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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

When it was originally founded, the NRA’s purpose was to promote gun safety, not to foster the selling of weapons of war to individuals who may suffer from mental illness or have a history of violence.

It’s true that our children are scared of guns, but why?  Could it be that they’re constantly hearing about other little kids getting blown to bits by machine guns in the hands of psychopaths?

Hell, I’m scared of guns, and I don’t even have to participate in “active shooter drills.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In a recent post, Mourning Lots of Unvaccinated Texans, I wrote about the people who died from COVID-19 because they refused vaccinations: maybe taking (one’s) medical advice from Fox News wasn’t such a great idea after all.

But we live a country in which free enterprise is the law of the land.  Does Fox have the right to disseminate whatever disinformation it chooses, if by so doing it makes money? What does “free speech” mean as we find it in the First Amendment to our constitution?

Well, this “law of the land” is not absolute.  After all, Fox did have to shell out $778 million to Dominion Voting Systems following an agreement to settle the defamation case; Fox had repeatedly broadcasted what they knew for a fact to be false, that the plaintiff had rigged its election machines to “flip votes” from Trump to Biden.

Maybe the take-away is this: if you have no integrity and you’ll do whatever it takes to come out on top financially, roll the dice and take your chance.  It cost Fox close to a billion dollars.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

My hope is that this Cadillac Escalade (16 combined MPG) driver in Texas a) will stay close to home, thus protecting the rest of us from his ignorance, and b) that he’ll eventually have an experience that wipes that arrogant, smug smile off of his face.

He wouldn’t be the first.  Imagine the masses of proud anti-science, anti-vaxxers who “did their own research” and went into a hospital and ultimately died in agony, drowning in the their own blood and pus whose last thought was: maybe taking my medical advice from Fox News wasn’t such a great idea after all.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I like this, though I would submit that there are many different activities that can bring meaning to our lives.  Chief among these is leaving this world a better place than it was when we found it.

When my wife and I used to take our kids and their little friends to the beach, we made a big deal out of cleaning up all our trash, and then–drum roll please–one piece of someone else’s.  We called it the “ceremonial piece of litter.”  “Time to go home,” I’d say. “Who wants to be the hero of the day and pick up one extra piece of trash?”

Hands shot up.  I do!

Do any of these kids remember these moments, specifically, as adults?

Does it matter?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

What Voltaire wrote here seems completely true.

Moreover, “our times” are marked by existential threats: environmental collapse in general and climate change in particular, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the trend towards world fascism, as the United States teeters on the edge of losing its democracy.

At this point, perhaps it’s a good thing that our focus is on solving the problems that loom so close and pose such horrific threats.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

From National Public Radio:  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week signed legislation that erases most references to climate change (and global warming) from state law.

Florida remains the third most populous state in the union, behind California and Texas, but one wonders how long this can continue, given both its susceptibility to climate-related disaster and regressive politics.

I met a retired judge recently whose son lives in Florida.  The dad told me that he’d like to see his boy more frequently, but told him, “You can visit me out here in California, or we can meet in some neutral place, but I’m not stepping foot in Florida for any reason.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

To clarify:

The image at the top is largely correct.  As long as trees are alive, normally at least many decades, they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it as hydrocarbons that, upon their death, are rereleased as they are eaten, burned, or decomposed. In the case of lumber, these are socked away for long periods of time.   All this may not appear as a blessing until it’s understood that buying ourselves time enables our scientific community to develop solutions to the problems that confront us vis-à-vis the rising concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere.

The image at the bottom is simply mislabeled.  It’s not a “psychologic delusion.”  It’s a scam.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

One thing you can say for Trump supporters: they vote.  And there is no conceivable evidence that could change their minds as to who will make the best leader of our country.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

A reader sent me the meme here, and asked, “Why don’t pictures like this ever trend?”

There are two good answers:

1) Every scientifically literate person understands that the consumption of fossil fuels is making this planet increasingly uninhabitable, and more so with each passing year.

2) To say that you support “American oil on American soil” is only saying that you know nothing about the basics of the world oil markets.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If we can exit 2024 with a Democrat-controlled congress and White House, there is a chance we can remove this criminal from the Supreme Court.

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