We invented one of the world's most popular cheese, Cheddar, which is actually named after an English village. Also our national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala. I dare you to say we don't use spices. We invented several varieties of spiced sausage, spiced cakes and fruit bread, even some kinds of spices rum.
Don't get me wrong, lots of British cuisine is lackluster for sure, and I don't think we can compete with the likes of Thailand or Italy. That doesn't apply to everything we do though, and some of our deserts and cheeses are top tier. Thailand is literally known for diplomacy through food as well, so hardly a fair comparison.
Sustainable agriculture for food is one thing, to make fuel is something completely different and I think you know that but are being obstuse on purpose.
No I am not being obtuse. You talk about agriculture as if it's impossible to make sustainable. How much extra agriculture would it require compared to what's needed to feed the world? It's not something I have looked at, and I would be interested to see if you have statistics on this.
Right, let's start with old oil. How much do you think is generated world wide? It's about 1/20th of the amount of oil we use currently and that created not recycled so that number is far lower so really that's a niche. Likewise wood pellets. Unless you're actively chopping trees down to make into pellets you're not going to have any real volume there. Plus as I said previously, all of that takes energy to be made into usable fuel. Where does that energy come from and also why not just use that energy directly?
5% of our current oil demand is still a big improvement. That's probably enough to move a significant portion or even all of aviation to sustainable fuels. Aviation is one of the places where batteries don't work yet, and probably not anytime soon either.
As for the last paragraph, no, sorry you're just misunderstanding that whole arena. Batteries are more than 90% recyclable and that number is going up as we design them to be easier to recycle. Plus that's most likely 20 years from now on average. As for solar panels they're aluminium (easily recycled) glass (easily recycled) metals (easily recycled) and silicon (mostly recyclable) and again they're being designed to be recycled better than they were. Ontop of that they now last up to 40 years with greater than 90% of their original capacity left so basically they'll outlive most of us on here.
Can you give me some evidence?
We've grown plants sustainable for thousands of years except for in the last 150 where we have systematically wrecked the ecology at the same time as massively increasing our population. The average westerner uses 32 times more resources than the average Kenyan. Do you want to have the same lifestyle as they have? Because they want what westerners have so that means we can't keep going as we are and have to change.
So you're saying sustainable agriculture is impossible? If so then climate change is inevitable and there is nothing we can do.
Depending on what battery protection modes are in play, many have smart charging or other features designed to prolong life. Also a fair few batteries come out with greater than design capacity from the factory. It's called a design capacity and not an absolute capacity for a reason. A phone battery that left the factory at 110% could conceivably still be at or above 100%.
Fyi it's not overnight charging that's the issue either, it's charging to 100%. What one device consider 100% varies and devices will essentially lie to you about it. 4.2V is normally considered 100% full for Lithium Cobalt Oxide batteries yet some devices push higher than this while others skirt under to pad capacity and cycle life respectively. It's about tradeoffs.
You're forgetting things like used vegetable oil which is waste that would be thrown away otherwise. Same for the stuff wood pellets are made from, they are typically mostly saw dust and other waste products. This should hopefully cover airplanes and maybe diesel trains and some cars for when electric isn't practical.
Even if you were to start planting crops for biofuels, how much less efficient than solar plus batteries would it be? The problem with solar and especially battery storage is that the materials used to make them are not renewable, and cause all kinds of issues in their mining and manufacturing. We've grown plants sustainably for thousands of years now. I've yet to see anyone make a solar panel from sustainable or recycled materials.
Why not hybrid or plain ICE vehicles powered by biofuels? Even things like waste vegetable oil can be turned into viable fuel, and it can actually be less environmentally destructive than getting rid of it in other ways. ICE technology is very mature, and we currently produce more food than we need and waste much of it. Why not put it all to some use?
Pretty much any fat could be used in compression ignition engines with the right treatment, any carbohydrates turned into ethanol for spark ignition engines, and all waste wood burned for electric power and domestic heating.
What do you disagree with me? I was trying to back you up up here saying that yes we need nuclear in addition to all the other technologies. I am not saying that you shouldn't use solar, just that it isn't applicable everywhere on earth.
Screw the futurism and longermism of “we need nuclear power for space exploration”. We’re not talking about that.
You should be talking about that. After all climate change is also a future problem. Staying on a single planet isn't safe even if you eradicate climate change, war, disease, and just about everything else. There is pretty much nothing stopping a gamma ray burst or stray blackhole, or any number of other things from killing everyone on this planet. Like yeah climate change is a high priority, but it doesn't make all other issues go away.
This is nonsense. Like someone else said we will need some kind of nuclear power for future space exploration. There are parts of the world that are dark for six months of the year, and plenty of places that don't get enough light for solar to be practical.
Most renewable sources are not consistent enough to be used by themselves, and battery storage isn't practical with current technology. Then there are the concerns with hydro power and biomass and how that affects the environment. I have even been told by leftists that biomass shouldn't be installed as it destroys too many native forests.
Of course the actual best solution is one we don't have the technology for yet: things like nuclear fusion or neutrino capture.
Most bread in English supermarkets doesn't have excessive sugar. This is an American thing. We were also the guys that pretty much invented mechanically processed dough too, so it's not like we have high standards.
Plenty of other brands which aren't Chinese are both better and cheaper. Samsung, Apple, Google, Asus even.
Do they all use cheap Chinese labour? Sure. Do you actually think Fair phone doesn't? Even if they somehow completely avoid China for the whole supply chain, they will inevitably get cheap labour from somewhere - like Taiwan or Costa Rica. After all they are using standard Qualcomm parts, so that's going to be either TSMC in Taiwan or Samsung in China and Korea.
According to their own website their living wage bonus is only $2.63. It doesn't even say if that's per hour or per day.
It's not just about the cost though. They're inferior to pretty much any other mid-range or high-end smartphone too. Expensive but good would be fine. Cheap and mediocre would be fine. Expensive and mediocre though? Nah.
My £250 used phone has a faster processor, more RAM, better screen (higher resolution, brighter, bigger and higher frame rate), and a higher capacity battery with faster charging. It's a mid-range Xiaomi from a couple years ago, not a high end or flagship phone.
They should take notes from pinephone. Offers something unusual at a low cost. Since enthusiasts eat that stuff up you get extra help with software and ROMs too. Yes it's low spec, but it's good enough for enthusiasts to play with and is of good value as the price reflects the quality.