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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I dispute both parts of the meme here.

Many people have said that reading the bible tends to turn people into liberal atheists, as rational people reject the idea of a cruel and vindictive God, and conclude that acceptance of His word requires us to suspend our capacity to think.

Further, though I admit that learned people tend to be liberals, there are plenty of folks across the educational spectrum who honestly care about the well-being of those around them.

The science surrounding this subject suggests that the liberal/conservative dichotomy lies in the way our brains are “wired,” and this does appear to explain at least in part why most people do not make radical changes to their political philosophies as they make their way through their lives.

But even if we accept this assertion that our brains are, in fact, wired a certain way, the question remains: how did they become so?  What part of this is genetics? Heredity?  Some notion of “basic personality” that transcends both genetics and heredity?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I just ran into a Norwegian couple here in the U.S. on vacation.  As previously mentioned, I like to compliment Scandinavians on their standing near the top of the World Happiness Rankings, and then ask them to explain how they got there.

These folks gave the usual answers: free healthcare and education, and a feeling of community.  But they went on to add something I hadn’t heard previously: safety.

No one endangered.  Because the rich aren’t super-rich and the poor aren’t dirt poor, there is very little crime, no gated communities, and a bare minimum of security.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It would be good if we could find one single arena in which Donald Trump is taking this country that isn’t identical to what we saw in Europe during the 1930s, or what we see in the fascist states that dot the globe today.

Deporting or otherwise punishing dissidents is a great example.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I was always eager to accept invitations to chaperone my kids’ class trips to various parks around California, and especially Yosemite with it’s unequalled grandeur.

Perhaps I’ll get the same opportunity when my grandchildren come of age, but that seems unlikely at this point, given Trump’s cuts to budgets that are used to manage the huge flow of visitors without ruining the natural environment.

From the article linked above, subtitled California’s beloved national park is on the brink of disaster:

Yosemite National Park is in trouble. Hamstrung by President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze, hundreds of rescinded job offers and the threat of coming layoffs, the park is poised to enter its busiest months of the year severely short-staffed. Not only that, but the park’s day-use reservation system — created to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience by reducing crowding — appears unlikely to return this year.

Worst of it all, say current and former National Park Service employees, nonprofit leaders and other Yosemite experts interviewed by SFGATE, is that decades of efforts to protect the park’s ecosystems for future generations are being derailed.
On lovely summer days, as many as 20,000 visitors show up to the park. “Catastrophic” is the word former Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher used to describe the looming staffing situation to SFGATE.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

I’d like to believe that the words at left speak the truth, but I don’t have any hard evidence of that. Trump supporters are watching their hero amassing more power with each passing day.

Yes, most of what he’s doing is illegal, not to mention profoundly immoral, but it’s hard to imagine that this is of any real concern.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The “word of the day” today is “pejorism,” the belief that the world is becoming worse.

If a survey were taken of all literate people on Earth, I’d bet that a good 80% would identify as pejorists, primarily on the basis of the trend away from democracy and toward fascism.  Yes, we have climate change and other forms of environmental collapse, but this, I believe, is outranked by what could be called “Trumpism.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I can’t vouch for the truth of the claim made at left.  In any case, Danish kids don’t need to learn about empathy in their schools, because the entire ethos in Northern Europe is all about treating other human beings with respect and compassion.

When I come across Scandinavians in my travels, I often ask them why their region of the world consistently scores at the very top of the World Happiness Rankings.  Their response:

The common person pays taxes that are similar, in some case lower than their American counterparts.  Extremely rich people pay significantly higher taxes, so if being a billionaire is the only thing that makes you happy, you’re probably going to wind up somewhere else, probably Switzerland.

The point, though, is that our nation ensures that no one a) dies of a treatable disease, b) is denied higher education because it’s unaffordable, or c) is forced into homelessness.  I know this is a completely foreign concept to Americans, but honestly caring about one another is a big deal over here.

Another point worth making: These well-educated Danes don’t elect criminal sociopaths.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

If you’re interested in explaining to someone that a “water-powered car” is theoretically impossible, you might want to start with the idea that water is the product of combusting hydrogen with oxygen or the use of hydrogen in a fuel-cell.  You can’t use the product of a reaction to power the next reaction.

Think about this for a second.  When you build a fire in your fireplace, can you simply use the ashes from a previous fire as fuel, do you need new, unburned logs that still contain the chemical energy necessary to heat your room?

In my quest to find solid renewable energy business plans, I come across this crap constantly.  When I explain (briefly) that the idea violates the laws of physics, specifically the first and second laws of thermodynamics, the guy on the other end of the phone often asks, “Well, wouldn’t you like to see our prototype?”

My response: Sorry, no.  What you’re saying has no more credibility than a claim that you can change stones into sweet potatoes or cats into dogs. 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

My brother and I are typical Boomers, given that our father fought in the Second World War, and we came along in the 1950s.

Also typical of our day, we were taught that one of the unique aspects to being a citizen of the United States was the freedom of expression we all enjoyed under the First Amendment of the Constitution.  When I asked Dad for an example of what that meant, he replied that you could say, “The president is a fink,” or print that in a newspaper, and no one could touch you.  Similarly, you can’t be punished for a crime unless you have been convicted of that crime in a court of law; this is part of our Fifth Amendment.

As plane-loads of people now imprisoned in Guatemala have learned, none of this matters any longer.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Hydrokinetics

Most of what these people claim about their wave energy generation machine may be correct. The part about “low cost,” however, is dead wrong, which is why the world has given up on this and all other forms of hydrokinetics, except the hobbyists who are focusing on niche applications.

Yes, there are a few places on Earth where competitive energy concepts are extremely unwieldy and expensive.  Suppose, for instance, that for some reason you want to live on a small island in northwestern Scotland, with no grid connection, poor solar irradiance, no room for wind, and bad conditions for shipping in diesel.

See castle in the Hebrides below.  As a piece of real estate, this is about as “niche” as it gets, and, if it’s your cup of tea, wave may be your boy.

Interestingly, wave energy itself comes in many different flavors.  I would bet that the land-mounted device shown here offers a more cost-effective approach, certainly easier to maintain, and to tie to the castle’s electrical system.

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