The Old Folks Home

[hemet dennis]

I'm not sure that I want a hybrid anyway, at least the ones that use electric. I've been reading up on them, and ultimately they have a higher carbon footprint, and cost way more in fuel. Not the vehicle itself, but the emissions from producing the electric from fossil fuel, to power the hybrids, is worse that the emissions from the vehicle using normal unleaded fuel, with working catalytic converter, etc. The cost of the electricity needed to power the hybrids translates to a higher cost, mile per mile, than gasoline.

Here is something else that is very hypocritical regarding carbon footprint, and fossil fuel reduction. In Florida, it is totally illegal to go off grid for home electric. They just arrested 24 people in a community that was specifically built to rely totally on solar power, with generator back up if ever needed. This is not a community of crackheads that can't afford to pay their electric bill. This is what one of our governors did to help the energy companies here.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not true that it's illegal to be off the grid.
It is illegal to use the city sewer system without paying to. It is illegal to not have running water in a home. It is illegal to hook up any electric system in any way you want to.
All of those things are illegal for yours and your neighbors safety.
Anyone that wants to live off-grid can, but they're required to follow basic safety laws.

 

[vehve]

Deb, I think a one or two dollar gas tax in the States would boost discoveries in that field a bit...

Sometime in the fifties or sixties I think they predicted that computers in the 21st century would only weigh a ton. I wonder how they would have reacted to a iPhone.

 

[Teila]

Look, a cute chicken picture ... too subtle??

Hey guys n' gals still lurking, still having trouble keeping up but still reading every post!

I know way more about horses than I did a week ago!

OK, the truth? I am like a proud grandma popping up everywhere with pictures of my bubbies!

 

[Bunnylady]

Look, a cute chicken picture ... too subtle??

Hey guys n' gals still lurking, still having trouble keeping up but still reading every post!

I know way more about horses than I did a week ago!

OK, the truth? I am like a proud grandma popping up everywhere with pictures of my bubbies!

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, any point on any thread on this forum is the right time and place for pix of chix!

 

[vehve]

Nothing wrong with chickie pictures on a chicken forum. And they are pretty cute little fluffballs.

 

[Penny Hen]

In that line (chicks) can any of you figure out what color this fluff ball might turn out?



It's brother and sisters have been blue, black or silver chipmunk chicks. This one is by a blue hen and this rooster

 

[ronott1]

I have to agree with you that population limitations are necessary. The things that need to be free or low cost are the methods of contraception. It is not the complete answer but just a part. One of the things I made sure my two daughters knew as they were growing up is that I didn't want them to feel that they needed to be in any kind of rush to run out and give me grand-kids. Go out. Get your feet on the ground. Don't have kids till you are at least 25. Let yourself grow up first. Make sure that the daddy wants to help you raise them. Also since diabetes runs on both sides of the family if you fall in love with someone who has the same history seriously think of adopting. Our genes are not so special that it worth risking a serious health issue on a baby. There are tons of children out there that need loving parents.

Are you talking about China a population? EU already has negative population growth and we are nearly there too.

Hence the SSI problems. This shows that we are losing people in a lot of the world:



Can we control population in China?

Oddly, as opposed to the oil industry, Green energy will be a big economic factor. We will be moving from oil to it.

 

[hennible]

That is so wrong. It makes my blood boil. Some places in Florida have also persecuted people who grew edible gardens.

Holy cow! I am outta the loop. That's terrifying what's wrong with being self-sufficient? Doesn't it take weight off the government? I've had conspiracy loving friends say that stuff would happen, no gardens, no seed saving, but I sure didn't want to believe it.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yakima, climate change might be a probem we don't fully grasp, but surely you can't claim that the largest consumer of oil products cutting down on it's use would hurt? If I remember correctly, the US accounts for about 20% of oil cosumption, with a significantly smaller share of the global population.

I love the detractors that think because it's cool where they live or that part of one polar ice cap grew in the last year, climate change isn't happening.
NASA just reported that last month was the warmest month in 130 years of record keeping. The eastern US was about average, northern Australia, some of China and the eastern hemisphere arctic were cooler than average but most of the rest of the planet were warmer. The Antarctic was much higher than average.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...t-years-climate-change-began-say-experts.html

I feel like I sort of started an alienating discussion here again...

It makes me glad Bama taught me about the block button. I still get to read some science denial in quotes though.

I'm trying my best to stay out of it.
The best argument against climate change I've heard is that the scientists make a profit from their predictions. Why take the word of a scientist that studies climate as part of their profession when you can listen to a denier that does so as a hobby?

LOL.... not me... I love this stuff. But maybe a different discussion list... There are no single solutions... There are always hundreds of ways to solve a problem sometimes it takes several different applications.

WE humans are on the brink of discovery.... Just think about How long have we had computers.... How long have we had gasoline engines..... How long have we had electricity... never mind on how to generate it. Just those things have only been with us what.... at most two hundred years... refering to electricity.

The human race used to double its knowledge every 100 years.... then it was shortened to 25 after world war Two.... and now we are doubling our knowledge every twelve months.... Thats globally...

Back when I got my first computer 1980 ish. It didnt have a hard drive. Good ole IBM 8088. It had two 5.25 floppy drives.... You loaded the operating system on boot up then pulled it out and loaded your software.... the other hard drive was file storage

The biggest hard drive out there was three megabytes and it weighed so much you had to move it with a forklift. I know a computer geek friend got one of the Union Tribunes old computers.... It was the size of a Volkswagen bus. Look at memory now.... I have a 500GB hard drive that is solid state. I wanted a terabyte but had to wait.

We have come so far.... but we as a human race have Aeons to go.... Hopefully we will grow out of this adolescence with maturity and a Proactive atitude.

deb

And everything gets more efficient, I think that's key. From carbon arc and mercury vapor lamps to incandescent to fluorescent and now LED.
Having worked in the renewable energy field, the first effort should be to make the property as energy efficient as possible. It doesn't make sense to generate renewable energy and waste it with inefficiency.
My first external drive was an 8". I was really excited to have a computer with dual 5 1/4 inch drives (no hard drive). That way I could run DOS from one and a word processor on another.
I remember not that long ago when hard drives were a dollar a megabyte and when windows wouldn't support a gigabyte drive.

Yes, rather than dispute everything, it should be a "nothing ventured, nothing gained" philosophy.
What if we said the interstate highway system was too ambitious? All the while other parts of the world are building efficient high speed rail networks. That couldn't happen here today. We keep losing ground to the rest of the world in many respects.

"In the year 2525" Zager and Evans

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not true that it's illegal to be off the grid.
It is illegal to use the city sewer system without paying to. It is illegal to not have running water in a home. It is illegal to hook up any electric system in any way you want to.
All of those things are illegal for yours and your neighbors safety.
Anyone that wants to live off-grid can, but they're required to follow basic safety laws.

I understand living off the grid for sewer and water is a problem in the city.

A friend of mine in a rural area about 50 miles to the southwest had a huge windmill on his large property that was visible from the road. One of his neighbors complained and he was forced to remove it (actually the sheriff's office came out and took it down), He believes Ameren/UE was behind it. He was surprised when he found out that I was the lead tech setting up an off the grid home about 20 miles from his. It was quite a place complete with windmill, solar voltaic, solar thermal, solar hot water, wood furnace and backup diesel generator.

Are you talking about China a population? EU already has negative population growth and we are nearly there too.

Hence the SSI problems. This shows that we are losing people in a lot of the world:

Can we control population in China?

Oddly, as opposed to the oil industry, Green energy will be a big economic factor. We will be moving from oil to it.

China did a pretty good job back in the '80s and '90s. Supposedly the one child policy averted 200 million births. Then the downside, entire communities with only young men. Not to mention the social problems when those families overindulged that one son creating a population of little emperors.

Holy cow! I am outta the loop. That's terrifying what's wrong with being self-sufficient? Doesn't it take weight off the government? I've had conspiracy loving friends say that stuff would happen, no gardens, no seed saving, but I sure didn't want to believe it.

When I lived in a small town in Germany, all my neighbors grew their veggies in the front yard mixed among their cutting flower beds. It was very pretty.

There's a guy living in Berkely, (not that one, but the neighboring city of Ferguson MO) who has been consistently fined for having his vegetables and fruit growing in the front yard - to the tune of a couple thousand a day. $500 a day for having unpermitted trees (they're fruit trees). They want only grass and shrubbery below 5' out there.

At about $25,000 median household income, this is one of the poorer cities in St. Louis County. Interestingly, this city has initiated a "Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases by 80%; part of this is official support of community gardens and localized food growing. Here’s a direct quote from the plan’s recommendations to residents: Grow your own food. Join a community garden or plant a garden in your yard. So it could be there is a disconnect between the activities of officially-supported community gardens and what the individual food grower can do."

Seed saving is becoming increasingly difficult thanks to patented seeds owned by big ag.

 

[vehve]

CC, one thing to add, higher education tends to slow down breeding rates.

I like reading your responses, you always bring up good points.