George Monbiot3d ago
Everything we need to do to stop climate breakdown, we also need to do for national security. Energy saving, more renewables, more electricity storage and interconnectors, electrification of transport, heating, cooking and industrial processes, plant-based diets. We win on all fronts.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell3d ago

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social

Do you know what the cheapest thing would be? It would be the thing that would make every community quieter, healthier, and more economically vibrant.

Car free walkable communities.

You know what would save planet ecologies?

Local food production. Watershed restoration.

One TW of renewable energy consumes something like 16 times the materials as for oil and gas. Replacing it is ridiculous. Kill the planet cover it with toxic waste instead of reduce

Show threadMike Anderson
@GhostOnTheHalfShell you mean that manufacturing the ... wind turbines? solar panels? what? ... costs 16x as much as building the equivalent capacity in coal or gas fired power stations? Because the actual power generation costs *nothing* for wind and solar, whereas pumping oil out of the ground, refining it and shipping it around the World, doesn't come for free at all.
Mar 21 at 2:43pmWeb
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell3d ago

@mspcommentary

Why do people’s eyes glaze over:

Quieter, healthier, cheap cheaper much much cheaper much much cheaper in resources and money, safer and more economically vibrant for communities?

people cling to the two options offered: one side, big oil the other side is big mine.

let’s not do the simplest thing, because we absolutely need to destroy ecology all over the planet to get that mountain of resources to build our renewable green world. 🤔

Show threadMike Anderson3d ago
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I will not choose "the simplest thing" based on numbers that sound like they came from Shell, no.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell3d ago

@mspcommentary

Then please, I asked you to consider not accepting the bunnies and butterfly framing of Rio Tinto.

Walkable cities and re-localized farming offered the potential of an eliminating 90% of all resource for transportation use in the first place.

A car free city recovers all the land used for roads and for parking. This saves an enormous amount of money as well as resources, and cars are as well.

Do the experiment next time you go to the store: push your car.

Show threadMike Anderson3d ago

@GhostOnTheHalfShell I don't have a car, and I wonder why you would assume that I do.

There is little point in having a walkable city if you cannot transport food to the city.

I'm also wondering whether you will be using steel tools for your local food production. No machinery, I suppose.

We need energy and it cannot come from fossil fuels.

Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell3d ago

@mspcommentary

Plus, I don’t think you understand that big oil attacked walkable cities for the reason that they know it cuts down on their profit margins.

I think it’s funny how people want to believe that the global economy that is killing the planet, fueled by oil is going to stop killing the planet when that’s how they make their money.

No one will stop to consider just how large and destructive the globally economy is.