A referendum on the California ballot in 2016 will provide voters the opportunity to express their rancor with respect to the dreaded Citizen’s United decision. In 2012, two other states—Colorado and Montana—ratified similar resolutions by overwhelming majorities.
My prediction: (more…)
We live in a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” and the chairman of a senate environmental panel introduced a snowball as evidence that climate change is a hoax. Frustrating, right? How much lower can we sink in terms of anti-intellectualism?
One thinks immediately, of course, about the nightly news broadcasts. But if we think that the US has a lock on news coverage that focuses on meaningless drivel, I urge you to check this out. I laughed so loud the people outside my office door must think I’m on some sort of drug.
Existentialism is the concept that we live in a universe that is indifferent to our happiness and general welfare, that we are free to make our own choices, and that we are, in fact, defined by the totality of those choices. Some say that’s a gloomy proposition because it implies that we must act in the complete absence of any leadership or guidelines, but I prefer to view it in the opposite fashion: wouldn’t you rather be the captain of your ship than one of the deck-hands?
In any case, I bring this up as it’s the 113th birthday of the 20th Century American poet e. e. cummings, (more…)
In the 1960s, when the tobacco industry learned that its product caused cancer and that millions of its customers would suffer agonizing deaths as a result of smoking cigarettes, its leaders conspired to suppress this finding, so as to protect their profit stream. Now we’re confronting another shocking truth: it was only a decade later that Big Oil (Exxon in particular) followed the identical path. In the late 1970s the company’s own scientists proved that the consumption of fossil fuels was rapidly warming the Earth’s atmosphere and irreparably altering its climate, but the firm, (now ExxonMobil) made a decision to hide this conclusion and work to discredit anyone whose research pointed in the direction of anthropogenic climate change. (more…)
Our intern, Fabio Porcu asks: I’m writing about batteries but it’s a very large topic. Do you prefer that I write about the physics behind it, or about the different technologies used today?
I think this should be broken down into several areas, about which you could write short posts: (more…)
Long-time reader Bill O’Hearn sent me two wonderful articles he wrote on corporate sustainability that I offer here and here. He makes some really good and unassailable points, namely, that the recent criminality in the private sector, especially the cases of Volkswagen and ExxonMobil, has put an enormous spear through the public trust in the subject of corporate sustainability efforts generally. (more…)
Outside of tourists, the most common thing you’ll see on the main drag in Santa Barbara (State St.) is protest marchers. In 2013, my wife, my daughter and I did our thing re: the KXL Pipeline.
A less common sight: pianos. Once a year, there are 15 – 20 upright pianos wheeled out for those willing to perform. I played the easy parts of Chopin’s Berceuse and one of his mazurkas at four or five of the instruments. Nobody threw tomatoes, so I count that as a success.
I hope readers will check this out, especially the video at the bottom of the page. Perhaps my favorite line: “Here’s a lady with problems. I promise to fix those problems if I’m elected president with the money I received from the special interests that caused those problems.”
These people really get it.
Glenn Hastings asks: My team pitches at the Cleantech Open in Denver next Wednesday. Maybe we can get some funding to get some help from 2GreenEnergy. Craig, have you heard any information on “billionsinchange.com” or Manoj Bhargava (pictured) other than what is on his web page?
No, sorry. But I have to say that I love the way the guy thinks. First of all, it’s hard not to like someone who’s investing 99% of his net worth into the development of ideas that alleviate suffering. (more…)
Publishing content on LinkedIn is a hot topic among social media hipsters; several friends have suggested that I experiment with this idea, and I intend to do so.
Here, my colleague Gary Tulie writes about his (much appreciated) participation in the creation of my most recent book. There is no question that Bullish on Renewable Energy wouldn’t have been possible without his help.
