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Beyond Spin's avatar

Always interesting how holocaust analogies and racist comments are okay as long as you support the preferred narrative, but once you question it, then such analogies and racism are unacceptable and grounds for being cancelled.

But I digress,. When it comes to carbon tunnel vision, I think the larger problem is the reductive depiction of the carbon cycle solely to emissions as measured by a thermostat or scale. Some of the language used like "post carbon" and "zero carbon" further reinforces this reductive mindset. Especially since obviously, we can never be post or zero carbon seeing that carbon is essential for all life on earth. We basically live in a carbon based economy where the fixation, transformation and consumption of carbon is a never ending process. Carbon is the currency of life here on planet earth as so well noted in this great presentation by Keith Berns, Carbonomics: https://youtu.be/zq6FCvEAfh8

So when people take a more holistic, less reductive view, of carbon, the carbon cycle is interdependent on pretty much all the other parameters in your carbon tunnel vision graphic especially the water cycle, health, and biodiversity. The carbon, water and nitrogen cycles are all interdependent and interconnected. You don't have fixation or oxidation of carbon without photosynthesis or hydroxl radicals. You don't have photosynthesis or hydroxyl radicals without plants and their roots sourcing and leaves transpiring water and other phtyochemicals. , So desertification and soil health are also integrals parts of the climate equation.

Thus the real problem is overly facile thinking. Facile thinkers lack the capacity for nuance and tend to be agenda or profit driven rather than science driven. Many also tend to be zealots (eg vegans) who don't seem to realize that the simple obvious solutions to complex problems are more often than not WRONG.

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carolyn kostopoulos's avatar

Robb, listen to episode 1776 of Joe Rogin talking for 3 hours to a man named Steven E Koonin (Steven E. Koonin is an American theoretical physicist and former director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. He is also a professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering). the intersection between the Covid authoritarianism and the climate change crazies ("you'll have to eat less meat; it's crickets for you while we jet off to the climate conference to decide your future") is that now the population has gotten accustomed to having their liberties curtailed if an "emergency" warrants. be prepared for sequential "emergencies" from now on.

two old friends refused to stay at our house for a week because we are not vaccinated. we also aren't sick but that point was irrelevant. one of them is HIV positive and should know a thing or two about being ostracized because of a medical condition. they both did, however, come over for dinner one night and were happy to eat our food and drink our wine. the non-HIV one recently told me i had gone to far for noticing the similarities between the political response to covid and the first steps of the Nazis leading up to the final slam of the oven door. i'm not Jewish but Naomi Wolfe has pointed this out too. so have several Holocaust survivors.

as HL Mencken said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

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