The Coffee Table

Rabbit Roasts and Google Skin

My Pop often proclaimed it was wise to be pessimistic—because optimists are often disappointed while pessimists are sometimes pleasantly surprised. But whenever I was alarmed by some new trend that seemed bad for humankind, he’d be quick to point out that, overall, things have gotten better for people: The 40-hour work week. The end of Jim Crow. The eradication of smallpox and polio. In other words, he’d put my creeping doubt in perspective and inspire me to see that even when the particulars look bleak, the overall picture is one of improvement. 

I’ve often appreciated this perspective. I really do believe gratitude will carry you farther than grousing. But sometimes my grip on gratitude feels slippery.  Like when our president proposes spending big bucks on ballrooms, archways, and reflecting pools, while inflation and ICE run rampant. And when billionaires continue to profit from whatever ails us—including climate change, which is fast approaching the point of no return. Are things still better than they used to be?

I recently watched the latest Little House on the Prairie program. I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books decades ago and watched the original TV series in the late ‘70s, feeling some inexplicable kinship with prairie pioneers—a kinship I still harbor. The show reminded me I’m glad I don’t have to kill and skin a rabbit to make my dinner—let alone cook it in the fireplace.  But I wondered if buying dinner ingredients at Walmart is actually an improvement for the planet.

So I asked the Almighty Google (AG)—that told me “Cooking a chicken [It felt far-fetched to ask about a rabbit] in a fireplace is a much greater polluter than cooking it on an electric stove” and then provided details about the particulate matter and carbon monoxide, etc., released into the air when burning wood in an open fireplace.

But, I argued, I have to drive to the store and back to get the chicken which releases toxic emissions into the air.  AG assured me that—still—my chicken dinner creates less toxicity than the Ingalls’ family dinner.

I asked if stoves these days are any cleaner than the stoves I grew up with. Turns out the gas stoves of today are much the same as they were in the ‘50s—relative to emissions—but our ventilation systems have improved, limiting the toxicity in today’s kitchens. However, electric stoves omit the toxic fumes entirely. (I initially installed an electric stove because it’s easier to wipe the flat top than to clean individual burners. The clean air thing is a bonus.) 

Of course, the planetary benefit depends on how your electricity is generated before it gets to your stove. AG had this to say: “Because Arkansas relies on a power grid heavily anchored by coal and natural gas, the energy lost while generating and transmitting electricity currently outweighs the efficiency advantages of a standard electric stovetop.”

So much for the president’s love of “good clean coal.”

Then it occurred to me—there’s a lot of brouhaha lately about how much energy Artificial Intelligence consumes. So I asked the Almighty Google how the energy consumption of AI compares to the cooking of chickens (or rabbits) in fireplaces. This is what AG said: “If all 131 million households in the United States cooked their daily meals on open fires in traditional fireplaces, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would massively exceed the current global carbon footprint of AI production and use.”

Maybe this indicates progress? Of course, Pop the Pessimist would point out that the Almighty Google might be lying through its proverbial AI teeth to save its proverbial AI skin.