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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s what Santa Monica (CA)-based environmentalist Zan Dubin wrote to the editor of the Los Angeles Times in response to an article on income and childbearing, which includes: “What largely remains overlooked, however, is the abject failure of America’s political elite to protect the country’s middle-class standard of living.”

Zan responds:
I was glad to see a prominent article giving voice to those who choose to be child-free.
However, falling birthrates were described as a negative trend because of economic concerns. Why not quote scientists or environmentalists who have different concerns or see the upside to this complex situation?
The title of this 2022 study in the journal Biological Conservation says it all: “Overpopulation is a major cause of biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are necessary to preserve what is left.”
In a March 2023 article in Scientific American, Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes approvingly quotes the Royal Society: “More people ‘has meant that ever more natural habitat is being used for agriculture, mining, industrial infrastructure and urban areas.’ ”
In a 2013 interview, David Attenborough said, “All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people, and harder — and ultimately impossible — to solve with ever more people.”
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

From this: Engine manufacturer Cummins must pay the second largest environmental penalty in United States history: a whopping $1.6 billion to settle claims that it outfitted hundreds of thousands of trucks with software to defeat pollution controls.

Plug-In America co-founder Paul Scott writes:  Jennifer Rumsey is the CEO of Cummins. She’s been a high level member of management for over a decade and was intimately involved in this scheme to defraud California regulators and presumedly those in other states. While I appreciate that her company has been fined $1.6 billion, it is also a fact that the consequences of her crime involve more human deaths from the added diesel pollution. Seems she should spend time in prison for that.

As I noted repeatedly during the (extremely similar) VW emissions scandal, corporate malfeasance, while it isn’t brand new, continues to escalate as time passes.

When I was working as a business consultant a few decades ago, principally to the Fortune 100 tech companies, no-one would have dreamed suggesting a conspiracy to defraud government regulators, cheat customers, and endanger the health of everyone on Earth.  If someone had actually done so, he would have been fired immediately and escorted off the premises by security.

Times have changed, to put it kindly.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Re: Trump, the Lincoln Project writes:

Let the math do the talking:

49% of Republicans in Iowa.

44% of Republicans in New Hampshire.

Roughly 40% of Republicans in South Carolina.

All of them voted against Trump.

The guy who’s “unstoppable.” The guy who’s basically running as an incumbent. Between 40-50% of Republican primary voters – the absolute, most motivated core of the party – do not want Donald Trump as their nominee.

It’s true that a huge swath of GOP voters would like to see another nominee. But what happens if they don’t?  These are people like my mom, traditional conservatives, who, bless their hearts, have the capacity to see that Trump is a criminal sociopath.

But how will this translate at the polls? How many will abstain?  How many will vote for Biden?

It’s anyone’s guess.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Much speculation has gone into pinning down exactly where American education fell off the rails.

We might infer that Aristotle would point to how our teachers are both underpaid and rendered impotent in establishing order in the classroom.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Who hasn’t driven next to a car whose driver has hip-hop music blasting into his (and your) ears?  Is it even remotely possible not to form a negative judgement about such a person?

The music one gravitates to is most definitely a reflection of that person’s character.

Perhaps that’s a segue to a piece on the tragedy of removing music from our schools.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When we think about the horrors that lie within Trump’s mind, this makes sense to most of us: Lying and cheating comes more naturally to him, and provides greater rewards, than any attempt at winning with intelligence and honesty.

Somehow, due to our faults as a society, we fell for it once, but it’s not going to happen twice.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When one looks at this apparently recent conversation in which Fox News interviews Donald Trump, it’s hard not to wonder what will ultimately become of the narrative of the stolen presidential election of 2020.

In the extremely unlikely event that Trump is re-elected in 2024, or in the almost certainty that he will be be defeated, there will remain tens of millions of Americans who believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden.

Are there tapes showing “people stuffing ballot boxes?”  No.  Does that have any bearing on the beliefs of Trump supporters?  Of course not.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Synthetic Fuel

I advise coming up to speed on high school math and science before making this investment.

Of course, these people prey upon ignorance, and there’s plenty of that to go around these days.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
The Association of Mature American Citizens is a movement committed to preserving the values that built this great nation. Joining AMAC is more than a membership; it’s a commitment to uphold the America we love. The time for action is now… For a five-year membership, it’s only $35 for a limited time.
Best guess as to what you get for your $35: you’ll be one of a few million other hateful idiots contributing to help Trump stay out of prison.
If that’s important to you, please go for it, but keep in mind the beneficiaries of your inheritance may not agree with your reasoning.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In the United States, the presidential election is decided by what is known as the electoral college, which is:

the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of voting for the president and vice president. Each state appoints electors under the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators) totaling 535 electors.

This has precisely one effect: providing voters in states with small populations a considerable advantage in terms of political power over those in states with large populations.  For example, in Wyoming, one electoral vote derives from each group of 193,000 citizens. In California, that number is 741,000, meaning that Wyoming voters are 3.8 times more powerful than Californians in determining the outcome of these elections.

What makes this important are the factors that go into making small states small and big states big.  What we see when we examine this is that big states tend to have higher levels of education, productivity, and affluence.  Thus, the electoral college skews U.S. voting in favor of the relatively uneducated, poor, and uninformed.

Does that sound like a good idea to anyone who honestly wants this nation governed and directed by intelligence? Shown in the chart below at the annual revenues, in billions of dollars, of the Golden States largest corporations.  There is a reason that Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. are headquartered in California and not in Wyoming; these decisions were not made by rolling dice or flipping coins.

There is a push to abolish the electoral college, and, needless to say, I support it.

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