It's easy to criticize I agree. But knowing how many kWh went into growing a cow is still a huge improvement. This is the real flow, describes something genuine & truthful. Your throwaway criticism suggests anything not actively hurting us isnt worth regarding or adding to human cognizance, and there I think we quickly depart.
Whether we look at net intake (energy) or net cost (pollution, of ehich co2 is but one harm), I think there's a virtue here about seeing the world. Honestly even with it's faults, I think energy usage is a far more general universal concept.
Sad to see even the presentation of such an interesting kdea get downvoted quickly. This isnt a perfect idea, it's wildly impractical, but I absolutely totally think it's worth putting in front of people, entering into the set of worlds they might consider, if not accept. It's a very interesting notion, still has a resonance now that it did then: there are universal physical truths about us that we could try to understand & gauge our society by.
Im at -2 in under an hour. Mercy this feels so cheap & shitty, close minded. An idea doesnt hsve to be perfect to be worth thinking about. People 100 years ago were actively trying tk rethink how the world could comprehend itself: this is a fascinsting historical note, but no, downvote my interesting perspective out of existence. Shame on these downvoters.