numbers don’t lie (vaclav smil)
there’s a lot of “elite” love for vaclav smil. bill gates and steven pinker wax poetic about smil. i guess i get it. he provides a dispassionate comparison of various things and stands back all neutral-ish like. this was a quick read and the follow-up elements are well laid out if you’re keen to dig into something further. the whole book is laid out as a series of brief essays on whatever the topic du jour was a weriting.
i think that this would hit a lot harder if it was coupled with some narrative discussion. he kind of leans into this towards the end of the book with some discussion about the gains to be had by conservation vs. energy transition. solid reminders, but a bit late in the game.
side note - it strikes me that you can’t have sane discussion about conservation in many circles without people freaking out and being told that they’re being asked to do with less. there is a lot of low hanging fruit here, but we ‘mericans demand moar stuffs!
the dietary comparisions as a matter of country comparison or discussion seem kind of aimless. i suspect there was a reason for this, but as structured this really felt like nerd filler.
i know there’s potentially useful stuff to point at here in the future, but this feels more like a parlor trick comparison which could be made useful if actually pointed in a productive direction.
meta
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