass. And chickens raised on small family farms will eat grass if it’s available but grass is non-existent in the diets of chickens raised on factory farms.

The transition from small family farms to large scale industrial agri-business has involved a significant removal of grass from the food chain in the meat we eat and the milk we drink. I grew up in Amish country where the farms look a lot like the ones that appear on the packaging we see in the grocery stores while the contents of those packages were produced in a setting completely foreign to what’s depicted on the label.

This is kind of interesting. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes a visit to an industrial organic chicken farm. In each shed, nearly the length of a football field, they raise 20,000 chickens. There are doors leading to a small patch of grass outside that runs the length of the shed. But the chickens only live for seven weeks and those doors are closed for the first five. The chickens are conditioned to feed and water in the shed and never venture outdoors during the last two weeks of their lives. But since USDA regulations only require that they have “access to the outdoors,” they can be sold as free-range chickens despite the fact that they’ve never even stepped on a blade of grass. 

Let's also talk about how the land just isn't made to support this many cows.  This is just basic science shit.  Just because we figured out how to domesticate animals, doesn't mean the land is able to handle that much.  The water, the chemicals, the corn (which introduces a whole other land issue), the ANIMAL WASTE (methane, runoff, ect).  I mean, there are so many things that no one thinks about.

Nope, as long as we have the red things under plastic wrap in EVERY GROCERY STORE IN AMERICA.  Welp.  All good right?

 

ETA: Yes, this worked for a few decades.  Because we didn't have NEARLY as many humans.  In 1960, we had 179 million people.  Probably still too many, but that was also about the time the processed food world started to hit its stride.  Now multiply that by pretty much double.  It ain't good.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Biff Tannen
and none of this includes exports

[elfenix 34171]

1 hour ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

I don't know about that. Birth rates in urban areas (read "godless liberals") is usually lower than rural areas (read "real America"). But I have no idea if more kids=cares about the future of the environment.

[Biff Tannen 45494]

Dammit, I knew that was going to come up eventually.  Fucking Mike Judge.

Anyway, I do have a question for the boomers and gen xers, I guess.  I was born in 1982.  The Cold War was a vague thing for me growing up.  I ended up learning all about it, but never had this fear of nuclear annihilation that so many older people have.  I have a coworker who is only 15 years older than me that brings up the nuclear scenario daily.  He thinks it's about to be Red Dawn all the time.

Is this purely based on how you all grew up?  Was it just nuclear this, nuclear that, every day?

 

I understand if it was, but just trying to get a decent grasp on the hysteria.

[Willfully Horn 7913]

Gen X here who doesn’t remember duck and cover drills, and who views nuclear war as a remote possibility.  But, I hold on to hope that people on this planet will face climate change, and have success when we do.