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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Here’s an exciting development (not) in solar PV, which claims (falsely) that it delivers 18 times more power from sunlight than traditional technologies.

Let’s do some quick math, to see just how important (fraudulent) this breakthrough (scam) is.  Say today’s standard solar panel are 25% efficient.  18 times that is an efficiency of no less than 450%.  4.5 times as much energy is released than was incident on it in the first place!

I really don’t think there’s anyone in junior high school so ignorant as to accept this.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Where will the energy come from that will make this building spin?

Strangely, they don’t say.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Per this article, Fox News has discontinued the ad campaign of Mike Lindell (the MyPillow Guy) on the basis that he, as he admits, has become financially insolvent.

One wonders how he faltered, given that he had amassed such a fortune selling high-margin bedwear to Fox News viewers and other Trump supporters over a period of many years.

My theory: Fox is anxious to find an excuse to cut ties with Lindell, due to his position on the Big Lie.  Fox doesn’t need another close-to-billion-dollar settlement stemming for civil litigation, and Lindell still claims adamantly that he has ironclad evidence that the U.S. 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Of course, he can’t reveal what that evidence might be, but that’s not a problem for people who don’t concern themselves with facts and truth in the first place.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s an article I won’t be reading, because the answer to the question is so obvious: her voting base loves her racism.

It’s the chicken-and-the-egg principle at work in politics.  MTG can hardly be called the cause of the ignorance and hatred in rural Georgia, but she certainly makes it socially acceptable for these folks to speak and act like they’re living in the 1920s, and they can’t get enough of it.

Demand creates its own supply.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Assuming that Trump is ultimately unsuccessful in overthrowing the U.S. federal government, there will be an ongoing conversation about the content of the meme here.

We will never stop wondering how it was possible that a man who was roundly regarded as a deranged moron by so many intelligent and highly accomplished public servants who worked directly with him over a period of many years, came to rise, through a free and fair election, to become the most powerful person on Earth?

Of course, the reason this is on so many people’s minds is that it appears that there is a good chance that he’ll be re-elected.

Things that would be inconceivable anywhere else in the developed nations of Earth make perfect sense here in America.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here, Socrates reminds us of the problems associated with being what is essentially a tribal species.  We tend to look for differences between us, rather than similarities.  Then we use these perceived differences as motivation for hatred and, often, violence.

In my email signature I quote explorer and writer Freya Stark: “Few are the giants of the soul who actually feel that the human race is their family circle.”  Socrates was certainly among them.

One wonders if some global event, e.g., environmental collapse, could change all this.  It’s definitely a possibility.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As I told my mom on the phone last night:

I’m ashamed and embarrassed to call myself an American.

This didn’t need to happen.

When I was a small boy, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.  He was a principled and honorable human being, who acted on behalf of all the people, and made us proud to be U.S. citizens.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In response to the meme here, an appropriate response might be: says who?

This is what the Christian right, i.e., the followers of the Republican Jesus, does every day of the week.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Here’s an article in Global Citizen that begins:

Record heat. Record rain. Record fires. Recording-breaking environmental news is starting to sound like a broken record.

As Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), summed it up: “2023 was an exceptional year, with climate records tumbling like dominoes.”

2023 was an exceptional year with climate records tumbling like dominoes. Not only is 2023 the warmest year on record, it is also the first year with all days over 1°C warmer than the pre-industrial period.

All this raises the question, of course, that since we’re clearly seeing the onset of environmental collapse, how much longer do we sit by and watch as the oil and gas industry profits from our civilization’s slow but steady demise?  Wish I had an answer to that one.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
From Aldous Huxley: “The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.”
This really does explain a great deal, at least about life in the United States.  As long as the masses can afford to live in some level of comfort, it is foolish of us to expect them to become politically active to any significant degree.

That said, it’s possible that the 2024 presidential election may present an interesting counter-example. As we sit here, 10 months away, we notice an incredible level of animus when it comes to Trump–even from members of his own party.  Traditional Republicans may be concerned that the GOP is rapidly establishing itself as a criminal enterprise, and thus untenable to their voting base.

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