gallois wrote:
As a Frenchman, I just don’t get veganism.
The idea of veganism (as opposed to vegetarian) is that humans can not own and therefore not use any animals. Vegans would tell you that keeping sheep for using their wool is already an abuse of that living being (and the fact that lots of species would extinct if we follow this thought is also an example of people not thinking far enough if something fits into their belief…).
gallois wrote:
drink (normal) wine because they rely on living beings ie bees.
The “problem” with wine is that in many cases egg white is used to filter the wine – therefore it is not vegan. Most vegans actually accept that vegetables are dusted by bees – they just live in the dream that these bees are wild animals and are not forced by humans to work. Therefore in their filter bubble there is a difference between dusting and using the honey. Again, they do not want to get in touch with reality far enough to realize that there are never enough “wild and free bees” to do the dusting job for modern agriculture.
gallois wrote:
Am I crazy or just French in that I really don’t understand how that will save the planet but I’m pretty sure it will make life seem longer even when it isn’t.
Isn’t that true for any religion?
Btw – and coming back closer to the topic: The vegan/vegetraian myth of “doing something great for the climate” that came up in the last 2 years does only hold true in the “I’m the only person on earth” narrative. If Vegans would accept that there also other people on earth – and even more of them than they are – and really would chose their diet based on carbon footprint, they should eat pig tails, feet and noses. In most countries in Europe they are thrown away if not flown to China – therefore eating them from your local butcher is actually truly carbon neutral. But again they do not want to hear it.
Malibuflyer wrote:
and the fact that lots of species would extinct if we follow this thought is also an example of people not thinking far enough if something fits into their belief…
While I disagree with the vegan worldview, this is actually not a contradiction. Holding that humans can’t “use” animals in any sense doesn’t mean that you think that species should be preserved.
alioth wrote:
Oh yes, that old chestnut. Only a very tiny number of people weighing 116kg are the kind of bodybuilders who are not obese, measured in ppm population wise. Many who wheel out this phrase “but BMI and athletes” are most certainly not body builders nor athletes.
Alioth, It would not occur to me to say that someone who is my sad size is not obese. I am and you are free to call me all the associated names if it makes you feel better.
What I sad and to what I stand is that calling an average male of 90 kg obese is in most cases inappropriate.
And I resent body shaming which is extremely common when it concerns people who by all standards are normal sized but do not conform to the internet judgement of anyone who is ot size S or M. Unfortunately this is a thing which has driven many people into massive health problems when trying to conform with these kind of ideals.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Holding that humans can’t “use” animals in any sense doesn’t mean that you think that species should be preserved.
Absolutely correct from a logical point of view! In reality I still have to meet a single vegan who would freely admit that her behavior causes the extinction of a significant number of species…
“An Earth Day Reminder: “Global Warming” is Only ~50% of What Models Predict”
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/04/an-earth-day-reminder-global-warming-is-only-50-of-what-models-predict
Michael_J wrote:
“An Earth Day Reminder: “Global Warming” is Only ~50% of What Models Predict”
So, assuming that the data is genuine, the sea surface heating is along the lines of the most optimistic predictions. That’s of course good if it’s true but it doesn’t say anything about atmospheric heating or indeed ground heating. E.g. it’s indisputable that glaciers are melting. That blog post seems like cherrypicking to me.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Btw – and coming back closer to the topic: The vegan/vegetraian myth of “doing something great for the climate” that came up in the last 2 years does only hold true in the “I’m the only person on earth” narrative. If Vegans would accept that there also other people on earth – and even more of them than they are – and really would chose their diet based on carbon footprint, they should eat pig tails, feet and noses. In most countries in Europe they are thrown away if not flown to China – therefore eating them from your local butcher is actually truly carbon neutral. But again they do not want to hear it.
Is that really true? I was under the impression that most of them were used in pet food, fertiliser or gelatine production. Indirectly anyone either paying for the discards or saving their disposal costs would be making meat production more profitable. I would also caution against second-guessing anybody’s reasons for being vegetarian or vegan. I have a friend who decided to become vegetarian as a toddler, because she hated animals so much that the idea of eating them disgusted her! Other people might not care about animal rights, but think it is healthier (rightly or wrongly). Or find it easier to keep a halal or kosher diet. And so on.
I agree that it’s reasonable to sit down and do sums to calculate ‘what is the impact on the climate of cycling’ rather than just assuming that the impact of cycling is less than that of cars. I don’t agree that there are any convincing studies that suggest that this conjecture is wrong.
Personally I think the greater issue around car use is about how we structure our towns and cities around them. Setting aside the issue of their contribution to climate change, which I think will be solved within the next few decades, the effects on society are very broad. Cars limit kids’ independence and encourage sterile suburbias that are covered in tarmac and that are so sprawling that travel and commute times increase despite the additional speed that cars offer. I worked on a kibbutz for some time, and it was built without any internal roads – just footpaths and a ring road for access. I tumbled out of bed every morning and meandered up to work half asleep, in silence without any traffic noise or ever having to look to cross a road. I’d see a kingfisher or hoopoe most mornings. I lived near the basketball court and kids were always playing there, and even 6 or 7 year olds would come and go of their own accord rather than needing their parents to drive them about. You could walk across the whole village in the same amount of time that it would take to drive across the town where I went to secondary school, even though the populations were quite similar in size.
Compare and contrast this with a typical British town full of the constant noise of cars whizzing about, often carrying kids to and from playdates their parents have negotiated for them, each back garden filled with a potentially lethal trampoline so that they can have some captive fun when their parents are too busy, and where there are likely to be more square metres of tarmac than garden. This video contrasts Dutch and North American cities, but makes many of the same points nicely (especially if you skip the first two minutes):
As pilots we doubtless all value our autonomy. I suspect today’s British kids may grow up into a very different generation.
My most enjoyable times as a kid were riding a motorcycle daily, from age 10 up, purchased with money I earned and saved, alone. The first one was $25 and my mother helped me push it home. The second one was $225.
I stopped riding bicycles for the most part at that point, and especially after I bought my first car at 15. It was a British car ($500) so I learned a lot about maintaining machinery 
I’d rebuilt the engine at least twice before reaching adulthood at 18. I can’t remember anybody ever taking me anywhere, I took myself for hundreds of miles, not within the local city.
I’m glad I didn’t have parents who tried to constrain me or guide me into compliance with their blinkered views of the world or childhood. I am tremendously better off now as a result.
Excellent post, kwlf. I too often wonder what sort of world our kids will grow up in. So far, though, mine seem to do ok with minimal management. They even know about eating veg 
But my two had, and still have, the advantage of living in the countryside which I think generally sets kids up for a better approach to life.
My time on motorbikes was great (I stopped when the roads filled up with blind car drivers) but I don’t think they saved the planet much, with the famous Kawasaki 750 triple (piston ported) doing ~20mpg They also didn’t do anything for finding girlfriends who back then gravitated strongly to a boy (any boy) with a car
Quite related to the topic (though it possibly belongs to the Off-topic / Politics topic):
This woman, Annalena Bärbock of the Green party, has a reasonable chance at becoming the next German chancellor. Climate change has top priority on her personal agenda as well as that of their party.
The Their political program (English short version, the detailed version seems to be only available in German) contains, among others, the plan to increase the price (CO2-tax) per tonne CO2 to 60 kg by 2023, with further increases in the following years, and the plan to abolish short-range (commerical) air travel in favour of better long-distance trains. I haven’t found a mention of GA yet.
