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> Personally, i will argue with anyone until I am blue in the face that energy prices needed to be higher and a carbon tax is the solution. I will vote for politicians that support this policy.

The flaw in this plan is relying on politics to accomplish your goal. One only needs to look at the history of political environmental solutions to notice how those solutions weren't environmental at all, they were mechanisms to assist political cronies. Terry Anderson wrote an excellent book titled Political Environmentalism that covers this subject (even if you oppose free market environmentalism, which Anderson subscribes to, the point this book is trying to make is still valid).

The carbon tax scheme is another one of those supposed political solutions to protect the environment that won't protect the environment but will help political cronies. All the carbon tax does is raise the cost of polluting. This increase in cost is easily soaked up by large established corporations but not new entities entering the market. BP, for example, can soak up the additional thousands or millions of dollars a carbon tax will cost them but a new competitor entering the market will be unable to soak up those costs and will go out of business. So what? What if the competitor is a company that is manufacturing means of producing cleaner forms of energy?

Manufacturing mechanisms to produce clean energy will release carbon, which will be far more expensive under a carbon tax system, and thus will hamper industries involved in producing clean energy just as much as industry involved in producing equipment that runs off of current fossil fuel technologies. The primary difference is that clean energy producers are mostly new and thus do not yet have the capital required to soak up more costs. Carbon taxes effectively restrict competitors to the established fossil fuel industry.

Let's also not forget that until the 1840s and 1850s polluters were accountable for their emissions that landed on another's property:

> Contrary to Pigou and Samuelson, manufacturers, foundries, railroads, etc., could not act in a vacuum, as if the costs they imposed on others were of no moment. There was a “way to force private polluters to bear the social cost of their operations”: sue them, make them pay for their past transgressions, and get a court order prohibiting them from such invasions in future.

> Upholding property rights in this manner had several salutary effects. First of all, there was an incentive to use clean burning, but slightly more expensive anthracite coal rather than the cheaper but dirtier high sulfur content variety; less risk of lawsuits. Second, it paid to install scrubbers, and other techniques for reducing pollution output. Third there was an impetus to engage in research and development of new and better methods for the internalization of externalities: keeping one’s pollutants to oneself. Fourth, there was a movement toward the use better chimneys and other smoke prevention devices. Fifth, an incipient forensic pollution industry was in the process of being developed. Sixth, the locational decisions of manufacturing firms was intimately effected.

> [...]

> But then in the 1840s and 1850s a new legal philosophy took hold. No longer were private property rights upheld. Now, there was an even more important consideration: the public good. And of what did the public good consist in this new dispensation? The growth and progress of the U.S. economy. Toward this end it was decided that the jurisprudence of the 1820s and 1830s was a needless indulgence. Accordingly, when an environmental plaintiff came to court under this new system, he was given short shrift. He was told, in effect, that of course his private property rights were being violated; but that this was entirely proper, since there is something even more important that selfish, individualistic property rights. And this was the “public good” of encouraging manufacturing.

Today, due to the current legal framework, one can get away with polluting so long as the amount of pollution they're emitting is below the state approved level, or if the amount is above the state approved level, the company can afford to permits:

> A BP (BP) refinery in Indiana will be allowed to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan under a permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

> The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great Lakes to 1.3 ounces per year.

Before the change in the legal framework it was costly to pollute since the emission of pollution was treated like any other form of property damage. Under such an environment it is in the best interest of everybody to contain any pollution less it land on another's property and cost them a great deal of money in legal and cleanup fees. Now any polluter with enough clout or money to buy off the regulatory bodies basically has free reign to pollute.

Wow. Thanks for the viewpoint. I've not reviewed all of it. I'm not equipped with any expertise to say who is right or wrong on any of these points, but there are definitely some good scientists and experts weighing in.

What was exciting from his TED talk was the possibility that we could mimic natural system and processes, and that nature could rebuild herself - this inspiration reminds me of an awesome book Natural Capitalism

However it's also a complex equation, where there are many variables such as the geographic area, weather patterns, outlier weather conditions (eg. floods, El Niño), farming practices and culture, resources to adopt his method (although I think where there's a will, there's a way on this point, especially with new tech like drones coming to the party, at least in 1st world environments)...

Also interesting is this quote from him:

> You’ll find the scientific method never discovers anything. Observant, creative people make discoveries. But the scientific method protects us from cranks like me.

http://www.inexactchange.org/blog/2013/03/11/cows-against-climate-change/

This article says a lot about the search for truth in his work, and I'll defer to this expert. It "seems" like he has a wonderful way to revitalize the land, but the challenge is finding a way to extend out his theories, and there are question marks about what that means for climate change.

I don't know about kelp specifically but you can grow microalgae. Macroalgae is only a small part of the photosynthetic life in the ocean, microalgae and plankton play a big role in converting CO2 into oxygen through photosynthesis.

Microalgae like chlorella, spirulina, polysiphonia, etc, convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis. Plankton do the same. There are endoplankton which eat other plankton for nutrition, but there are also phytoplankton that produce their own food through photosynthesis. The specific names slip my mind but there are green and gold ones.

You can purchase algae food here and here. You need equal parts of both, a teaspoon each per 10 gallons of water. Make sure you use filtered (preferably distilled) water, do NOT use tap water. (this kills the algae)

Spirulina and Chlorella can grow in fresh water or alkaline water, polysiphonia can grow in salt water so feel free to add ocean salt to your polysiphonia growing tank. (you can just use a fish tank or a mason jar, a bottle of water if it's clear and can have light penetrate. fish tank is probably best because it's hard to measure a tenth of a teaspoon)

here is a link to ocean salt.

The green and gold phytoplankton in this pack are photosynthetic and can grow if you give them minerals (algae food) and light (sunlight works or you could purchase a grow light) Not sure if the bottles in the link are live cultures but those are the types of plankton you can grow. (names are on the bottle)

You can purchase live algae cultures of spirulina, chlorella, and polysiphonia in the links provided. Just add light, water, and minerals, and they'll begin to replicate, grow, and turn their minerals into amino acids and essential fatty acids. I'm sure they'll clean up the air in your room, and you can also use them for food. (very nutritious)

That's basically how you grow them. I hope that helps, if you want to go johnny appleseed and plant algae all over the world to clean the atmosphere I'm not sure how to help with that. If you live in a sunny area and don't have stupid building codes then you could dig a pond in your backyard, maybe throw some koi fish in there, make a nice waterfall.

Sure, I actually used to co-run the Kirkwood Urban Forest Community Garden, right off Memorial. What Ag Tech are you interested in? Are you interested in for-profit setups or just people growing their own? Have you been to Truly Living Well farms? Also here's the UGA publications re: to urban ag, though they don't look particularly tech-oriented at first glance - http://extension.uga.edu/agriculture/urban/

Tech is expensive. So is land. Food in the US is actually really cheap compared to many other countries around the world, so it's hard to break into it as a business unless developing a niche - while having a nearby market that will support the necessary price point.

What technology to use depends on what you're growing. No one in their right mind is going to try to grow commodity crops in an urban setting, they take up too much space and can be grown far far cheaper elsewhere. So urban settings usually focus more on herbs and vegetables, which are more human labor intensive to deal with anyway.

http://www.growingpower.org/ - these folks are something of a role model in the US. If you poke around their videos and pictures a bit, note all the volunteers/interns needed to pull this off, the shear amount of human labor necessary. This place is set up as a nonprofit for a reason.

There are a few people trying to go all open source on the mechanical technology - http://go.farmbot.it/ (you might enjoy the tedx talk on it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJt4MFn22M ) and also http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/

There's even a group attempting to develop open source seed genetics, but they've been facing a few logistical hurdles - http://opensource.com/law/14/5/legal-issues-open-source-seed-initiative - and the folks at /r/farming weren't too impressed overall. The seeds the pros use have millions of dollars of R/D behind them.

Also this is my favorite primer on soil science, highly recommend checking it out - Soil Science Simplified 4th ed by Kohnke and Franzmeier - http://www.amazon.com/Soil-Science-Simplified-Helmut-Kohnke/dp/0881338133

Growing in an urban space - if you growing in the ground - does present problems with re: to pollutants. There are special soil tests the Extension Service (in GA, through UGA or through other state landgrant universities) can help one get to make sure the soil is safe to use or one can build raised beds with liners. Here's one of UGA's sites on soil testing - http://extension.uga.edu/agriculture/soil/

UGA is one of the better ag schools in the country so I'd tap them heavily, and if you can get past all the considerable heat and pest issues plus ridiculous water bills (might want to look into rainwater harvesting/catchment stuff as well - http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=B1372 ), Atlanta is a great place to grow food.

Hope this is helpful. Let me know if there's anything else I can help address.

This was also my biggest complaint early on as well. You have to look at the color temperature as other people mentioned. I always buy mine from Amazon because there's too many options and too much shit going on on the packaging in stores. Amazon has a billion choices but it's easy to search and filter and pick ones with good reviews. 2700K is very similar to old incandescent bulbs and is a pleasant warm color. I bought 3000K for my home office, which is not for relaxing. I bought 4000K for my garage, which is much more like natural sunlight - it compensates because my garage is mostly unfinished and feels too dark with warmer lights and I don't spend much time there.

​

I've bought each these and they're great so far:

(2700K Normal Bulb): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BFCGBN6/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(3000K E12 Bulb): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HMQPVMY/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(2700K Fancy E12 Bulb for prominent hanging light with clear glass):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JNNJ50A/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

​

You can even buy 2200K on Amazon, I haven't bought these but they look great if you want that Edison Bulb hipster bar atmosphere: https://www.amazon.com/Dimmable-Equivalent-Filament-Decorative-Bathroom/dp/B07BWFCNT9/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1550711675&sr=8-5&keywords=LED+2200k

All resources and economic activity tie directly into energy.

Food, fiber, goods, tech, it all has energy inputs and cost is determined largely by the cost of the energy needed to produce and move these things.

I'm working through a really good book on this subject called Environment, Power and Society for the 21st Century on this subject which lays it all out very well.

It's pretty technical about how to model energy flows through systems such as ecosystems, human civilizations, economies, etc.

Something really interesting was that the author claims that around 1973 we saw the US economy move from an era of superacceleration into an era of slow growth (and even stagnation), and that this had largely to do with energetic underpinnings of slower and more difficult extraction of oil, as is seen clearly on this graph (you can see the clear transition from exponential growth to slower linear growth).

That really caught my eye as I had long been interested in why there was a sort of sudden shift economically around the early '70s where wages stopped growing and inequality began growing very quickly. Kind of interesting to see that correlation.

The author is a big proponent of investing energy resources now into the energy resources of the future, and basically shows that it gets more expensive as time goes on, so those who are investing strongly in energy transition now are at an advantage.

There are smart things to do during each phase of what is going in the global energy scenario. During the acceleration and growth phase the US capitalized very well on the situation. But now we're in a stagnation phase and there will come a time soon where we must go through a bit of energy descent, until hopping on a more stable income of renewables.

What the US is trying to do is to grasp at policies that worked in the superacceleration phase, but which are not wise in the current phase we're in.

For example, under Trump we're talking about literally subsidizing the old methods that aren't worth it anymore so they can work again. This is also something that is mentioned in the book as a sort of dysfunctional loop of investing more and more energy into extracting forms of energy that are dying out, which ultimately just wastes energy and thus wastes wealth.

Really a fascinating perspective once you begin getting it more and more.

Lot you're still not understanding here.

First, you're getting taken in by Tesla corporate PR about its factory, which makes your "shill" accusations especially ironic. Repeat after me: ALL energy requires carbon emissions. Solar requires quite a bit less, which is why it's a good idea to move to it, but it's still pretty substantial -- something like 5% of the life-cycle-emissions (might want to familiarize yourself with that term) of coal, 10-15% of natural gasSource. So when you repeat Tesla's corporate talking points that their factory is "carbon-neutral," you're exposing yourself as ignorant of even the most basic environmental analyses.

Ride-sharing is great, but even extremely-efficient use of cars is an energy hog compared to bicycles and frequent trains. This is due to a few considerations: trains pack people in together in the same vehicle, and therefore don't need to maintain absurd following distances at highway speeds. (Recall that stopping distances increase quadratically with speed.) This means that cars take up a LOTTTT more route-space even while in transit than trains. Have you noticed that Lyft and Uber haven't prevented traffic jams, even in places like L.A. where they've exploded in popularity? That's why. Cars are stupidly inefficient for urban trips, and making them autonomous is just putting a band-aid on the deeper, structural engineering problems associated with their use.

You say that biking is incompatible with suburban living. Well, so much the worse for suburban living! Suburbs would have never existed if auto companies hadn't lobbied the fuck out of state and federal governments to build car-friendly development. Of course, we can't change our residential infrastructure on a dime, but that doesn't mean we can't work hard to densify our suburbs, re-zone them so bike/transit commuting becomes an option for more people, and put a stop to building new 20th-century urban-planning monstrosities.

You can't just assume that it's cheaper to operate EVs over the lifetime of the vehicle. At current electricity and energy prices, marginal costs of operating a car are $.04/mile for a Tesla (assuming roughly 3 miles per kWh), and $.05 for a car getting 45 mpg Source. Assuming you keep the car for 150,000 miles, this means that the the electric car can't cost more then (150,000$.01) $1,500 more than the conventional vehicle. But we all know electric cars are far more relatively expensive than that -- usually around $10,000 more than a comparable ICE vehicle.

Biking in the snow isn't inherently unsafe. By far the biggest contributor to fatal bike accidents are the cars that you're addicted to. Like I said, it's not an option for everyone, but the more people do it, the less car infrastructure we need, which is an enormous boon from land-use, emissions, and equity angles.

Electric batteries are a beast to recycle, and so is rarely done. The book [The Elements of Power*](https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Power-Gadgets-Struggle-Sustainable/dp/0300196792) is well-researched and can help you obtain a good base understanding of the issues involved in rare-earth mining.

Bikes have less than 2% the lifecycle emissions per passenger mile as conventional cars. Because electric cars are only about a quarter to half as bad as ICE cars, this means that bikes are still better than electric cars on a per-mile basis by over an order of magnitude -- about 3-6% of the energy per mile.

Biking the equivalent from Boston to NYC twice will take you about a month if you bike 6 miles to work and back every day. And thanks for linking that article -- it nicely explains all the reasons bikes whoop the shit out of cars in the sustainability department, many of which are independent of whether it's electric or ICE.

Yes. Your overall cost of ownership will be less with Toyota, as well as resale value. Fuel savings in general are a societal cost, but you can offset your costs through investment in environmentally friendly channels, (donations, carbon offsets, etc.)

If you absolutely need a truck, you might as well get the best bang for your buck, and not piss away money through depreciation, mechanics bills, and loss of time due to future vehicle purchases or excessive trips to the mechanics.

Toyota trucks keep their value like no other vehicle I can think of.

Plus, here is a fun test. Go to a coffee or brewery with outside seating next to a busy road.

Look at the number of old vehicles that pass you. Then count the Japanese to US manufacturer ratio of old cars...

The book is the Toyota Way, there are others also.

The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071392319/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_8AVxDbTFEF5N6

Edit: This truck could potentially be the last vehicle you ever buy, if that interested you.

Ok well I'm no expert but it does fascinate me. My main ideas are solar water heating, and if you sunk a foundation deep enough the ground would provide natural insulation (ie below the permafrost). #1 is limited because of the problem of maintenance, and #2 is probably unworkable due to the unstable substrate. So there you. Yeah, superinsulation.

A couple quick caveats: you obviously have some inkling about green design, that you can passively heat a structure by orienting it south (in the case of the Northern Hemisphere). It's also possible to use something as simple as water tanks (fish tanks) as thermal sinks.

I'm pretty sure this is a book I used to have that's a really great guide to solar construction and much, much more. There's also a [new version](http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Solar-Home-Book/dp/0931790700](http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Solar-Home-Book/dp/0931790700) but no reviews for either one. I would snag one of those used copies of the newer version if I was you. It's from the 70's but a great concise overview of the fundamentals of green building. It's been a while since I finished school maybe there are better new texts available if you want to check.

The ideas of Paolo Soleri are also interesting to consider.

You can use wind, if it is big enough (see Betz's Law), mechanical to pump water, when electric, it could be useful to have 2 or more (automatic) dump loads when the batteries are full, the 1st as electric heater for your boiler, the 2nd for floor heating, the 3rd to heat up the environment (or whatever).

Part time occupation is probably easier on the amount of PV-panels and batteries you need, just make sure they get an occasional top up charge during winter, lead-acid are the cheapest if you don't mind regular maintenance, just make sure they are deep cycle, http://batteryuniversity.com/ has some very useful info.

Lights: you can buy 120Vac LED's (using an inverter) as 'spot'-light or, since you have batteries, you can use 12Vdc LED-rope's, you can cut them to size, solder them in series if you choose a 24V battery, they come in 'cool'-white(4000K), 'soft'-white(2700K) and 'warm'-white(2400K), the link should have photo's, and they are easy to 'dim' with a pwm-dimmer or control with an Arduino for automatic slow dimming (or a light show).

Fridge/freezer: front door units lose a lot of 'cold' when you open the door, google-fu how to modify a top lid freezer into a fridge, seems to be very efficient due to much better insulation.
Compare usability/performance between 12Vdc and 120Vac units.

Gadgets: a 12/24Vdc USB charger might come in handy, for a radio/telly/etc, bring a kill-a-watt to the shop and select the lowest energy use, and measure yourself that the "Off" switch does indeed switch off (some only switch the little LED of, but still draw a high vampire load).

Oven/microwave/vacuum cleaner: that's gonna be expensive in batteries, 1200W draws 100A from a 12V battery, ideally the battery should be > 1000Ah.

Well pump: if you have a choice, a lower wattage that takes longer is less of a drain on the batteries (you would like to keep the battery current below 1/10th of the Ah-capacity).

Battery charger (example): lots of choices depending on battery/PV-array size.
There are models for windturbines as well (that include dump-load control), it should be no problem to connect them both to the same battery for charging.

Inverter: some appliances (specially with motors inside) need a pure sine wave inverter, they come in 100-300-600-1000-3000W versions, and if you have a small-ish one, you may have to unplug the fridge/freezer/telly if you want to use power tools or the inverter gets hot and trips.
Most appliances work with a cheaper 'modified sine wave' inverter.

Hot water: solar heaters should work, roof mounted with indoor storage or stand alone plus boiler, to give a few examples.

Cooking: a 25 kg propane bottle (plus spare) should be transportable for refills and possibly take home during the winter.

Make a list with all electrical stuff you want to use, their energy consumption and how many hours/day/weekend you want to use them to calculate the battery size, that sort of determines how many panels you need, less if they have 5 working days to charge for weekend use only, (a lot) more for a 3 week holiday.

If you have any questions I'll be happy to look into them.

Am I the only one that uses these?! I mean, I love it.

I have one of these in my office, because no one here ever finishes a stupid pot of coffee and it gets moldy and gross. For like a week we used the k-cups that came with the machine, but we are all poor and didn't want to have to go buy a ton of those supper expensive (and as you so mentioned non-recyclable) pieces of trash, so we all just use the reusable cup. It was pretty cheap, easy to use and once you get the proportion of coffee you want in it, works AWESOME! I highly suggest you go buy one now if you have one of these machines.

> We can't consume our way out of climate change.

I don't want to be completely dismissive of your statement (I know your heart is in the right place), but there is a strong argument that, paradoxically, consumption is exactly how we're going to solve climate change, because the more solar and wind are bought, the more the price goes down and the more lithium ion batteries are bought, the more the price goes down.

The fossil fuel and ICE car industries are being disrupted by cheaper renewables and electric vehicles, and it could be happening much more rapidly than anyone thinks. Please see this book if interested, by a Stanford professor who has researched this subject very deeply:

www.amazon.com/Clean-Disruption-Energy-Transportation-Conventional/dp/0692210539/

People do realize they can use their own coffee grounds for the keurig, right?

http://www.amazon.com/Keurig-K-Cup-Reusable-Coffee-Filter/dp/B000DLB2FI

Edit: I'm not trying to discredit you or the article, but there is a perfectly fine green solution already available and not mentioned by either you or the article.

It's not Tassimo, but I use Keurig's refillable k-cup at home. I looked up "refillable tassimo" on Amazon and they had a few options, but I have no idea if they'll fit your pod. Most of them work great.

Californian here. I bought 5 canvas bags off amazon. Leave them in my car and use them when needed.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D57Z49X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vEBOCbAPCEKNR


0 Plastic.
0 Paper.
Durable.

There’s always a better way to improve a process.

There's this book I've been reading that seems to have a pretty good explanation of this and some potential plans for the way out-

http://www.amazon.com/The-Zeitgeist-Movement-Defined-Realizing/dp/1495303195

no, there's lots of reusable k-cups out there made by third parties. don't see them getting sued back to the stone age.

Reusable K Cup

There's a few styles out there. I use mine for tea, too.