Flight Cancellations

[KUTradition]

from a colleague in the Netherlands:

at the grocery store - bean pods from Peru, sugar snap peas from Zimbabwe, butternut squash from Brazil, green beans and string beans from Morocco

this is the sort of shit that has to stop, particularly when all of that produce grows just fine locally

not only is it crazy energy-intensive to transport that fresh produce around the globe, but at the prices “we” pay for it there is no way the farmers in those countries are getting a fair share

[PhDhawk]

from a colleague in the Netherlands:

at the grocery store - bean pods from Peru, sugar snap peas from Zimbabwe, butternut squash from Brazil, green beans and string beans from Morocco

this is the sort of shit that has to stop, particularly when all of that produce grows just fine locally

not only is it crazy energy-intensive to transport that fresh produce around the globe, but at the prices “we” pay for it there is no way the farmers in those countries are getting a fair share

It was the chicken nuggets that got to me.

I found out that a lot of the processed cooked poultry you see in the frozen food section of your grocer is raised in the US (we can raise poultry cheaply), slaughtered in the US, but then shipped to China to be processed and cooked into a nugget, or patty, or whatever, and then shipped back to the US for consumption.

[ousdahl]

isn't there a lot of excess and overlap in shipping and such?

plus, some significant amount - like a quarter or a third or something? - of shipping energy is used for nothing more than shipping oil from place to place too.

but, I'm guessing the powers that be wanna keep it that way. Some shipping somebody or whatever wants to keep (and grow) their contracts and shipments for the sake of their own profits, rather than address them in any kind of good faith way for the sake of the world.

[ousdahl]

or, in the spirit of this thread, those pics of "ghost flights" taking off completely empty, without any passengers, just for the sake of airlines being able to keep their "slots" at the airports

[zsn]

However, there was a study done comparing locally sourced meat vs imported meat showing that the former isn’t automatically better. Iirc it was Freakanomics. I recall a comparison showing that even though potatoes grow in Idaho and Alabama the resource utilization in Idaho is far less per potato than in Alabama and thus the impact of transportation still offsets getting potatoes from Idaho. Similar analysis of sheep meat from New Zealand.

Of course meat production is inherently bad in resource utilization and bad for the environment.

[DrPepper]

Oh, wow! You guys! I didn't know you were over here talking about some of my favorite things. Let's see. Environmental economics, Big pickups for tiny dicks, corporate profits, and big government. Sorry I am late.

[jhawks99]

I drive a Camry. Wonder what that says about me.

[DrPepper]

People want free markets. So quit allowing clean air and nice views and an Earth with fewer extreme weather events to be taken from you by companies for FREE. If the hamburger costs some portion of a rainforest acre and rainforest acres are 10billion bucks an acre, then the hamburger should cost $50. If the flight to Europe needs to have the air pollution offset, then charge for the offset. If beachfront property on the gulf means there is no natural storm surge protection anymore, charge those companies and individuals out the wazoo and never give them public protection.

Start your media campaign to set aside the gazillion dollars it will take to feed, care for, and school the 1 million or so (annually) of unplanned new babies that are about to be forced to go full term.

[pdub]

Would you rather unlimited big pickups but a tiny dick or unlimited big dicks but a tiny pickup?

[KUTradition]

I drive a Camry. Wonder what that says about me.

#sensibility

[DrPepper]

Cars require roads, are loud, they smell bad. We need traffic cops. If you own a home in the burbs, take a birdseye look and figure how much of your property is consumed by the vehicles with the driveway and garages.

[Sparko]

I drive a Camry. Wonder what that says about me.

#sensibility

#pronoun

[zsn]

People want free markets. So quit allowing clean air and nice views and an Earth with fewer extreme weather events to be taken from you by companies for FREE. If the hamburger costs some portion of a rainforest acre and rainforest acres are 10billion bucks an acre, then the hamburger should cost $50. If the flight to Europe needs to have the air pollution offset, then charge for the offset. If beachfront property on the gulf means there is no natural storm surge protection anymore, charge those companies and individuals out the wazoo and never give them public protection.

Start your media campaign to set aside the gazillion dollars it will take to feed, care for, and school the 1 million or so (annually) of unplanned new babies that are about to be forced to go full term.

I’ve always supported a similar costing model: a percentage of the Pentagon budget should be amortized over the oil imports because ostensibly we spend a sizable percentage to keeping the supply lines open. This amount would be charged by the barrel at the port of entry.

We would accomplish several things at once. Since the cost is baked into every barrel of imported oil we would reduce imports, and also consumption. More importantly, since the cost basis would be based on a percentage of the Pentagon budget, there would be an additional benefit of reducing the numerator, ie. the Pentagon budget.

[TDub]

Cars require roads, are loud, they smell bad. We need traffic cops. If you own a home in the burbs, take a birdseye look and figure how much of your property is consumed by the vehicles with the driveway and garages.

very little of my neighborhood is consumed by garages or paving.

How do you propose the 160+ million Americans that don't have access to mass transit get out and about to do their jobs?

[ousdahl]

How do you figure that metric?

[pdub]

Cars require roads, are loud, they smell bad. We need traffic cops. If you own a home in the burbs, take a birdseye look and figure how much of your property is consumed by the vehicles with the driveway and garages.

5%?
Less?
I'm not counting my garage bc I use it from April to November exclusively for things other than cars.

[TDub]

How do you figure that metric?

google machine says 45-55% of Americans have no access to mass transit. So I shot somewhere in the middle

[ousdahl]

right on.

Merica would prob do itself well by investing in mass transit.

[TDub]

right on.

Merica would prob do itself well by investing in mass transit.

You're probably right, but thats still only really plausible in metro areas. It would make zero sense to put mass transit in most rural communities. Huge infrastructure costs that would not be justified by the limited use (even if 100% of people used it there). Not to mention in most rural areas the land is majority privately held, these people aren't selling.....and forget imminent domain for those instances. Would just cause more problems.

[DrPepper]

The garages of houses being built now are about the same size as the houses that were built immediately post WWII. And they had more kids. And some of us go rent storage units or don’t even have space to put our car(s) in the garage for all the other “toys” and shit in the garages.