Thread by @homemadeguitars

Well, my friends, Saturday afternoon. I'm in a new spot. Regarding my writing.
I've always written. Twitter is a place to put it where (so far) they don't charge me for the privilege.
Back before the internet, people used to pay me to write. Not a lot. Couple hundred bucks/year.

2. I've had a bunch of websites, blogs, essay sites, but I don't have the drive and focus to write long form anymore. I'm not sure if it's age, reefer, or Twitter. Or all three.
But.
They signed our death warrant yesterday. So, there's nothing down that road anymore.

3. I've always known it was pointless, but now it's like, it's all climate denial. All the talk about "for the climate" is the most profound and pernicious denial of all.
Nothing ever done in the United States will pay back this infrastructure project.
Kiss it goodbye.
Hang on.

4. In the first place, I know this is not obvious or widely understood, but everything we make, we make with fossil fuels.
That's where all these fucking emissions come from. It's not a different plane.

5. "Don't electric cars make up for it?"
No. Electric cars are things we make with fossil fuels. The more of them we make the more fossil fuels we use.
It takes more fossil fuels to make an electric car than a gasoline car.
Someday... All the savings are someday.
All the ⛽ now.

6. All the concrete highways ever poured, without exception, were built to enable more traffic to move faster.
If the highways didn't have the real energy costs that the do have, they would still be a net loss for the ecosystem.
The more we degrade the ecosystem the worse it gets

7. Without exception, everything in that bill that is "for the climate" is based on the permanent maintenance of business as usual.
There is no thing anywhere in that bill, not one dollar of expense, that is not based on high levels of fossil fuel energy. All of it.
Suicide.

8. The President did this because he's an old fashioned Democratic President. He wants to give all the working guys like me, the ones who chose not to go to college, good jobs they can live on. That's all this is. Make work. But it's high energy make work.

9. I could put more people to work, sooner, in more different locales, than he is, for no more dollar cost.
We've got $1.3 Trillion to piss away here.
Since 100% of all the products come from corporate America, you can figure at least $700 billion goes in executive pockets.

10. I would park every road district tractor in America, and hire people at $25.00 an hour to do the same work with hand tools.
That's fifty grand a year. Say we hire 2 million rednecks and former coal miners. I can't do the math, but - it would immediately reduce emissions.

11. As far as I can see, either almost nobody in America knows about concrete and CO2, or we all don't give a shit.
I think it's the latter.
It's "Yeah, I know, someday we're fucked, but I've gotten used to the West burning, and I'm in a hurry, and..."

12. I took my girls out and drove around the country block, two miles of gravel and two miles of 55 mph blacktop. They were good. They trotted almost the whole way, and didn't need to be pushed into it. They actually started trotting without instruction, so I told them to. 😁

13. We emptied the manure spreader first, then we went on a long tour of the east property, both sides of the creek, then I aimed them down the gravel road away from home. After walking a few thousand yards, maybe, they picked up a trot. Donkeys trot easy, no waste motion.

14. Fair amount of traffic on the blacktop on Saturday afternoon. Got passed by a couple of semis coming towards us. Semis push a lot of wind; it's significant to the girls. But they're brave. Settling in. We do the same block each time out right now, so there are fewer variables

15. except the traffic. So they can adjust to one thing at a time.
One day I'm going to come out of the gravel road and instead of turning right into the country block, I'm going to turn left and head into Richmond. I've been that way only about 2/10 of a mile, this clip.

16. So I've got them, and my biome where I live, to keep me sane.
But I swear, seeing the celebrations on Twitter this morning was just... I could weep.
And so many people have been convinced that all this manufacturing, Earth moving, mining, blasting, all this fossil power, is

17. For the climate.
Well, yes, in a way, but ... Not like you think.
I'm in a different place now. Talk of climate action fills me with the same sort of rage that getting stuck behind me in traffic gives other people.
We're not. Seriously. We've chosen our road.
Ride on.