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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change
From CNBC:
Air New Zealand on Tuesday dropped its 2030 climate goal, citing delivery delays of fuel-efficient aircraft and the affordability of alternative jet fuels.
The announcement means that New Zealand’s national flag carrier has become the first major airline to water down its near-term climate aspirations, a move that reflects the scale of the industry’s challenge to meet its decarbonization goals.
Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said in a statement that it has become apparent in recent weeks “that potential delays to our fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target’s achievability.”
Should we be angry at Air New Zealand, when they’re the first airline on the planet to be honest?
There is a limit to which companies in this industry, or any other, can go to maintain both profitability and their commitment to environment sustainability.
As the Earth’s temperature continues to warm, will consumers make sacrifices? Will corporation accept cuts in earnings?  The simple answer to both these questions is no.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business
Doesn’t it seem that “get rich quick” schemes seem to be marketed to increasingly stupid people?
Instead of hiring a kid at $9/hour, you can completely replace the human element of selling dishes of ice-cream with a few hundred thousand dollars of robotics.
Actually, it’s not a complete replacement.  The owner has to remain constantly on-call to replace the empty containers (assuming that customers actually patronize the machine).

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

I suspect this whole thing is made up, because there is no such thing as a “biomethane engine.”  “Biomethane” just means that the methane didn’t come from fossil fuels, but from the recent decay of organic material, e.g., plants, animal waste, etc. Similarly, there is no such thing as a “wind-energy lamp.”  The lamp on my desk doesn’t care where the electrons running through it came from.

In addition, our civilization is phasing out combustion as a means of generating electricity, because it’s inherently inefficient and dirty.

A minor exception applies to the use of noxious feedstock, and we’ve been working on this for decades.  E.g., if you have thousands of dairy or beef cows, and you’re able to collect and process that waste that would otherwise be foul-smelling and pathogenic, then, sure, let’s convert it to biomethane.  This may be feasible some day, but it isn’t now, and I expect that it will never arrive without significant government subsidies.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It’s amusing how Republicans feel it’s their business to tell us that we should have children, and how our babies should be planned and conceived.

Before the extremism of the Trump era came along, it never dawned on a government official to weigh in on personal matters like these and impose on our personal  liberties.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The meme here translates into English (roughly) as:

My grandmother always used to say, “You should understand that happy people don’t waste their time making bad for others.  Badness comes from people who are unhappy, frustrated, mediocre, and jealous.” 

Could this apply to the U.S. presidential race? Trump is clearly not a happy person, and has wreaked untold misery on the common American, especially women, LGTBQs, Muslims, people of color, teachers, and the working class (though most of them don’t seem to understand this).  The Russian oligarchs, especially Putin, love him, as do the billionaires and top executives in the most profitable corporations, but these people are in the slim minority.

Apparently, come next January, we are going to see what Kamala Harris has to offer in this regard.  She certainly laughs and smiles a great deal, and her platform is diametrically opposed to Trump’s.

We’ll see.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

I’m not 100% sure what this Tesla owner is trying to communicate.

I’m hoping it’s something like: “Laughing out loud at the idea that oil is a sustainable auto fuel.” Maybe it’s “Laughing in the face of Big Oil, because I’ll never use another drop.”

Personally, I don’t associate environmental collapse with laughter and frivolity, but I don’t speak for everyone.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Yes, when people say there are only two genders, they are saying they haven’t moved past middle school intellectually.

But, in the majority of cases, they are also saying that they believe you are so unsophisticated that you crave simplistic and hateful answers to complex issues.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

By the time we’re into our teen years, most of us outgrow the need to bully other kids by calling them hurtful names.

It’s pathetic that U.S. politics has degenerated to the point that one of our two candidates for the presidency thinks that deliberately mispronouncing his opponent’s name could win him votes at the polls.  American voters are not children in terms of chronological development, and it’s a shame that some of us don’t seem to have grown up.

I’m quite sure Kamala Harris will not be calling Trump “Don Old” or “Fatso” or “Don the Dummy” or whatever else cruel idiots might get a chuckle out of.

FWIW, the fact that we may re-elect a man whose constituents are mostly poorly educated is bad, but that our right-wing news media, e.g., Fox News, follows along and consistently mispronounces “KAH-mela” as “ka-MAH-la” should tell you all you need to know about their legitimacy.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

From the ad:  “Climate Change for Kids…and Parents Too!” is more than just a book — it’s a roadmap for families seeking to understand and engage with one of the defining challenges of our time. Full of brilliant illustrations, scientific, logical, and theological truths, this resource will empower concerned parents and curious children to navigate the complexities of climate change with biblical wisdom, compassion, and faith.

Exactly what “theological truths” are may be a bit unclear.  First, are we talking about the Christian God, the Jewish God, or Allah?  What about the polytheists, e.g., the Hindus and the earlier civilizations in Europe and Scandinavia?

From the video trailer: Climate change is just one example of what happens when we ignore God’s word and pay attention to man’s word. And yes, the Genesis 8:22 makes this quite clear: “Only God can destroy the Earth.”

Not to quibble about subtleties in the meaning of words, but in no case will climate change “destroy the Earth,” though it’s making life for most of us more difficult and painful than it’s been in the past.

Regardless, if this is what you already believe, I’m not sure you need to spend $18 for a book, however nicely illustrated, that lays all this out across 80 pages.

From the book:  Beyond the predominant theories attributing climate change to human activity, we must also weigh in various factors such as natural cycles of the earth and the sun, which significantly influence climate patterns.

Does anyone really believe that tens of thousands of climate scientists, the eldest of whom have been working on this problem since the 1970s, have somehow failed to consider the “natural cycles of the earth and the sun?” That’s a seriously stupid accusation.  The book’s authors should be ashamed of themselves.

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

KV Industries appears to offer an energy solution in the hydrogen space, though they refuse to explain what it is.

What we do know from their website is that their fundamental values are “God, Family, and Country,” and that may be a good intro to uneducated people who don’t have the capacity to understand the scientific and financial issues at stake.

Also, KV is promising an ROI of 100:1 with, again, nothing of substance other than the semi-literate statement below, and the overview at left, almost all of which is completely false.

KV Industries LLC is a new entity in the blue energy playing field. Myself (sic) and Timothy Smith started developing our ideas for the move away from fossil fuels about 25 years ago and have been developing the business model to make it a reality ever since. Our break throughs (sic) are world changing.

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