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I don’t like to mention that rich guy over at #Twitter, but he’s rambling on about #ClimateChange & agriculture, which is in my wheelhouse. And he is also unabashedly & absurdly wrong.

Misinformation on climate change is irresponsible & dangerous, so let’s be clear:

25% to 30% of global emissions come from our #food system.

As UT Austin’s Michael Webber describes, agriculture is a major cause, victim and - importantly - meaningful solution to #climate change.

More at https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food

Jonathan reshared this.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

#Musk has a wrong opinion on pretty much everything. Yet, he seems to think he matters. Wealth does not make anyone "right" or worth listening to.
#Musk
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

off the top of my head, I might guess that he isn't clear on where tons of fertilizer comes from, where fuel to run tractors and combines comes from, or where the waste products coming out of factory-farmed chicken houses or or of cattle feed lot operations goes.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

with advancements towards automation and renewable energy sources being put use.
Would it not drastically cut emissions?
Only if implemented it's hard to change the older generation because of stubbornness.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I'm looking forward to the day he starts advocating for the Flat Earth Society.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Aside from being ignorant, what’s with Muskivite’s little photo? The ‘Fascist’ stare into the distance of a golden future? He’s got more money than brains.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

What is this "will" business? As if he's giving some sort of early warning about something nobody else has noticed so far. Geez, thanks, Elon. We'd better make sure not to burn all that coal and oil and gas we [checks notes] already burned... Oopsy!
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

*raises a beer* To agriculture, the cause of--and solution to--all of life's climate change
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He doesn't sell solutions to the greenhouse gases arising from our food systems though. Not that he actually gives a shit about our #ClimateCrisis https://mastodon.social/@elonjet/110576168698767121
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

That's incredible that Mollusk can tell such a huge lie without being bothered.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I'm fairly sure he's so ridiculously wrong that no person capable of rational thought would agree with him. Which renders his opinion largely irrelevant.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He mentions everything on earth's surface, like gas can't be spread in the atmosphere, incredible.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

it's time to brains test people before they are allowed become wealthy
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I think what people always forget is that carbon models are always compartmentalized — but good production touches *everything*. And conventional farming uses *tons* of fossil fuels, at every step in the process.

Also, deforestation is a huge problem in terms of both new emissions but also our ability to sequester old ones.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

and deforestation to provide land for cattle to graze removes a major carbon sink.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Agreed. While Musk is correct that reliance on oil, coal, and gas is a big contributor to GG emissions, he's wrong to negate our current agricultural practices' contribution to GG emissions (particularly the overproduction of meat). I myself am vegan, and I feel that society needs to lower its meat consumption to help lower GG emissions.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Today’s billionaires believe their bank accounts make them always right.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I assumed that he was wrong because

1) he's usually wrong

and

2) even my limited knowledge of agriculture led me to believe that it has a significant impact on climate.

Thank you for the expert point of view.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I wonder how he thinks fossil fuels get into the atmosphere, without involving processes on the Earth's surface. All of the industries and transportation vehicles and farms are on the surface. If humans on the surface didn't use fossil fuels, we wouldn't be digging them up in the first place. Oil isn't just magically evaporating from deep underground, skipping the surface and messing up the atmosphere.

Sure we can ignore Elon, but this nonsense got millions of views

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Briefly started getting involved in that row too but it's just that Simpsons meme experience as always. It does mean I have the link to the IPCC Special Report on climate and land use handy, if anyone wants it: https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I mean, one key parameter that describes "what happens on earth's surface" is surface albedo, and last I checked, it's kind of an important parameter...
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

he didn’t ‘earn’ his obscene wealth, he inherited it. He’s not making the world a better place with that vast sum of money, he’s FUCKING destroying it.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

A significant, if not predominant, proportion of carbon footprint within the “#food system” comes from direct or indirect usage of fossil fuels, which include energy supply, fertilisers, supply chain and logistics, packaging / plastics, cooking and serving etc.

Therefore, from a purely scientific perspective, I am not sure your challenge to Musk’s statement stands as you might be speaking of similar things just in different terms.

#food
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Elon’s understanding of the issue seems exactly as deep as a seventh grader’s poster depicting the carbon cycle. Is that a coincidence or has he literally learned nothing since middle school?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

This tells us that Mr Musk doesn't spend much time in the countryside.

Has he ever, on a hot sunny summer's day, walked across a ploughed field and into a natural forest? Or perhaps flown a glider over a similar landscape?

Well if he has, then he is either unobservant, or just plain dumb.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

& simply because he has billions his message will reach millions and yours won’t, welcome to our awesome system
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

It would have been more entertaining had he blamed Hobbits or Norwegian trolls digging for gold, and, so it seems, just as accurate.

(Why do so many combines burn to a crisp in fields lately?)

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He's put himself in a position where his main source of income has to do with electric cars (i.e. relying on concern about climate change) while he simultaneously desperately wants to be loved by a group of people who think that climate change is a woke conspiracy.

So now he's trying to find some way to reconcile those two unreconcilable positions.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Some people really need to take a long holiday in an uncertified submarine.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

If you are still at Twitter, you are supporting Elon Musk and his dirty doings.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Elon Musk wants to start his own nation on Mars where he knows Earth countries can’t touch him. Slavery would return since he doesn’t have to oblige by any kind of national laws. We’re literally looking at a potential world that is Mobile Suit Gundam without the mechs and a few years after that there will probably be mechs.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

The really eye opening factoid for me was the 30 percent (!) of global shipping is literally just moving fossil fuels around.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

The fact that many people will probably listen to him and believe him simply because he's a billionaire is s fact not lost on me.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

If the Elongated Muskrat has his mouth open, misinformation or worse is coming out of it.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

#elon mustn't go outside much if he thinks meaningful climate change is something that is going to happen in the future... It's happening now....
#elon
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

this post is misinformation. He made a statement on a different cause of climate change while you propose it's the production of our food. Sounds like its one of many things to cause climate change. He spread nothing but something important to note.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Just another thing he rambles about and has no clue what he's talking about. When you are a malignant narcissist you think you are an expert on everything.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@lisamelton So true. I suspect that @sarahtaber has a few words on the subject.

Unfortunately Musk confuses his ability to make money with knowledge about anything.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Musk feeding the Cult pure lies. When dew points and air temperature reach 98°? Your body can shut down. You die.
More here: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/extreme-heat-stress.html?m=1 🆘🌎
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Elon Musk thinks he's smarter than everyone else. People like to say that just like that, but with him it's the whole truth.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

And let's face it, the only reason he is even acknowledging the role of fossil fuels is because he owns an electric car company, otherwise he'd be denying that too I'm sure.

It's just a marketing message "The best way to help the planet is to buy a Tesla", which is clearly a crock of shit.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Billionaire fuckboi continues to stupidly lay waste to any good will or faith in his abilities. He's a fucking asshole. Like the rest of the goddamn billionaires. #EatTheRich
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

yes, agreed. Although, and this is gonna hurt to agree with him even a little bit, the moving of billions of tonnes of carbon from underground and burning it doesn't help.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

It feels like this might be a good time to remind people that in 2018, Musk fiercely insisted the best and easiest way to rescue people trapped in a cave would be to build a submarine.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

What part of methane does he not understand, especially when so full of coliform emissions?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

so will the fact that it takes roughly 6X more mineral investment to make an electric car, not to mention the human rights violations that make it possible every step of the way. Add to that the environmental impact of clearing hundreds of acres of wild land for every wind and solar farm that provided intermittent and dilute power that can't even be relied on to charge said electric vehicles; the epitome of NIMBY
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

A few folks have asked about solutions.

While agriculture’s role in #climate change is often ignored, climate solutions related to that sector are largely 1) already available 2) scalable & 3) significant.

Think precision (aka “smart”) agriculture, breeding crops for drought & heat tolerance, limiting soil erosion through farming practices that don’t disrupt soil structure, emerging alternative proteins, reducing food waste. And on and on… /2

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

We need to be exploring, screening and implementing solutions globally and cooperatively - as if human life depended on it!
Unfortunately, so much money and power is dependent on the status quo that the most powerful people on the planet are steering us all towards ignorance, stupidity and division.
Let's resist together!
Join the side of cooperation, exploration and intelligence.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Farming in Canada continues to change, the family farm is disappearing being replaced with large corporate agriculture operations as smaller farms fail to be competitive with larger operations. Policy can influence this, but money talks loudly. https://www.nfu.ca/campaigns/farmland-ownership/
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

in particular, alfalfa production in California (mostly to feed cattle) consumes 15-20% of all water used in the state.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Digital Insights are using their agricultural #DigitalTwin Greenhouse for sustainability.

https://digitalinsights.ai/greenhouse/

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Do no-till techniques offer significant mitigation?

I've seen the claim made by some, and intuitively it makes sense. If you tilled the mountains you'd destroy the fertility of the plains, but that's not quite the same cycle.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Check out the work The Land Institute is doing with perennial crops. We could be more efficient and effective human beings in many cases.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

there are lots of things we can do on a personal level too, I know lithium is a contravention subject, but by using solar and wind to at least supplement your energy needs and divert off fossil fuel needs it'll help too.

Personally looking into full eco living now that I've retired.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

If muskmelon wrote it, I immediately assume it is not worth my limited life term to read it.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

So sick of this BS, but as long as billionaires benefit themselves with lies and no ones hold them accountable it will be very difficult to educate the large number of devotees who worship them. Someday billionaires will be the opposite of celebrated!
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He's right that the *main offender* is bringing burried carbon to the surface of the planet and adding it to the carbon cycle, but wrong about everything else.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

mais uma vez, milionários querendo fingir q a maior ameaça ao planeta nn são eles
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I wish I knew more about this. I imagine a lot of carbon is released from transportation and distribution, and also from all the nitrogen for fertilizer? The mono cropping must be terrible for the natural world too.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Could you please use his name in your toot, so my filters will catch it?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

i'm really confused what kind of distinction he's even trying to draw. most of fossil fuels are used for activities "on earth's surface." is he trying to say land use changes have no "meaningful impact" on climate change? (that's still wrong but it's at least coherent.)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

That Twitter guy isn't a complete idiot, but there is a huge gap between his intelligence and his view of his intelligence.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Climate change is minimal on Mars. He could go there. I hope he makes it.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

the thing most people don’t get about Elon is he’s a dumb rich guy who thinks he’s the smartest man on the planet and his every world is gospel .
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

so if we covered the earth in concrete it would have no effect on the climate? 🤔 seems unlikely
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

This is projection and he should be taxed until he is like the rest of us. This man flies between San Francisco and Texas multiple times a week on a whims notice so one of his businesses can blast tons of concrete into fragile ecosystems. And he wants to soap box about climate change.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Let us also remember his Boring fiasco, which involved exactly taking stuff out of the deep ground, which he's NOW saying is bad?
@TruthSandwich
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Musk has a few topics where he is (I assume) well-informed. But on almost everything else, he not only is ill-informed, but also patently lacks the judgement to assess what he doesn't know.

Put another way, the Musk zone of personal unknown unknowns is alarmingly large.

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

WTH why is he suddenly ranting about that? Of course "what happens on the Earth's surface (eg farming)" matters for climate,

1. Land use/cover change such as deforestation contributes ~12% GHG emissions,

2. When including land use/management (emissions directly related to "farming", e.g. methane from cows, nitrogen...), it climbs to ~23%, then upper with all food systems (transport etc).

3. Land use/management impacts global climate beyond GHG (albedo) and regional (H20 fluxes etc)

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sad part is that Musk's defenders and followers will just blindly parrot what he's saying because they have convinced themselves that he knows everything.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He's a professional troll. The only viable option to deal with him is to ignore him.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

that's the typical bullshit he needs to spread to sell more Teslas...
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

who would have thought that a man who made exploding cars and exploding rockets for a living and buys overpriced communication apps and then proceeds to destroy it completely, might not know what they are talking about...😂
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I don't want to defend Musk. To me it seems like taking carbon from the ground and putting it into the atmosphere is quite general. This is the reason for why energy production emits so much CO2 and why the transportation sector emits so much CO2.
What are the biggest contributors to climate change in the agriculture sector that don't rely on fossil fuel energy? And how do they compare?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

while his tweet reads like a marketing ploy for his followers to focus on buying Teslas, he’s flying around on his private jet burning more fuel than the rest of us 🫠
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I appreciate you don’t want to spread misinformation as you say in your alt text for this image as the reason you haven’t added what Musk said but presumably sighted people can see it, therefore az a blind person I’d like the same access to that information
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Even if he's right, doesn't this mean that he has to get rid of his plane, yacht, phone, SpaceX, Tesla,...?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

that Truthy
Hot Take of his certainly resonates well with his other company’s brilliant intervention to swap out the fuel source and change as little as possible about the mobility and transport system…
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I have noticed that among his fans the things that he says are instantly facts beyond reproach. I have one in my wheelhouse that keeps harping on our depopulation crises. He's not a scientist nor are his fan boys. Elon has a bachelor's in the arts. It's not a total waste though, he does paint a pretty good picture of a total douche.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

it's funny how money makes mediocre wyt men think they're experts on everything. the fact they don't gaf that they spread lies is interesting too. i kinda thought i'd be free of musk by leaving tweeter but ffs, that guy loves shoving his head up his arse and screaming to the world "lookit me, lookit ME!" he's so aesthetically displeasing to my eye though, that i find it makes me slightly 🤢 to do so.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

what are you saying? Stop farming? Turn all farms over to govt?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

As someone who knows very little about this, I was astonished by a couple of articles I read a month or so ago, both about carbon and agriculture. I hope that, if you don't already know about them, they'll be of interest. And thank you for combating the misinformation.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/cattle-farmers-look-below-the-surface-to-capture-sustainable-carbon-neutral-future/ar-AA1bKiCR

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65648361

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

You need fossil oil to produce fuels and fertilizers to run the modern agriculture, though. It all is a photon-catalyzed oil-to-food converter basically.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

The guy is much obviously doing some propaganda for his lithium-battery based automobiles.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Well we could farm without contributing to climate change; it would just cause the majority of us to starve
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Allow me to interpret:

"Everyone *puhleeeze* buy Tesla stock. I really f---ed up the money with my legendarily horrendous business mgmt & ignorant AF tweets & need all you low IQ lemmings to put me back in the black.

I mean, y'all were stupid enough to listen to me when I shilled for crypto so maybe you'll do it again for Tesla. That's the reason I bought Twitter after all. I want a megaphone I control so I can manipulate markets.

Oops. Did I say that out loud? Silly me."

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Elon Space Karen has been dangerous for some time now but still we see people all over the #Twitter hanging from chandeliers and throwing feces.

#TwitterMigration #Mastodon #Fediverse

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

.@Sheril I was going to .buy a Tesla until I found out Musk was a Trump supporter, that kind of put the breaks on that. I'm now more likely to buy a VW ot Mercedes EV now.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Would that still be the case if there were no fossil fuels used in agriculture? I know that deforestation and topsoil loss are both important carbon problems to solve, but I had been under the (not terribly informed) impression that most of ag's climate change sins were directly due to fossil fuel usage.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

why do people listen to rich people, like they must be smart? No, it probably means they are sociopaths skilled at exploiting others and nothing more. Frankly the human race is doomed. Capitalism has fucked us all and it won’t stop until the planet is a lifeless burnt crisp.

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