A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@Coffee

Mind walking through your infrared panels setup? This is something I've been kicking around as I try to plan out renovations on my off-grid cabin. There's so many rabbit holes to go down I keep getting distracted :)

@Radicalsocialworker @nosferatu

I see a greater number of people discussing it online, but, unfortunately no correlation to the people I see everyday locally. I hope that the greater online activity is a leading indicator.

@pm_mcdaniel

It's vastly underreported and unknown to most people that the end goal is, and has been for a long time, privatization of schools.

@jabarocas I talk about this to people in my life a lot. Scientists are not usually good communicators to non-scientists in general. It's a place we could really use better skills.

@Nadinabbott @hannu_ikonen @DrPsyBuffy There's a lot of lessons in that pandemic if people bothered to read about it.

@Baley I couldn't agree more. I was hesitant, but I've been pleasantly surprised.

@Nbourre I fondly remember doing this lab in HS myself! The bubbles are not neutralizing the acid, the antacid tablet/powder is doing the neutralizing and the CO2 bubbles(and water) are the products.

So, the more bubbles the more effective the antacid was because it produced more CO2, meaning more acid was neutralized in the reaction.

@Nadinabbott @hannu_ikonen @DrPsyBuffy I'm really sorry to hear that! Unfortunately it's happening and I can only hope that we choose to deal with it responsibly as a society going forward.

@hicsumus

I've got to tell a little personal story here you just reminded me of. The nurse at the school my children used to attend once gave me a very sanctimonious lecture about sending my kid to school sick. For the record, he seemed fine in the morning and had he not, I would have definitely kept him home, but she did not care to listen to me about it.

So, anyway, fast forward to last week and a friend who's kid still attends that school remembered my experience with her and told me that the same nurse gave her a lecture about how keeping her kid home with COVID wasn't acceptable and he needed to be there learning no matter what.

We live in weird times.

@Hollie @erictopol

Yeah it doesn't. Everyone's sick, everyone can see it, but no one's testing anymore so we're left on our own to guess. I'm not going to assume I know what's going on everywhere, but where I live you can't get a test unless you're hospitalized, and probably not even then.

It's comparing apples and oranges and sadly Dr Topol's smart enough to know that.

@TRyanGregory@mstdn.science

What really gets me is I hear this locally, and everyone here should know, because they lived through it, that kids were out of school for all of a few weeks and nothing else ever changed.

@Nbourre @StephTait

I, too, have worked from home since before COVID and it was an easy decision to put my kids in virtual school as well. It's really a privileged place to be, especially because they don't want to be there anyway, like yours.

@Chamisa22

This is a great question, frankly, to start a whole big discussion that maybe isn't best for short form writing. Nonetheless, here's my best attempt with the understanding that black and white doesn't really exist here, or in many places, despite the fact that people like good vs bad and nuance is often difficult.

Helpful? Are you otherwise using power from coal fired power plants? Sure, it's a step in the right direction. Is it pollution-less and totally guilt free as it's sold to be? Not really.

So let's take one nuanced perspective here as an example. My issue currently.

One, there's quite a few solar installers/renewable energy groups that service the area I am attempting to set up in. When you say "off grid" the majority of them hang up the phone. Why? That takes more time and effort, which slows down making money. If they were really in it for sustainability then they'd be more than happy to take the money of someone trying to live a sustainable life.

Two, a couple of them who don't just hang up are more than happy to say *exactly* that. "Love what you're doing! I got into this business for that, but, I don't do that anymore. I make a lot more money doing suburban grid-tie." Or, "Man, that's why I got in the business, but, we were bought out by a larger company and they don't allow us to do that anymore."

Three, catering to excess, as a way of business should be antithetical to what they're doing, right? But, a lot of these companies aren't interested in doing anything that doesn't generate frankly insane amount of electricity so that their check is bigger at the end of the job. Have a 2000 square foot home? Not interested! Have a 6000 square foot home and two Teslas to charge? Awesome, be right over! The deciding factor for one company I spoke with was two-fold. One, would I be willing to spend $200,000. Two, how many electric cars did I envision myself buying.

Soothing suburban soccer mom's conscience about their lives with sweet lies about how they're saving the world by putting 40 panels on their McMansion's roof isn't how I'd hoped the industry would mature, but, here we are.

TLDR; solar is good, excess is still bad. The panels and their materials, the fossil fuels involved with manufacturing, transporting, and installing are still real. In an honest industry that would all be front and center, not hidden behind "save the world" messaging.

@VaguelyFamiliar

Thanks for mentioning them. I'm actually quite familiar with them and have visited before!

This post has brought up a lot of good questions many of which I have a lot of thoughts on, but probably aren't best served as one off responses for what is actually a complex issue. The internet is not always great for nuance!

Solar is better than many alternatives that are available to us. Often, but not always(see @zonz post above) large scale solar is "better" but they're nuances there, too.

To the best of my fairly limited knowledge many places like Babcock Ranch exist is the US and their footprint is much more minimal than the average neighborhood/village/city and therefore a positive step in the right direction.

@withaveeay

The end of their brand and having to work for views. It's sad that it got to be such lazy work, honestly.

@freemo @trinsec @khird @barefootstache

I've personally had nothing but good interactions with @barefootstache for the little amount of time I've been here. Seems like a good choice from my relatively uninformed position.

@obi It's on my Thanksgiving time off watch list. Glad to hear it's worth it!

@Romaq @mikmaqpeek

I am so sorry you went through all of that. All of the hate and violence that's directed at people just trying to do their jobs at hospitals, schools, etc. is so wrong and unnecessary. Thank you for sharing such a personal story.

@AutismFather AutCraft looks awesome! My kids are really into MineCraft and finding a good, family safe server's hard. You took it one, or more, steps beyond that. Very cool.

@catladyactivist@ohai.social I actually find myself thinking about this a lot, and thinking about exactly how people would have acted when a disease showed up in the village. Our reaction would be alien to them, I imagine. Overall humans seem to have forgotten what worked to get us here.