As the other commenters have already shared, things are going poorly. An issue with climate change is that concrete consequences are delayed behind our actions, there is already more warming baked in. But I worry about the focus on the binary good or bad outcome on climate change and the people who say things like “it’s too late.” (fossil fuel astroturfing pushes this phrase btw). Climate change is not binary and it’s never too late for us to try prevent worse things happening.

Despite unfavorable political winds in some developed countries, there’s progress in developing nations and, most importantly, India and China. China is spending nearly $1 trillion/year on green energy and infrastructure. They clearly want to dominate the global green energy economy. India is adding big solar capacity too. And solar is also taking off across Africa, where off-grid diesel generators are being directly replaced with small-scale solar systems. Since electricity for solar is now the cheapest form in many areas of the world, it often pays for itself and keeps increasing as an attractive investment.

We thankfully already have the most of the technology needed to address climate change (carbon-free energy, energy storage, better power grids, more forests and less cattle). And green tech keeps getting better, I like the channel Undecided with Matt Ferrell to keep up with tech advancements. But no technological progress will be enough if fossil fuel companies keep drilling. As things worsen, the political appetites will also certainly change.

The Expanse does a good job delving into somewhat realistic internal solar system travel/physics in the not too distant future and politics of Earth vs Mars vs asteroid “Belters” factions

Spongebob knew what was up

English ivy is a tough one, but at least getting the vertical growth is a fairly easy to manage. the vertical growth is also more problematic because it is a requirement for producing berries and killing trees

I’ve heard the concern that employers are worried someone with a PhD who is taking a “lesser” job won’t be around all that long and will continue job hunting for something better. For employers with this mindset, I’d like to suggest: 1) it’s not too hard to beat academia wages; 2) find ways to promote within/add responsibility when people prove themselves

They aren’t setting themselves up for success. Every nurse knows you gotta put the harmonic scalpel on top of the cautery. You need dat space

Just check out the resumes of pretty much any astronaut. They’re all incredibly accomplished people, the selection process is so competitive

Drosophila geneticists come up with the craziest gene names… My all time WTF is Suppressor of Mothers Against Decapentaplegic (SMAD).

Paywalled, but I’m gonna go with fossil fuel trap. We need to be completely off fossil fuels by about 2050. Any new major natural gas infrastructure being built now is expected to last longer than 2050. Even new residential gas furnaces are probably expected to last around 20 years or so.

While I agree there are issues with capitalism. I disagree this was capitalism working as intended. If it were, the better/more innovative technology (green/cheap energy) would have surpassed the worse technology (dirty energy reliant on continued investment and extraction) because as we are finally seeing, there is more money to be made with green energy than fossil fuels. Suppression of green energy took active anti-capitalist anti-competitive efforts to preserve the edge of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel companies knew about global warming since at least the 1970s. Those companies have used their enormous wealth to reverse trends towards public transit (e.g. Los Angeles used to have street cars…), halt the green energy transition until very recently, and spread misinformation and buy politicians.

Edit: also think about how all of those oil spills, mountain top removal, air and water pollution, cancers, asthma, heart disease that were “necessary for the economy” over the past couple of decades. When instead we could have already had fully sustainable energy systems with similar economic growth. Vote for politicians willing to do something about it.

My Hyundai Ioniq 5 has ample physical buttons on the center console, steering wheel, and door, and a physical door handle that Teslas lack. Sure there is a touch screen (smaller than industry average), but I don’t frequently use it, the buttons outside the screen are enough.

Adding all of that coal and limestone trapped a lot of carbon underground. If that carbon was CO2 instead, the Earth would be much hotter. Perhaps hotter than the boiling point of water and thus there would be no ocean between the continents, like Venus.

We have some similar tastes. I think you’ll like:

Borns

Florence and the Machine

Lorde’s 2021 album Solar Power

Spoon

Billy Raffoul

Hozier

Bishop Briggs

The Revivalists are an incredible bluesy rock band, but everything of theirs on the radio is their blandest stuff. They really excel with live performances and amazing instrumentals.

“It Was a Sin” builds slow but gets really high energy by the end

“Soul Fight” has a top notch saxophone solo

Here’s a full concert at Red Rocks

We do trials to determine if a new treatment is safe and effective. Let’s say you got a “miracle drug” that cures whatever disease you’re studying, but it is too toxic and kills patients over time. That drug may get hyped up in early development as a miracle cure, but you need to compare it to something else to be sure the toxicity seen is not driven by something unrelated. This is why it’s not ethical to run late stage trials without a standard of care or placebo control arm, because in this case the standard of care would be the better treatment option.

This concept is called equipoise, as in the two treatments are equally poised to provide benefit to patients at the beginning of the trial. Otherwise if you had enough data to know for certain your new therapy is better, then the trial is unnecessary and it should just be a regular medicine/submitted to a health authority for approval instead of wasting >$100 million dollars on another trial.

If you know your investigational therapy is better than a placebo or standard of care, then why do the trial? Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s good

It probably depends heavily on the specific congregation. I haven’t seen those vibes personally though. In my experience nobody really bothers the people who just show up occasionally, except to be friendly at coffee hour. UU are very much about democracy and so the local make up of the congregation can take it in many directions. Try it out on zoom if they offer a hybrid attendance to see if it’s a good fit

Hear me out, I go to a Unitarian Universalist church for the music and sense of community. There is no shared theology among UUs, only a set of shared values. UU services vary a lot by the specific congregation. Ours has had services on celebrating gender identities, promoting social justice, mourning global conflicts, and fighting climate change. Sometimes relevant theology from a variety of world religions is incorporated into services, but there is no expectation to be a believer and there are many atheist members in my church. The rest of the time we have potlucks, play board games, do community service projects, etc.