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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

An important factor in the upcoming U.S. presidential election is the vote of traditional Republicans who have enough intelligence and integrity not to re-elect Trump.

As suggested in the meme here, Liz Cheney is the unofficial spokesperson for this group; one has to respect her courage in standing up to what is essentially the entire GOP and categorically rejecting Trump, his crimes, and his lies.

The question, of course, is what actually happens at the polling places.  There are plenty of Republicans who understand the national and international catastrophe that Trump represents if he gets back in the White House, but who would rather vote for a baboon than a Democrat.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Lawn mower cutting green grass

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Gas-powered yard tools may be harder to come by starting this year. Assembly Bill 1346 requires phasing out fossil fuel-fueled leaf blowers, lawnmowers, weed trimmers, chain saws and other tools. The tools were targeted for their contributions to the state’s notoriously emissions-filled air.

Phasing out such equipment — by requiring that those of model years 2024 and later be powered with electricity or another clean energy — is part of the state’s plan to transition to a carbon-free economy …. People are still allowed to use the gas-powered tools they already have and buy them used.

While electricity isn’t necessarily clean, the electrification of everything is a valid strategy to decarbonizing our energy and transportation sectors.

Leave it to California to pave the way to a viable future.  I don’t think you’ll find this, or any other progressive measure being taken in Texas.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Everyone knows that burning jet fuel releases CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and further warming the Earth.  But did you know that contrails act to make the situation even worse?  And that some of our top scientific organizations are hard at work trying to remove this threat?

Check out this piece from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The comment at left is from former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and it’s hard to dispute.

Allowing Trump to use some technicality to avoid prosecution for the 91 felonies of which he’s accused says one thing:  all American citizens are held accountable for their actions–except the president, the one with the most power in all the country.

It’s an absurdity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

This from physicist Brian Greene.

Sadly, very few young people can name (let alone look up to) a single living scientist.

Ultimately, this is due to our society’s fixation on money. Rock stars and football quarterbacks enjoy vast media exposure and draw the attention of hundreds of millions of adoring fans.

Our scientists may be developing the next pandemic vaccine or technology that will mitigate the climate change that threatens to bake our planet, but they do so in near total obscurity.  Their work may save millions of lives and change the world for the better over a long period of time, but there is nothing sexy about it whatsoever.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Re: Trump’s post at left, economic analyst Robert Rapier writes:

He already predicted in 2020: “If Biden is elected, the stock market will crash and your 401k will be zero.”
Now that the stock market is at a record high, he says it’s because people expect him to win. That’s not how the stock market works. It’s at a record high because economic indicators are strongly improving. He either doesn’t understand how the market works, or he does and doesn’t think you will know he’s lying.
What we’ve learned about Trump throughout his tenure in politics and the 30K+ lies he told in office is that he has no shame. He’s willing to swear to something that an 8-year-old kid would reject as BS.
That said, he’s at the end of his rope; the evidence of his guilt in the 91 felony counts he faces, especially the testimony of dozens, maybe hundreds of eyewitnesses, is about to crush his political viability like a grape.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

This from French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher François-Marie Arouet, known to us as Voltaire.  If you’ve never read Candide, I hope you’ll treat yourself.

The reason he’s correct here is the truth of what Plato said 2000 years prior, which I paraphrase: Only people who do not desire power are qualified to have it.

The United States has had its issues with a few presidents, e.g., Jackson, Harding, and Nixon, though, until Trump, we never had a leader whose interests were based only on his own enrichment and aggrandizement.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Without doubt, there are many vectors in American civilization that have all come together to create what we call “Trumpism” or the MAGA movement.

One, of course, is the presence of Trump himself. Until 2015, when he came on the political scene, no one had dared to run for U.S.  president on a platform of hate and lies, e.g., immigrants are taking your jobs, the Democrats are coming for your guns, LGTBQs are grooming your children while schools are teaching them to hate America, climate scientists and epidemiologists are corrupt, etc.

Another factor here is the decline in our educational system and the accompanying loss of young people’s capacity for critical thinking.

Yet, to be fair, a great deal of the glue that holds Trump supporters together is the resentment with which they regard our socio-economic landscape, i.e., that their wages have stagnated over the 40+ years, at the exact point in time at which the top 1% have become rich beyond measure. If you were watching the world pass you by in terms of real income and net worth, you may be easy pickin’s for the MAGA rhetoric yourself.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

My conservative mother points out that, whenever Trump is attacked, his popularity rises.

There does seem to be some truth here, though perhaps the causal element here is simply that his name stays in the news. For example, the media loves Trump’s Christmas post here, in which he expresses his hope that all progressives ROT IN HELL (emphasis his).

Of course, that’s not a very Christian thing to wish, but isn’t that the point?  It needs to be sufficiently controversial so as to essentially force the press to run with it.

Back to the post and its effect on Trump’s approval rating.  There must be a point at which insane rants like these are more sneered at and rejected by American voters than they are appreciated.  We’re angry, and we’re clearly not too bright, but again, there must be a point which these tactics fail to achieve its objectives.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

America’s favorite poet makes a good point.

But Marcus Aurelius and the other stoic philosophers would add three more on top of his: until it doesn’t.   

Seize the day.

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