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Texas Sheriff Files Charges Over Florida Human Trafficking

newtboy says...

😂 You mean prosecute the human trafficking governors!? 😂

Biden disappointingly didn’t change Trump’s border/immigration plans except to deport more Haitians to Hati. If Trump and republicans had done their job securing borders when they had 100% control of the government instead of trying to build a useless monument to himself, this could be a non issue. Instead, illegal immigration ramped up under Trump thanks in part to the intentional slowdown and shrinking of the legal immigration process, shrinking of the border control agent pool, and misuse of border funding to build a useless fence that’s breached with ease daily.

Biden and Democrats tried to hire tons more border agents, MAGA/republicans blocked it. Republicans then continue to go on TV to say the borders are wide open, knowing those statements are shown in central/South America and convince immigrants it’s the time to come.

What has Texas or Florida done to stop immigrants? Nothing useful at all, just political stunts that, while costing $10 billion, caught zero immigrants or drugs, and economy destroying new laws. Buy OJ futures, Florida’s agriculture sector is crashing because they can’t get labor. Thousands of teaching positions are open thanks to their war on education/teachers. Tons of at home medical care jobs open there too. Too bad Americans won’t even apply.

Newsom should send a convoy of busses full of disfunctional homeless and dump them at the governor’s mansion in Texas and Florida. Tens of thousands of them. Florida needs the workers, call it a jobs program. Texas needs the “fuck you”, Florida needs the workers.

bobknight33 said:

Such BS.

If Biden and the democrats do their job this would be a non issue.

Feeding Cattle Seaweed Cuts Methane Significantly

Phooz says...

You know what also works to cut dairy cow methane emission? Not exploiting cows; breeding them to always produce milk, feeding them hormones to increase their milk production, and not stealing their babies away from them. That plus all the agriculture you feed them that you could instead feed to humans.

California is Running Out of Water

newtboy says...

What do they mean “running out”? We’ve been out of water for decades.

As bad as this sounds, I think he’s under selling the problem big time.

Federal officials announced in February that California farmers will get no federal water this year, zero (that’s the Central Valley Project), while the state has allocated agriculture only 15% of normal from its distribution systems.
Meanwhile the state has also demanded agricultural water districts and cities stop diverting water from rivers and streams along the San Joaquin River. This includes 200 cities in and around the Bay Area, like San Francisco which gets up to 85% of its water from those rivers and streams.
Some rivers and streams in California have stopped flowing, all have reduced flow. The Mad River, just blocks from me, is usually 6-8’ deep bank to bank (75-100’) for at least 6 months out of each year, the last 3 years it never reached its banks and remained a shallow stream all winter, becoming a creek in summer. It is abnormal, most rivers are worse off.
Aquifers have already been depleted so much that the entire Central Valley is sinking rapidly. Reservoirs are WELL below 50%, despite what this clip said (Shasta is reporting at 40% today, but driving over it it looks like maybe 10-20% full with no inflow).
So far this year along, over 1000 residential wells have gone dry. This includes many entire communities losing their drinking water supplies completely. The number of agriculture wells that can no longer function is uncountable. It’s estimated we will lose 2700 drinking water wells this year state wide.

The California water problem isn’t a pressing future issue, it’s an ongoing unmitigated disaster we’ve ignored for far too long. At this point, it’s likely insurmountable, and a collapse of California agriculture will make today’s inflation seem like the good old days when average workers could afford to eat. Start a garden, it’s going to get weird.

The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History

StukaFox says...

I would argue that the man who killed the most human beings in history is Fritz Haber. Between breaking the Malthusian Bargain (leading to a massive population explosion and everything associated with it) and creating the means by which high explosives can be created on an industrial scale (and everything associated with it), he's pretty much the single most influential person who's lived since the establishment of agriculture.

Bonus points for: creating the first "true" chemical weapons (in WW1) and his encore, Zyklon B (yes, he created the precursor, not the final product).

PFAS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

newtboy says...

Nonsense. Pre industrial agriculture wasn’t very damaging in most cases…and when it was it was on a minuscule scale compared to industrial agriculture.
Pre industrial building wasn’t excessively environmentally damaging in most cases, certainly not to the point where it endangered the planet or it’s atmosphere.

It's utterly ridiculous hyperbole to say we have to be cavemen to not destroy our environment. We don't even have to revert to pre industrial methods, we just have to be responsible with our actions and lower the population massively. With minor exceptions, pre industrial farming caused little to no permanent damage, and it was almost all easily repairable damage. (With a few exceptions like Rapa Nui that may not have been over farming but cultural damage, we aren't exactly certain what happened there).

I eat berries now, don't you? I grow raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and Tay berries myself. People would be healthier if they ate berries, and they're tasty too. What?!

Yes, around 7 billion need to die (without procreating first). Better than all 9 billion.

There’s a huge difference between being occasionally deadly and so insanely toxic we destroy our own planet in under 200 years to the point where our own existence is seriously threatened.
Edit: toxicity levels matter as much as exposure levels. Cavemen impacted their environment at levels well below sustainability (mostly….the idea they killed the mammoths or mastodons off by hunting is, I believe, a myth….natural environmental changes seem much more likely to be the major influence in their extinction.). Per capita, modern humans have a much larger, more detrimental footprint than premodern humans, exponentially larger….and there’s like a hundred thousand times as many of us (or more) too. We need to reverse both those trends drastically if we are to survive long term.

Yes, progress includes risk, but risk can be managed, minimized, and not taken when it’s a risk of total destruction. We totally ignore risk if there’s profit involved.

This is a night time comedy show, not a science class. I think you expect WAY too much. It points out that there is a problem, it doesn’t have the time, or the audience to delve into the intricate chemical processes involved in the manufacture, use, and disposal of them. It touched on them, and more importantly pointed out how they’ve been flushed into the environment Willy nilly by almost everyone who manufacturers with them.

vil said:

By that logic, Newt, its back to caves and eating berries for everyone. And 7 billion people need to die to make planet Earth sustainable.

Everything civilization does is toxic in some way. Even living in caves was deadly, ask the Mammoths.

I like how youre taking everything responsibly but in this case you might be lumping too many things into one problem. If we strive for any progress at all we have to take risks.

Maybe the consensus will be that we cant handle the production problems and need to ban the poly stuff, but this video was not the compelling analysis that would even push me in that direction.

Why Shell's Marketing is so Disgusting

newtboy says...

Yes, we're overpopulated. That doesn't invalidate my arguments.

I gave examples of multiple cultures that do what you claim is impossible. I never implied Americans would accept a lower standard of living, only that it's the right thing to strive for, and coming like it or not.

I grow 75% of the produce for two people on 3/4 acres.

Masses of people are going to die unnecessarily. Period. This could be avoided, but won't be. Our choice is accept less now, or have nothing later.

The dependence on fossil fuels for agriculture could be quartered with some minor changes with little drop in output. The western world won't make the investment needed to make that a reality. Also, the fossil fuel needed to make fertilizers is not a significant amount....maybe as little as 3%of natural gas produced.

There are millions of hungry people now without access to the artificially supported agriculture system who relied on natural sources that no longer exist. Aren't you concerned about them?

Name one I listed not supported by science.

Food shortages are preferable to no food.

The 3' estimate is old, based on estimates already proven miserably wrong. Like I said, Greenland is melting as a rate they predicted to not happen until 2075.

When tens of millions must flee low lying areas, and all low lying farmland is underwater, and much of the rest in drought or flood, what do you think happens?

By 2100, all estimates show us far past the tipping points where human input is no longer the driving force. Even the IPCC said we have until 2030 or so to cut emissions in half, and we are not lowering emissions, we're raising them. 50 years out is 75 years late....but better than never.....but we aren't on that path at all. Investment in fossil fuel systems continues to accelerate thanks to emerging third world nations like China and India making the same mistakes the Western world made, but in greater quantities.

The IPCC report said if we don't immediately cut emissions today, by half in 11 years and to zero in 30, then negative emissions for the next 50 that we're on track to hit 3-6C rise by 2100 and raising that estimated temperature rise daily....4C gives the 3' sea level rise by 2100 with current models, but they are woefully inadequate and have proven to be vast underestimation of actual melting already.

We may develop the necessary tech, we won't develop the will to implement it. Indeed, we're at that point today....have been for decades.

Yep, sure, no sacrifices needed. You can have it all and more and let the next guy pay the bill. What if we're the last guys in line?

Funny, isn't that what the Paris climate accord is? Sane leaders giving such stupidity serious consideration, because they understand it's not stupidity it's reality. Granted, they don't go nearly far enough, but they did something more than just claim it will be fixed in the future by something that doesn't exist today and ignoring human behavior and all trends, because using/having less is simply unacceptable.

We need a nice pandemic to cull us by 9/10 and a few intelligent Maos to drive us back to sustainability. We won't get either in time.

Why Shell's Marketing is so Disgusting

bcglorf says...

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

Why Shell's Marketing is so Disgusting

bcglorf says...

You asked at least 3 questions and all fo them very much leading questions.

To the first 2, my response is that it's only the extremely fortunate few that have the kind of financial security and freedom to make those adjustments, so lucky for them.

Your last question is:
do those companies get to continue to abdicate their responsibility, pawning it off on their customers?

Your question demands as part of it's base assumption that fossil fuels are inherently immoral or something and customers are clearly the victims. I reject that.

The entirety of the modern western world stands atop the usage of fossil fuels. If we cut ALL fossil fuel usage out tomorrow, mass global starvation would follow within a year, very nasty wars would rapidly follow that.

The massive gains in agricultural production we've seen over the last 100 years is extremely dependent on fossil fuels. Most importantly for efficiency in equipment run on fossil fuels, but also importantly on fertilizers produced by fossil fuels. Alternatives to that over the last 100 years did not exist. If you think Stalin and Mao's mass starvations were ugly, just know that the disruptions they made to agriculture were less severe than the gain/loss represented by fossil fuels.

All that is to state that simply saying don't use them because the future consequences are bad is extremely naive. The amount of future harm you must prove is coming is enormous, and the scientific community as represented by the IPCC hasn't even painted a worst case scenario so catastrophic.

newtboy said:

I think that, considering the long term massive if not apocalyptic damage done along with the temporary gains, it's undeniably a big negative for humanity and the rest of the planet. Groups like the Amish get along quite nicely without it.

Edit: Now will you please answer my question?

The 7 Biggest Failures of Trumponomics

moonsammy says...

It's an extreme solution certainly, but not without merit. I doubt there'd ever be a willing acceptance of such a plan though, so a slightly more realistic solution would need to be moderated some. How's this for dystopian-but-not-quite-genocidal:
Worldwide lottery, a small percentage (total of 500M - 1B maybe) wins the right to live in what will be the new model of the world: something like what we have now, but with drastically reduced usage of non-renewable resources (until they can be replaced completely) and a target of zero negative impact on the environment as a whole. Still some version of democratic (generally at least), freedom of whatnot and such, open travel to the degree that sustainable transportation options allow, all the (again, sustainable) mod cons. I suppose different countries / regions could still run things according to their preferences, as long as the net-zero goal remains.
The other lottery entrants, the non-winners, don't need to die, hooray! They will however live on something akin to reservations, as serfs, without the right to further reproduce. These poor bastards, in exchange for not being outright murdered to save civilization, are to be consolidated into agricultural communes to do whatever they can to regrow the world's flora and fauna until they all eventually die. Their goal is not net-zero, but as far into the positive as possible. It would all be overseen according to some grand scheme(s) to be as beneficial for the overall future of humanity and life on Earth in general as possible.

Probably also unworkable, but preferable to megamurder?

newtboy said:

A: Severe population control....preferably 30+ years ago. Today, it requires a massive cull and birth control. Maximum human population capped at 1 billion, preferably less.

The Real National Emergency Is Climate Change: A Closer Look

Mordhaus says...

http://archive.is/4CVqH

10 year plan. Twice as effective as the USSR's 5 year plans

...Fully rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, restoring our natural ecosystems (needed), dramatically expanding renewable power generation (needed, but it also doesn't mean we should be throwing money away on stupid shit like solar roadways), overhauling our entire transportation system (regional flights, which sort of make up around 70% of total flights, would be targeted for elimination and massively expensive (slower) electrical trains would be put in their place), upgrading all our buildings (most businesses are already moving to green solutions) , jumpstarting US clean manufacturing (see highly expensive and non-competitive with cheaper overseas mfg), transforming US agriculture (forcing a move from cows/pigs/chickens to plant based proteins)...

While we are at it, might as well do the following:

A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security (Nice, but you can't just make these jobs available. They are supply and demand.)

High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools (Needed)

High-quality health care (Needed)

Clean air and water (Needed)

Healthy food (Subjective, is meat considered healthy?)

Safe, affordable, adequate housing (because this works, ie Projects...)

An economic environment free of monopolies (Technically this exists already, except in countries outside of the USA and EU)

Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work (SWEET! SIGN ME UP FOR THAT CHECK!!!)

I get that his spiel is comedy based, but the GND is about half reality and half looney tunes.

Vegan Diet or Mediterranean Diet: Which Is Healthier?

transmorpher says...

Not so much non-vegans, but companies that sell non vegan products are viewing it as a loss of revenue. Even a 7% drop in sales is a lot of money on a country sized scale. They're constantly putting industry sponsored spokes people on talk TV to tell you that being vegan will make your dick fly off like gluten :-)

Particularly primary agriculture industries. Companies further up the consumer chain just end up selling a vegan line of their product, so they aren't so worried about it - which is also why I'm more inclined to believe that the figure is closer to 7%, as I'm seeing even mainstream companies sell non-dairy variants of their flagship ice cream, and large pizza chains with vegan pizzas on their menus. I'd imagine it wouldn't be worth their while unless they had some good numbers to go by, and would otherwise leave it to niche companies.

But it could also just be that they've discovered that vegans will basically do their brand promotions for free over social media, and could just be exploiting that. (Every time a company releases a vegan version of X, a Facebook storm ensues, and companies like free advertising)

newtboy said:

Lol. Good point.....dirty hippies. ;-)

Um....what? Vegans should want to avoid them almost as much as the hunter's helper and slaughterhouse sucker brand lozenges, not flock to the brand marketed at meat harvesters.

Um...really? You think non vegans fear a vegan culinary takeover or something enough to falsify studies/polls? That's hilarious.


As to the 7% number, even vegan organizations in Britain disagree, as does Wiki....
According to a 2018 survey by Comparethemarket.com, the number of people who identify as vegans in the United Kingdom has risen to over 3.5 million, which is approximately seven percent of the population, and environmental concerns were a major factor in this development.[140] However, doubt was cast on this inflated figure by the UK-based Vegan Society, who perform their own regular survey: the Vegan Society themselves found in 2018 that there were 600,000 vegans in Great Britain (1.16%), which is a dramatic increase on previous figures.[141][142]
United States: Estimates of vegans in the U.S. vary from 2% (Gallup, 2012)[143] to 0.5% (Faunalytics, 2014). According to the latter, 70% of those who adopted a vegan diet abandoned it.

Kurzgesagt - Is Organic Food Really Better or is It a Scam?

shagen454 says...

I grew up in Amish country in PA and I know for a fact that all of those pesticides that the Amish aren't using (they use them) ended up polluting the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. General manure runoff is a problem as well.

Regardless, of organic or not - many problems crop up out here in the West in the form of water consumption. Obviously, we don't have much water to spare - but CA is always taking more and more water to grow crops that require enormous amounts of water, like avocados. One avocado takes about 18.5 gallons of water to grow - that said, an average american shower costs about as much a day if it's 8 minutes long (17.5); which I also see as a problem. Not to mention that CA also produces a shit ton of America's beef (#4). 80% of all of CA (which is like a country) water use is agricultural. I just think that CA (it might all burn to the ground anyway) needs to stop supporting the grocery needs of america (spread it out!) and stop wasting so much water that a lot of other states in the west need. It's a whole other Chinatown film that should be created to represent what is going on.

Are The Bees Ok Now?

newtboy says...

Lol..no.
CCD is barely studied in wild hives because it's not been seen in the wild in statistically meaningful numbers, and it's much more of a problem for commercial hives because they move, making them more prone to weakness and diseases, they are kept together, making them more prone to parasites like nosema and Varroa mites and disease spreading problems like the Israeli virus, and they are constantly in contact with crops sprayed with various pesticides weakening and confusing them. Wild hives don't have these extra deleterious factors, so are far less effected by CCD if at all, and are not noticeably effected by most if not all commercial or hobby beekeeping that targets human agriculture, not native flowers. I kept a hive of bees for years to pollinate my orchard, so I checked on this stuff before jumping in.

Commericalized bee operations (commercial pollinators who's byproducts are honey/bees wax/pollen/royal jelly/bee venom/and bees themselves) don't displace natives. If there were native bees pollinating the crops they are hired to come pollinate, there wouldn't be a commercial bee industry. Honey is mostly a byproduct of the pollination industry, without which America at least would starve. Native bees simply can't pollinate at the industrial scale and timetables required for your vegetables, so without commercial beekeepers we'll all have to eat more meat.

transmorpher said:

lol Hank Green makes yet another video to tell us he doesn't know about *insert topic* I'm starting to think it's his way of telling himself he doesn't have to do anything to help.

We know exactly why CCD happens https://youtu.be/lKKVznGTni0?t=35

TL:DW

Commericalized bee operations (to sell honey/bees wax etc) ends up affecting pollinating species of bees in the wild. As per usual, industrialized animal farming screws up the environment.

Even local bee farming displaces and infects the wild populations, so all honey is bad.


Leave the honey to Winnie the Pooh, and swap your honey out for maple syrup or agave nectar or rice syrup etc, and this whole thing stops.

Or make your own date paste. Bit of water, bit of dates, blend the crap out of it. It's delicious on anything. Particularly with peanut butter.

Orcas playing with swimmer at Hahei Beach, New Zealand

transmorpher says...

If you love marine animals be vegan. Animal agriculture is the #1 most destructive force on the planet.....

You aren't just killing a chicken when you eat them, the chain of consequences has far more reach which is why the UN is advising people to stop eating animals. We are effectively replacing the environment's massive biodiversity with 3 types of farm animals. We'll be lucky to make it to the 22nd century:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet

Wrap your lips around a vegan "beef" patty. They are winning awards these days, so no excuses :-)



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