Thanks AC,

I always enjoy reading your opinions as they show me that differing opinions can be motivated by a similar sense of humanity.

After reading this article on the Wagner group's sense of justice,

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20411735/russian-conscript-beaten-death-sledgehammer-wagner-army/

I wonder what form the sense of freedom is for Russians? Do they want to be like Vikings, or at least Vikings without boats? It makes me wonder whether the lives of ancients were freer than the lives of people today? Life in a harsh environment might entail more constraints than a controlling government.

Vlad's army should move quickly. At the rate he is losing his troops and equipment the enhancement of his forces will be short lived. In contrast, I am impressed with the Ukrainian army's efforts to preserve the lives of its soldiers.

Armchair Critic:
The following article at Scientific American might help.
"According to Pollan, for every calorie of food that is produced in the United States, 10 calories of fossil fuel energy are put into the system to grow that food...

...We grow food - corn, wheat, sugar - and, while some of it grows wild and free with no inputs beyond sun, water and the nutrients that the soil provides, the majority of the food that we produce requires significant energy inputs from us."

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/10-calories-in-1-calorie-out-the-energy-we-spend-on-food

This is the *story* of the science as I understand it. (I am not a scientist.)

We use so much energy because of the Haber Bosch process. 10 calories for every calorie in that burger? It's how we make the fertiliser.
In the Middle Ages they used to let the land lie fallow. This allowed time for lightning storms to zap through the clouds above the fields and attach nitrogen from the air to the rain. We're impatient these days and have more mouths to feed. So we mimick this with Haber Bosh using our own energy.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i2

Hi Max Green,

I think it's kind of stupid.
Energy isn't measured in calories.

How does he calculate the 10 calories worth of input to 1 calorie of output?

If it took 10 ears of corn to grow 1 ear of corn you wouldn't yield enough to even produce a following crop.
You wouldn't waste 10 ears of corn to only get one in return.
If you had to spend $10 to get $1 in return, you wouldn't do it.
- You'd be throwing away $9.

Seems like weasel words to manipulate gullible idiots to me sorry.
- Narrative to promote climate scaremongering.
- Baffle your brain with BS kind of thing...

The fact is humans need to acquire food to eat, or we starve and die.
No need to think about it in any other terms.

Whatever energy it takes to grow or acquire said food (whether that be a little of a lot) is necessary for the most part, or we die.
Nuances over waste... such as the ability to feed a small country with what is thrown away for example, well waste is different to production anyhow.

I went into woolies a few days back.
There's was this $16 packet of deli ham wrapped in the butchers paper that someone had dumped in one of the shelves in the aisle.
I took it back to the deli, there was enough ham there to feed 10 kids sandwiches and you know woolies is just going to throw it out.
- Some people and businesses (and business models) waste more than others.

"I would like to discuss the idea of putting more energy into our food than we are getting out of it."

If a person had expel 1000 calories worth of physical energy, in order to get 100 calories worth of sustenance, they would die.

[Cont.]
Not to criticise your article, but the methodology seems flawed.
Only gullible minds who are looking for arguments to give a basis to their pre-existing beliefs and bias are likely to run with it.

If you wanted to manipulate gullible idiots into the merits of eating insects and mealworms,
- Well it could be good marketing to brainwashing them into doing so.

Not sure King Charles is likely to switch to eating house crickets though, the elites won't be eating what they're selling.

FYI, I was actually more interested in the discussion of more efficient dams.

Armchair Critic - it seems you know best! I'm not going to argue with someone that just snorts at one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. It is responsible for much of the growth in the human population. The energy cost is well established. Just because YOU don't 'get it' and why it can be expressed a certain way, does not mean it stops being a reality. Imagine if something vanished every time a child said "I don't get it!" It's not science's fault - it's yours.

[Cont.]
"In the Middle Ages they used to let the land lie fallow. This allowed time for lightning storms to zap through the clouds above the fields and attach nitrogen from the air to the rain. We're impatient these days and have more mouths to feed. So we mimick this with Haber Bosh using our own energy."

This final part makes me think the argument stated has nothing to do with calories at all, but essentially the entire argument is based around a calculation where the basis is emissions, and not calories produced, or energy consumed.
- Or calories produced per unit of energy consumed.

If it took more energy to create the food than the energy we got from the food, we wouldn't bother producing it that way, it would be unfeasible or non-viable.