An interesting presentation, and I was pleased that the morality question of lives lost and quality of life was briefly pondered. Do the world a favor, Ezra and NYTimes, and please invite Nate Hagens to present from a wider energy and economic systems lens regarding our many overlapping predicaments. It’s past time for these conversations, and your followers need to hear from a far more diverse collection of experts.
Hannah Ritchie's work looks amazing. I really like her take. Thank you for bringing her on. Watched her Ted Talk and bought her book now. Funny that the NYTimes disasterized the title (Totally misleading title) when one of her main themes is messaging global warming with optimism instead of impending disaster.
So glad Ezra has Ritchie on. Her work is amazing and more of my fellow progressives need to read her book before they become paralyzed with fear over climate change
solar panels are not that efficient. the amount of energy needed to build and maintain them offsets their energy yield substantially. they're still a net positive, but not as much as one would expect
Very interesting and good information, especially how our well-intentioned actions may not necessarily result in good outcomes. But I have always wondered why our urban roofs - houses, apartments, offices, warehouses, car parking lots - are not covered with solar cells; in other words mini-power plants everywhere instead of centralized solar power plants with their delivery grids. What do the stats say about this?
I'm not saying they're wrong about beef, I'm saying the chemicals needed to grow high yield cereal crops kill soil, and when manure is used naturally (not through slurry) according to War on Want that desertification can be reversed. I wish fertiliser would be included in discussions of the issues with meat based diets, likewise incomes - who would lose their livelihoods through a rewilding push?
Why there are conspiracy theories about environmentalists? The corn to ethanol and bio-diesel is an expensive exercise that makes things far worse and nothing can be done about it. If cows are to blame for all our problems then the well-being of chickens should not matter much. Moreover, free-range chickens are sold at my local supermarket with only 13% premium over regular ones. Why do we have to invent expensive technologies vs adapting to depopulation that happens on its own? If nothing in environmental movement makes sense, then sure there is some conspiracy there (or maybe just a regular "progressive" stupidity).
Nobody ever wants to say NO. 'Can we continue to live with this level of energy usage but with cleaner energy sources?' NO. Do not say YES when the answer is NO.
We need to prepare for a near future with less energy usage now. The efforts to make everyone thing things will keep growing going forward is wrong. We have lived happily with less energy before. We can live happily in the future with less energy.
"We have cut one degree"... have we though?! Cause its what politicians (and climate change scientists working with the government) say, but its not what some of the top climate scientists (who are no longer working under the government) are saying!!!
30 years ago we were told not to try to invent the way out of climate change, and to instead rely on political and economic process. That was a fundamental error that has been a global disaster.
Climate change is a consequence of trying to invent ways to avoid social change and maintain the economic model. Pollution is only one facet of overconsumption. The driver is property, finance, and the inequalities they cause.
China has serious problems with air pollutions and is being strongly affected by climate change - they took action! Part of their action was also moving manufacturing to other countries and, therefore, giving the carbon emissions a new nationality. I must be clear here: the piece I read is over 10 years old and I don't know how things are now. Also, China has been taking serious actions to reduce both pollution and carbon emission - including building some 20 nuclear power plants. (AFAIK, those nuclear plants aren't readey yet)
I have a question: which mammals produce milk? Yes! No ... haha ... only the females. Cows, btw, are used to produce milk and only milk - they last a long time and produce an important food that even vegetarians consume. Males - castrated males, btw - are the cattle used for meat. So, NYT, check your subconscious sexism and change that title! Now ... what can we do? We can eat less cattle meat and more pork, for instance - we can even eat other sources of protein regularly like fungi, soy bean, fish ... and save cattle meat for our barbecues!
My first though about your comment was yes, but the impact of cattle is such-and-such per head, whether the number is dairy cows who occupy those spots for a long time or meat cattle who are turned over annually. I'd like to be wrong.
Air pollution is caused by energy poverty because to pollute less you neeed to spend energy. Cars, for instance, lost 10% of their horse power after the electrolytic catalizer was installed. Remember when Dan Aykrioid explains to John Belushi why the police car bought on an acution was a great purchase: "and it was manufatured before the electrolytic catalizer!". Energy richness: you can throw out 10% of your fuel to filter the exhaust pipe gases.
We have the technology on hand to reduce our footprint without impacting our lifestyle: white paint. If your house, your place of work, and your car is white, the surface area gets much more reflective at very little cost. If you ban asphalt or paint it with white epoxy coating or replace it with concrete, the amount of reflection increases.
Cows? Really? If this is really your view, give up cheese,butter,beef,leather now. If you want progress, focus on fazing out fossil fuels, plastics, toxic chemicals, nuclear, and war.
nuclear creates toxic waste that lasts forever. as do many chemicals. carbon is nontoxic and good for life. landscapes change and people migrate but we wont be able to avoid these forever toxic solutions.
@@ThomasSteves You're not wrong. We have a desire for meat, and maybe a bit of a nutritional requirement if you can't afford to live a vegetarian lifestyle. But there is definitely a chain of victims every time we eat meat
I don't bother arguing with some people about the science of climate change. Instead I argue we need to get to a 50-50 mix of sustainable and fossil fuels to create more competition in the energy markets and make prices more stable. sticking with fossil fuels just makes a bunch of ceo robber barrons, middle east zealots and russian criminals richer.
Why not instead develop an infrastructure for biofuel made from switchgrass? The net carbon output would be zero (switchgrass would sequester the carbon from the atmosphere that burning the biofuel would produce) and the energy you get can be greater than the energy you use to grow and harvest it.
@@kennj321 "why eat hamburgers? such plain boring food." That's fine that you have that opinion. It's just a bad idea to force that opinion on someone else.
Talking about animal rights is nonsense. There is not one single logical reason to care about the sufferings of animals. There are only emotional reasons. Haven't Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins proved that we should always think logically and never let our emotions get in the way of our decision making?
