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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

George Soros is an extremely wealthy progressive whose vision of the world is one that is more just and equitable.  As far as I can see, there’s nothing more to it, and, unless you’re some sort of hateful nut-job, there is certainly nothing about him that would lead one to believe that he “hates humanity.”

Now, of course, if you’re Elon Musk, you have a vested interest here. Your net worth is such that it could wipe out world hunger or avert climate disaster if you so chose, but you have no intention of any of that, so it makes sense for you to resent the hell out of Soros

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s a wonderful piece from legendary environmentalist Joe Romm (whose last name, believe it or not, is pronounced “Rome”). A comment:

I dispute the assertion that human civilization is making any real attempt at leaving wealth to its children. The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals a new Oxfam report.

So yes, the trust fund babies are inheriting more money than they ever had in the past, but consider for a moment that two-thirds of Americans cannot meet an unexpected expense of $500. That’s not a great deal of wealth, sustainable or otherwise.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Nuclear
2GreenEnergy supporter Cameron Atwood and I are having a discussion I thought I’d share:
Cameron: Up What do you think about the info provided in these two articles: here and here?
Craig: I believe that nuclear energy is necessary to heading off climate catastrophe. Obviously, not everyone agrees.

(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

There are only two outcomes for America at this point.  We either a) hold Trump and his criminal allies accountable, and restore rule of law, or b) we don’t, and face at least a few decades of lawlessness.

Once democracy is taken away, it’s extremely difficult to restore.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In today’s world of absurdities, it should come as no surprise that the MAGA “patriots” celebrate both the Confederacy and the Third Reich, both of which were beaten into submission by the armies that represented American democracy.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Have you noticed the plethora of start-ups in the clean tech space advertising on social media platforms to locate seed capital investors?  If so, you probably have noticed two things:

The spokespeople for these budding enterprises speak completely understandable English, though through some heavy European accent.   If you vant to make a fortoon, zees es yur beeg chance.  Apparently, we think Europeans are less likely than Americans to rip us off.

Here’s Arthium, the very epitome.  Chek zees oot.  The technology itself would be laughed at by any high school science teacher.

Of course, most Americans have never heard of the French physicist Carnot,  through whose principles we now understand that this idea is a total joke.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

At this point, the United States places very little importance on education. Exactly why that is can be argued, but here are a few suggestions.

The benefits of an educated population reveal themselves over a period of decades.  Similarly, the environmental damage caused by climate change occurs over long periods of time, and human beings (especially Americans) have extremely short time horizons that inform their thinking and decision-making.

The extreme right-wing believes that there is no value, perhaps even negative value, to education, insofar as it cranks out woke socialists.

It’s provable that educated people tend to be liberals.  If you doubt this, look at the rankings of education by state to the results of the 2020 presidential election (see chart below) that Trump lost by 7 million votes.

It may be worthwhile to compare the U.S. to countries that provide free college education to anyone who wants it.  The latter tend to be happier, healthier, and, perhaps most interesting of all, freer.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Here’s a clean energy investment opportunity that I don’t particularly recommend, for two main reasons:

Flywheels have been around for hundreds of years, and, actually represented a viable potential solution to our energy storage needs, until the cost of batteries came down and their energy/power density improved over the past decades.

I tend to be unimpressed with presentations that are largely about the problem to be solved, in this case, global warming, and only tangentially about the solution.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Kudos to the author of the meme here.

People have been lamenting the hypocrisy of Christians since long before I was on this planet.  But the whole thing has got far more egregious in the last few years, as educational standards have fallen, the middle class has eroded, the working class has gotten angrier, the Republican party has squirted to the right, and social media has enabled the dissemination of misinformation and other truly horrible ideas.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When we were young, my brother I loved the made-for-children television drama “Superman,” the intro for which included the idea that our caped hero “stands for truth, justice, and the American way.”

It’s funny that, looking back on those days, nobody growing up us seemed to wonder what the phrase “the American way” actually meant.  We all took it for granted that our country was the greatest on Earth, and thus, our “way” must be better and more righteous then anyone else’s.

This made eminent sense at the time–not only to us children, but to the “grown-ups” as well.

Shortly before we baby-boomers were born, our fathers had come home from World War II, having successfully saved human civilization from the scourge of fascism in Europe.  Long before the conflict was over, and possibly before it had begun, it was clear that fascism, like a cancer, with its fearsome power to destroy life, would have metastasized if the United States hadn’t joined the international fight for democracy and basic human rights.

Post war, our nation eagerly entered into an era of prosperity that would springboard off the advancements of the Depression Era: the New Deal, Social Security, and Medicare, that held the potential not only to reduce poverty greatly, but, by setting the stage for numerous further advancements, e.g., the Equal Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, might enable the United States to lead the world into a new epoch of affluence and human decency.

On top of, within moments after the end of the war, the U.S. sign the bipartisan G.I. Bill, providing low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business or farm, one year of unemployment compensation, and dedicated payments of tuition and living expenses to attend high school, college, or vocational school.

We took all this to heights never seen in human history.

If you can stomach it, at the left is what “the American way” means today.

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