spodek

Do they circumcise boys without anesthetic under similar pretense?

The fastest, most effective way to transition from fossil fuels is to limit their supply. Any parent knows you can read all you want about how to raise a child before it's born, but the real learning starts at birth. Within seconds you learn more than before when it was abstract.

Likewise, to learn to live without fossil fuels, shutting down supply will lead us to face the actual problems we have to solve, not theoretical. Obviously, don't shut everything all at once, and protect the helpless, hospitals, and necessary things.

Among the rest of us, no one will be injured. Entrepreneurs will innovate. Inconveniences will lead to learning and life improvement.

I'll add that my individual action has led through my podcast to working with CEOs, politicians including four of New York City's mayoral candidates, and leaders in sports, arts, and other areas, as well as other podcasts within the This Sustainable Life family.

My personal action is only the starting point to lead others. Mostly I do it to live by my values, but it gives me credibility to lead others too.

I'm going with Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson. If British when he started, American when he finished.

We can dance around our environmental issues all we want, we'll always reach overpopulation and overconsumption driven by cultural beliefs.

Until we act on values other than growth, efficiency, comfort, convenience, extraction, and externalizing costs, we will continue this trend.

Plenty of cultures have thrived with other values. We can too.

People insist that individual actions don't matter and that only governments and corporations can make a difference. We accept this hogwash proven wrong by history over and over to mollify our indulgence. Acting in stewardship doesn't bring deprivation or sacrifice. It brings joy, fun, freedom, community, connection, meaning, and purpose.

The greatest change we make is leading others, because it multiplies our effect, which requires leading ourselves.

Still, logic, facts, and figures don't change behavior. We change when five people around us do, loosely speaking. In that spirit, I'll share that I've dropped my emissions over 90 percent with only improvements to my life. I take two years to fill a load of trash and haven't flown since March 2016, picking up litter daily since 2017, my last electrical bill $1.40 so nearly off-grid living in Manhattan, plus plenty more. All sources of joy, more time with family and friends, more control over my career, saving money, more gratitude from people with less resources who tell me their changes improve their lives and save them time, money, and the other resources they lack.

The main Resistance (capitalized to refer to Steven Pressfield's relevant book The War of Art) comes from people with more resources than me, who say what I did before changing. Strangely, those with the most act like they can change the least. Resources that were supposed to improve our lives make us spoiled, entitled, needy, and dependent, the opposite of free and fun.

To those who insist there's no point, you can argue against me, but now that you know someone who's done it, you're 20 percent there. Find another few who have changed and you'll change too.

Exactly. Tragically, people think individual action doesn't achieve anything, but they measure the wrong thing, that one person's impact on one or two actions. Our greatest impact is in leading others, which multiplies. To lead others we must first lead ourselves. My personal actions have led me to consult corporate executives, mayors, congressmembers, and other influential people.

From the article:

> not yet investing at sufficient scale in technologies that support fast decarbonisation of their economies

The most effective "technology" is to consume less. What will do that is acting on different values, instead of growth, enjoying what we have, instead of efficiency, resilience, instead of comfort and convenience, meaning, purpose, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Human societies lived with those values for hundreds of thousands of years in some cases, and centuries in many others, with higher markers of health, longevity, stability, and equality than our culture until very recently, but those markers are going back down. And will drop precipitously if we don't return to those values.

Population growth may be leveling off in the most polluting nations, but it's globally growing and over sustainable levels. Economically we can sustain population decreasing and many nations have lowered birth rates with the opposite of the One Child Policy coercion or eugenics, purely voluntary, noncoercive, leading to stability, health, and abundance.

> “Every day, we witness the worsening consequences of the climate crisis for communities around the world – farmers’ crops failing; floods and fires engulfing towns and villages; families facing an uncertain future."

We can dance around sustainability issues all we want, we eventually reach both overpopulation and overconsumption, both driven by growth, both driven by cultural beliefs and values we can change. This community loves nuclear, but without considering your point, that we aren't using new energies to replace but to augment. If we ever expect to stop growing and instead shrinking our polluting behavior, the sooner the better, as in now, which requires leadership more like Churchill, Mandela, MLK, and peers, not new technology. It costs nothing and improves our lives. When we learn to reduce consumption, nuclear will help. With our current values, we'll keep growing until hitting its limits, back where we are now, but with more people and dependency, making reduction harder.

To quantify all this, I recommend Tom Murphy's book Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, which I wrote about https://joshuaspodek.com/the-science-book-of-the-decade-ener....

For reference, humans drank only water after weaning for several hundred thousand years. Today we act like only water is deprivation.

You left out refined sugar in its many forms. In total deaths and disease as well as cost to society dwarfs everything. The combination of being legal, advertised, and by some measures as addictive as any others is tough to beat.

The author of the book is Tom Murphy, a Caltech-trained physics professor at UCSD, author of the Do The Math blog https://dothemath.ucsd.edu. The book compiles that blog into a textbook for a course for non-science majors.

I've had him as a guest on my podcast https://joshuaspodek.com/guests/tom-murphy, but otherwise my only stake is that I consider the book valuable on the issue of our species. The link is to my review of his book. You can download the book itself free: https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions.

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Here is an excerpt of the review:

He taught a course to non-science undergraduates on the subject, called Energy and the Environment. He used the course to compile his posts, polish them, and make a self-contained comprehensive book. As far as I know, the only one like it, possibly because mathematics is the language of nature, so equations abound, but he explains them, so people who haven’t taken science or math classes since high school can follow.

Showing the math means we don’t have to take his word for it. We can do the math too and think, judge, and act for ourselves. No matter our politics, age, industry, etc, we can access this book equally. The environment involves many branches of science, including physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, systems, and more, as well as fields including engineering, history, politics, philosophy, and more. Murphy brings them together like no other resource I’ve found. Many will shy away from devoting the time that the gravity of our environmental situation demands, but for enabling and empowering every reader to understand, think, judge, and act for themselves, I consider Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet the science book of the decade.

I’ve read and watched a lot of books, videos, and articles. For reference, I consider Sustainability Without the Hot Air by Caltech-trained Cambridge physicist David MacKay the science book of the previous decade, and Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, the science book of the decade before that, by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jørgen Randers. (A video of David MacKay after his book led me to avoid flying, not as a burden but to increase my enjoyment of nature and connection to humans.) Read these three books, and you understand our environment.

But wait, there’s more. Murphy has acted on his findings in his personal life. He didn’t just use an electric car or unplug appliances before doing so was cool, he measured his results and shared how doing so affected his relationships with his wife, peers, and students. He shares his life and profession. This book doesn’t teach raw information, it shares a lifestyle.

For documents longer than a page or two, I start with a mindmap. I used to start with an outline, but once I got the hang of mindmaps, I consider them essential software.

Amassing and organizing ideas is different than writing and benefits from a different tool. I find mindmapping fun.

I use freeplane https://www.freeplane.org.

Sad that a person who spoke wisely so many times is tarnishing his legacy with such powerful ignorance. It's tempting to say the world is changing outside his horizon, but he has the resources and potential to understand. No one else can take responsibility for his actions.

The refined powder of a plant that gives a jolt of pleasure and leads to craving seems similar whether coming from beet, sugar cane, poppy, or coca leaf.

I don't know what drugs should be legal or not, or how regulated, but if any are regulated, refined sugar and refined fat in their various forms seem to deserve it, especially their marketing to kids.

I find this passage from a couple millennia ago most helpful. Other translations may give different nuances. People have struggled to handle death since the first people.

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“Zhuangzi's wife died. When Huizu went to convey his condolences, he found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Huizu. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing - this is going too far, isn't it?"

Zhuangzi said, "You're wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there's been another change and she's dead. It's just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter.

"Now she's going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don't understand anything about fate. So I stopped.”

A great way to clean our water is to ban what creates the pollution going into it, especially single-use plastic, factory farms, and a lot of packaging. If they want to take baby steps, use proper accounting -- that is, charge manufacturers and buyers the true cost of cleaning the pollution their products make, which could be through a tax on pollution so those who pollute pay to clean it, not all taxpayers. Think Coca-Cola as one example of many.

We can spoon out the flood, but as long as we have to turn off the spigot, now is the most effective time.

Did his wife consent? She may have, but if she didn't and he publicly vowed monogamy to her, it calls his character into question.

Can you describe the power imbalance? Within the company, in principle he has authority, but for one thing, he can't act with impunity. He's responsible to the Board and shareholders, so if he promoted, demoted, fired, or otherwise exercised that authority unfairly, he could be held accountable, so that power is limited.

For another thing, his authority is only one source of power. She can go to the media, where even allegations could inflict huge damage. In this case, the employee seems to hold tremendous power since she could publicize a consensual (with her), though extramarital (not likely, though possibly, consenting from his wife) relationship in the workplace.

I'm not saying good, bad, right, or wrong. I'm just wondering what the power imbalance is in practice.

For a somewhat contrarian view, most Americans who shop at these places may claim to want authenticity and variety, but probably ignore the authenticity and variety of what local farmers grow. How many buy radishes, turnips, and cabbage from nearby farms, let alone stinging nettles, fiddlehead ferns, or less common plants that grow nearby (I'm writing in New York City, not sure what grows near you)? The U.S. used to grow thousands of varieties of cabbage. Most Americans probably eat two or three a year.

Most of the products the article describes, though not all, are ultraprocessed and packaged for indefinite shelf life and global shipping.

I'm all for variety and experiencing other cultures, so nothing against these stores, but I hope people look nearby to find healthy, affordable, local basic foods too. Their farmers, environment, and taste buds will thank them.

Also watch The Devil We Know, which you can watch free at ThoughtMaybe: https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-devil-we-know.

The Intercept and New York Times cover the issue well.

Robert Bilott's book Exposure https://www.amazon.com/Exposure-Be-Confirmed/dp/1501172816 covers the story of the lawyer who successfully sued DuPont and is continuing that legal pursuit.

I also recommend my podcast with Robert Bilott: https://joshuaspodek.com/guests/robert-bilott

Agreed. Plus ". . . in their lifetime" is a pointless affectation.

Knowing the origin of the word helps choosing and deciding. The hard part isn't figuring out which choice you like more, it's which you're more ready to kill, but most people focus on which they like more.

I wrote a series of posts on using this awareness to make choosing and deciding easier, with graphs: https://joshuaspodek.com/choose-easier-visualizing-choices and https://joshuaspodek.com/choose-easier-visualizing-choices-2.

> Society expects five nines

Since each increase in uptime costs so much, requires peaker plants, and makes intermittent renewables harder, I experimented with living more resiliently. After all, the reverse works too: each decrease in uptime saves huge costs, relaxes needs for peaker plants, and makes intermittent renewables more feasible.

Most of the world can handle some downtime. Electric power didn't exist for most of human existence. We've become more needy, dependent, and entitled. I suspected that living more resiliently would improve my life.

It did. My last three electric bills were $1.40, $1.70, and $1.70 (plus tax and fixed connection costs). That's living in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. I wrote up some of my experience here, with scans of my bills: https://joshuaspodek.com/i-used-2-5-the-average-americans-el....

I don't expect many people to reach this level of resilience and stewardship, but we don't have to to decrease our insane entitlement to such uptime. A few cultural changes and we could lower our grid costs tremendously while improving our quality of life.

> I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage.

Future? We can undo it now -- just with life improvements and simplifications, I've dropped my emissions 90%, according to online calculators. I take two years to fill a load of trash at home, which used to be weekly. Many other changes. And one person changing is exactly what causes more people to change.

As a result, Mayors, Congressmembers, and other politicians, CEOs, champion athletes, and more have come on my podcast, helping lead large communities. The Hacker News community is particularly recalcitrant, believing that Mars and fusion are simple and will solve everything while flying less or having fewer children is against human nature and solve nothing, but there's variation.

Systemic change begins with personal transformation.

HCFCs are refrigerants that deplete ozone. They are not made from corn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon

Future generations will see our use of plastic like we see asbestos, HCFCs, and leaded gasoline. Nobody denies its utility. It just kills people and wildlife. Once we ban at least single-use plastic we'll recoil with horror at what we did and how long we took after realizing what we were doing to stop ourselves.

Want a great green infrastructure project? Start taking down highways and roads. Don't build new ones or put plastic on old ones.

Building roads leads people to adjust and fill them with congestion. People will adjust to fewer roads too. The project will produce short-term jobs and long-term savings.

I recommend James Suzman's recent book Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots, which examines our relationship with work from our evolutionary beginnings to modern day. The interplay of most of our human past from before agriculture, that revolution, the industrial revolution, and our beliefs about economics and distribution of scarce resources or abundance will likely change your views about how much to work and where to get satisfaction in life.

A big takeaway is that much of what many of us believe are human traits are more products of an economic system we choose than our basic wiring. Ignorance of other systems keeps us from seeing we can change our beliefs.

I don't think he likes Open Source things. As I understand, he prefers Free software.

I hope they let the land revert to prairie, forest, swamp, or what was there before.

Future generations will look at most of the plastic we create the way we look at asbestos or second-hand smoke. Yes, there's some benefit but not worth the cost. They will recoil at how long we took to wean ourselves from the addiction, especially since their bloodstreams will contain more plastic than ours.

If we make it.

Exactly. Electric vehicles is a tactic that works within a strategy of fewer cars. A strategy more vehicles, even if electric, will eventually result in more total waste.

A strategy of fewer vehicles works, all the better with a tactic of converting to electric.

Want to lower emissions? One easy, cheap way is to convert car lanes to bike lanes or simply remove them. Lots of other government subsidies worth removing too, especially to fossil fuel extraction.