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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s a theory on the meme here: the media profits tremendously from extending the life of the idea that Trump actually could be our 47th president, and it finds that lucre to be irresistible.

This an event which, if it comes to fruition, would almost certainly end American democracy, and that notion is so terrifying to most of us that we’re drawn to explore it whether we want to or not.

The media understands this with crystal clarity.

What we’re looking at here is just an extrapolation of 2015/16, where the CEO of one of our television giants admitted, “Trump is absolutely terrible for America, but he’s fantastic for us.”

Eventually, it will become obvious that, through some blend of forces, including Trump’s criminal trials, that he is far more likely to be struck by lightening than he is to win the 2024 election.  At that point, look for the media to move along to some new catastrophe in the making.

With each passing year, it becomes more about money and less about truth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just read that people who live at the beach are happier than the rest of us.

Hmmm.  Could the fact that the guy’s house is worth a fortune, enabling him to travel the world, play a role?  That beach folks tend to be active and healthy?

It’s anyone’s guess.

Many people believe that certain chemicals like CBDs prevent cancer.  In truth, we’ll never know, because no one’s going to shell out millions of dollars for a randomized, controlled, prospective, double-blind clinical trial, to prove the efficacy of something that is practically free.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Ten years from now, when all the criminality and stupidity associated with Trump has long since been put to bed, we will remember a few of the kingpins who conspired to help the former president overthrow the U.S. government.  We hope that the names Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and Rudy Giuliani are chief among them.

But let’s be honest here.  Is anyone really going to remember some cowardly jackass whom the voters in Oklahoma or Mississippi elected to congress, who helped Trump carry the message of the Big Lie into their states? Hardly.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on “Face the Nation,” 1/14/24: “Let me be very clear. I love my country too much to vote for Donald Trump.”

This is the precise quandary that a great many Republicans will face if Trump gets the GOP nomination: the fact that a vote for the former president requires an incredible level of ignorance and hatred, and an appalling lack of integrity, that these people, to their credit, simply don’t possess.

What precisely they will do remains an open question. Though, at this point, we’re starting to run across stories about Republicans who claim they’ll be voting for Biden.  While this may sound too good to be true, consider that Trump lost in 2020 by seven million votes, and that was before we were bombarded with news from the trials for sexual abuse, fraud, sedition, election tampering, etc.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We’re a very long way from any real honestly among GOP leaders in congress.  The price of sucking up to Trump has been–and continues to be–public affirmation that the 2020 election was rigged with massive amounts of voter fraud.

For most of us outside the cult, that’s along the lines of “Detroit is in New Mexico.” It’s an impossible piece of fiction to maintain.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The point of the meme here, of course, is that the electrification of transportation (and everything else) is going to run into temporary roadblocks.  Will there be enough lithium? Will EV battery recycling become feasible? Will the ubiquity of fast charging stations come to satisfy demand?  Will we rid ourselves of hydrocarbons from the grid-mix?

I would suggest that the answer to all these questions is yes, i.e., that we’re going to get there eventually, perhaps in a couple of decades.  A more interesting question:  Will all this happen in time to prevent our civilization’s experiencing devastating long-term environmental damage?

No one knows, though one thing is certain: there are forces at play that apply great economic pressure and make this anything but a level playing field.  The entire fossil fuel industry is doing its damndest to stay in place indefinitely, regardless of how horrific the consequences may be to humanity, and to all life forms here on Earth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

This MSN.com article begins:

Late Sunday night, Lauren Boebert shared this post on social media, where she openly disparaged climate activists.

“You’ve got to appreciate the irony of climate protesters trudging through a foot of snow and -30 degree wind chills to yell about how the planet is warming,” she wrote.

“They just don’t see it, do they?”

Her post ignited a firestorm, with many users pointing out her apparent ignorance on the subject.

“It’s not just about the Earth getting hotter; it’s about extreme weather patterns as the Earth tries to adapt,” one user explained.

“This includes intensified cold spells, erratic rainfall, heavy snow, and more, all symptoms of climate change.”

Others shared graphs showing the drastic changes in climate across the world in recent years, noting that the science has been well-documented.

We need to face the fact that we in the U.S. are nowhere close to a point the realities of climate change are uniformly accepted, as there are plenty of people who reject science generally. This country will feature uneducated folks living in its rural districts for as long as we have a society here.  I advise not wasting our mental and emotional resources getting into a snit about American ignorance; it’s just a part of who we are as a nation.

That these people have leaders who themselves are boobs changes absolutely nothing.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

If you’re a grocery retailer, especially a convenience store, refusing to sell bottled water will lead to an immediate and severe reduction to your income stream.  Accordingly, I’d like to extend my kudos to whomever wrote this note on his refrigerator.  That’s bravery; that’s integrity.

But sadly, he finds himself submersed in one of hundreds of different business sectors in which honestly and decency is actually a considerable handicap.

Last year, PepsiCo earned $8.9 billion on $86 billion in revenue, and every single one of their customers is now (at least) a little bit unhealthier than he was the year before.  In addition to Aquafina, did the retailer featured in the meme get rid of all his sodas and salty, sugary poison, the manufacturing (not to mention consumption) of which is slowly but steadily destroying the planet and its inhabitants?

I don’t wish to sound mean, but maybe finding a truly honest career is not such a bad idea.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Every element of American society seems so contentious, but for what real reason?

On social media, we learn that vegans, regardless of the rationale that lies at the core of their eating habits, are under attack from meat-eaters.  Why?  What’s the matter with letting people choose their lifestyles, especially when they’re not forcing themselves on you?

We see posts providing ideas from the clergy instructing the devout on how to counter atheists. Why? What’s the imperative to argue with other people who just happen to see the world differently?

The meme here speaks to the us-versus-them “logic” that the fossil fuels proponents uses against the environmentalists, and, more to the point, against the entire auto industry as it phases out gas and diesel.

Why are we so appealing about argument for its own sake?

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Below is the front page of a Florida newspaper from a couple of weeks ago.

You will try in vain to find anything remotely like this stupidity, greed, and cruelty anywhere else on this planet.

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