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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

This week’s “TED Radio Hour” on National Public Radio is called “Paradise Lost–and Found,” and, as the title suggests, it’s about the things in our lives that make us happy.

Below is a talk given by Ramón Méndez Galain who explains how his homeland, Uruguay, runs on 98% renewable energy.  What makes this relevant to the theme is his discourse on how happy he is to be a part of a movement that is preventing the ruination of our planet’s capacity to support life.  It’s truly touching.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Congrats to the author of the cartoon, for this clever adaptation of a scene from the film Forest Gump.

Most people don’t believe in the antichrist, but even progressive atheists acknowledge that Trump has done a great deal of damage to the world as a whole, and to the United States and its people in particular.  So, if anyone’s going to be called the antichrist, it may as well be he.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It appears that Plato would have taken a rather dim view of what we’re doing here in the United States.

There is no doubt that American education is in decline, but there is a lively debate as to why that is.  Some social critics, e.g., the late George Carlin, say that it’s a deliberate attempt to make sure that the middle-class, while capable of working in our factories and grocery stores, are incapable of understanding how badly they’ve gotten screwed by the wealthy.

Another theory is that it all is simply the result of the neoliberalism that came along about 1980, where the entire public sector–any aspect of government that is designed to help the common American–is being methodically crushed to death.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Is this a good idea for Republicans?  Insofar as they won the 2024 by a slim 1.5%, should they jettison the MAGA base (assuming that there is a practical way to accomplish that)?

Imagine a Republican party that had found a way to separate itself from evangelical Christians, white nationalists, the anti-woke, supporters of the insurrection, the uneducated, the supporters of assault weapons, anti-environmentalists, and so forth.

Whom does that leave?  Only the amoral/immoral rich people, and sorry, that’s not going to get the job done.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
From Neil deGrasse Tyson: Born a year after Edwin Hubble discovered that our Milky Way galaxy was just one of countless other galaxies that populate the universe. Smart, kind, and gentle. Not sure if they make ’em like that anymore.  RIP Jimmy Carter (1924 – 2024).
I would say that they do make ’em like that, but that they are completely unelectable as U.S. presidents.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

“Bifurcate” means to split into two branches, so “bifurcate in two directions” redundant.

Of course, that is a trivial criticism.

Here’s a more important one:

Musk wants us to believe that migrating the human race into space, with all its greed, hatred, and stupidity will somehow prevent extinction.

That’s ridiculous.  Our Earth is a paradise of wonderful resources, with lots of room, fresh air and water, and millions of species of plants and animals.

If we can’t succeed here, is it plausible that we’ll do as well on some barren rock in space?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Re: the meme here, a reader offers this dare:  I challenge you to go to a climate science convention, get up on stage, present this image and then give a talk on why you think it is true… and then take questions from the scientists in the room.

Yes, he’d be laughed off the stage, but not for the reason you might think.  The truth here lies in the deliberately dishonest way that the data is presented.

The ice on the Antarctic is shrinking fast, but the ice in the oceans that surround the continent are remaining essentially unchanged.

Here’s an article called Antarctic Ice Loss Is Significant, Contrary to Claims.  An excerpt:

Antarctica is losing ice mass to the ocean, contributing to global sea level rise. But a popular video misrepresented work focused on Antarctic ice shelves — which float in the sea at the edges of the continent — to incorrectly suggest that “it is unclear if Antarctica is losing any ice on balance.”

The Antarctic ice sheet is a vast mass of ice, accumulated over millennia via snowfall, that sits atop bedrock, covering nearly all of Antarctica. As the ice spreads outward and meets the ocean, some of it begins to float. These floating ice platforms, which surround about three-quarters of Antarctica, are called ice shelves.

Antarctic land ice loss into the ocean is an increasingly important contributor to global sea level rise. In contrast, ice shelf loss doesn’t directly cause sea level rise, as the ice is already floating in the ocean and displacing water.

In actuality, there is no climate “debate.”  There are exhaustive studies, the results of which have been published in peer-reviewed papers over the last 50+ years, and there are folks, including Big Oil, whose political agendas focus on referring to these scientists as “liars.”  That’s the raw simplicity, pathetic as it may be.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Following the death of Jimmy Carter, we Boomers harken back to the times of his one-term presidency.  We wonder how it’s possible that treason in the United States’ highest office, in this case clearly committed by Ronald Reagan to defeat Carter, is never prosecuted.

Even after it was revealed that Reagan had prolonged our agony so as to secure his election in 1980, was there any chance whatsoever that our Department of Justice would step in?  Eff no. He was the Gipper, beloved by Americans who couldn’t have possibly cared what crime he may have committed.

Forty-five years, later, we have Donald Trump urinating on our country and all its institutions. The only difference is that now, we’re that much further away suggesting that a U.S. president should be held accountable for his crimes.

We’re also far more poorly educated, both academically and morally.

Good luck, America.  You’re going to need it.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

I just met a guy who’s been in the solar business since 2002, working on projects that are in the 8-figure range.  He mentioned a recent $27 million deal, so that means commercial and/or industrial clients.

After expressing my admiration for what he’s done, I asked what changes he’s noticed, and he replied, unsurprisingly, that the cost of goods has fallen by more that 50%–probably closer to 70%.

Then I asked him about his concerns about solar’s future.  He said that Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has been incredibly powerful.  It re-instated the 30% investment tax credit that had expired, and added on another 20% if the project uses U.S. made materials.  He continued, “I don’t know where you are politically, but the Trump administration has vowed to repeal Biden’s work, and bring all this to a halt.  This would be a terrible blow to the progress we’ve made.”

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Some people think that Trump always wins, but that’s fallacious.  It’s true that he has always won (in the past), but, to use an analogy, every team is undefeated until it loses its first game.

Nixon had plenty of congressional support until he didn’t.

We shouldn’t be at all surprised if the U.S. political climate shifts away from Trump and he winds up fleeing on a helicopter, just like Nixon did.  Taking off from the same spot on the White House lawn just ahead of a prosecutorial body that would have otherwise sent him to die in prison.

Re: Cheney and Kinzinger, their political futures are still to be determined as well.

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