It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Northwest Missouri. I'm sitting shirtless in the shade, having spent much of my day mowing grass with my old commercial walk-behind mower. Over 10,000 steps. 14 hp rope start Kawasaki, Gravely.
I bought it in my 50s, for my health.

2. And I was thinking about climate change. The grass was tall and a little bit wet, which put a lot of strain on the machine. Therefore, I mowed half widths of the particular paddock in question. That meant I had to walk roughly twice as far as usual to mow it. Maintaining it.

3. Twice as far, twice the time. Another option would have been to get out the Ventrac, 24 hp electric start Kawasaki, much newer generation engine. Hard to say for sure which one would have been more fuel efficient - I worked the smaller motor longer, more time & fuel.

4. Our ecosystem destruction is the direct outcome of our definition of efficiency. I spent more person-hours so it was for sure less efficient by our current standards. Needless to say, I'm the only guy around who mows walking.
I'm also the oldest. Next closest is 8 yrs younger

5. It takes me longer to mow than it takes them. Less efficient. But overall, year in and year out, my mowing is *vastly* more energy efficient than theirs. And it's *vastly* cheaper in annualized total operating costs.
They have more time to watch TV.
I'd rather mow.

6. The reason we are changing the climate is in order to go fast.
That is the sole and total fact of the matter.
The human race, all of us, could live on this planet without adding carbon to the atmosphere, without causing mass extinction of anything, a positive ecosystem factor.

7. We have the science and the knowledge right now today to embark on a project to get there within 40 years. We might be able to halt and reverse climate change.
But we would have to change our definition of efficiency. And we would have to discuss publicly our value system.

8. We defined "efficiency" as "more output with less human input."
Obviously that's a factor. If you per-person total output falls below some level, people starve or go naked. But this is not a sufficient definition.
The definition of efficiency which will allow us to halt CC

9. Is energy efficiency.
Example: for a few hundred thousand years we and our immediate ancestors obtained more than a calorie of food for every calorie we invested.
Otherwise we would have starved. We had no source of spare calories. Our food was all the energy we had.

10. Last time I read it, which has been a while, we were investing 30-some calories of energy for every calorie of food. That energy is fossil fuel energy. That number is probably way bigger, and it's hard to calculate, because fossil energy slips in *everywhere.*

11. There is no non-financial benefit to the human race from the speed of our activities.
We need to have a serious discussion about our value system.
I can't say, "railroad" without somebody saying, "High speed rail!"
Unh-uh.
Low speed rail.

12. There is a strong undercurrent of, "Well, there's just too many of us, it's human to <shit in our nest>, we're fucked," in the climate conversation.
No. It's our value system.
All the plastic
In all the oceans
Of all the world
Was put there in my lifetime.
Value system.

13. I'm 73 years old. Anything that just started happening in my lifetime is *not* "human nature."
We been here a lot longer than that.
We got the guts to make heroin illegal.
Make plastic illegal.
We. Don't. Need. It.
People make money on it.
That is our value system.

14. Al Gore is running around crowing that through his efforts
I just got buzzed by a hummingbird
Anyway - AlGore is bragging that he's got <some big bunch of> renewable energy installed!
So? Who fucking cares? You didn't reduce carbon emissions.
No participation trophies.