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Don't Panic! Perhaps its time to seriously consider a new economy. A circular economy should do the job!
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Current Attitude: Optimistic
Current weight: 71.15 kg Current record attempt: 7 days. Well, that’s seven days down the vegan rabbit hole. It’s a start. That’s for sure. However I am already starting to crave simple pleasures such as cheese. Did I mention how addictive this stuff is? It really is no wonder they use cheese on mouse traps to lure mice to their deaths. If someone set up a trap with a huge block of cheese in it I would probably be a victim to a cheese laden trap as well. The science of cheese addiction is as follows. One of the compounds to be found in cheese is an opioid. Yep, you heard me correctly. While it is not identical to the opioids that one can find in the opium poppy, yes the same one used to make heroin, casomorphin is mildly addictive and lives up to its morphine derived name. How’s that for a piece of strange yet true knowledge? It really is no wonder why cheese sandwiches and pizza sounds so good right about now! I need to get my fix man! I hope I don’t suddenly relapse during the night, I could see myself at four in the morning holding up a hot dog stand demanding that the cook give me all their cheese other wise I’m gonna flip out man! Perhaps I’m being a little over the top. And than again, from what science has to say maybe not. Na, I definitely being over the top. So, why does casomorphin exist in cheese I hear you skeptically asking? Well Cheese has casomorphin in it because milk has casomorphin in it. And milk has it in it because cows evolved in such a fashion as to release it into their milk. The evolutionary benefits of casomorphin was to keep baby calves on the tit. It’s addictive as it is beneficial to young calves. As one bloke so adequately put it. “Cows milk is baby-calf growth fluid”. Just to put it out there for the world to hear it’s apparently the reason why you grow man titties of you drink to much of it. And here I was becoming so proud of the fact that I had finally grown a handful. Awkward… And that’s it for day seven of my vegan experiment. Quick note. Three nights ago was the first time since my last vegan attempt begun that I experienced “the night munchies”. Night munchies! What’s that? I hear you ask? Well, that’s basically what happens when a new vegans body is craving anything to replace the lack of animal products. It’s also a vegans way of saying that I plowed through half a packet of plain potato chips without any remorse what so ever. Cherrio! Mmmmm Cheerios….
Current weight 71.3 kg
Current attitude: Optimistic Current attempt record : 1 days. The first time I attempted a plant based diet was a shock to the system. My body simply didn’t know what the hell was going on. I had grown up my whole life eating meat, drinking milk and loving cheese. In fact my love for cheese bordered on an addiction. As it was to turn out this analogy wasn’t far from the actual truth. This cheese addiction I will perhaps discuss in another episode. One of the biggest issues I found going Plant Based was the constant struggle to find what foods I could eat and which foods I couldn’t. Going to the shopping centre had quickly become a deep dive into ingredients lists. This process of picking over foods had quickly become slow and tiresome. You will find yourself saying “It was supposed to be easy. Simply don’t eat meat or animal based products”. But, when you attempt to be more plant based you will quickly discover that a lot of processed foods have animal based products in them, even the ones you would least suspect! In fact, the more effort you put into trying to avoid animal products the more time shopping will initially take. There is good news though, like all things, the more you practise something the quicker it becomes to do something. So over time you come to know which items you can eat and which ones you can’t. Oreos for example are vegan. Who would have thought? So, without understating it in any way, starting out as a vegan will be initially difficult. Well, it was for me anyway. Now on my fourth attempt at being plant based I find it a lot easier. The obvious truth is, I have been here before. After all, this is not my first animal free rodeo. During the previous attempts I was fortunate enough to have developed some habits that have never changed. For example, for the majority of my life I drank my coffee with a dash of cows milk. This is simply no longer the case. Those days are over. Now whenever I get a coffee it is a flat white on soy if I am out. And a shot of coffee with a dash of oat milk if I am at home. This practise continued whether I am trying to be plant based or not, it’s what I have come to call a plant based hangover. It’s something that has remained with me from previous attempts. Now if I could just get all the other eating behaviours to fall in line with my coffee drinking habits I would be set. Current weight. 71.75 kg Current attitude. Pessimistic Current attempt record. O Days. Here we go again! I have once again decided to try going vegan. This will officially be my fourth attempt. You would think that after three previous attempts at being vegan I would just give up. But no. I’m stubborn and I don’t give up so easily. So why do I keep trying? Well because I don’t want the world as we know it to end. It’s that simple. If the science is to be believed and I believe it should be, if we continue on our current consumerist trajectory than humanity doesn’t stand a chance. Science proves this. And to be honest it doesn’t take a genius to work this out. The real question should be, why do I keep failing at being vegan? Now that’s a little more complicated than one would first think. Transitioning to vegan is not straight forward. It’s a battle but it’s a battle that I believe is worth fighting. Man made climate change ain’t gonna fix itself and if I need to make an example of my self to help contribute to a solution than so be it. Now, you too know that I’m trying. I would appreciate it if you helped keep me on track. Before wrapping this little conversation up I would like to say the following. Trying to be vegan is initially hard because of our past behaviours. So that’s what needs to change. Changing ingrained behaviours is never easy. The problem I have is that I have grown up eating meat and cheese and the fat of the land. Separating myself from the memories I have made while eating animal products is the problem. Sunday night roast is a good memory, Sunday morning bacon and eggs is a good memory but if I don’t help to change the world, the way we currently live will be exactly that, a good memory. This isn’t political, the only outcome I hope for is that I finally stay vegan. I would also like to share something that was, to me at least, a little disturbing. I have had a recent thought that I can’t shake. It played out as follows. I imagined a future where I am much older than what I am now. My own grand children are around and they keep asking me one question. The question is as follows. “If you knew climate change was happening than why didn’t you try to stop it?”. This is my declaration stating that I am trying. I acknowledge climate change is real and I endeavour to do my best to stop it in its tracks. Perhaps this train of thought is a little over zealous but what else can I do? This blog is a start, being vegan is the next logical step. I know how to fix the problem. And no one is gonna like the answer.
I have given much thought about climate change for the past five years. You could say that I become obsessed with the topic. The fact that climate change is real is beyond argument. The real problem is getting the whole world to stop using carbon related products in a carbon dependent economy. The entire economy is built on easy cheap energy. Globalism will not work. It is carbon dependent. This will have to go. The speed at which we demand everything has outpaced climate reality. The internet has provided the world with an abundance of information but at the same time stolen the livelihoods of buisness’s that once thrived in local communities. Click a button and you can have anything within reason deleivered to your door within a week. The whole neoclassical system needs over turning. Food needs to be produced locally. As do fertilisers. 40% of the worlds population wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for the Haber-Bosch process which is massively energy dependent. Therefore unless you want to stop half the world from starving the first thing that needs to be done is selecting which energy dependent process’s are more important than others and prioritising these over others. Food creation and transport are obviously important, driving to the coast for a holiday maybe not so much... Selecting energy priorities will be hugely important for a finite world that is in fact running out of non renewable sources of energy and resources. Eating meat is a complete waste of resources but being a vegan is fucking miserable. Especially if you have been bought up eating meat and dairy. And before I get hounded about this statement, I know because I was (for a time) vegan. Riding your bike to work makes you the most efficient creature on the planet. So that’s an obvious planetary plus. Living close to where you work is another (unrealistic one in today’s world) "I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list....That didn't look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away. - Steve Jobs. The earth is not a fuel tank! It will get sucked dry. Even if climate change policies are never followed through with one day we will run out of fuel.... And believe me when I say that the fuel will continue to be used until it is gone. Try telling India and China they are not allowed to burn fuel after we have spent the last century doing exactly that. Unless new forms of energy are realised then the economy as it is will eventually fail. No doubt about it. Over the next year a recession the world as not seen since the 1930’s will unravel itself around the world. Wars will be fought. Once we had to fight to survive now we fight to get the latest shoes or the latest prado. We have forgotten what our grand parents new all too well. Real life is a struggle. We have become accustomed to living of a bloated government funded economy. It didn’t work for the Romans. In fact it failed that hard that it sent Europe into the dark ages for 1000 years. Today we live better than royalty lived only 100 years ago. And yet we are still miserable as fuck. Instagram is a curse upon humanity that needs to be put to sleep. Product marketing has become out of control. Influencers have become influenzas. New forms of energy are as follows. Hydrogen fuel is real. The tanks used to store it are heavy and expensive and resource rich themselves. They have also been known catastrophically fail. This is also known as hydrogen embrittlement. So hydrogen fuel looks looks unlikely. Nuclear is not an option as it has a tendency not only to melt down but condemn the site for tens of thousands of years into the future. Solar power is awesome. No doubt about it. But I am yet to hear of a solar factory that makes solar panels using solar power. They don’t exist. Perhaps a share of the power consumed is created by using solar power but what about the trucks used to dig the silicon out of the earth to make panels. These are still very much power by carbon fuels. Wind power is awesome but resource heavy. Fusion power is promising but resource heavy. Camp fires were a good idea since forever and will continue to be long after the collapse. I hate to be the pessimistic one but I have serious doubts we will solve climate change. The biggest problem is greed. “The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed," Mahatma Gandhi Because wealth brings security and fiat money is accepted world wide real things of value have lower value than pieces of paper with fancy pictures printed on them. Fiat money needs to end. The whole structure is currently fracturing as we speak. It works because we believe it. The next recession will make us all question the value of our paper money. Check out the history of the Weimar Republic. This event in history shines a light on the eventual outcome of QE (Quantitative Easing). “When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money” Only when we have lost everything will be realise the value of everything we once took for granted. A simple solution does exist. We could plant trees. Cut them down. And bury them. In fact this is the most economically sensible process to do. And people should be paid for it. Now before I get pounded prison style for this statement remember trees suck up carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their wood. Once the tree as reached an acceptable size you could simply cut that sucker down, dig a hole and bury the carbon back where it came from. Rinse and repeat. Grow and cut and bury. Repeat this process until future generations feel safe to live on a planet that we once took for granted. Remember. We live on a rock. That floats through space. That has a ballon skin of an atmosphere. That currently holds two hundred and thirty millions years worth of carbon dioxide that was released in only one hundred years. |
Micheal FarmerMan made climate change is real. ArchivesCategories |