kravietz 🦇 @kravietz@social.privacytools.io
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Polish expat into UK. Information security engineer. Caver & cave rescuer (thus the bat). NHS volunteer & blood donor.
Joined May 2019
Double-glazed is 1.4W/m²K so it's ~4x improvement over single glazed 4.8-5.6W/m²K. At the same they are maybe only 1.3x more expensive, so I think it's still worth it.
Triple-glazed is 0.6W/m²K so it's nearly 10x improvement but on the other hand I don't think it makes much sense in a traditional (non-passive) house as heat will leak elsewhere.
> forestall any and all action
That's a valid concern, but just as overnight 100% ban on fertilizers wouldn't have a chance in the EU, in the same way a 100% unregulated fertilizer market also won't pass.
It's not because of some extraordinary wisdom of EU officers, but thanks to the extremely comprehensive consensus-based consultation policies.
Sri-Lanka didn't have that - their scientific and farming community has been warning long before the ban about it's impact.
The result of the sectarian approach is that the "certified organic" farming actually uses *more* land, has more impact on diversity, results in higher CO2 emissions... and to add to that is way much more expensive for consumers.
But in the West it's kind of the whole point of it - we buy "more natural food" than the ordinary mortals because we can afford it. "Hand-picked", "artisan", "home-made", "organic" is all part of the same marketing targeted at rich people.
I'm mainly arguing that an approach, where someone makes an arbitrary decision how farming should be done based on pseudo-scientific and sectarian criteria is not sustainable from both environmental and socio-economic point of view.
And the most widespread definition of #organic, where say copper sulphate is "organic" but say glyphosate is "inorganic", is indeed sectarian and pseudo-scientific.
Just to be clear, I don't mind permaculture and other sound farming practices.
@openrisk The smooth transition comes apparently from one of the three speakers mentioned in the last paragraph. You don't really see them pulling their teeth over this topic, though.
This statement by Shiva is however the most idiotic:
> Dr. Shiva said: “The reason I am glad about the approach of the Sri Lankan government is because it connects three things, namely stopping dependency on imports
What really happened:
You missed these paragraphs:
> ban importing chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides and to replace them with organic inputs and methods. This decision was supported by many, including the Global Alliance for Organic Districts
> According to her, Sri Lanka’s shift to become a 100% organic country means turning to an economy of permanence and prosperity for all beings
> Dr. Shiva said: “The reason I am glad about the approach of the Sri Lankan government
My point about "tea sipping" being, they treat developed countries as an experimental field for their poorly designed and often utopian proposals, using their disadvantaged economic position and weak democratic institutions. But for the people on the ground it's not about abstract ideas or experiments, it's life-or-death situation.
Do you think an overnight ban on "inorganic" fertilizers and pesticides could be passed in any EU country?
That's why they've gone to Sri-Lanka.
Regarding Sri-Lanka, the ban on inorganic fertilizers and pesticides did not originate in the local government - it was result of long-term lobbying by environmental NGOs, most notably Vandana Shiva who was actually hired adviser of the government, and publicly celebrated the introduction of the ban:
https://navdanyainternational.org/sri-lankas-shift-towards-organic-farming/
It was also Greenpeace that blackmailed African governments to reject US donations of food during 2001-2002 famine in Zambia only because they contained GM soya bean.
This is excerpt from "Whole Earth Discipline" by Stewart Brand, one of leading US environmentalists, who is also very critical over anti-scientific stance of Greenpeace and FoE.
Unfortunately, majority of that farming-related activism does indeed originate from European and US "environmental" NGOs. They apply heavy pressure and misinformation on African or Asian governments, for example to prevent them from using genetically engineered crops that would improve health and well-being of farmers there.
It was specifically Greenpeace that was fiercely battling Golden Rice in the situation where thousands of people suffer from vitamin A deficit.
Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations (МЧС) Evgeny Zinichev died in the town of Norilsk, apparently during shots of a training film above a cliff - a cameraman slipped, Zinichev grabbed him, unfortunately they both fell down. This is sad news, Russian МЧС did everything related to rescue, including mountain and cave rescue, and they did that professionally and impartially.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2021/09/08/885726-glava-mchs-zinichev-pogib
The fact that "energy-saving improvements such as installing double-glazing" is still discussed as some kind of luxury in the UK 🇬🇧 never stops to amaze me 🤦♂️ I can imagine British stag party goers in Poland boasting to girls in a pub about the ultimate superiority of Great Britain: "hey sweetie, can you believe, me house even has double-glazed windows and an in-door toilet". 😂
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/69ec5550-1015-11ec-86b8-9dcf48a101ba
So "more study" they indeed do, reaching sample sizes of thousands, millions and that's then meta-analyses are produced with "strong evidence" notes. Either positive or negative.
What snake oil peddlers do, they take the early, small sample, low confidence studies and misrepresent them for marketing purposes, earning tons of money on people who can't read but happily watch convincing YouTube videos:
That's precisely what I wrote above - you do have studies that found, for example, that among 50 patients treated with ivermectin they noticed some beneficial effects.
But since the sample is small and the beneficial effects can be attributed to other factors, including simple luck, they usually annotate them with "evidence is weak, more study needed" disclaimer.
You do *not* need to graduate in chemistry to understand basic chemical concepts.
The utter stupidity of the "VACCINES HAVE MERCURY AND MERCURY KILLS" scare comes straight from not understanding chemical concepts such as mass, amount, dose, biological metabolism.
All that is taught in primary and secondary school.
The same ignorance contributes to popularity of #homeopathy by the way.
Fortunately, Western environmentalists won't be affected - they can continue arguing about the need for a transition to organic-only farming while sipping their organic kombucha made by what is left of Sri-Lankan tea industry - which they can afford thanks to welfare created in their countries by cheap food from modern agriculture 🤷
"At the root of this economic catastrophe is a bizarre overnight flip by Rajapaksa’s government on 29 April to ban the import of chemical fertilisers and any other agrochemicals to make the Indian Ocean nation the first in the world to practice organic-only agriculture. The result: prices of daily food items like sugar, rice and onions have soared over twice, with sugar even touching record Rs 200/kg"
kravietz 🦇
boosted
This is a step in the right direction& I'm happy to see it.
#WomensHealth
#WomensChoice
Mexico decriminalizes abortion, a dramatic step in world’s second-biggest Catholic country
Abortion wouldn’t instantly become widely available, but a ruling would “outline a route, a criteria” for states to change their laws, one former judge said, while automatically freeing women who have been jailed for procuring the procedure.
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/07/mexico-abortion-supreme-court/
@EdwardTorvalds The reason to pick meta-analyses is that it's easy to hunt just a single research done on 50 patients that came out with just any outcome you can imagine. Meta-analyses aggregate large numbers of such single studies and weight them by quality of evidence, so their conclusions are most reliable.
- OpenPGP
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- https://krvtz.net
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- @kravietz:krvtz.net
Polish expat into UK. Information security engineer. Caver & cave rescuer (thus the bat). NHS volunteer & blood donor.
Joined May 2019
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