Balero

How about:

If the war in Ukraine continues, we can expect less food production and potential oil disruption to center Europe.

No need to comment on how to get to this outcome, or thoughts about who will make a concession leading to a big conversation away from the main point of what you were trying to say.

Keep the if statement about exactly matters, not a secondary effect/cause.

To be clear. I agree with you, I doubt Russia will surrender any time soon.

The conclusion as far as food goes is that globally, plans should be made that do not count on any food from Ukraine, or Russia entering global markets.

I just took umbrage that OP was seemingly (and probably unintentionally) putting the blame for the situation on Ukraine and not Russia.

You are right there are lots of real information out there.

You have picked a 1. random unpopular youtube channel (which might be good, I couldn't verify anything from it, as I couldn't find who ran it, if you know I am happy to be proved wrong) and 2. A disbarred barrister https://twitter.com/markgaleotti/status/927087181532991489?l.... There is much better information to pick than this! Any information will have a bias, and if they claim to be neutral I personally get suspicious of what that bias is.

Your assertion that you can't see anyway for Ukraine to win is based on "If Russia loses, it would be the end of Russia". Well, if Ukraine loses it will be the end of Ukraine, so I guess by your logic Russia can't win either? (TBF, everyone losing to some degree is right with war).

I won't get drawn into a discussion about how the war will go. People qualified to make a guess have been wrong and wont make prediction. Neither of us is qualified, so I will not be weighing in on this except to say that unexpected things happen all the time in conflict.

>- if Ukraine doesn’t surrender, we can expect less food production and potential oil disruption to center Europe

If Russia doesn't surrender. Don't put the responsibility of global food prices on the people being repressed and killed in their own homes. Do it on the aggressors and war criminals.

Luckily there is a type of seat you can get on a flight for such business travel! Even better, just get the train where appropriate.

I'm pretty sure coaches are a pretty popular form of transport as well.

We have a set limit for how much carbon can be released to hit the agreed on targets. Anything a person emits over this should be reduced.

Someone eating meat 3 meals a day and flying in a private jet, is using thousands of times over this level. The average person in a developing nation is using a fraction of this. Why should they stop emitting their fraction, when the jet setter uses their thousands over budget.

Stopping private jets is a tiny tiny tiny sacrifice for people. I for one have never used one, neither has anyone I know. We can safely ban them and only a few people will feel any impact, and it will be a pretty minor one, much less than thousands and thousands of people not having lighting or refrigeration.

No they do not create more pollution, at least on a per-unit basis. As it states in the article 2-stroke motors create a ton of air pollution.

It is also much easier to ban 2-stroke motors, which have cheap electrical alternatives than ICE cars in a car dependent US city.

In the UK, the local council blows them off of the town centre's paths, but not off the grass.

Added business friction due to Brexit checks coming online recently.

Because if they don't blame energy prices, they will have to face that it is in part down to Brexit. (and some other complicated hard to explain reasons that won't make for a good soundbite, so people will only focus on Brexit)

Brexit is basically a religion for the current Conservative party, and it absolutely can not be questioned, or criticised.

I'm not hoping it fails. But I will take some joy in the inevitable implosion of an obvious white elephant project obviously made for political (corruption) reasons.

This project is not based in reality, or has any consideration for reality. It is obviously inefficient in it's basic geometry (circle beats line) let alone after looking at the actual numbers. A 200m tall 170km long wall is not going to work. They claim you will be able to travel end to end in 20mins. Thats 510kph without acceleration or deceleration. That's 50kmph faster than the current fastest train (Shanghai Maglev) all whilst being within 200m of 9 million people.

And all of this will be zero carbon of course, with a passively controlled temperate climate in the desert. Nice of them to throw some trees in the graphics to show that.

This is made to pay consultants and businesses, and keep the man in charge happy. I'm not hoping it fails. If they reach all of these milestones and it even turns out to be vaguely ok, I will literally eat my hat, hold my hand up and say I was wrong. But when it doesn't I will take some joy in the mess of a story that comes out.

That won't make a massive difference for this winter thought. They need a fix that is going to be months away, not years.

"If a tree falls in someone else's forest, and I don't hear it, do I even care." I think sums it a bit more accurately.

Thanks for the long reply. This take on the impact of the "Fall of Rome" in Britain is not one I have much exposure to. You obviously have read a good bit about this. Do you have any recommendations for reading?

Thanks, I'll have a listen.

Here is another on a general fall of Rome: https://open.spotify.com/show/4uxl02KkkbvH8kYxWtKs8b

Warning its got about 20 hours of content

This is only true for mid/southern Gaul, Iberia, and Rome, and to a lesser extent to the North of Gaul.

To Briton the Western Roman empire fell hard. There was a marked collapse of urban life, a shut down to bulk trade networks which were relied on for a great amount of the economic activity. Students were no longer sent to "Rome" (or the other metropolitan areas) for education. And worst of all the Roman Military left.

This led to a complete collapse of the system, people went back to sustenance living with the drop in living quality that this, suffered raids from the Picts, Irish and Germanic people's. There was a huge power vacuum that led to local 'warlords' rising in power and a politically fractured island. This also led to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

It is from the perspective of (comparatively) modern scholars that we get the story of the "Collapse of the Roman Empire" because from the perspective of the British isles is was a collapse.

This is illegal in the UK. You cannot legally drive a privately owned scooter in public. They are classed as vehicles and you need to be insured to drive them, you cannot insure a private scooter. When you rent a scooter from one of the apps they come with insurance built in.

Your colleague, and others, breaking the law and driving dangerously does not mean we should get rid of a means of transportation that is legally and safely used by others.

Out of interest, where were you?

Just to flesh out my experience. In the UK we defiantly had some things missing from shelves, but it would be running out of strawberry cereal bars and having to have raspberry ones instead. Aside from some short term (about 2 weeks) issues with everyone buying all the loo roll, there wasn't anything that couldn't be replaced.

Good point about the river re-direction.

> I recently proposed a transatlantic natural gas pipeline and people thought I was insane, but it would only be ~5x longer than the longest existing underwater natgas pipeline, which doesn’t sound impossibly viable.

Nordstream is 759 Miles. Newfoundland to Ireland is 1900 Miles!

The food scarcity we have experienced in the pandemic is more like people wondering why there are no peppers or chicken this week. But there is plenty of other food to eat.

I think any issues we have will be people not having their first option of food, not going hungry.

Would the energy used pumping the water from the quite low lakes, over the Rocky Mountains and Sierras to the west coast be less than a desalination plant?

Another option is just moving the water usage closer to the usable water.

So it's ok if someone moves next to you, plays music all hours, leaves rubbish everywhere, and are generally annoying to live next to. And then the next week a whole new group of people move in forgetting any requests you made, but act the same way because they are specifically there for a fun weekend.

Also this stops you getting to know your neighbors and form a community and friends that live around you. Any improvements you make to the local area and street have the owner uninterested or pushing back because they do not want to invest in the area.

Well into my early 30's now, and can identify a fair bit with this, especially the "dying someday" being an actual time that will happen. Whilst it isn't massively interfering with my life, I do hope some of that dread and sadness stops popping up. It all started during lockdowns so might be to do with feeling like missing things.

One thing that has changed is how things seem more transitory, instead of something being THE thing, it's just the thing here and now, and it will all change before long. Which whilst it always made sense, I never really internalised it.

When I started working I had a boss pull this line. Then he didn't turn up cos he had a family thing that was more important.

This pushed three of us (out of 5) to quit in the next couple of months (after getting another job sorted).

> that would make the peasant his brother and would make the matter serious with regards to the claim for the trone.

This is not how Roman succession worked. Especially at this time. This is a joke about the first Emperor Augusts. His biological father, whilst being pretty important politically, was not the reason he was able to turn himself into Emperor. A very basic explanation was that he got much of his power base from Julius Ceaser, who had adopted him, when he died.

So his biological father having any other children (which he in fact did have, an elder sister, who's own Son entered politics) would not matter at all. As the relationship with his maternal Uncle was where he drew his power.

This is all simplified, and I am no expert. But it is all much more complicated, and interesting (and always has been) than some simple rule of eldest son gets the throne.

How much is that going to cost to develop, manufacture, deploy, train, maintain etc? Shipping is a VERY price conscious industry.

Sorry, I meant "Wether this is because of human choice or something else is irrelevant to it being named Fertility Rate".

Of course you are right that the underlying reasons are all relevant depending on the question, but they are all covered under the umbrella of "fertility rate".

In conclusion I am (pedantically?) arguing the definition of the term Fertility Rate, not anything else.

Fertility rate is defined as number of children per woman [1]. Wether this is because of human choice or something else is irrelevant.

https://data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm#:~:text=Fertil....

these are addressed under "Lower fertility rate". You have given some reasons for this declining fertility rate.

The internet does not go from A -> B it is a web. You can (and some countries do) cut yourself out of it. But you cannot cut others out of it.

Solar generation of power across countries will pretty much go one way. The most obvious and likely one is from North Africa to Europe. If the North African states decide to turn off the power to Europe they can. This is why geo-politically you cannot rely on this as a 100% solution. It can add to a solution, but it is not a good idea to let another country hang a sword over your head like that. (Or more precisely to hang the sword there yourself)