If You Don’t Laugh, You Might Cry
Have to admire this guy’s sense of humor.
We can’t give up, but enjoying an occasional laugh about the situation may actually be a good idea.
Tagged with: laugh about the situation
NPR: Trump Administration Halts Work on an Almost-finished Wind Farm
According to NPR:
The Trump administration has ordered companies to stop construction of a wind farm that’s being built off the coast of Rhode Island.
The acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Matthew Giacona, wrote in a letter to one of the developers, a Danish firm called Ørsted, that the government was halting work on the almost-finished project in order to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.” The project is also being developed by Global Infrastructure Partners.
The order to stop work on the Revolution Wind project is the latest move by the Trump administration targeting the country’s renewable energy industry. President Trump, a longtime critic of the wind industry, in January issued a moratorium on new development of offshore wind projects. The Internal Revenue Service recently put out new guidance that makes it harder for companies building wind and solar projects to qualify for federal tax incentives. And the Commerce Department is investigating whether imports of wind turbines and their components threaten national security.
How much damage is Trump and his administration inflicting on our planet’s efforts to prevent environmental collapse? It’s worth noting that the United States accounts for 12.6% of the world’s greenhouse emissions, and many countries around the globe are making great progress, even as the U.S. pursues its “drill baby drill” policy and actively destroys the efforts made by previous administrations to decarbonize the energy and transportation industries.
Environmental protection is just one of the many humanitarian causes being devastated by Trump. If, for some reason, the idea of a roasting planet doesn’t concern you, think about our educational system, healthcare, the military in cities governed by Democrats, pedophilia, and the end of American democracy.
Why We Are Wrecking Our Only Home
Re: the words at left, it depends on whom you ask. In fact, the only reason we’re destroying our planet is that there are plenty of people whose main interest is the profit associated with doing so.
Tagged with: Wrecking Our Only Home
Even the Great John Cleese Had a Limited Shelf Life
In his heyday, John Cleese and his sardonic wit had great appeal, not only with the Brits, but even with Americans. It’s unclear how all this would play in today’s dumbed-down U.S. society.
The Loss of Our Nation’s Honor Is Devastating to Some, But Certainly Not All
Watching one’s country disintegrate is most certainly painful–if you’re an honest intellectual like David Brooks.
The problem arises when we realize that, for every David Brooks, there are several hateful morons, and perhaps a few amoral rich Trump donors who are thrilled to have a corrupt president who will lower their taxes.
Tagged with: Loss of Our Nation's Honor
Is Ocean Current Energy Commercially Viable? Let’s Apply Some Logic Here
Please take a moment and think about the graphic at left.
If I showed you a six-year-old tuna whose heart had been beating continually since it was hatched, would you conclude that the energy in a live tuna heart is “commercially viable?” I hope not.
Tagged with: ocean current energy
“Knowledge of Immeasurable Value that Belongs to All of Us”
Counter-factualism is a huge part of life in the United States right now. That can mean re-writing the history that is (or was) on display in the Smithsonian Museum, climate change denialism, or the rejection of vaccine science.
Most of us thought that would begin and end with the QAnon morons, but when Trump strengthened the movement and bolstered the MAGA crowd, we knew we had real trouble on our hands.
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Let’s Not Forget: There Are Two Varieties of Trump Supporters
The words at left come from American musician Jack White.
I would say that he’s mostly correct, though he omits an important fact: Where most Trump supporters are intellectually deficient, a significant number are simply morally defective and would happily trade in American democracy and a planetary environment that supports life for a few more million dollars.
Biodegradable Plastic
I just met a very bright young chemical engineer who’s working on plastic containers that biodegrade at the optimum rate.
Obviously, you can’t store milk in a bottle that disintegrates in a few days; it needs to last, say, at least a month. The problem is that our current solutions will still be in a landfill hundreds of years from now.
Tagged with: biodegradable plastic
Purging U.S. History
Of all the distasteful elements of American life today, perhaps the whitewashing of U.S. history is the most offensive.
In all honesty, our reporting on the subject was never good. Unless you read Howard Zinn in school, which some students did, it would have been impossible for you to piece together how brutally non-whites have been treated over the centuries.
Now, of course, the whole situation has gotten far worse than it ever was before.
Tagged with: Purging U.S. History
