Jeff McFadden Profile picture
Sep 12, 2021 13 tweets 5 min read Read on X
I'm going to run through screenshots of a conversation I just had with a highly paid climate professional.
He started with the normal climate tweet: "Take action now."
So I asked my usual annoying question. What action?
2. As usual, his response was not what I define as "action", but was, rather, a statement of end point goals.
You can see that he knew I wasn't going to be impressed.
Who on Earth could dispute "phase out GHG emissions?"
I had asked for "how" but he didn't want to discuss that.
3. So. What was my reply?
I still wanted him to name actions. Things people could do, as averse to words to say.
What is an action which furthers this goal? What comes next? Step 1, step 2, first you get the... Nah. We don't do that in the developed world.
4. No sweat. We've got a canned set of plans all laid out, like we have for the past 40 years. No sweat.
5. OK, now we're making progress.
Price on carbon is an action. Or anyway, "Pass legislation to apply a price on carbon in all global economies" would be an action.
I don't see it happening, but at least it's a specific action.
"GHG-free power" is not an action, it's a dream.
6. For instance, we've been building "GHG-free power" for two decades, the outcome of which has been a drastic increase in fossil fuel use and emissions. And it's all publicly documented.
7. Here is another record of recent "GHG-free power" in the current economy.
But back to our conversation.
Anyway - he asked me for my solution, so I told him. He ignored it, as do almost all publicly respectable climate professionals.
9. I went on to address his list.
He said "GHG-free veh" as an action.
That's a noun.
Presumably the action is, "Build, sell, and implement the infrastructure for..." so I addressed that.
This is considered poor form. Magic makes them, STFU.
10. As it happens I had recently addressed the "GHG-free veh" issue recently as well.
These are assumed to be powered by electricity.
OK, where does the electricity come from?
As it happens, Lawrence Livermore National Lab recently told us.
11. When in doubt, accuse the other of nefarious motives. "You sound like a fossil fuel mole..."
He doesn't care what I think. Magic will do it all, all we need is nouns, no verbs necessary.
12. The entire plan is to increase energy throughput, energy demand, and fossil fuel use, drastically, today, because if we increase it fast enough, long enough, we'll reach zero. I don't believe it, and nobody offers a convincing case for it either.
PS. When all else fails, unzip your trousers, pull out your PhD, and wave it around.
There can be no defense.

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More from @JeffAndDonkeys

Oct 11
When I post about my intention to vote for Vice President Harris for President this election, I get one of 3 basic packaged responses.
1: Don't you care about genocide?
2: Good work, so am I, For The Climate!
3: How can you support a Big Party Professional Politician candidate?
2. Yes, I care about genocide.
There is no remotely electable candidate who will do jack shit about it.
I regret that. Deeply.
I feel that we are currently supporting the most brutal, aggressive, murderous regime and nation, except maybe Russia, in the developed world. Israel.
3. This week I have had people try to convince me that Don Old Trump is a "peace" candidate.
Har har.
Don Old Trump is a puppet candidate. If Putin wants us to stop supporting Israel Tmurp might, but that's no reason to elect him.
We'll be killing somebody. We always do. NMF.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 5
So, on the one hand we've got this.
On the other hand we have demands to fix the roads.
Which takes, regardless of what somebody may have told you, lots of time, lots of fossil fuels, and lots of concrete.
2. It is a simple fact that building the interstate and other highways, building the cars which ran on them, and running said cars on said highways, were all major contributors to global heating and the resultant extreme weather events
Building them back will make it worse faster
3. We have a swath across the southeastern US where segments of that concrete, high speed infrastructure are gone.
Meanwhile, in the western US, we have so many wild donkeys that we're killing them for the cattle.
Unlike many wild horses, wild donkeys are trainable.
I've done it.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 29
Leon wants me to get very fried.
Or berry dyed.
Or something. Comes with a blue dot with a white check in it, almost universally known as a "blue check."
Which when you think about how much more interested America is with speed than quality, makes sense. Image
2. I was verified for a year, not the old real verified, I asked but Twitter said I was a nobody and not worth verifying.
Which, to be fair, wasn't a view unique to them.
But Leon doesn't give two hoots about facts, in fact, facts fuck up his system and are to be deprecated.
3. I didn't get verified because I wanted to be Verified and have a Blue Check. I got verified because I was in an extensive DM conversation, and unless you're verified you can only have X number of DMs per month, and I had exceeded that and felt the need to continue.
So I bribed
Read 7 tweets
Sep 26
1: Unlike most doomers, I believe that we could, if we chose, take specific actions which would reduce the level of ecosystem degradation we do, and in fact we could, over roughly a decade, move from degradation to improvement.
Sadly, this is a distinction without a difference,
2. because there is no societal interest in taking any productive actions.
If we want to reduce emissions, the way to do so is to burn less fossil fuels.
There is no other way.
If we want to reduce non-emissions ecosystem degradation, the way is to reduce mining, paving, cutting.
3. If we want to reduce toxic pollution, the way is to produce less toxins.
If we want to reduce plastic pollution, the way is to produce less plastic.
If we want to reduce PFAS pollution, the way is to produce less PFAS.
Read 16 tweets
Aug 27
I used to write about climate change. I went about 5 years, writing a thread at least 5 days a week.
Although the global ecosystem is massively degraded and losing functions, I believe it still would act towards a restoration of a livable climate for the current biosphere if.
2. If, that is, we would let it.
If we would quit degrading it.
Yes, I am aware that there are over 8 billion of us. As it is today, roughly two billion of us extract and reduce to trash at least 8 to 10 times more resources per unit of time, per person, than the other 6 billion.
3. We have all these excuses. People would starve if they couldn't get from zero to 60 mph in under ten seconds, people would starve if we couldn't commute by personal jet, a thousand miles one way.
It's all bullshit.
The other 6 billion aren't starving. Lots of them are hungry,
Read 22 tweets
Aug 4
So ...
What have I been doing in the earth shattered heat wave?
I bought a new guitar. New to me. Made in 1956. It's a ten string non-pedal steel guitar, and the most fascinating instrument I've ever encountered.
2. I'm consuming resources to operate it.
It's electric.
I have an 8 watt (maximum) Boss Katana Mini amplifier which runs on 6 AA batteries. My Peterson tuner is lithium ion rechargeable.
As kilowatts go it's a fairly low end consumer, but it's all energy.
Image
Image
4. This thing was designed by a man named Elbern H. Alkire, known professionally as Eddie.
Eddie's objective was to create a non-pedal steel guitar which addressed the same playability issues that pedal steels were invented for.
The Alkire Eharp was Betamax to pedal steel's VHS.
Read 26 tweets

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