Re: Off Topic: Some random thoughts...

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irv said...

AOC has already achieved most of her Green New Deal:

Hello irv,

I greatly respect your opinion and I suspect that your post was a bit of a jest or at least tongue-in-cheek. (Which is good, we all need a bit more humor considering the worldwide situation.) However, in case someone takes it a bit too seriously, I'm going to give a serious response to your points. Hope no one considers me too much of a killjoy for doing so..

irv said...

1. Eliminate fossil fuel production (check, nobody is driving, so we don't need gas)

While travel overall has obviously gone down, driving seems to have gone down less so - and in fact there are several sources of bumps. More people are doing delivery now compared to pre-COVID. Also, essential workers who have the luxury seem to be more likely to drive to work now, where pre-COVID they may have taken public transportation.

Also, supply lines for commercial goods and so on seem to be mostly functioning as normal, so the usual emissions from those are continuing.

This isn't to say that driving overall hasn't gone down (it has), or that fossial fuel prices haven't taken a dive (they have), but some people are still driving and fossil fuel production is still continuing.

irv said...

2. Eliminate 99% of gasoline vehicles (parking them achieves the same purpose. check)

As I said above, delivery drivers, supply chain truckers, and essential workers are still driving. The 99% being parked might be true though - I don't have exact statistics, but obviously the majority of people are not driving on a regular basis.

Alas, electric cars are even more likely to be parked. (Fewer delivery drivers and gorcery store workers have an eletric car over a gasonline one, I'd imagine.)

irv said...

3. Eliminate air travel (check)

Actually, while it's been severely curtailed, air travel still happens. And I've been reading on the news that passengers rre worried because planes have been taking off more-or-less full. (The middle seat is not sold and left empty, but the plane is otherwise full.)

irv said...

6. Ban meat (the virus shutting down packing plants will take care of that)

From what I understand, 80% of meat in the US is processed by BigAgra plants where the outbreaks are happening, so the supply of meat would be greatly reduced by this, and prices would go up a lot - but meat would still be available to those who can afford the higher prices. There are smaller scale processing plants who can't handle the 80%, but they'll at least continue processing the 20% that they were getting before COVID.

That said, products like the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger stand to benefit greatly as they attempt to fill in the gap. I think PETA also supports an approch of "cloning" meat - extracting some muscle cells from an animal that is normally farmed and growing meat in vitro (while allowing the source animal to live a long fulfilling life and die of natural causes and be buried, etc).

irv said...

Two failures:

The biggest issue with the above is that this is thought to be all temporary - as soon as a vaccine or effective antiviral or similar treatment is developed, the above will all end as things "go back to normal". The Green New Deal folks want these things to be permanent IIUC.

irv said...

7. High-speed rail to replace air travel

Yeah, fewer travelers overall means fewer train riders, let alone high speed rail users.

irv said...

8. Eliminate nuclear energy (no, because what's going to run the high-speed rail if they do this?

I don't think that's it. With everyone at home, people are using more power at home to run their computers and phones so they can do zoom meetings and the like. That said, this is offset by having fewer workplaces open. Still, demand is probably high enough that the power plants (including nuclear ones) are not in danger of geting shut down as a consequence of COVID.

irv said...

(no, because what's going to run the high-speed rail if they do this? Unicorns?)

Most likely power plants using clean coal and oil from frakking. I think idealy AOC's supporters would like renewables to fully take over, but I read somewhere that we're at least 100 years away from doing this.

irv said...

So far, the only other things missing are [...] free, healthy grain bowls for all.

Yeah, that was probably covered by point 5 above. :p

irv said...

I'm staying in my energy-efficient home (paid for by me), eating grain bowls (paid for by me), and still have almost a full tank of gasoline since my last fill up in March.

And I'm beginning to detest grain bowls.

I feel you. Have you tried getting an Impossible Whopper delivered?

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