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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

We may think that it is uniquely American to discard science as the tool to determine the truth in subjects like the environment, vaccinations, the shape of the Earth, etc.  After all, we re-elected Donald Trump to lead our country, which requires some heavy-duty ignorance.

Yet there are right-wing extremist groups all around the globe, like Germany’s AfD (alternative for Germany).  From this article in “Le Monde,” France has a similar problem.

I’m afraid we need to come to terms with the fact that we live in a post-truth world, or, to put it more accurately, science is now viewed as one of several alternatives for getting at the truth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In an earlier post I wrote:

Monotheistic religion is built around fear. There is no other reason to believe that an omnipotent being is tuned into everything you think and do, and, if He doesn’t like what He sees, He’ll happily sentence you to an eternity of torture.

Yet we need to take this in context.  In the early, pre-scientific days of the human species, we had people, very much like ourselves, who stood in stark terror of storms, disease, eclipses, and, most certainly, death itself.

We all sympathize with the earliest days of Homo sapiens, yet we’re less sympathetic of today’s radical fundamentalist Muslims and Christians.

As I wrote in the previous post, if we still have an organized society here in 100 years, we will have long since disposed of this stupidity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

What American writer Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time) said at left rings true to most educated people around the world.

Monotheistic religion is built around fear. There is no other reason to believe that an omnipotent being is tuned into everything you think and do, and, if He doesn’t like what He sees, He’ll happily sentence you to an eternity of torture.

I seldom criticize others’ beliefs, but this is a concept unworthy of an intelligent species.

More to the point, we’re at a watershed point in human civilization.  So many of our planetary woes are built on the idea that “my God in the sky is better than yours.”

Let it be purged from humankind. If we still have an organized society here in 100 years, we will have long since disposed of this stupidity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

On social media, there are thousands of comments on Trump’s statement here, at least 95% say: “It’s about time!” or “Trump is saving our democracy from the liberals!”

There’s a catch, however, though it’s not one that Trump supporters are likely to understand: This will require re-writing the U.S. Constitution, in particular, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, referred to as the Elections Clause.

(It) contemplates that state legislatures will establish the times, places, and manner of holding elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate, subject to Congress making or altering such state regulations (except as to the place of choosing Senators). The Supreme Court has interpreted the Elections Clause expansively, enabling states to provide a complete code for congressional elections, not only as to times and places, but in relation to notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I doubt it.

If there’s any take-away from the last 10 years, it’s that these people are not psychologically capable of questioning anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Probably because he knows that his base is so ignorant on this topic that they don’t know that China and its corporate interests own a negligible amount of our land.

There are 880 million acres of farmland in the U.S., 39 million (4.4%) of which are foreign owned (see pie chart below).  Of that, China owns 0.9%, or 0.004% of the whole.

Another thing to be said about Vance’s audience is that they are unlikely to ask themselves: How could the U.S. “take back” land that is legally owned by another party?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Throwing our 250-year-old democracy into the toilet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

At left is Eric Swalwell’s idea for preventing another Donald Trump.

While I grant that something needs to be done to combat Trump and any future sociopath in the White House, I’m not sure we need an extra contrivance, when we already have the 25th Amendment and the power of impeachment.

If we’re going to have a congress full of spineless sycophants, we’re screwed in any case.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Think of the efficiency associated with driving trucks around and picking up old toilets and sinks that last in homes for many decades, taking them to a facility where they are ground into small porcelain chips, ultimately shipping the chips to the people who mix the ingredients for the bedding of Germany’s 830,000 miles of roads. 

It would be more cost-effective to shuttle rocks down from the moon.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Building biodegradable plastic is tricky, because a plastic container can’t fall apart until it’s no longer needed to contain its contents. E,g., you don’t want a plastic milk bottle to last 500 years, but it needs to last at least a month.

The claim here is that bottles know “when they are no longer needed.”

Sounds a bit far-fetched.

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