I wrote the thread below tonight. I have some comments on it.
First, the reason I explained in terms of government action is the same as the reason scientists use "perfect" media to explain processes and principles.
Perfect gas. Perfect black body radiation. So forth.
2. The real world is stark staring crazy, the home of chaos and variables. If you want to explain an idea you kinda leave some of that out. It's too confusing.
But it's real, and it's not smart to ignore it.
So, I developed societies were really to slow down, could they?
3. I don't know. I'm not at all optimistic they will, so if there is no free will, then no, they couldn't.
And that's way over my head.
In terms of hardware and grocery stores it theoretically could, by people doing it from the bottom. Refusing to maintain the average speed.
4. I tweeted something the other day about the hundredth monkey theory, which I believe is debunked but still a means of telling a story.
I am slowing down. Right now my norm is 5 mph below the speed limit. My absolute max is the posted limit where I am. That's about 5 below norm
5. I am learning to do my farm work with donkeys, which is growing fruit and nut trees in an approximation of a native Missouri savanna, harvesting hay to power them and managing grasslands to minimize unwanted vegetation and maximize topsoil production and water infiltration.
6. I also have some early succession woods I manage, trying to hasten onset of food plants, and a seasonal creek / riparian woodland.
This is the edge of the riparian woods, with branches from the Thorn Forest to slow the creek flow.
7. But that's all beside the point, really.
The way to break the climate change machine is to slow down, on purpose, out in its way.
Today I drove my big diesel pickup like the Trumpers drive, with a borrowed horse trailer and my team of work donkeys, on a 125 mile round trip.
8. That's a lot of diesel fuel, at 22.3 pounds of CO2 per gallon.
But it would have been more diesel fuel if I'd gone 60 like the sign said, instead of 55 like I did. And the people stuck behind me muttering at me were saving fuel too.
And at a measly 5 mph, if they needed to
9. They could pass me. And a few did. And a surprising number didn't bother, even on long open flat straight stretches.
I needed to see an expert about collar fitting. This is for my girls' comfort, which is also efficiency. And the Amish harness guy knows *a lot* more than I do.
10. At ~120 miles, the 5 mph reduction theoretically would have cost me about 14 minutes give or take.
I can afford that.
But it's less than that.
There's 5 towns with speed limits down to 25. They knock the average speed *way* down.
11. My 5 mph on the highway sections becomes way less significant in my trip average speed with a bunch of 25's, 35's, and 45's tossed into it.
And when I leave a town, I've got 5 mph less acceleration I have to do. Accelerating a big pickup and horse trailer with a couple donks
12. Accelerating that much mass is a big deal.
And when you reach the next town you have to waste that hard earned fossil fuel powered extra 5 mph of kinetic energy back into the atmosphere. If you use your brakes you waste it as heat.
At 22.3 pounds of CO2 per gallon of diesel.
13. If a hundred monkeys with donkeys lived around here, one of them would be a harness maker.
Might be me. I made my girls' harness. Probably not, though. Be some young person with drive and hand skills.
I assure you, the guys on top aren't going to fix it.
They're doing fine.
14. Learn from the Amish. Don't try to be them, try to live on less energy than they do.
They're not doing it for the ecosystem, they're doing it to keep their community together.
Do it for the ecosystem to keep your community together.
15. I'd say that if the people below median income don't do it, nobody will.
Houseless people are already walking, except the ones who live in their cars.
Be better to have a tarpaper shack and a donkey, on living Earth, than to live in a station wagon.
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I got this question tonight, from a gracious near-stranger who moved past me being a jerk. I want to publicly thank and answer her. My plan: slow down systematically.
First the mechanics:
Governments nationwide accept the fact that the only way, under the laws of physics, to reduce emissions today is to reduce energy throughput today.
Today, in the real world, we have exactly what we already have in energy sources.
3. I propose that the only realistic means to address climate change and the overarching ecosystem catastrophe is to reduce emissions and energy throughput today. If you'd like to hear a well reasoned lecture on my reasoning, from someone else who agrees independently,
As regular readers know, I harp endlessly on the energy and resource cost of the "renewable energy" something for nothing solution to everything, and it falls on deaf ears.
And here's why:
Our definition of renewables is that they are free, they have no cost, they obtain energy which the ecosystem was otherwise wasting, which is by itself an insane belief.
But I'm saying, no, look, it takes all these material resources, steel, glass, and it takes energy to make
Abe news.
A friend asked about Abe. He's doing well. He's got his job, which is being retired senior donk, and he gets paid for it just like everyone else does.
Here he's working (as defined) at a hay project. You can see them over by the fence. If anyone gets a goodie, all 3 do.
He makes a cameo appearance in this vid. Couple-three weeks ago, I dunno.
He spends a lot of time here. He's watching us hitch up to go work. He gets goodies every round.
Manure spreader, part II
Here's what it looks like put together. Tows by the tongue on the left here.
This is inside the box. These chains, driven by one wheel, pull these green bars to the left in this pic, dragging the manure towards the back.
Manure is not just shit. It's shit and waste feed, hay / grass, probably some urine (high nitrogen) soaked into the waste material.
This part is called a "beater." It's at the back end. It spins like propellers, tears up the manure (including grass material) and throws it out in a fan shape of small portions.
A lot of evenings my thread is about something that really matters, at least to me, about climate and available actions, and I know that one will get the smallest number of likes and RTs of any of my work.
Sometimes I do hard science at about a 10th grade level, applying to 🌍🌎
2. Tonight, though, I'm just going to muse about energy.
I've been tweeting this image a lot lately. I find it endlessly fascinating.
3. As I often mention, what we call climate change - just that specific portion of the greater ecosystem collapse event - climate change is the accumulation of energy in the atmosphere and everywhere else.
Carbon catches the energy and stores it, which is why we think of carbon.
I'm going to try this one more time.
This graphic.
All the lines are energy. All the boxes are sources or destinations.
If you increase any thing on the destination side, you have to increase something on the source side.
All the current destinations consume all the current src's
Manufacturing and installing renewable energy devices would be new activities or increased activities in the bottom to pink boxes, manufacturing and transportation.
The pink boxes would get larger. It would require more source energy to fill them.
Source energy is mostly emitting
For instance, burning one gallon of diesel fuel produces roughly 22.38 pounds of CO2.
I wonder if this process consumed any diesel fuel. 🤔