I do think insects as an ingredient in other foods, such as crackers, could be a more successful approach in increasing adoption. Taboos will be quite hard to change tho, I agree

Choosing more appropriate crops for specific environments is so important. The State departments VACS initiative is a good start to promoting more resilient crops for Africa.

https://foodtank.com/news/2024/01/vacs-is-going-back-to-basics-for-a-climate-resilient-future/

Some bills republicans are spending their legislative energy on: Liberty in Laundry Act, Refrigerator Freedom Act, Stop Unaffordable Laundry Standards (SUDS) Act.

I especially feel for those who work in government. When the Trump admin placed restrictions on the use of certain terminology, it must really be hard to balance ones need for employment and doing good work and remaining true to scientific principles.

For sure. I think trying to preserve these tools is a bit of a waste of time. But extending their lifespan is always a win in my book

When the damage is presented in spreadsheets and charts its easy to ignore the cost, especially for those pushing the piles of money around.

Nuclear could be useful in applications that need a high energy load on-site, like steel, cement, and nitrogen production

That’s a great point, I didn’t consider the tech tree that leads to bikes also makes cars more likely :/

I definitely recommend looking into some of Dr. Fowlers history, he’s such a cool person and his work with Crop Trust was so cool.

In 2008, the most likely projections had us around 4.5 degrees of warming. So, there is progress. Insufficient progress, we need to double down, but progress nonetheless

No, but it does change the implication. If leasing doesn’t lead to drilling, then it’s a pretty negligible concern

Overall, oil companies are withdrawing investment from exploration and new drilling. It seems oil companies are not drilling new but riding out on the investment they’ve already made plus utilizing market power to squeeze out profits. In terms of Biden’s political calculus, it seems that they think new drilling leases don’t involve much risk of increased oil coming onto the market, but it does improve his position among voters, especially in an era of inflation. Plus, this gave him political capital to pass the IRA, especially with Manchin.

This video goes more into detail of the economics behind this trend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbmpecxS2w

I disagree. To unlock workable solar and wind powered electricity, you need something to carry you energetically through the ‘tech tree.’ I simply don’t think you can get to that level of technology without some fossil fuel use.

To an extent, but we have the chance of transitioning into a solar and wind society and remediate that damage. Subsequent species would not have that potential.

Unfortunately, I don’t know if it would be possible for another species to reach our level of technology or civilization. We built up our society off of easily accessible energy resources (surface-level coal being our first source of industrial energy). This energy excess allowed us to develop other sources of energy, solar, wind, nuclear, etc. But if you tried starting from zero again, you could never get to this point, at least along the same path, as you need a high level of technology to access any available energy resources. Thus, if any new species took our place, they could only ever rise to the level of the pre-industrial revolution.

Im not saying they’re apples to apples, I’m saying that I was just wondering if we could design tires that were less conducive to creating microparticles

Yeah, but bikes and buses still use tires. I was just wondering how the tires we will need to use in the future can be manufactured to reduce the pollution problem

Exactly. I grew up on a farm and there’s no way a regular bus route would efficiently service us. Cars are still necessary but their usage can be greatly reduced.

For instance, in Europe most suburban/rural households can get by with one car. And in urban areas no car lifestyle is very easy to pull off

Even in raindrops!

I wonder if there’s any data on how much bus tires pollute in this way on a per-passenger mile basis. I’m sure it’s better than cars, but if it’s still a major problem, I wonder if there’s another way to manufacture less problematic tires. Maybe biodegradable?