If you meditate on the correct things for an hour you might realise that actually it's your 50 hour-a-week job that is wasted time and taking a time-out to contemplate the bigger subjects is a far more useful pursuit.
If the demand for corn drops because of a ban on HFCs, most of the corn farmers would just find some other crop to plant or planet more varieties that are used for other things.
The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action.
Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.
To each their own. I have looked it from both sides. The real-climate science camp seems genuinely concerned about causes and consequence of global warming. The other camp, call them deniers, skeptics, or whatever are more concerned about money. They believe that the cost to combat global warming is too high. It also seems divided along political lines. It is flawed logic but some people do think they can use it for political gain, on both sides of the aisle.
The way I see it is: going green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts. I just don't see any actual committed progress to being "green" (I could name you 10 policy ideas right now that would have a massive impact).
The climate work, IMO, is about talking a very very close look at how much of an impact we are having - and assessing if our response is enough or if more is required.
But all I see, especially recently, is corruption, money and political manoeuvring on both sides.
EDIT: I disagree with your appraisal of the 2 camps though (I'm guessing you fall into the believers camp). As someone sat in the middle, in frustration, both camps are as bad as the other.
"green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts."
I totally agree with this position. There are numerous benefits to developing better clean air/water standards.
The climate "work" has been on going for decades. The science supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming is sound.
Their may be some "believers" when it comes to global warming that just take at face value. I'm more of an accepting skeptic. I was skeptical at first that we could 1) Change our climate 2) Predict climate change with any amount of reasonable certainty. Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true.
> Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true.
Sorry, this is my hang up. I understand the science - but the data and methodologies that we know about dont quite follow through for me (sometimes anyway)
The data HAS been sorted out, by people who have spent the better part of their lives studying climatology. And among the group that has spent the most time studying Earth's climate, there is broad consensus that a) Earth's climate is warming and b) increased CO2 levels from human activities is the primary cause.
The great thing about this debate, if you're a lobbyist for industrial groups opposing any action to limit CO2 on financial grounds, is that you don't have to prove all those people wrong. You just have to cloud the issue enough to create the illusion of debate over points a and b. It's the PR equivalent of 'reasonable doubt'.
Here's an unpleasant thought; what are the rules for drinking your own urine? Some apparently do this for fun, but what about for survival situations?
If you're able to find enough edible plants (via watching other animals), it might also be worth trying to cultivate them, but this depends on your broader circumstances.
Don't expect to stave off dehydration by drinking urine. Your body expels salts (and other substances) through urine. Thus you'll die from hypernatremia drinking urine or seawater, just as happens if you don't drink water at all.
Apparently blood and alcohol are also bad. They are processed as food, which requires large amounts of water from your body. Thus while they're both fluids, they result in a net loss of water.
Fish apparently have a column of fresh water near their spine. You can cut them open and drink from this. You can also suck fresh water from their eyes.
American obsesity can correlated to eating too much salt, sugar and fat.
Fast food makes it cheap and easy to get into a pattern where a significant portion of your daily intake is essentially a combination of sugar (soda, coffee, tea, etc), fat (burgers, fries, tacos, etc) and salt (flavoring, preservatives, etc.)
If we went back to the diet before there was fast-food then we'd have a lot less obesity. People would be eating more whole grains, fruits, veggies, fish and lean meat.
Look, you just spouted the dietary dogma in the face of a book that has dozens upon dozens of references to scientific literature. The only thing stopping me saying "hundreds" is I'm not quite sure if it gets up to 200, though I bet it does. (I don't have it in front of me to check.) Even if you're completely right (which I do not believe despite being raised on that theory), simply re-spouting it is not an adequate response to this book.
That theory simply doesn't explain all the observations, and you need to catch up to modern science. Salt especially; current science strongly indicates that salt is not a problem for a normal person, it only matters if you already have a blood pressure problem (and I still think it may yet be revealed that it actually has no effect at all and it's all sugar). This isn't even from Taubes' book, this is simply the current state of the science.
Running on the dietary theories of the 1960s leaves you defenseless in the face of our current food environment, and when you get in trouble it doesn't give you a way out. Check this new stuff out. Check out the sugar video lionhearted referenced, it's free and the source is unimpeachable, and unlike reading the book which has the step of obtaining a book, that video is as easy to watch as any other video on YouTube. It has biochemistry in it. It's pretty good.
The funny thing is that Taubes book basically recommends you do away with those things anyway:
who likes burgers without the bun? fries are out, shakes are out, tacos without the shell? no thanks, etc, etc.
Where he differs, he has a lot more science to back it up.
This quote is taken from the wiki article on Gary Taubes
"Although Taubes has no formal training in nutrition or medicine, his book was praised as "raising interesting and valuable points" by Dr. Andrew Weil, while Dr. Mehmet Oz and trainer Jillian Michaels who appeared on the same program disagreed with Taubes on many questions. [6]"
I think we have to question the science when he states that exercise is an inefficient tool for weight loss.
Taubes is against refined carbs (OK, that does make sense) but is a bit of a nutter on other causes and solutions to obesity.
I think we have to question the science when he states that exercise is an inefficient tool for weight loss.
The science of the book is sound. And he is right about exercise: it's good for fitness (as in muscle) and other health reasons, but for weight loss is almost useless by itself. The reason is insulin, which signal the body to store, not use, energy.
Of course you could calorie-count people on a high carb diet and whip them to exercise and they will probably lose weight. But you will also destroy their health and they will regain all of its former weight (and then some) later. This is documented and is all in the book too.
I was referring to concepts presented in "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite" by David Kessler.
Of course, I wouldn't expect a lot of people on HN to agree, thus the down-votes.
A lot of the food industry is based on pumping the salt, sugar and fat so that we eat/buy more. So people focused on making money are more likely to side with Taubes (even if he's wrong) than with Kessler.
Actually the notes indicate the opposite, that meat was more lean when it was free-range, hunted for and todays meat (grown in feed lots, etc) is much more fatty.
This is strikingly obvious - even in modern agriculture - when moving between countries with lots of grain fed beef (USA) and those with paddocks of grass fed beef (Australia, Argentina).
I'm not sure how relevant this is to HN. I know a lot of good engineers that are creationists. It doesn't seem to keep them from producing good work. Its more important for scientist and teachers I should think.
edit: Don't get me wrong. I agree with Dawkins on this.
The argument has long since stopped being about either theology or science and turned into a matter of tribalism, where adherence to the Right Answer on a matter of trifling importance to both sides is used as a litmus test of whether you're a decent human being or not.
Forgive me for a five second religious interruption: I'm a strict Catholic and also have an engineering degree. I sincerely believe in things like the virgin birth and the resurrection. Essentially everyone who knows me well knows this or could guess. And I still have people say "Blah blah blah anti-science freaks need to stop blah blah blah hey Patrick, evolution happened, right?" And when I say "Yeah, of course", they check the "Proper Scientist (TM)" box next to me in their mental inventory.
I'm sorry that you were downvoted. I've come across good programmers who believed the Earth was 7,000 years old etc. Their programming ability was just fine.
I've read a book that started with the author thanking God for granting him the insights presented in the book. Some of the more militant atheist might be offended by that. I just skipped past it and dug into the actual content, which wasn't too bad. It was no shock that none of his code contained any creationist arguments.
Poverty poof gone. Hunger poof gone and so on...
Reality gets in the way, of course, just as it does with GW.