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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Twain was a humorist and not an anthropologist, and thus we can accept what he said here with a grin, even though it’s clearly untrue.

Religion was one of humankind’s first attempts to explain natural phenomena, before science came along and gave us another way forward.

The concept of a God in the sky, commanding us to worship and obey Him, in exchange for His love and protection–even after the death most of us fear–made perfect sense at the time, just as it does for many of us today.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

At left is an ad whose copy reads: In addition to the damage to local communities, solar “farms” can cause deforestation, destruction of wildlife habitats and disruption of ecosystems.

Think for a moment of the places you’ve seen where utility-scale solar PV has been deployed.  Do they look anything like a place that poor Bambi here might live?

As anyone with any sense at all would guess, the permitting process for solar farms is incredibly rigorous in terms of environmental consequences.

But don’t think for a minute that the fossil fuel industry isn’t going to trick you into preventing the fall of their enterprise.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This New York Times podcast on the changing perspective on the value of a college education examines the two most powerful forces at work:

1) Personal finances.   Until quite recently, one of the broadest assumptions about parenting in the U.S. was that, almost without exception, children should go to college, primarily because of the “income delta.” I.e., their income stream over the course of their lifetimes has historically been significantly higher than that of their high school diploma-only counterparts.  Now, the rising tuitions and other costs, exacerbated by the student loan debt burden that many graduates carry with them through the bulk of their lives, has largely destroyed this economic model.

2) Politics.  Conservatives find their viewpoints underrepresented vis-à-vis liberals among students, and more importantly, professors. As a result, many modern-day Republican families find the entire college experience objectionable. This position is reinforced by right-wing media, an entity that hadn’t fully taken form and penetrated our society so deeply until the last decade or so.

One thing that never seems to be discussed in conversations like these are the intangibles, issues that are not directly related to finance or politics.  It could be argued that college graduates enjoy richer lives, in a broad sense of that word, and that this should count for plenty.  They are more likely to enjoy reading and museums, to travel outside the U.S., to learning foreign languages, and to take pleasure from intellectual pursuits like astrophysics and philosophy.

We need to consider the factors that affect enjoying their careers. It makes sense that teachers and doctors take a higher level of reward from their careers than auto workers or employees in the retail industries.

Of course, this is a truly subjective matter, and perhaps that’s why it’s avoided by podcasters.  But it’s a shame that we have learned so little from Socrates (“the unexamined life”),  and the words of Confucius, Gandhi, Marcus Aurelius, and the thousands of others who came before us, each of whom sought to teach us the value of learning, wisdom, and the pursuit of virtue.

If we have only one shot at life, shouldn’t it be our best one?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

My wife often asks me, “How can any woman vote for Trump?”

I have no good answer, other than some morons still believe that Trump alone can make America great again, that he can close the border, and stop the spread of the wokeism disease.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

One of the great mysteries in U.S. politics is how the Democrats lost their connection to the working class.  Until very recently, there was a huge stasis in this country in which labor aligned with the Democratic party, and management aligned with the Republicans.

My theory, and I know I’m not alone here, is that:

• Almost all the new wealth that came into the United States over the last 40+ went to the upper 1%, which gutted the middle class, and left more than half the country with virtually no savings, living paycheck to paycheck, and deeply frustrated.

• Educational standards declined sharply over this period of time.

• Republicans, Trump in particular, exploited this combination of ignorance and frustration, blaming the Hollywood elite, the Deep State, Dr. Fauci and other “corrupt” scientists, immigrants, people of color, and liberal “wokeism” for the financial pain that is inflicted on white America’s workers.

Having said all this, it is quite possible that the great labor strikes of the day will be effective at alerting us to the plight of labor.

It’s also true that the GOP has gone too far for even the most poorly educated Americans.  Its leader by a huge margin is Donald Trump, who, by virtue of his status as a traitor to his country, doesn’t stand a prayer in the 2024 election.

In many ways, we’re a pathetic country, the butt of jokes from peoples around the globe.  But even many Trump supporters have a limit, one that was crossed when the former president came within a gnat’s a** of overthrowing the U.S. government.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

From this ad:  Attention Accredited Investors: Have you ever considered investing in Oil & Gas?

Yes, I did.  In fact, in the early 1980s, I was a consultant to a company that owned Chevron stations all over Northern California.

That was 40 years ago, and since that time, the entire world has learned that investing in fossil fuels means profiting from the destruction of the life-supporting capacity of our planet.

And like most decent human beings, I would never again participate in that atrocity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

A couple of points on the meme here:

Nike is worth $146 billion and change.  They’re among the top brands on the planet, and they don’t care what a former Yankees pitcher thinks.

The vast majority of Americans pride themselves on their concern for the well-being of others.  We don’t care what a hateful moron thinks, either.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Apparently, there is still a conference for small wind, defined as anything under 25 KW, to be held this year in Jutland, a remote part of Denmark (see map).

Perhaps the site was chosen because it’s one of few places on Earth where small wind makes sense: huge wind resources, and a low, dispersed population of environmentally concerned citizens. There are only six million people in the entire country, and almost all of them in or around Copenhagen.

Check out the photo below.  Wish I could be there.

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This isn’t the first post here (out of more than 15K) that points out how helpful beavers are in our natural world.

It is the first, however, that reproduces this marvelous graphic from Collective Conservation.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s a video that answers the question: Given a Tesla’s range and the time it takes to charge it, how appropriate is it for road trips?

As readers know, I’m an EV enthusiast, but I grant that they’re not perfect, at least now, for every driving application.  My wife and I normally do about 9 hours per day in the car, with only short stops along the way, so even with fast charging, this wouldn’t be a happy experience for us.

But maybe we’re focusing on the wrong things here.  There are 25 million households in America with a car that commutes less than 100 miles a day.

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