You obviously know your stuff and are probably more knowledgeable on the research end than I am. When I was young, I relied heavily upon research and the formal codified knowledge base. But as I got older (and hopefully wiser), I realize that the research did not always guide me in the right direction. In fact, it sometimes downright failed me. I began exploring intuition, tacit knowledge, and non-linear thinking more and studied psychophysical approaches that enhanced my capabilities in this area. As you know, the path of science takes many twists and turns, most which are usually beyond our ability to predict. We know about the multiple historical examples of the individual who comes along and upsets the knowledge apple cart and changes the course of history as a result. The insight that yielded that dramatic revelation usually had intuition and tacit knowledge at its foundation. And so I learned to study my own body, those of patients, and real world examples for information as much as from the formal research. Interestingly, science often came along at a later date and proved what I had earlier intuited.
I learned to eat food that was good for me, not just food that tasted good. In other words, I tried to avoid emotion driving my eating choices … whether using food as psychological medication, food to ameliorate boredom, food to take the place of something else missing in my life, etc. I’m sure the baked goods that Gerry is eating taste good but the question remains, are they good for you? I have to say, with over four decades of clinical experience, I’ve never seen anyone who daily consumed a significant amount of baked goods to be truly healthy. Not one. They may be out there but I never saw them.
As you well realize, nutrition is a field that is rife with confusion and contradiction. We’re still learning and that includes myself. Nutrition is a “sloppy” field and not as precise as electrical engineering. It’s interesting the path you followed. I went from considering a career in electrical engineering (and being good at math but not loving math) to changing to the human sciences. You’ve seem to have done the opposite. To each their own. I’ll comment on the Atkins issue in another post. Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to answer.
I don’t know if you gentlemen realize it, but Atkins didn’t necessarily follow the Atkins diet closely. I lived in the NYC metro area more than half my life, commuted into NYC for years, and rubbed shoulders with patients who rubbed shoulders with Atkins. So I have it on good authority. Also, he didn’t originate the Atkins diet. Carleton Fredericks did. But while Fredericks didn’t recommend it to everyone, Atkins just about did. And as you may well realize, Atkins was highly incentivized by the wealth aspect of his diet whereas I think Fredericks was more interested in seeking the scientific truth. Also, do we know if the Atkins diet was genetically suited to Atkins? I don’t. Also, do we know at what age he adopted the diet? I don’t. We do know he liked the good life so early bad habits may not have been overcome by later dietary change. I know a lot of physicians and a surprising number of them are not healthy and do not eat well. Years ago, my mother baby sat for a physician’s four sons. She came home appalled that he thought pizza was a healthy supper for his children. He said it contained the 4 major food groups: grains (i.e. dough), dairy (i.e. cheese), vegetable (i.e. tomato sauce), and meat (i.e. pepperoni). She wasn’t joking and neither was he!
We also know that even if you have a so-called perfect diet, stress can wreak havoc on multiple organ systems (including your cardiovascular system). In addition, the cortisol released as a response to stress is likely to make you gain weight much more easily and become fat. Doctors are under a lot of stress, nowadays more than ever. The two jobs you couldn’t give to me anymore including be being a medical doctor and being a cop. Tough jobs that are becoming increasingly thankless.
Years ago, I played with all different diets. I fasted, did intermittent fasting, did meal spacings and volumes, juggled macro-nutrient ratios, juggled calories from hypo- to hypercaloric, etc. I simply DO NOT feel good or function well on a 10:1 carb:protein ratio. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Now maybe someone who is eating a lot of soy and raising their estrogen levels (and lowering their testosterone levels) and doing minimal or light exercise (and not high intensity, high load exercise) may do fine on that. I don’t know. But doing what I do in this body, it doesn’t work for me.
I was also a vegetarian for a couple of years and had good endurance but seemed to lose peak strength and also seemed vulnerable to coming down with colds and other minor infections. I was also more prone to injury. And when I dropped my fat intake real low, although I had only 4% body fat and great muscle definition, I also noted I started losing hair. Overall, I just never felt as healthy as when I had some animal protein in my diet.
Let me pose a few queries here. You’re eating a LOT of baked goods? Doesn’t baking consume energy? And doesn’t energy consumption heat the planet? Why not adopt a raw foods diet?
Now I know cattle produce a lot of methane but don’t other ruminants also? Are you saying you wouldn’t like to see buffalo herds come back in the Great American West or large reindeer herds to the northern climates and central Asia or vast herds of wildebeast, water buffalos, etc. in Africa, and so on? They’re all part of the ecosystem. And guess what? They’re all gonna die some day. Can we possibly compete with other predators for some of that meat? How about eating rats? The little buggers are all over the place and compete with us for the plant foods. The Southeast Asians love 'em. I know I’d eat 'em in a pinch and, under the right circumstances, I might even develop a taste for them.
What about nomadic peoples? I think it’d be rather tough for them to get rid of their animals and rely on carrying around fields or planters that are not very portable. There are lots of factors to consider before we start dictating diets to our fellow inhabitants of this planet.
I get very uncomfortable with imperatives … we MUST makes me feel a little uneasy. I have no problem with you doing what your conscience or science or whatever guides you to do. But I would get uncomfortable when someone starts telling me what I should eat. Besides, have you ever tried to dictate to people what they should eat? It’s like trying to get them to change their religious belief or political affiliation. Good luck!
You’re eating a LOT of baked goods? Doesn’t baking consume energy? And doesn’t energy consumption heat the planet? Why not adopt a raw foods diet?AO, I generate more power than I use from my solar panels. I also have a solar oven. Your anecdotes about feeling unwell on soy point to a similar problem to me: I cannot tolerate soy in any form. Individual people may have food intolerances, which are quite different to allergies and quite difficult to identify. I have a long list of foods I avoid. I recommend the book on food intolerances by Dr Jonathan Brostoff to you (a bit out of date now, but very useful to me). Cattle vs bison? There were about 20 million bison before Europeans arrived in America, versus the ~100 million cattle now in the US. And cattle produce about 2x the amount of methane that bison do. There are studies showing that bison were net carbon sequesterers. https://youtu.be/Qu2dAcxzSd8
I’m going to second ao’s observation on the use of “internal sense” (he calls it intuition) in diet and weight control.
I think my weight peaked in my late 20s - I was 5-9 and 180 pounds. I got upset at being chubby, and responded by trying lots of different diets, which worked to varying degrees, but all of them required constant exercises in willpower. At least they did for me. My exercise varied between weights, cardio, and eventually martial arts, but I was always maybe 10 pounds over weight. I mean, when I trained for a fight (which involved running every day - I hate running, sadly) I was able to drop down to 150 pounds, but I just couldn’t maintain that level of intensity, and so my weight moved back up to 165-174 (75-79 kg) which is where my steady-state was (with constant struggle) until…
Well until recently. Part of it involved guided meditation on releasing all the stuff surrounding unhealthy food addictions. It took a while (a year? maybe two?) to take effect, but eventually I got in tune with my body, and now when I see and smell fried chicken I know it would taste good, but my body gives me a message that it doesn’t really want that. It doesn’t take effort or “diet”. I just feel a vague sense of unease, and I go with it - I just avoid buying that food item. As a result, without any exercise of willpower or struggle I have been able to give up a lot of the foods that probably weren’t helping me.
And now I’m at 156-160 (71-73 kg), maintained with no real effort - weights 2-3 times per week, and sporadic martial arts training which even after 15 years I still enjoy. I eat a lot of stir fry (vegetables, pork, rice noodles in various combinations) and every day I have oatmeal for breakfast (organic, make it myself in a big pot) with some coconut sugar and passion fruit and butter. And some cream too. It is very tasty - probably more carbs than I “should” have. But it doesn’t seem to matter.
I also have given up most processed foods. It too was not an exercise in will; my body just told me it didn’t like it. The sausages I used to love and eat every day just two years ago - my body doesn’t want them anymore.
The “dropping away” of the ultraprocessed foods was a process too. It happened “organically” rather than some sort of effort, plan, or exercise of will. I slowly just stopped buying them when I went shopping.
Also - my quantity control seems better now. I’ll have the weekly steak (about 8 oz of tenderloin, peppercorn sauce, potato wedges, and vegetables) but I can’t even finish the steak. My body doesn’t really want more than about 6 oz. I save the rest for later. I get full really fast. And then I stop eating. I don’t go for pasta that often. Sometimes I’ll make a 4-cheese sauce and put it on ravioli, but my body doesn’t want too many ravioli. So I save it for later. Sashimi is good - I can eat more of that than steak. But that’s maybe once a week too.
Supplements: CoQ10, Curcumin, fish oil, NAC+glycine, bone broth.
Could I have done this in my 20s? Could I have “tuned in” to my body back then? Maybe. Who knows! I didn’t have the tools back then, so its hard to know.
Here’s a fun recent study done at NIH that confirms that eating ultraprocessed foods lead to weight gain - possibly because those foods don’t send the “I’m full” signal to the brain. Avoiding said foods can either be an act of struggle and willpower, as it used to be with me, or maybe you can find a way to get in tune with your body, and perhaps your process will become more effort free.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-heavily-processed-foods-cause-overeating-weight-gain
Just to clarify Gerry, if you go back and read, I never said I feel unwell with soy. Actually, I tolerate soy pretty well. I’m just not interested in having its phytoestrogenic effects influence my body. There are significant other problems with soy that go beyond food intolerance. I’ll leave it to you to Google information on that.
With regards to the solar cells, they certainly sound nice and I think, in general, they’re a plus. Ditto with the solar oven. But in areas with heavy cloud cover, the solar oven is next to unusable and solar cell output diminishes dramatically. Plus, there is the carbon footprint of manufacturing and transporting those solar cells and then the disposal problem when their efficiency drops over the course of 25 years. There’s no free lunch. This is why I have to chuckle at the folks who buy their hybrids. Now they’re producing a carbon footprint for manufacturing TWO motors, gas and electric, not just one. And even more damaging is the manufacture of that big old battery and then its eventual replacement and disposal. They are no where near as environmentally “gentle” as many would have us believe.
With regards to cattle, many of them are grazed on land that is unfit for agriculture yet can support cattle. So they allow food production from areas that could not generally produce much plant food fit for human consumption. Cattle convert cellulose into meat and milk. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t. Plus, they are mobile, unlike fields of crops. They can be moved to areas where needed and they won’t rot on the vine or in the field. They can be especially valuable in getting one through a collapse situation because of this mobility. They can also get one through cold weather times when crops are not being produced. So I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss cattle and meat.
And if you got on a raw foods diet, you could use your power to reduce the carbon foot print of others. Nothing like sharing our abundance with our fellow man.
One of the things that concerns me about the climate change movement is the big push for carbon taxes. I just looked at a site that a local person is writing for and the article they were promoting was one promoting carbon taxes. On that same site, no where did a see an article pushing for a global program for planting trees. I know there are parties promoting this but not very heavily. In WW2 for example, there was heavy promotion among both the Allies and the Axis for conserving strategically important materials. School children were mobilized to achieve these ends and to mobilize their parents as well for the same purpose. Yet in the media, I see next to nothing about getting school children, college students, adults, seniors, etc. out to plant trees on a massive scale. We know collapse is related to deforestation. A global initiative to plant trees would sequester carbon, stabilize soils, build soils, purify the air, create wildlife habitat, cool the environment, etc. Yet next to nothing. It’s carbon taxes, carbon taxes, carbon taxes.
When I talk about intuition and somatic awareness, especially with regards to selecting the best foods for your unique physiology and genetics, the type of somatic awareness I’m technically referring to is called interoception. You have developed a heightened awareness in that area. The combination of this more highly attuned interoception and self discipline is what you used to control your weight and improve your health. Congratulations! You are one of the rare few. Dave, if you could develop a way to package and teach that skill to groups, you would have an incredible income stream that would probably surpass anything you’re doing now. Come to think of it, maybe I should work on this in retirement.
ao-
Well that’s a new word. Interoception. I like having a science-y word that helps me think its not just a bunch of woo-woo.
I’m a total believer in this sense - because I have it now, and I didn’t have it before.
More examples: apparently, chocolate squares are ok, but the line is drawn at more than one butter cookie. And even that butter cookie isn’t ideal. I can tell. Who knows why? I just go with it because it seems to work better than what went on before. I try to tell them every day - “cells”, I tell them, “we’re doing just great!” They seem to like hearing that. They even like it when I write it here. And indeed, when I went in for my physical - first one in maybe 6 years - the numbers were all great. Engineers like data. Its like we can’t completely believe in something until we see the data.
I think you are right. If I could bottle this and sell it…it is a really powerful teaching. A (theoretically) reproducible method for teaching how to individually sense what’s best for your own physiology? Now that’s real agency. It kind of sounds like “trust yourself.”
First to get better at it and remembering to pay attention more often.
And then to help others learn it.
I think it would go hand in hand with resolving traumas, large and small that lead to eating addictions.
Just think, we could be interoception coaches!
Plenty of things about nutrition are non-intuitive. I rely on food science and calorie counting, and it’s worked well for me. (Cue long diatribes about how it hasn’t worked for you, facepalm).
We currently live in a world seemingly gripped by “feel-pinions”, where facts are casually dismissed in pursuit of pre-determined agendas. The “intuition” approach to nutrition is one more example of this. The thrust is that science is secondary to how one feels, with the implied message that climate scientists can be ignored as well.
Regarding tree planting, everyone knows about that and a lot of it is being done, but it’s essentially impractical as a cure-all for global heating. Vast areas of land cannot simply be turned back into forest without taking the land out of agricultural use.
Carbon taxes are everywhere talked about, but rarely used. They are desperately needed. If you have any belief in capitalism and the efficiency of markets, you’d be a carbon tax supporter.
Solar panels provide back far more energy than is used in their manufacture, and they save a load of CO2 going into the air from coal/gas burning. And although spurious claims persist online that solar panels never generate as much energy in their lifetime as is used in their production, the time it takes for a modern solar panel to recoup its “embodied energy” is minimal. “It’s between six and 18 months depending on where it’s made and the way it’s made, for a 25-year life. So for 95 per cent of the life of the PV system it’s energy positive,” Professor Blakers says.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-11-19/offgrid-may-not-be-as-green-as-it-seems/9154266
Moreover, there is no major problem with pollution from panels, and certainly nothing compared to fossil fuels.
A general comment, not in reference to anyone here, but worth noting: usually anyone pushing an anti-solar or anti-wind agenda on the internet is probably working directly or indirectly for fossil fuel interests. I’ve come across people like this on many sites on the net. The modus operandi is to join up at influential sites (PeakProsperity is one of them) and become part of the commentariat, making numerous posts, setting up alliances with some other frequent commenters, sometimes using numerous accounts by using a browser like Tor and switching between IPs to comment in support of their own comments, the list goes on. This phenomenon has been studied and discussed extensively at other sites. There was one site that banned posting from Tor and VPNs and saw the climate denier posts virtually disappear. The fossil fuel industry is the world’s most profitable industry, so really it would be quite surprising if it did not engage in this sort of dirty pool to protect its interests.
Just be aware, gentle reader, that all is not always what is seems on the net.
We currently live in a world seemingly gripped by “feel-pinions”, where facts are casually dismissed in pursuit of pre-determined agendas. The “intuition” approach to nutrition is one more example of this. The thrust is that science is secondary to how one feels, with the implied message that climate scientists can be ignored as well.I totally agree with you when it comes to things like climate for which there has never been a compelling short-term, actionable relationship to individual human survival and reproduction. In addition, climate forcing is way to complex, beyond our ability to directly perceive for feelings to add any value to understanding them. For nutrition, however there is a clear and compelling relationship to survival and reproduction that goes way back in our ancestry to before we were human or even mammals. Would you be willing to try on the theory that Dave's and ao have begun to cut through the muddle of modern, western, lost-in-our-thoughts-and-our-head confusion to connect to that animal part of ourselves that knows exactly what foods are best for our health and how much of them?
“It’s between six and 18 months depending on where it’s made and the way it’s made, for a 25-year life.If other inputs beyond manufacture are considered, the recovery time is longer, but still worth it. However, rooftop panels have a considerably higher input energy to output energy ratio due to their smaller scale and often less-than-ideal siting. This is even more true when the large incentives encourage people to install very poorly sited panels in cloudy climates. I'm sure there are many installations out there that never should have been installed based on an EROEI analysis. The issue of managing the grid or shifting to microgrids with more intermittent power (or at least not always as much as we want in the moment) is another story, as is maintaining the solar industry throughout the supply chain without fossil fuel inputs.
Carbon taxes are everywhere talked about, but rarely used. They are desperately needed. If you have any belief in capitalism and the efficiency of markets, you’d be a carbon tax supporter.Yes, if the tax is totally and equally refundable to all citizens and is carefully crafted to prevent skimmers and speculators from getting their fingers in the stream of cash. I'm not sure this is easy or even possible in practice, though.
A general comment, not in reference to anyone here, but worth noting: usually anyone pushing an anti-solar or anti-wind agenda on the internet is probably working directly or indirectly for fossil fuel interests.Agreed. How do we find a way to have a nuanced discussion about the shortcomings of solar and wind that we may or not be able to fully or partially address without those fossil fuel interests dominating the conversation?
Gerry, I hope you realize that intuitive insights have largely guided the path of science. Or as was stated in the novel Dune, “Empiricism adjusts the path of science behind it”. Logic and prevailing science say one thing but someone has an intuitive insight and then does research based on that insight and using it to guide the direction of their research and discovers that the prevailing science was wrong. That’s how science advances. Haven’t we seen that reversal of scientific opinion when science dramatically changed their opinion from global cooling and an imminent Ice Age in a decade or two to global warming?
As an example, calorie counting has been losing scientific credibility as an accurate way to guide your eating. Let’s look at the example of the person who is consuming a diet soft drink. The drink has zero calories but the person is gaining rather than losing weight by drinking it. The calorie model failed. The reason it failed is because of the altered hormonal response caused by the aspartame or other artificial sweetener which alters the metabolism of the individual and causes them to gain weight instead of lose weight, as had been advertised. Also, calories tell you nothing about the quality of the food. And practically speaking, in the real world setting (not in the laboratory), most calorie counts aren’t even that accurate. Do you weigh every piece of food that goes in your mouth? I doubt it. Also, do you realize that the chemical composition of foods of the same name can vary based on the particular variety of the food and where and how it was grown and these factors are usually overlooked with calorie counting?.
The more one can cultivate sensory sensitivity, the better off they will be in almost every area of life. Just as individuals who have impaired interoceptive sensitivity will have difficulties with maintaining their weight, so too individuals who have impaired kinesthetic awareness and proprioceptive sensitivity will tend to have more orthopedic damage and pains because of using their body improperly. By cultivating that sensitivity, you are better guided in correct actions, whether those actions are eating or moving or whatever. I think you are conflating emotional “feelings” (which are often inaccurate) with “feeling sensitivity” (such as the aforementioned interoceptive and proprioceptive sensitivity). You can look up such things as the Weber-Fechner law (for sensory stimuli discrimination) and the Arndt-Schultz law (as applied to sensitivity to physical stimulation, not sensitivity to chemical stimulation) to begin to get a better understanding of these phenomena.
Even in the area of unarmed combat, greater sensitivity allows one to anticipate, feel, receive, redirect, and transmit movement and force more efficiently and effectively to overcome an opponent. It is the basis for many martial arts, from Aikido to Wing Chun kung fu to Systema, etc. When you study such arts, you get a real world, practical, no bullsh*t education in how this works. Do it wrong and you get hit and hurt. Do it right and you nullify and neutralize your opponent. You can’t fake this.
If you’ve ever read Gavin DeBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear, he explains how when you get that gut feeling that something is wrong and dangerous (as in interacting with a stranger and wondering about the stranger’s intentions towards you), trust that feeling because it is almost invariably correct. That has been shown to be true again and again. Tom can probably discuss this subject more at length than I.
For what it’s worth, I am very much in favor of solar power but it’s lack of constancy concerns me. We have winter storms blow in where it can snow hard for days. You have two problems there. One, the sky is darker so you’re getting less power just when you need it more. Two, you have to work to keep your solar cells clear of snow. I know because I have friends with solar power and they have these problems. That’s when fossil fueled power, whether from the grid or from a home generator, comes in handy. On a more apocalyptic note, whether it is atmospheric particles, dust, and debris from a volcano, from a nuclear exchange, from a celestial body impact, from a massive fire, or whatever, all of these scenarios results in a considerable darkening of the sky. So when you need the power the most, you don’t have it.
As for your carbon taxes, out of politeness, I’ll refrain from telling you what you can do with them. Such thinking plays perfectly into the hands of your Wall Street masters. Who do you think is going to profit enormously from managing carbon credit exchanges, which will be the largest and most lucrative security exchanges in history? These people don’t give a rip about you, about me, about the people, about the environment, about the planet. THEY DON’T GIVE A RIP!!! They want your money, clear and simple. If you want to donate, fine. I will fight it tooth and nail.
I like the concept of an interoception coach! The coaching could be done individually but could probably be done in a group setting as well. There is definitely a need.
You hit the nail on the head with “I think it would go hand in hand with resolving traumas, large and small that lead to eating addictions.” In the course of my professional career, I’ve been astounded to learn how much sexual abuse occurs in our society. It is epidemic. The last year I worked, I had multiple cases like this but with two women in particular, the level of abuse was so horrendous, I had to fight back the tears listening to their stories. That’s how bad they were. I wish I could erase the things out of my mind that they told me but that’s not possible. The average person simply has no idea of the horror and the suffering that family members and so-called “friends” can inflict on innocent children and on into their adolescent years and even into early adulthood. One of the things that happens to a woman who is abused (and I know men are abused as well but it’s not as common and has its own unique set of problems) is that she naturally (both consciously and unconsciously) seeks to protect herself. One way she will do this is by overeating. It accomplishes several things in her mind. It makes her physically less attractive. It also literally creates a physical wall (of fat) around her and “protects” her. And of course, there’s the self medication component. She will also tend to block out “feelings” of all sorts and, as a result, her interoceptive, proprioceptive, and other forms of sensitivity can become impaired. The re-education process is slow because the trauma is profound and the protection is understandably not readily relinquished. The numbers of woman who have somatic pain contributed to by sexual (and, of course, physical) abuse is, quite frankly, enormous.
There is both psychotherapy and physical therapy for these problems but there is really no professional licensure for a psychophysical therapist and, as a result, many of these woman fall between the cracks. An interoceptive coach is a wonderful idea and could possibly provide a less threatening intervention when dealing with a problem that is all too often encumbered by misplaced guilt and shame.
I’m sure there are many installations out there that never should have been installed based on an EROEI analysis.Proof? This has the whiff of a feel-pinion.
I’m not sure this is easy or even possible in practice, though.As of 2018, at least 27 countries and subnational units have implemented carbon taxes. Research shows that carbon taxes effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
How do we find a way to have a nuanced discussion about the shortcomings of solar and wind that we may or not be able to fully or partially address without those fossil fuel interests dominating the conversation?Anonymous discussions on the 'net are always going to be susceptible to infiltration by astroturfing fossil fuel interests. Sadly.
Haven’t we seen that reversal of scientific opinion when science dramatically changed their opinion from global cooling and an imminent Ice Age in a decade or two to global warming?Not really. There was never much support for the cooling theory.
The calorie model failed.No, the calorie model did not fail, but more science (not feel-pinions) allowed us to understand that artificial sweeteners can increase insulin levels. Incidentally, the sweetener I use, which has no effect on my weight, is erythritol.
Do you weigh every piece of food that goes in your mouth? I doubt it.Wrong again, AO! I have a postal scale the measures within 1 gram accuracy, and a list of the foods I commonly eat showing their calories/gram amount. It's trivial to weigh the food, multiply by cal/gram, and get the total. Been doing it for 20 years! Solar panels don't work in rainy climates? They work just fine in Germany. There is no alternative in the long run to renewables, so it's pointless jabbering on about how great fossil fuels are. People who knock renewables like this are usually dyed-in-the-wool deniers. Maybe if you added a battery to store energy you'd be able to get through the dark sky days? I mean, like I do. Next you'll be telling me that's no good either because of the long dark periods you experience. Sigh.
Who do you think is going to profit enormously from managing carbon credit exchanges, which will be the largest and most lucrative security exchanges in history?So now you are confusing emissions trading schemes with carbon taxes. You are quite fuzzy on some key issues. To help you, here's James Hansen on a carbon tax:
A “carbon tax with 100 percent dividend” is needed to reverse the growth of atmospheric CO2. The tax, applied to oil, gas and coal at the mine or port of entry, is the fairest and most effective way to reduce emissions and transition to the post fossil fuel era. It would assure that unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil shale and tar sands, stay in the ground, unless an economic method of capturing the CO2 is developed. The entire tax should be returned to the public, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child - shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts. No bureaucracy is needed. A tax should be called a tax. The public can understand this and will accept a tax if it is clearly explained and if 100 percent of the money is returned to the public. Not one dime should go to Washington for politicians to pick winners. No lobbyists need be employed. The public will take steps to reduce their emissions because they will continually be reminded of the matter by the monthly dividend and by rising fossil fuel costs. It must be clearly explained to the public that the tax rate will continue to increase in the future. When fuel prices decline, the tax should increase, to retain the incentive for transitioning to the post-fossil-fuel-era. The effect of reduced fossil fuel demand will be lower fossil fuel prices, making the tax a larger and larger portion of energy costs (for fossil fuels only). Thus the country will stop hemorrhaging its wealth to oil-producing nations . Tax and dividend is progressive. A person with several large cars and a large house will have a tax greatly exceeding the dividend. A family reducing its carbon footprint to less than average will make money. Everyone will have an incentive to reduce their carbon footprint. The dividend will stimulate the economy, spur innovation, and provide money that allows people to purchase low-carbon products and a low-carbon lifestyle . A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective. It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead. The rate of infrastructure replacement, thus economic activity, can be modulated by how fast the carbon tax rate increases. Effects will permeate society. Food requiring lots of carbon emissions to produce and transport will become more expensive and vice versa, encouraging support of nearby farms as opposed to imports from half way around the world. Beware of alternative approaches, such as ‘percent emission reduction goals’ and ‘cap and trade’. These are subterfuges designed to allow business-as-usual to continue, under a pretense of action, a greenwashing. Hordes of lobbyists will argue for these approaches, which assure their continued employment. The ineffectiveness of ‘goals’ and ‘caps’ is made blatantly obvious by the fact that the countries promoting them are planning to build more coal-fired power plants. If the United States accedes to the ineffectual ‘goals’ and ‘caps’ approach, a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol approach, it will practically guarantee disastrous climate change. Instead it should persuasively argued that other countries also adopt tax and dividend. The countries agreeing to this approach will also agree that imports from a country that does not apply a comparable carbon tax will be taxed at the port of entry. That import tax will be a strong incentive for all countries to participate. A carbon tax is necessary but not sufficient. By itself a carbon tax cannot solve the energy problem and allow rapid coal phase-out. There also must be better efficiency standards in building codes, for vehicles, and in appliances and electronics. Profit incentives for utilities must be changed, so as to encourage efficiency as opposed to selling as much energy as possible. These are only examples of the many things to be done. But all of these things will be done easier and more effectively in the presence of a carbon tax. Indeed, a carbon tax is essential. It is the tool that will impact people’s decisions and lifestyle choices for the short-term, middle-term and long-term, allowing the world to move as gracefully as possible to the post-fossil-fuel-era. In this way we will leave in the ground the hardest to extract fossil fuels as we move rapidly to clean energy sources of the future
Gerry, why do you so frequently say I said something I didn’t say? I never said solar cells don’t work in a rainy climate. I’m quite aware of Germany’s situation. I was there in June 2012 when they broke records for electrical power production from solar which I think is great. I was talking about prolonged winter snow storms and how the efficiency of solar cells was reduced under such circumstances, both from dense cloud cover and from snow cover. Please try to be more accurate about what I say.
You could have fooled me about the cooling theory. From your chart, it looks like there were twice as many papers published on cooling as on warming in 1971 when the hysteria reached its peak and folks like you were claiming we’d have an Ice Age in the 1980s. By the way, do recognize the problem with that chart? Let’s see if you can figure that one out without me telling you.
The calorie model most definitely did fail. You need to familiarize yourself with more contemporary information and move forward from your dated ideas. Eating a sugar alcohol like erythritol is going to cause you problems. I know, I know. Science is telling you it’s safe. Corporate science that is, the science that always talks its own book. The same heavily funded corporate science that has told us that Vioxx was safe, synthetic fats were safe, glyphosate was safe, and on and on, ad nauseum. I’m just surprised you’re so gullible and sucked in by corporation pseudoscience. I also think you’re deluding yourself with using an artificial sweetener and thinking it’s healthy. Sugar alcohols are NOT healthy. BTW, why are you using erithritol? Are you a Type 1 or type 2 diabetic?
I’m sure those carbon taxes will be fully returned to the public, right after the tooth fairy gets through paying off the national debt. Like the taxes levied to fund various educational initiatives that somehow never got to the schools? Yep, we’ll spend all that money from taxes on casinos for education. Yep, all that we paid into Social Security will be kept in that fund and only used for social security. How many taxes in history went 100% to the public for the purposes they supported and only those purposes? Very, very few. It’s time to stop believing in fairy tales and wake up to the real world. You don’t think they’re going to make “adjustments” to how the carbon taxes are levied and administered such that the promises will never match the reality? I guarantee you they will!
Gerry, you’ve been accusing others of being shills for various industries but I’m beginning to seriously wonder about you being in that role yourself.
But thank you for providing me with a bit of levity. I guessed that you might be the type of person who actually DID weigh their food and I was right. Personally, I’d be embarrassed to even admit that fact, lol. I would love to see the faces of relatives, friends, and restaurant patrons when you waltz in with your little postal scale and put it to work, lol. Doesn’t that get a little messy and confusing with soups and stews? Sorry but I just spit up my drink all over the screen visualizing that scene, LOL. Well, bless your little heart. You are trying hard to do the right thing! I just hope you don’t get too badly burned with your naivete and child-like trust in what so-called authorities are telling you.
Just a bit of speculation here. Are you stiff in your joints and movements? Are you less flexible than the average person? I would guess so. Would like to know the reason why and how to change that?
97% of Phrenologists agree, that skull bumps correlate with intellectual development and personality traits!
No, the calorie model did not fail, but more science (not feel-pinions) allowed us to....Gerry, Your own statement here embodies the tautology that proves AO’s and other’s points that conventional scientific wisdom is subject to a shifting, sometimes nonlinear process of evolution. Science is after all, just a useful tool, a method for furthering understanding. Don’t confuse the map with the territory. And its irrefutabley demonstrable that some of the great scientists and scientific discoveries and paradigm shifts were guided by intuition and for lack of a better term “divine inspiration” Perhaps you don’t know how abrasive and obnoxious your style of communication is but I for one can assure you that if you are trying to change hearts and minds and influence people you are going about it in the wrong way. Frankly, I don’t know why people even engage with you at this point you clearly don’t have the intellectual horsepower to address the substance of their critiques. Rather you deflect to self referential assertions and you don’t even have the ability to do it civilly. Of course that is just a “feel- pinion” mm
Gerry, I would really appreciate it if you approached this as a respectful conversation where we are doing our best to expand our understanding through the interchange of ideas. When you picked the point below to respond to and mentioned the whiff of a feel-pinion, I guessed that you were more looking for what you took for my weakest statement so that you could take it down. I find this type of conversation frustrating and not of much value. I’m really not interested in adversarial conversations.
I would love it if you would address my first point about the evolutionary value of an animal having the ability to find and consume the appropriate mix and quantities of high quality foods through delicately tuned sensory feedback loops and internal assessment of body states. I’m really hoping that you read this statement and the original one in which I phrased it differently and try it on as an idea. I’m guessing it would seem plausible enough for you to consider it further. I’m also hoping that you will consider my assertion that this same ability is not useful in assessing the reality of not of human induced global warming.
I’m sure there are many installations out there that never should have been installed based on an EROEI analysis. Proof? This has the whiff of a feel-pinion.Here is my best effort at proof: I know of several rooftop installations in my town on steep west facing roofs with tall trees that shade them nearly fully by 3 hours before sunset. I know of one on a northeast facing roof and several more on south facing roofs with trees tall enough that the sun doesn't shine directly on them at all for about half the year. I am in the renewable forecasting business and know of a utility in a sunny desert climate whose entire fleet of rooftop solar never gets above 80% of capacity because of exposure and/or performance issues. That includes midday in a snowless environment with shallow roof slopes where the sun gets to within about 10° of the zenith in June and even an east or west facing installation should be over 80% capacity at solar noon. I also know people that definitely know better who maximize their way-too-high payment of around 7 cents per KW hour produced by installing electric baseboard heating to make sure they consume as much electricity as they produce. They're increasing demand on cold winter nights with intentionally inefficient electric heat when power is hard to come by to make sure they get paid for electricity they generate on sunny mid-days from April-August, some of which have high air conditioning demand (that peaks well after the peak in solar production) and some of which have little to none. Finally, as to carbon taxes, one constructed as described would be great. As ao writes above, I don't think that is very likely to happen. Of the taxes implemented so far, were any designed to be 100% refunded on an equal basis and are any of them performing that way in reality?
QB, ao-
I remember weighing my food so I could count those calories. That lasted about three months.
Hmm. I’ll do some stream of consciousness thinking here.
Each of us are comprised of 50 trillion cells. Together they probably have a collective clue as to whether or not a food you have eaten has had a positive or negative effect. Your brain has stored that response somewhere. Perhaps this is simply an already built-in mechanism for integrating the past clues, the memory, and being able to receive the summary of the information via a feeling.
Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief) has informed me on how the cells work, how DNA doesn’t control us (but rather it is our perceptions of the world that end up activating said DNA), and how our “initial programming” (from ages 0-6) of our subconscious is running 95% of the time, most of which is helpful (walking, talking, etc) but some of which can be quite self-destructive.
As ao said, feelings seem to be our mechanism and pathway for summarizing a shitload of inputs and factoids and experience over a lifetime into a channel simple enough for our conscious mind to perceive. “I just had a bad feeling about that guy.” 50 trillion cells plus some number of programs adding up a thousand tiny clues came up with that conclusion, and made it available in real time to our consciousness. “A bad feeling.”
As we know, training that subconscious (programming) is how martial arts work. You don’t fight with your conscious mind. It is way too slow. Way, way too slow. You fight with your programs, which were put in place during your training.
Same thing is true for most of the things in life. They are programs, put in place into your subconscious, most of them installed during childhood, and these programs are running 24/7.
Most of those programs are useful. Some are self-limiting or actively damaging. Some of your programs have bugs, are based on wrong information, or maybe were fine for one time and place, but don’t (or maybe shouldn’t) apply for your entire life.
So for me, my bad programs which resulted in bad eating behaviors (and a disconnection from that “this food isn’t great for me” body sense) were also running 24/7, which is why diets required so much constant willpower from me. I was having to override my always-on programs with my conscious mind, which took a lot of energy.
So, the recipe could be this: delete selected, troublesome programs, and encourage the channel flowing from your 50 trillion cell teammates, to your memory, to your consciousness via feeling, and maybe its just that easy?
Perhaps you don’t know how abrasive and obnoxious your style of communication is but I for one can assure you that if you are trying to change hearts and minds and influence people you are going about it in the wrong way. Frankly, I don’t know why people even engage with you at this point you clearly don’t have the intellectual horsepower to address the substance of their critiques... Of course that is just a “feel- pinion”Yeah. What he said. It did occur to me that he might just be employed by the Koch brothers in an attempt to use reverse psychology on us here. Try this on for size: By employing someone who executes a very convincing parody of the worst sort of intolerant and dogmatic science-as-religious-nutjob viewpoint, coupled with the most ineffective and abrasive presentation style possible, his alleged support of the climate cause ends up actively chasing all the agnostics here at the site towards opposition just out of self-defense. "Boy if this guy is for something, I want to make sure I'm on the other side, because he's just that obnoxious." Possible the Kochs are that clever? I'm really only half kidding here. [EDIT] Scratch that. I'm not kidding.
folks like you were claiming we’d have an Ice Age in the 1980s.That gives the game away. "Folks like me", you mean people trying to highlight the climate emergency. IOW, "nothing to see here people, Gerry is just another alarmist just like the Ice Age people in 1971." THAT'S why I am less than courteous to you, AO. Because I correctly diagnosed the type of person you were right from the start. Creationism superior to evolution, Martin Armstrong (a felonious climate denier) supporter, carbon taxes will never work, etc. Pretty transparent agenda, and thread crapping every page with logorrheic posts so that your subtly pro-big oil/big coal opinions are heavily in evidence.
Eating a sugar alcohol like erythritol is going to cause you problemsYet another baseless feel-pinion I'll happily ignore, and no, I'm not diabetic.
And its irrefutabley demonstrable that some of the great scientists and scientific discoveries and paradigm shifts were guided by intuitionNever contested that. Not the same as giving primacy to intuition and disregarding science. Chalk and cheese. Antiscience posters are strong on intuition and disregarding facts.
Perhaps you don’t know how abrasive and obnoxious your style of communication is .... Frankly, I don’t know why people even engage with you at this point you clearly don’t have the intellectual horsepowerBeautiful example of hypocrisy. Thank you for the laugh.
I would love it if you would address my first point about the evolutionary value of an animal having the ability to find and consume the appropriate mix and quantities of high quality foods through delicately tuned sensory feedback loops and internal assessment of body statesQuercus, you style and grammar are so similar to AO's that I refer back to my points on sockpuppets above. Plus the level of bloviation in your comments is appalling. It's a wall-of-text technique to drive away posters with an agenda that does not jive with the one you're setting up here, I get it. I wonder if Chris and his sidekick realise to what extent this site is compromised? I could be wrong about this .... but I've seen it before, even helped to stop it at some websites.