Originally published at PJ Media
BY TOM HARRIS
Bill Gates and Elon Musk are having yet another billionaire food fight, this time over climate change.
Musk accused Gates of not being a serious climate reformer because he shorted Tesla’s stock. Gates was quick to swipe back, stating that he gives “a lot more money to climate change than Elon or anyone else.”
These billionaire showmen certainly know how to put on a 21st-century climate change show. Musk has said that climate change is the single biggest threat humanity faces aside from artificial intelligence. Gates, for his part, has gone so far as to advocate for all rich countries to move to 100% synthetic beef (cow farts are “really” bad for the environment, supposedly).
Everyday Americans aren’t buying what they’re selling, and understandably so. The so-called climate change emergency is one of the most manufactured crises in history. None of its advocates’ doomsday predictions have come true over the years, from Lower Manhattan going under water by 2018 to 50 million climate refugees by 2000 to entire nations getting wiped out from global warming by 2000. Yet they want you to stop eating meat, taking daily showers, and driving gas-powered cars anyway.
But here’s the thing — if one takes their actions at face value, Gates and Musk don’t appear to be buying what they’re selling either. They’re certainly not making many sacrifices to “save the planet,” but they still want to inconvenience you with mandate after mandate. In contrast to Gandhi’s advice that we should “live simply so that others may simply live,” these billionaire hypocrites clearly believe that we should do what they say, not what they do. Gates, for example, owns four private jets, and ironically, he got in a bidding war for the world’s largest private jet operator just one month before releasing a book on climate change. This isn’t the profile of a climate change reformer; it’s the profile of a billionaire who appears to put lavish living over everything else.
Gates’ BD-700 Global Express jet aircraft (below) consumes 486 gallons of fuel each hour. A study conducted by Stefan Gössling of the School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University in Sweden showed that in 2017, Gates took 59 flights by private jet and, during the over one-third of a million kilometers traveled, his jets emitted more than 1,600 tons of CO2. That is almost 90 times the average annual “carbon footprint” per person in the U.S. for everything they do, not just air travel.
In a recent interview on CBS News’ 60 Minutes Gates admitted to Anderson Cooper:
“I probably have one of the highest greenhouse gas footprints on the planet, my personal flying alone is gigantic.”
But, Gates explained, he is paying about $7 million a year, a pittance for a billionaire, to “offset” his “carbon footprint.” If only regular people could afford such luxuries.
Yet Gates doesn’t want you to discharge anything, even for transportation, because “when you’re going to zero, you don’t get to skip anything.”
Musk is no better. Though stating that “humanity is faltering” and that Tesla “exists to help reduce risk of catastrophic climate change,” he too has a penchant for flying on private jets.
In May, Business Insider reported that Musk bought two private jets in the past two years. The “environmental price” of his carbon-emitting lifestyle isn’t small potatoes. In 2019, the Washington Post reported that his corporate jet “flew more than 150,000 miles [in 2018], or more than six times around the Earth, as he raced between the outposts of his futuristic empire.” The cherry on top is that the Post made it clear that “some of the flights were recreational getaways for Musk or his family,” not just business trips.
If that’s how one can behave when “humanity is in crisis,” then how is the sky not already falling?
Of course, Musk being a hypocrite in this area is nothing new. Wired magazine reports that, “despite their green cred, Tesla cars create pollution and carbon emissions in ways that are easily overlooked by consumers and investors.” This theme is explored in detail in the 2021 book Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping citizens understand the environmental and humanity abuses that support ‘clean’ energy, by engineer and energy consultant Ronald Stein and Todd Royal, an independent public policy consultant focusing on the geopolitical implications of energy. They explain:
“Tesla Motors’ ‘dirty little secret’ is turning into a major problem for the EV industry—and perhaps mankind. If you think Tesla’s Model S is the green car of the future, think again. The promises of energy independence, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and lower fuel costs, are all factors behind the rise in the popularity of electric vehicles. Unfortunately, under scrutiny, all these promises prove to be more fiction than fact.”
Related: Is the Green Energy Climate Cabal Crumbling?
Musk’s SpaceX has also come under fire from environmental groups for endangering wildlife in Texas, sometimes violating its FAA launch license. And of course, his Falcon 9 rockets don’t run on renewable energy. They use kerosene, a combustible hydrocarbon liquid derived from petroleum. However, rest assured that Musk will keep advising you on what to do to protect the planet.
Gates and Musk can continue arguing all they want, but their spat is merely a distraction from the real issue — the fact that the climate change movement they both claim to hold so dear has no legs to stand on, and their actions appear to prove it. So, enjoy your cheeseburger, take your shower, and drive your car to work. The climate bosses are doing it, so why shouldn’t you?
Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
Environmentalism is basically classist. Keeping the lower classes down is quite consistent with their belief system.
Oil millionaires apparently just give their cash to the poor then?
Oil millionaires aren’t trying to convince you to do anything against your personal interests, while happily doing the opposite themselves.
Except that some of them are trying to placate the leftist mob, pretending to be “doing something” about climate change. Seems like a lot of billionaires, no matter the industry, mindlessly parrot this nonsense.
Agreed. These guys are not dummies. It seems to me that Musk is using CAGW to sell product. Maybe Gates has friends in industries that are benefited by the fight against “carbon”. What is it they say about interesting times???
One must needs placate the vapid leftist mob, which stands by vigilant ready to “burn it all down” when they don’t get their way.
Griff,
And maybe “oil millionaires” are not so hypocritical about the “climate emergency” as are Gates and Musk. Hypocrisy is the theme here, not mere wealth.
Like most socialists, griff is only opposed to personal wealth, when it’s held by someone he doesn’t like.
In a long history of stupid comments, that may be the stupidest of them all.
Griff fails even as a troll.
What is it with alarmists and their eagerness to use non-sequitors in a desperate attempt to change the subject?
“Save the Planet!?!? The planet doesn’t need saving. Some people are (BEEP!!) but the planet’s doing just fine.” George Carlin
Wisdom from a wise man. Hearken.
The entire article is a non-sequitur. Just because Gates and Musk are hypocrites (and is anyone surprised?) that doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t real and manmade.
Believe what you’d like, but these two don’t behave like there’s a climate emergency.
Of the 420ppm (0.042%) of CO2, in the atmosphere, what percentage belongs to the burning of fossil fuels other than natural sources?
Peter,
roughly all of the increase from about 280ppm to 420pm is due to burning of fossil fuels and human activity. Isotope analysis can tell you and it is well established.
Because the entire biosphere is static except for humans? Where did you ever get that idea? Certainly not from observation.
There is no proof that the increase from 280 to 420ppm is caused by humans. Actually it’s a sign of a healthy greening planet. CO2 of 280ppm is getting down to the boarder line.
Izaak,
The below was cut from a 11:16 post (near the bottom) by CD in Wisconsin. (you must be very very very blissful)
Professor Herman Harde is now retired from the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg as Professor of Experimental Physics after a long career in science academia.
“Since only about 15% of the global CO2 increase is of anthropogenic origin, just 15% of 0.3°C, i.e., less than 0.05°C remains, which can be attributed to humans in the overall balance. In view of this vanishingly small contribution, of which the Germans are only involved with 2.1% [of emissions], it is absurd to assume that an exit from fossil fuels could even remotely have an impact on our climate. Changes of our climate can be traced back to natural interaction processes that exceed our human influence by orders of magnitude.”
Griff. So nice to see you again.
It is true that oil millionaires give a large portion of their income to the poor! It’s great to see you making progress on your quest to understand the current situation.
Come on, guys!
If griff didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. He’s too much fun…
Do some research on T. Boone Pickens. As Scott Martin noted in a “Wealth Advisor” article, “Pickens amassed about $3 billion at his peak and gave more than $1 billion of it away.” He was famous for his philanthropy, as, for that matter, was John D. Rockefeller.
He also talked Texas into adopting his “Pickens Plan” of erecting a network of windmills across the pains of west Texas, thus reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Didn’t work out that great.
How often does Soros fly around the globe.
Our past MP, in Oz, said it in a nutshell. “Socialism disguised as Environmentalism”.
Gates has a eugenics/depopulation streak…a malignant classist. Musk does not. Both have promised the world and have been very successful selling us stuff we don’t need. Yet, both have contributed little to the structural innovation America has needed for 50 years, that is: developing infrastructure products that ensure safe, clean and inexpensive energy. Gates is a central control strategist who has promoted globalism and consumerism to the hilt. Ask Gates what impact his products have had in promoting the industrialization and consumerization of the globe and to what degree has he contributed to the global environmental problems he touts as as a crisis. I doubt he feels guilty. Musk sees AI as a threat because of central control strategists like Gates.. The age old problem of megalomaniacs continues.
Musk recently listed what he thinks are the 3 biggest threats to mankind, and climate change is not one of them. https://nypost.com/2022/03/28/elon-musk-reveals-3-biggest-existential-threats-to-humanitys-survival/
Well, I see that #1 is people having too few kids. Finally, a plus for Bozo – though, in Bozo’s case, I imagine that even Musk would be unhappy about that!
Falling birthrate, artificial intelligence & religious extremism.
He should include Climate Change in religious extremism.
The CEO of Tesla has to say climate change is bad news.
I’m waiting for Tesla shareholder lawsuits charging Musk with ruining the company’s image by saying he’ll vote Republican in 2024.
I think the #1 threat to mankind is the Oligarchy of which he is a member. It spawns many evils including to a large extent “Climate Change”.
Musk’s opinion differs sharply from the practical priorities of 10 million people surveyed around the world in a UN-sponsored poll.
I’ll go with “crowd wisdom” on this one for the win. In priority order:
1. good education
2. better healthcare
3. better job opportunities
4. honest and responsive government
5. affordable nutritious food
6. protection against crime and violence
7. clean water and sanitation
8. support for people who can’t work
9. better transport and roads
10. equality between men and women
11. reliable energy at home
12. public freedoms
13. freedom from discrimination and persecution
14. protect forests, rivers, and oceans
15. phone and internet access
and in distant, last place…
16. action on climate change
I put “good government” at the very top of the list because bad government inhibits these priorities and good government protects human rights and promotes these priorities. The last one, being dead last, is clearly not a priority. It was just put as a question on the poll by the leftists running the U.N.
And if the poll had been among the truly poor, 7 would be 1, 5 would be 2 and 11 would be 3.
Truly poor = Not US welfare recipients, they already have ALL of that.
Excellent points, Drake, and True as ‘can be’. I was born in ’35, was close to ‘poor’ (but likely unconcerned as a young person), and your points are VERY on target.
Musk is all over the place. He says his biggest fear is humanity’s falling birth rate. Yet in an article below this one the headline is, “Tesla to pay workers’ abortion travel costs after moving HQ to Texas.” Maybe he could consider promoting responsible behavior and adoption.
Tucker Carlson had a great take on that: If you pay for their abortion, you don’t have to pay for the birth and healthcare of the baby.
On this point Musk is hypocritical when he made low birth rate one of the top 3 problems.
What is it with all the doomsday fears?
“Musk recently listed what he thinks are the 3 biggest threats to mankind….”
“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity!”
There are about six billion of us right now. Before us were Neanderthals. Before them were Homo Erectus, and before them Australopithecus. Our line has been very successful. Doomsday fears are irrational.
Please provide the link to the study that shows a transition from one to the next to the next.
The Theory of Evolution requires the missing links according to Darwin.
I Don’t Want to Live on This Planet Anymore. – YouTube
Gates, for me is the bigger villain of the two. Big pharma, buying up farmland etc, not to mention MSDOS and Windows.
Musk has an off-world vision that I can subscribe to, Gates is just a nasty geek with misanthropic tendencies
Quite agree, MasterGates is one of the biggest Dossers around.
You are on the ball Fretsleder. In 2000 I read a book “At the speed of thought” by Gates. It was supposed to be a futurologist look at the world. Not only did he not really see the importance of internet, his only future outlook was that we could call up any film to watch at any time. Oh Brave New world!. I endorse your view on Gates. Musk and Jobs had far more vision and insight, although Musk is distressing in that he seems to have drunk too deep on the Koolade. When he sees through the scam he may be a man of sufficient integrity to speak out.
At least Musk won’t censor disagreements you have with him as Gates sides with those
who censor reasonable dissent. Gates always was a dictatorial monopolist who was
an expert at bullying!
I think that he has already indicated so, by some of his recent actions & statements… it’s a learning curve, when you have been a Democrat.
Not to mention Gates’ visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
At least Musk makes something tangible.
Gates just produced “software” that sometimes worked.
Does either man use solar panels to provide power? I doubt it.
More to the point, does either EXCLUSIVELY use wind mills and solar panels for power?
THERE’S the rub.
Check the top of the Tesla gigafactories. Might be a couple of panels there. Don’t ask me what percentage of the facility those operate, but they are there.
https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory
Green Google which uses as much energy as a small country is building a huge facility less than a mile from a 17 GW gas powered electrical generating plant in Midlothian, TX.
Not a solar panel nor wind generator around.
Musk is open to engineering a fix rather than limiting growth.
Engineering a fix for something that isn’t broken.
Recently, Musk has not “engineered a fix” for his disastrous investment in cryptocurrency and his faltering Tesla company, he himself surfacing the issue of bankruptcy on the latter.
He has been forced, reluctantly, to admit that there are limits to growth.
Tesla is only “faltering” i.e. loosing value on the stock exchange because Musk threatened to allow conservative views onto twitter.
The left is a spiteful lot.
“loosing their squadron” is VERY different than “losing their squadron” (as an example)
It is all a religion, and heavy on the marketing.
He gives “a lot more money to climate change”. Climate change must be very rich by now.
“Musk’s SpaceX has also come under fire from environmental groups for endangering wildlife in Texas,” That is just the usual anti-human, anti-science, anti-advancement greenie nonsense.
It is true that Greenies are in a tizzie, but here is no significant truth to it — ought not to be repeated here.
Meanwhile, the WHO informs us 4m people in ‘developing’ nations die every year from conditions caused by inhaling smoke from dung and wood fires, used for cooking and heating. The most vulnerable are women and children.
That’ll be around 100m people dead by 2050 yet, were it possible to hit NetZero in any country by then, the green ghouls would celebrate, whilst 4m people a year continue to perish for the want of clean, reliable, cheap, fossil fuel derived electricity.
Clearly, their climate change agenda has absolutely nothing to do with humanitarianism, just self serving narcissism.
chimneys fix that problem
Not really when they have very little fuel and so must limit the size of the fire. Too much draft would waste fuel. We are talking the very poor here.
Chimneys and a damper.
As it was/is the WHO that assisted in throwing so many into the unnecessary tizzy and evil of Covid… I don’t think I will accept ANY sort of stats from them.
““Musk’s SpaceX has also come under fire from environmental groups “
Not just groups…
How the billionaire space race could be one giant leap for pollution
One rocket launch produces up to 300 tons of carbon dioxide into the upper atmosphere where it can remain for years
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-tourism-environment-emissions
You see…
“For SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, it is kerosene, and for Nasa it is liquid hydrogen in their new Space Launch System.” Which is not re-usable, by the way. And Nasa, being a political behemoth, has its prejudices
“The former deputy administrator wrote that it was she who spearheaded NASA’s public-private partnership with SpaceX, known as the Commercial Crew Program — a move that she says drew much internal ire, including from Nelson.
While he was still a US senator, Garver wrote, Nelson “led the opposition” to Commercial Crew. She recounted a private meeting in which the then-senator “shouted at me to ‘get your boy Elon in line'” after Musk publicly claimed that he could help NASA.”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-nasa-official-spacex
Perhaps we might be witnessing the birth pangs of Weyland-Yutani… building better worlds.
(I do know Starship uses methane…)
fretslider ==. Space exploration is interesting, very expensive, and only, in this century, justifiable if it produces widely useful byproducts from its deep research. (end speech)
Musk has said that climate change is the single biggest threat humanity faces aside from artificial intelligence.
________________________________
I hadn’t realized that monumental no nonsense ego has bought into the bullshit. Paint me disappointed.
Me, too.
Even smart people can be propagandized. Smart in some things, dumb in others.
From the second to last paragraph of the above article:
“And of course, his Falcon 9 rockets don’t run on renewable energy. They use kerosene, a combustible hydrocarbon liquid derived from petroleum. However, rest assured that Musk will keep advising you on what to do to protect the planet.”
It promises to get much worse! SpaceX is currently conducting development flight testing of its massive “Super Heavy” booster stage to launch its “Starship” spacecraft in the future.
The Super Heavy booster is claimed to be more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V moon rocket booster and uses SpaceX’s relatively recently developed Raptor engine. And—buckle your seatbelts—each Super Heavy booster will burn about 800 t (1,800,000 lb) of liquid methane, a fossil fuel. (Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship )
Of course, as most rocket engineers know, rocket engines do not burn at stoichiometric conditions; instead, most always burn slightly fuel-rich to lessen combustion chamber oxidation at high flame temperatures and, in the case of LOX-methane combustion, they actually develop higher specific impulse burning fuel rich due the lower molecular weight of methane (MW = 16) compared to O2 (MW = 32). Indeed, the stoichiometric mixture ratio (O/F) for LOX-methane is 4.0, but the Raptor design mixture ratio is about 3.55.
So, without going into all the details, based on a CEA analysis run of the Raptor design operating conditions and assuming 100% combustion efficiency, the exhaust stream for SpaceX’s Raptor engine can be expected to consist of about 46% water vapor (the predominent greenhouse gas), 42% CO2 (another greenhouse gas), and 12% carbon monoxide (a weak greenhouse gas). The 12% CO results directly from burning on the fuel-rich side of stoichiometry.
Protect the planet at all cost . . . but allow me to make money regardless. Hah!
Spacex were smart choosing methane as its propellant for the Starship:
“…after a century of rocket fuel research that has looked at everything from RP-1 to hydrogen to paraffin, the industry is turning to a surprising new source – methane
A more efficient engine
Easier and cheaper to produce
“…methane, engines can be designed to run at much higher, more efficient pressures. When you factor in the increased efficiency, the performance benefit is more like 20 percent over kerosene.”
Australia’s Science Channel | Why the next generation of rockets will be powered by methane (australiascience.tv)
SpaceX is doing things Nasa would have been doing pre Obama. Taking risks, pushing the boundaries.
fretslider,
Having said all of that, how is any of it relevant to the topic of my post about the exhaust stream of greenhouse gases being emitted by SpaceX raptor engines?
Sorry, I didn’t realise you were an alarmist. I automatically assumed you had more sense than that.
Ho hum . . . wherever did I indicate “alarm” in my previous posts under this article?
I did say “It promises to get much worse”, and that is a simple factual statement based on SpaceX’s announced plans for Starship launches, including his announced collaboration with NASA for “return to the Moon” missions.
As for your automatic assumptions, that is a problem for you to deal with, not me.
What’s “worse” about CO2 and Methane? More of it is worse? Is that what you are saying?
Tom,
No, I never passed judgment on the “goodness” or “badness” of CO2 or methane.
I am playing off the irony that Musk and Gates put on the appearance of being concerned about these gases (via climate change™) while at the same time creating/using them to their heart’s content.
I personally believe that, while the greenhouse theory is scientifically valid to a certain degree, that degree—likely below 250 ppmv for atmospheric CO2 concentration—has already been passed.
Also, as I have posted elsewhere on WUWT and previously, I believe there is a huge misconception in believing it is only the re-radiation of LWIR from greenhouse gases backward to Earth’s surface that causes “greenhouse” warming. The LWIR energy absorbed by GHG’s is thermalized (distributed to the non-greenhouse atmospheric gases N2 and O2) at a factor between 10^6 and 10^9 times faster, via collisional exchange of translational and vibrational energies, than said energy is re-radiated as a photon of equal or lower frequency than that absorbed.
It is the isotropic thermal radiation from all atmospheric gases (as a function of their temperature variation with altitude) that warms Earth’s surface to the degree it does compared to an Earth having no atmosphere that undoubtedly would freeze over.
Adding additional CO2 or methane to Earth’s current atmosphere will have negligible effect toward increasing greenhouse warming simply because that effect is already saturated, especially as a result of the average amount of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere.
I have no doubt whatsoever that CO2 is plant food.
I am in general agreement with the reasoning of scientists William Happer, Richard Lindzen and Willis Eschenbach, to mention just a few.
Thanks for asking.
It’s hard to say if Dressler is an alarmist but he’s certainly an anti-nuclear nut who makes up falsehoods about nuclear power. Usually, but not always, the two beliefs go hand-in-hand.
meab,
Once again, thank you for making clear to all the insightful wisdom of Socrates who said:
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
Sorry, Gordon, There was a debate only in your feeble mind. You claimed that Plutonium-239, Plutonium-240, and Uranium-236 couldn’t be recycled. THAT’S an OUTRIGHT LIE. All three HAVE already been recycled. I pointed out where, but you refuse to look it up.
No debate. You were confused only because you don’t know enough about the subject to be able to understand what you were reading on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, not knowing anything doesn’t stop you from pontificating.
.
I forgot one thing –
I used the term “recycle” in the narrow context of processing spent nuclear fuel (SNF) waste products, mainly the actinides P-239, P-240, and U-236 as identified by Wikipedia, that would then be used in the same type of nuclear reactor that created them, in the specific context, a U-235/U-238 fueled PWR. That is simply not possible as each of these three waste elements would “poison” the U-235 fission process.
meab apparently uses the term “recycle” in the broader context of processing those same SNF waste products and repurposing them as fuel for a MOX nuclear reactor.
There are no commercial-scale MOX nuclear power reactors operating in the US, and the US does not send its SNF overseas for “recycling” in any form. Hence, the buildup of thousands of tons of P-239, P-240, and U-236 in SNF storage in the US.
However, there are commercial power-size MOX nuclear reactors operating in several foreign countries. I never claimed otherwise.
It is a fact that in our discussions meab and I failed to clearly communicate to each other the specific contexts of our uses of the term “recycle”.
Gentlemen can have miscommunications with each other without one having to levy the serious (and unfounded) charge that the other is lying. Emphasis here on the term gentlemen.
Please examine these clarifications in the light of meab’s posts above, particularly his last one.
Gates seems full of himself, Musk does not.
Musk is a narcissistic, serial liar whose sole mission appears to be attention and amassing unearned wealth. He’s committed numerous securities frauds, lied about Autopilot crashes, and extracted billions out of Tesla even though over the history of the company, they have been a net loser on the balance sheet. Recently exposed himself to a company employee then paid 250,000 and nda’d her out of the company. Makes big announcements of products that do not exist to pump his share price and seems to have immunity from the SEC,
For a lengthy list of Musk lies see this updated list :https://elonmusk.today/
Apparently you are unaware of Musk’s attitude during his dust-up with the SEC several years ago.
You refer to the slap on the wrist for falsely announcing he was taking tesla private and juicing the share price? I followed the case with interest. He didn’t even abide by the conditions of the settlement in that his tweets were all suppose to be vetted by a twitter sitter. He’s been in violation of that for the last few years now so the SEC isn’t even enforcing its own victory.
They didn’t charge him with insider trading for using tesla to buy out his failing solar company. Once a month he violates FD requirements. Just this week it was discovered he told a group of insiders last month that Tesla was losing billions. This is material information that is not being reported through the proper channels in violation of clear SEC regulation yet they do nothing. Did these insiders sell shares to avoid losses?
Yes, exactly . . . and more.
In an interview with a Tesla owners group, Musk is reported to have stated:
“The past two years have been an absolute nightmare of supply chain interruptions, one thing after another . . . We’re not out of it yet. That’s overwhelmingly our concern is how do we keep the factories operating so we can pay people and not go bankrupt.”
(source: https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/elon-musk-says-he-s-worried-about-keeping-tesla-out-of-bankruptcy-122062401267_1.html , amongst many others)
A Tesla owners group is not a part of the management of Tesla corporation, so this has all the appearance of publicly disclosing material information on the company without first getting approval of the Board of Directors of the company to make such disclosure, a direct violation of his settlement agreement with the SEC over his blatant stock manipulations via Twitter, which you referenced,
This repeated misbehavior, specifically ignoring the rule of law in the United States, is a clear indication of a super-ego, not accidental mistakes.
Two rich blowhards.
Quote:”So, enjoy your cheeseburger, take your shower, and drive your car to work.
Tru Fax
There is in the UK right now a fairly major pub/restaurant chain.
Not bargain basement cheap but not ultra posh – a cut above McDonalds
And on their food menu are things called Skinny Burgers
Today’s’ wonderation: What makes or defines a Skinny Burger?
..no burger
..veg burger
..no fat, cheese or bacon
..no ketchup, mayo or salt
You will be surprised…
Maybe there is hope……
Hamburgers are thawed and ready for the grill for dinner today. That is after I mow my acre using gasoline powered mowers. Three years ago I bought a Cub ZT1 50 and put my Craftsman 50″ deck lawn tractor out to pasture.
That zero turn with a 23 hp Kawasaki engine and a 50″ deck has cut my mowing time by more than half and does just as good a job as the tractor did. In three years I have put less than 80 hours on it and I mow every week during the season. During the fall I work it hard grinding up the leaves.
Per the manual I changed the oil at 20 hours. Next service period for new plugs, air filter and oil change with filter is at 100 hours. Other than cleaning it after each use the only other maintenance I have done is change the blades.
Let it grow, cut it once a year, plant/grow native flowering plants in it and make the bees happy.
Griff,
Very progressive solution but some like to have the use of their backyard and sometimes that translates into having a lawn rather than a wild meadow.
Bulldoze it and install a parking lot to keep the heat in 😉
Maybe he wants to use his yard for something other than making bees and you happy?
The clover that pops up this time of year keeps the bees happy. I do not use any kind of herbicide on my yard because we are on a well. Our use of insecticides is very limited for that same reason.
LOL! My neighbor owns the field to the east behind me. It totals 3 acres and is mowed. He has a park like shelter built back there they keep a good sized garden in it. Behind that to the east is a hayfield that gets mowed 2-3 times a year. It provides the fodder for the horses and a donkey that are kept in the pasture to the east of the hayfield. The next plot two plots to the east are pastures for Black Angus cows. Great beefs.
I’m taking next week off. Among other chores I must clean out my garage. Like many people I have $10,000 of tools and equipment in it and no room for a vehicle other than my motorcycle. I have to clean two sheds out and organize them to make room for some of the stuff I have in my garage because I have to make room for a large chest freezer to hold the side of beef we ordered recently and a lot more frozen vegetables in anticipation of prices going even higher and possible shortages to come.
My world is nothing like yours Griff, Thank God! Are you eating bugs yet?
Then get ticketed by the city for allowing growth over 6 inches.
I’m outside the city but close enough to have NG and for it to be convenient to get the things I need/want.
I suppose it had to happen. Griff said something halfways sensible. Life is too short for mowing lawns. Better to relax in a deckchair and quaff a low-carbon ale, amd listen to the hum of the bumble bee and watch the butterflies. Or better still get a goat to keep the grass down and once a year barbeque the goat. See Griff we do sometimes wail from the same minaret
Griffter, you’ve obviously never tried to cut an overgrown lawn, let alone a lawn that has grown for a year.
At the time my father’s health was declining, he let his lawn go for several months. It was about an acre and usually took 2 to 3 hours to cut and sweep with his lawn tractor. When I was finally able to visit I had to spend two entire days on it; first cutting it at the mower’s highest setting, having to repeatedly stop to unclog the mower, having to stop to rake up HUGE amounts of grass by hand (the sweeper couldn’t handle it), having to haul the grass off to the dump a pickup truck load at a time, and then cutting it again at the normal height setting. When I was finally done, the lawn looked absolutely terrible.
You never cease to amaze how you are so ignorant about every damn thing.
I haven’t cut my side yard this year … maybe a 1/3 ac. The covid thing has kept me down for the last month and it rained a lot before that. Since it is warm and still wet the (Himalayan) blackberries are growing about 2″ per day.
I had cut the roadside (about 10′ wide) when it was 30″ high. It is back to 24″ now.
I don’t haul anything off … now there is a 7′ high pile in the center. When I rotate the pile to the back it takes about 6 years for the other pile to completely disappear. Anyway, no reason to haul away.
if you aren’t doing anything this weekend you are welcome to come over …
I’m “offsetting my carbon footprint” by planting trees in my yard; natural shade, less water needed for the lawn, and they look nice. I can think of a lot better uses for $7 million a year than virtue signaling.
“But, Gates explained, he is paying about $7 million a year, a pittance for a billionaire, to “offset” his “carbon footprint.” If only regular people could afford such luxuries.”
Regular people can afford such luxuries … because they have relatively small (compared to Gates) carbon footprints their spending would be relatively small. I’m not saying that regular people or even Bill Gates should be buying carbon offsets but if that’s where they want to spend their money …
But, Gates explained, he is paying about $7 million a year, a pittance for a billionaire, to “offset” his “carbon footprint.”
In other words he is paying the modern equivalent of ‘indulgencies’, the original ‘virtue signal’. You cannot buy your way to a clearer conscience just by virtue signalling.
“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience” – Adam Smith.
I’ve always thought that if the Gates, Gores, Suzukis etc truly believed the climate apocalypse they preach, they would reduce their footprint to zero AND pay for the offsets (whatever an offset is).
Yup, it is just virtue signalling.
Stephen Skinner wrote, “In other words he is paying the modern equivalent of ‘indulgencies’ … “
Wikipedia tell us …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset
(references at the link)
In fact he is paying to have all his carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere and/or paying someone or an organization to not emit carbon dioxide in the first place.
People who have raised children know that it is easier to give a kid an alternative rather than a prohibition. The same is true for adults.
Perhaps, Musk is pulling Billy Bob’s chain. Seeing as how the knucklehead Gates espouses so many bad ideas, Elon is just winding him up. Cuz he can. The devil’s advocate thing.
Could be.
Gates and Musk would do well to listen to a scientist in Germany who is not afraid to rise above the mass hysteria and groupthink of climate alarmism.
https://tinyurl.com/4azaex2f
Professor Herman Harde is now retired from the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg as Professor of Experimental Physics after a long career in science academia.
“Since only about 15% of the global CO2 increase is of anthropogenic origin, just 15% of 0.3°C, i.e., less than 0.05°C remains, which can be attributed to humans in the overall balance. In view of this vanishingly small contribution, of which the Germans are only involved with 2.1% [of emissions], it is absurd to assume that an exit from fossil fuels could even remotely have an impact on our climate. Changes of our climate can be traced back to natural interaction processes that exceed our human influence by orders of magnitude.”
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“Professor Harde’s research leads him to state that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change overestimates by five times the thermal effect of doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He points to the “highly overlapping and saturated absorption bands” of CO2 and water vapour, and the significant reduced effect of greenhouses gases under cloud cover. He goes on to state that the recent increase in CO2 has caused warming of less than 0.3°C over the last century.”
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I remain mystified as to why scientists like him remain largely ignored on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Musk has said that climate change is the single biggest threat humanity faces aside from artificial intelligence.”
The greatest threat to mankind are Greenies and othet Marxists. They believe in climate change and have artifcial or little intelligence.
Musk is inconsistent on climate change. He reversed himself on assertions of pending climate catastrophe, which had already diminished to tepid claims of it being not a large risk but an uncertainty. Real reversal seemed to begin with an SXSW interview he gave a few years ago. Then recently he reverted to some climate catastrophe rhetoric when twitter warring against Gates. With Gates, he seemed to be picking and choosing that particular climate claim according to what helped his side of that argument in the moment.
Musk has said that we need sustainable energy because, by definition, unsustainable energy has to end. So that is actually a valid reason.
He seems to believe that anthropogenic climate disaster is very low risk but is also aware of exaggerated public convictions about the magnitude of the threat, which he opportunistically exploits.
That interpretation is a much better fit for his record of public statements than how Breitbart characterizes him in that article.
IMO, the ethics of opportunistically exploiting fear mongering without engaging in it himself are much more palatable than the promotion of fear by Al Gore, John Kerry and Michael Mann grifter types. Musk also endorses nuclear against his own business interests in solar and grid-scale battery storage.
So not seeing a significant ethical problem with Musk and clearly, as measured by outcomes, he is a massive net social positive after SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and Boring Co. Historically, no engineer has come close to that magnitude and diversity of successes, except perhaps Brunel or perhaps Edison, depending how we handicap against the more primitive engineering tools of the past.
None of Musk’s inventions have enhanced daily life in any way similar to Edison’s development of home electricity and the electric grid. None of them have enhanced entertainment in any way similar to Edison’s development of the phonograph and movie film either (or for that matter Gates’ development of the personal computer).
Thanks for that ‘awareness’.
Gates and Bezos have chartered the Lana, the world’s 65th largest yacht. It holds 78,000 gallons of diesel and can burn through that in two to three weeks. Even while it’s not underway it still burns about 100 gallons per hour. They used more fuel in a week than the average person uses in 10 years.
These hypocrites really don’t believe in the (phony) “climate crisis”, else they wouldn’t be doing what they do.
Lock them both is a small room until one eats the other.
The truth is, I have taken huge personal benefits from Gates’s inventions, but not Musk’s. (I’ve never used PayPal, but I use Windows technology every day.) Neither of these gents stays in his lane, but both are so rich that they can buy whatever lanes in they choose.
I do think that Tesla is going to turn out to be the greatest stock bubble in history. I mean, talk about irrational market capitalization. Tesla, in operation for fourteen years now, cannot produce cars for less than it recovers in retail sales. If Musk were to try to sell Tesla, who would buy it? If Musk were to offer Tesla for sale, thus alerting everybody to just how mad its business model is, Tesla stock would crash. Billions in market equity would immediately vanish. By any rational model, it should have gone bankrupt years ago.
Tesla Motors is essentially an elaborate front for a mammoth stock swindle. If Musk had picked a different hobby, there would be no electric vehicle industry. If Tesla collapses (and the odds that this will happen are high), the electric vehicle industry will stand exposed as the impossible dream it always has been.
And what, pray tell, is the commercial value of SpaceX? Sending men to walk on the surface of the moon for short periods before returning to Earth was pretty cool, and we sure showed those Commies who had the better system, but other than that, what was the point? Space travel is like climbing Mount Everest. It is remarkable feat to get to the top of Everest, but you can’t open a restaurant there, and there is nothing to do but come back home.
How about nightclubs? Moon Zero Two – Don Ellis & Julie Driscoll – YouTube
There will never be any good nightclubs or restaurants on the moon. There’s no atmosphere.
(I’ll get my coat……)
Or how about a shopping mall in Antarctica? Or a new Disneyland? I don’t understand it. Land in Antarctica is dirt cheap, and there are penguins. An opportunity for commercial development if ever there was one.
Right. This needs to be settled in a UFC cage. I’m taking bets on Musk.
I will take Musk over Gates any day. Musk tries to make money with showmanship and some exaggerations. Gates steamrolls everybody in his way and steals whatever he wants.
I really wanted to see Bill Gates’ BD-700 Global Express jet, but had to go to Google images to extract it. My, my, Bill. Such extravagance.
The interior is extravagant, too, but the pink-and-pastel color scheme is rather frippety girl-child.
Here’s Elon Musk’s jet. The interior is reassuringly neutral.
Apparently a clever young man named Jack Sweeney figured out a way to track Musk’s jet. Musk offered him $5k to stop. Mr. Sweeney countered with $50k and the discussion stopped there.
Here’s the link to Elon Musk offered teen $5K to delete Twitter tracking his private jet. The story’s dated to 27 January, this year.