Pollution and Depletion


If we want an energy transition we don’t need more so-called “renewable”. We need less fossil fuels, which we aren’t doing.

I came across these graphs and had to share them because they reveal how counterproductive the plans of many environmentalists are, at least those who keep saying how percentages of so-called "clean," "green," or "renewable" energy sources are increasing. Wind, solar, and electric vehicles may pollute, deplete, and misappropriate less than fossil fuels, but less than fossil fuels doesn't mean zero. But for the sake of discussion, lets' imagine they were clean, green, and renewable. The plots below show that humans are using as much oil and fossil fuels as ever. Only using less fossil fuels uses less fossil fuels. Using more solar doesn't reduce the pollution, depletion, or misappropriation of oil. When we add back that they do pollute, deplete, and misappropriate, we gain…

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Syringes on a Sunday afternoon, following doof on a Sunday morning

I haven't posted about finding syringes and people shooting up in a while. Last fall or winter the city decided to increase the police coverage of Washington Square Park and the neighborhood. Nobody thinks it decreases the use of fentanyl and other drugs of despair, but they moved it away from this particular park. Yesterday afternoon, while picking up litter in the park, I saw a couple syringes, the first I saw in that park in several months. This tree happens to be close to the temporary police office, sort of a mobile home parked by the northwest corner of the park. The park is like my neighborhood's back yard. Who wants discarded used syringes in their back yard? Yesterday morning started with other addiction,…

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“There is no place that I’d rather be,” I thought, until the ATV and used diaper

This post is about inspiration. Parts may look dark, but since I developed a vision for a desirable future with a rewarding, doable path to it, greater challenges just motivate more. I was in Philadelphia over the weekend and got to walk in the park along Wissahickon Creek. Regular readers know that it's one of my favorite places on Earth. Here are a couple maps of it: and a friendlier one. Growing up in Mt Airy and Germantown, I recognize all the neighborhood names around it, which remind me of where friends lived, where I played little league or soccer, rode my bike up incredibly steep hills, worked at my first job, and so on. Also, where I got mugged, my life threatened, mugged again,…

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People call cities noisy and dirty, but suburbanites create the noise and mess

I wish you could experience the pollution of Friday and Saturday nights in my neighborhood: sound pollution and litter in particular. If I go out the following morning before the street cleaners do their work, at taxpayer expense, there is garbage all over. Pizza boxes, beer cans, plastic cups, sometimes bar glasses but they've mostly been replaced by plastic, doof wrappers, often pieces of clothing, takeout containers often with food in it, and plenty more. It's on the street, the gutter, the planters outside my building, in the trees, overflowing from garbage cans. At night they honk, rev their engines, yell at each other, sing, and so on. None are from this neighborhood. They are from other places---New Jersey, Long Island, upstate, as well as…

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America’s largest release of radioactive waste wasn’t Three Mile Island. It was Church Rock, mainly affecting the Navajo Nation

Following up what I learned about The Hanford Nuclear Site a couple months ago, I learned of the Church Rock uranium mill spill. I think the biggest point to remember about the following is that several sources say that it was one of multiple incidents that received minimal coverage. It may be the biggest, but may only be the biggest reported or known. According to Wikipedia [my emphasis]: The Church Rock uranium mill spill occurred in ... New Mexico on July 16, 1979, when United Nuclear Corporation's tailings disposal pond at its uranium mill in Church Rock breached its dam. The spill remains the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history, having released more radioactivity than the Three Mile Island accident four months earlier. This article…

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Elon Musk says “Those without children lack a stake in the future” but lives the opposite.

Elon Musk wrote a few months ago, "Those without children lack a stake in the future." He implies he has a stake in the future for having kids. On the contrary, if you want to know who does not have a stake in the future, people who build doomsday bunkers. They are at best hedging their bets. A quick search showed Mark Zuckerberg built bunkers in Hawaii, Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe Elon Musk in Texas compound Sam Altman Jeff Bezos Peter Thiel Andrew Tate and many others are betting against humanity. There's a whole industry of people betting against you. What do you know, my search turned up a book on this topic by podcast guest Doug Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of…

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Slippery double standards about harming people

Yesterday's post How we view the suffering we cause others today versus 200 years ago prompted me to think of a different view on our culture's double standards of whom we consider when we do things that harm others versus when others do such things. When I say I don't use air conditioning, people respond, "But what can I do when it's hot?" About not flying, "But I have to see my relatives" or "But I need to for my job" etc. About not using a fridge "But I don't have time to cook." In other words, regarding perks, they concern themselves about themselves. They might say flying is for their kids' education or other distraction, but it's always how it affects them at the…

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How we view the suffering we cause others today versus 200 years ago

This post describes how to face a challenge we all face in a way that leads to deep reward, though it requires introspection that may feel uncomfortable in the short term. When I talk to people about hurting others less by reducing how much they pollute and deplete, they talk about themselves. They might say something about helping people by spreading culture or education or their mother being sick, but they want to fly. They may say something about other people not having access to fresh produce, but they want takeout, and the concern for others is just a smokescreen or diversion from their personal responsibility. Mention personal responsibility to anyone regarding pollution and depletion and they'll launch into huge diversions about BP if they're…

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Women-Founded Garbage

Regular readers know I pick up litter every day. The point isn't that my actions will change much. It seems about 8 billion people around the world don't seem to mind buying and disposing of plastic so I'm a tiny minority. One of the biggest values in picking up litter is that it makes it easier for me to avoid spending money on doof and other stuff that ends up filling landfills. Did I say "easy"? That's an understatement. I feel disgust and repugnance for the common stuff I find. I just got home and four Modelo empty beer cans were in my building's garden on the way in. McDonalds, 7-11, Amazon, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Coca-Cola ... All of those brands and their peers…

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Environmentalists: Are you proud that to get back at BP, you don’t stop buying their products?
Oil refinery

Environmentalists: Are you proud that to get back at BP, you don’t stop buying their products?

It's been nearly a year since I posted Do you think BP tricked us? Here’s a way to respond. and I'm still as aghast as ever at how counterproductive the environmentalist response to personal responsibility. Everyone knows the story of BP promoting personal footprints to distract from their responsibility. How exactly does their being responsible for what they did remove responsibility for what you do? But my main response to environmentalists: Are you proud that to get back at BP, you don't stop buying their products? You're promoting that people keep buying what BP and their peers as much as ever. Am I missing something that you aren't responding in the most counterproductive way possible?

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Secret video of Beth picking up litter goes viral in Mexico

The background: Longtime podcast listeners may remember episode 754: (Aunt) Trish Ellis and (Niece) Evelyn Wallace, part 1: Not Even Cancer Holds Her Back. We mentioned Beth, Evelyn's mom and Trish's sister. All three of them took the workshop. Beth has been picking up litter ever since. She lives in Mérida, Mexico, where she organizes others to pick up litter too. They created a web page: Yo ❤ Mérida limpia. ¿Y tú?, which states their mission and vision: Mission: To promote the care, cleanliness, and respect for Mérida's public spaces through community actions that strengthen environmental awareness, a sense of belonging, and citizen participation. Vision: To build a Mérida where every person takes pride in caring for their surroundings, making cleanliness and respect for nature part…

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Can the Constitution Save the Planet?: A professor of environmental law’s view, part 1

I met a professor at Pace University who told me that its law school ranked number one in environmental law. It turns out it does: My upcoming book approaches problems we face today, including environmental degradation as one of many, as resulting from not understanding how the Constitution applies. More precisely, they result from not enforcing the Constitution. I was interested in talking to lawyers with constitutional backgrounds. I should note that I've learned that constitutional lawyers don't tend to be trained in leadership. When I proposed the APPLE PIE amendment in Sustainability Simplified, I learned that the creation of new amendments doesn't have to come from lawyers. As far as I can tell, they seem to train to look back at existing ones, precedent, and…

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Last week’s heat wave, air conditioning, and fragile, entitled people

Last week the temperature went above 100 F (38 C) for two days and close to it for a day or two before and after, plus it was humid. Everyone talked about the heat. I didn't try to bring it up, but my not using air conditioning led people to the same questions over and over: how did I make it, did I use a fan, etc. Everything always about me, never about the people hurt by my polluting and depleting. Then most comment on how they couldn't make it. Occasionally an old person will mention how they grew up without air conditioning and don't like it, though they use it when it gets hot enough. I point out that people have lived on this…

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Recent peer-reviewed research that when people live as I do, they prefer it and don’t want to go back

A friend and workshop graduate sent me a news article that described and linked to primary research published last month in a journal called Communications Sustainability within the family of Nature journals. The journal article: The undervalued quality-of-life benefits of demand-side energy and climate strategies. The news article in plain language: Cutting energy use may improve quality of life more than cleaner technology. The news article described the main result of the journal article. It compared how people felt about acting on different strategies to reduce polluting and depleting. Some strategies reduced behaviors that polluted and depleted or otherwise used less (demand-side strategies). Others relied on new technologies, like heat pumps and electric vehicles (supply side strategies). When different strategies achieved similar environmental results, how did…

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Why I avoid polluting and depleting

Media coverage on me mostly presents me as an environmentalist. When they report on my disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid, avoiding flying, and taking a decade to fill a load of household garbage, they post pictures of solar panels. They know what readers look for. I tell them that focusing on my solar panels and how I make do is like going to Martin Luther King during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and asking what shoes he wears, what routes he takes, and how exercise is healthy. They would miss that the point of the boycott wasn't shoes, walking, or exercise but liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. Everyone misunderstands why I avoid polluting and depleting. Also liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security.…

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Beyond no electric bill: Money returned from allegedly fraudulent overbilling

This post is about my home being disconnected from the electric grid. Everyone misunderstands why I disconnected, so first a few words for context. I'm not an environmentalist. Environmentalists make my skin crawl. I disconnected for a few reasons. First, I don't want to hurt people without their consent. Polluting and depleting hurt people without their consent, therefore I try to avoid polluting and depleting. Second, polluting and depleting violate the Constitution by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, as well as the Declaration, which says that for a government to be just requires the consent of the governed. This nation has a cancer alley, death mile, and other sacrifice zones, as well as many other ways people are…

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Environmentalists fund pollution and depletion

I value the Washington Post's Climate Coach newsletter. It has featured me and my voice several times: Read my plucky quote in today’s Washington Post and See me in the Washington Post’s Climate Coach again, for example. I email with its author, Michael Coren. I also know the Post serves its customers. Last I checked, Jeff Bezos runs it and does so actively. I presume the publishers know their readers and deliver what they value, even if those readers don't include many past readers. The newsletter includes ads. That's business. I'm not complaining. I suspect Coren doesn't choose the newsletter's ads. I presume some tracking and profiling determine who reads it and what they spend their money on. With a name like Climate Coach, I suspect the readers consider…

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Do you still believe in an “energy transition”? Learn Alice Friedemann’s research

Someone posted about Alice Friedemann in an online community I participate in. I found her book Life After Fossil Fuels and blog energyskeptic.com influential. The book may be expensive and the blog dense, but she cites all her sources and her publisher is Springer, which holds a high reputation for science publishing. I haven't yet read her book When Trucks Stop Running, but she's described a lot of it in her interviews and conversations. I've mentioned her in several posts: Reader question: Why do I say solar and wind aren’t clean, green, or renewable? Renewables are less renewable than we thought. That’s the starting point. Overwhelming research: “Green Growth” is a scam that accelerates lowering Earth’s ability to sustain life. Following or propagating it hurts us.…

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Do you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results?

Do you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results? I hope you do. Why? Because today, June 24, in 1988, the New York Times published those results on its front page news. Since then, you and everyone in the world have known at least enough to know the important part of what they knew. Actually before then, since the Times story was far from the first widespread publication about it, but it was a big one. It's tempting to say that they are different because they are bigger than you. Tempting but specious. If you do something that hurts people, who else but you is responsible for your actions? If you can't change the world, are…

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A tragic comment the dean said about artificial intelligence at my 20 year business school reunion

Yesterday I wrote personal reflections about my business school reunion. Today I have to share a tragic comment from the Dean of the school. There was a town-hall type gathering where he spoke about the state of the school. One of the main topics was that the school was embracing artificial intelligence with enthusiasm. He spoke of how professors were being trained in it, students were encouraged to use it, and so on. At the end he acknowledged that using AI polluted and depleted. I think he acknowledged even that the scale was already huge, accelerating, and without any ways to curb it. His response to this acknowledgment: "We have to be cognizant of that." Be cognizant? What kind of cop-out is "be cognizant of that"?…

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First we pave more land nearby and it’s no big deal…

First we pave more land nearby and it's no big deal. In fact, the road or housing development boosts the economy. More people can reach places faster. Then we expand that paved area, again no big deal. The we have to travel to get away from it all. There is no local nature, no chance for solitude in nature. Then we pave over yet more to access more remote places, maybe build an airport, to facilitate getting away from it all. Then we acknowledge that we've wrecked or done away with nature nearby so we feel we have to get away and feel entitled to what we need to get away and to the remote nature we get away to. Then we build adorable little…

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When did you last prepare a meal from scratch?

Nearly everyone I tell that I don't use a fridge responds, "You must shop every day," or asks how often I shop, implying that they think it must be frequently. I've been answering by pointing out that apples and eggplants don't need refrigeration, nor do most whole fruits and vegetables. Most of the produce in this picture will stay edible for weeks without refrigeration. Several will keep months or longer if fermented. Meanwhile, look at the second picture below. Nearly all the produce in the picture below will start decomposing as soon as they aren't refrigerated. They're worse in nearly every way: less fresh, more polluting, more fragile, more depleting, etc. Notice that you can't directly see or touch produce or anything living. In the…

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What do we do about past choices that ended up violating our values? Do we just give up? Wouldn’t you rather win?

The number one resistance I hear to flying is that people have family flying-distance away. For most people who fly a lot, the following is checkmate: "What do you expect, never to see their mother again?" Implication: the environment is important but family is more important, so for whatever its problems, flying is net worth it. Similar with plastic, big cars, etc. Context Before getting to the heart of this view, first let's note that it is specious, deceptive, and self-serving. Flying made them flying-distance away in the first place. They don't hesitate to fly away from their family. People who fly spend less time with family, not more. Then they start talking about how they need to live where they do for work, or…

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The 5 greatest flaws I see in environmentalism

I see environmentalism increasingly causing environmental degradation because the core of its practice is misguided. I started this post to write about the two greatest flaws I see in environmentalism, but three more came to me while writing. My goal is not to be comprehensive or authoritative but to provoke thought and behavior change. [EDIT: I came up with more since posting, so now more than 5. I may keep updating.] To believe that suing more solar, wind, or any energy source, including nuclear or, should it ever work, fusion, will lower use of fossil fuels or uranium, or their resulting pollution and depletion. Corollary: To believe that calling solar, wind, or any energy source as implemented today "clean," "green," or "renewable" means that it…

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“Are we running out of land for landfills?”: A Richard Feynman view from the 1986 Space Shuttle disaster

Richard Feynman is the Nobel laureate physicist who studied what caused the Space Shuttle Explosion of 1986. He learned that the o-rings likely leaked because past measurements showed cracks in them at low temperatures, like those just before the launch. Anyone my age or older remembers the image. He saw that people who saw the earlier cracks saw that because the cracks only went about a third of the way through, "there was 'a safety factor of three.'" I put the full quote below, which I recommend reading, but the gist is that since the o-rings were designed not to crack at all, there was no safety factor. Any cracking at all meant they failed. The Relevance to Landfills I ran into an old friend. Our…

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