While the separation can be helpful, it also minimizes the actual carbon footprint of our food system. Petrochemical production, for instance, is a different category according to the epa. But one of the biggest uses of petrochemicals is fertilizer production. Trucking and shipping is its own category. Guess what relies on a lot of trucking and shipping? And so on.

Typically what counts as agricultural emissions are literally tilling, tractor fuel, cow emissions, etc. we really need to look at the whole system, together, for a clear picture. When we do that it obvious that our industrial food production is deeply tied to every aspect of fossil fuel use, land use, and atmospheric c02 in general.

But I think this is worth considering from this perspective as it focuses us on the most broadest solutions. If we decarbonize all uses of fossil fuels, we’re 73% of the way to utterly decarbonizing.

Petrochemical production, nitrogen fertilizer production in particular, is simply energy. And, in fact, nitrogen fertilizer just needs hydrogen, not hydrocarbons (which is a sort of misconception... many think hydrocarbons as a fundamental component of fertilizers when the actual Haber Process uses straight hydrogen), so should be much easier than hydrogen cars. And transport is relatively easy to decarbonize. Road and rail transport, in particular.

> Oil is nearly as big of an emitter as coal, and gas plus oil is now bigger than coal itself.

That's correct and everything, but I do think that for a while the best strategy is to focus on coal. Yeah, some electrifying of transportation won't harm either, but the largest short term gains and the largest long term opportunities all start on replacing coal.

If replacing coal leads to lots of peaking natgas plants, so be it. It is still a gain on the short term, and it creates clear target for storage on the long term.

Yup, absolutely true. And I think people underestimate how good electric cars are. They have about half the emissions of conventional cars even if all their electricity comes from gas (but about 40% of electricity in the US is carbonfree—about half nuclear and the rest wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal).

Each new conventional car sold is a locked-in 100 tons of CO2 (lower if we we crush them sooner). Electric cars are much smaller (half to start with), and depending on how fast we transition the electric grid could be only like 10-25 tons and then next to nothing (as even manufacture becomes decarbonized).