Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?
Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.
Yet, right now, millions of people couldn't prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.
In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.
But.
Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.
Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.
Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain't happening.
And that's for the most basic of food products!
Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.
This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.
ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
At a union meeting, talking with someone from a different department. IT revoked superuser privileges from all their work computers so they have to submit a ticket EVERY TIME they want to sudo. They said they have an outstanding ticket to install adobe reader, and in the meantime they CAN'T OPEN PDFs.
usually when I try to talk about how digital #infrastructure impacts every part of our working conditions I'm talking about larger problems like how the deinfrastructuring of our communication systems makes it so publishers become the only venue for our work, which structures our incentive systems and patterns of work from top to bottom. This is way beyond that tho, the very basic ability for information workers to interact with information at all.
The White House has announced they are putting President Biden’s name on infrastructure project signs after Republicans started taking credit for projects they voted against.
"Most of the funding, $621 million, will go toward 36 projects aimed at bolstering the resilience of existing infrastructure through things like improving draining, moving roadways, and lifting up bridges.
An additional $119 million will go toward protecting, strengthening, or removing at-risk coastal infrastructure like highways."
I have to take a short weekend trip to Montana and after considering different transit options, I decided to rent a car and drive; it's a bit of a road trip, but I found great rental deals and was excited to rent an electric car to try it out as we're considering buying one.
lol, Montana is huge and has hardly any charging stations on the route 🙃 According to one of the EV charging maps there are single chargers in towns about 150 miles apart, which seems dicey to me?
All I want is to get a public IP address assigned to our server. That should take ~3 minutes.
I submitted a ticket a month ago that fully described our compliance with all applicable policies, hoping that would avoid a tedious bureaucratic process.
A month later, they reply, and are setting up a meeting with THREE DEPARTMENTS: business relationship managers, networking, and infrastructure teams. TO GET AN IP ADDRESS
The funding crisis for universities is manufactured by administrators and bureaucrats, but they want you to believe it's the greedy grad students trying to get a living wage who are the problem. #UniversityIT#Infrastructure
I was pretty happy when I recently acquired an Eames chair & stool (reproduction/not an original - way too expensive), I was pretty pleased with the major improvement in my #reading#infrastructure.
But now, I feel I missed a chance for a proper upgrade.... [sighs]
All you need to know about how rentier #capitalism works in one bit of data:
The UK's water firms were privatised without any outstanding debts over thirty years ago.... now, the privatised #infrastructure (regional) #monopolies have around £62bn in debt, but are still failing to deliver an adequate service.
If that debt has not been used to invest sufficiently in the #infrastructure, which the firms now (grudgingly) admit,, you might wonder where has it gone?
The Biden administration has announced a proposal to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday....
For the non German speakers in #Berlin, here's a small reminder that there's a protest TODAY against the decision to not build any cycle paths "if even one parking spot or road has to be altered.'
The time: Today 17:45
The place: Am Köllnischen Park 3
To all #selfhost people in the #federation / #federated space. Due to a lack of #funds (on my online side of things) and the upkeep of an #instance growing by the month, AND the renewal of my domain (25-35$). I am considering closing down the enshittification.social instance to save the money for other #projects that I work on, and mostly my own #infrastructure.
What are your #experiences? What do you guys think is the best path for me to take?
I've been saying this for some time now. Never thought I'd see a US department say the same — but the NYC Department of transportation just did! And it's not the first time I've seen them post some really good stuff about bikes. This gives me hope.
Decarbonising road transport - Lighter vehicles make a big difference
"Currently, a large diesel SUV typically emits a kilogram of CO₂ for every 3 kilometres of driving, compared to 15km for a light electric vehicle and 200 kilometres for an e-bike. An average electric vehicle currently emits 1kg of CO₂ every 7km."
"Australia is on track to miss the net-zero target for 2050 mainly because of the large proportions of fossil-fuelled vehicles and large and heavy passenger vehicles."
#Portland 😞 #Vision60or70something "third [sic] consecutive year of failure for #VisionZero, an ambitious and expensive 2016 policy that included a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2025... Officials had hoped that an increased police presence would be the missing ingredient to reduce fatal crashes." wtf who thought cops were going to help our #infrastructure design problems that we never adopted REAL policy requiring #trafficEngineers to fix?
Okay this is weird. Are there any #waterQuality#infrastructure or #catsofmastodon nerds on here who have ever seen crystals like this form on a charcoal filter for a cat water fountain? It's been about three weeks since the last time I washed out the fountain and changed the filter. There were about a dozen crystals formed on the outside of the filter. They're hard but I can break them with my thumb nail and they crumble.
The first US nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (apnews.com)
ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
Biden announces proposal to replace all lead water service lines in US within 10 years (abcnews.go.com)
The Biden administration has announced a proposal to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday....
AT&T says lead cables in Lake Tahoe “pose no danger” and should stay in place (arstechnica.com)
AT&T's legacy telephone network may have nearly 200,000 miles of lead-covered cables, according to an estimate by AT&T submitted in a court filing.