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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The author of the meme here seems to be surprised by Trump’s brazen lie to the effect that the United States is once again respected on the world stage, where, of course, the precise opposite is true.

For the sake of our sanity, I urge people not to get too wrapped up in the crap that comes out of the president’s mouth.  His supporters, now dwindling in number, will believe anything he says, regardless of how absurd, so we need to learn to expect garbage like this.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

The implication here is that folks like the Amish who eschew technology like television are incapable of receiving and understanding climate science.

I would find that offensive if I were they.  They can’t read?  They can’t think?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I don’t know anything about this young lady other that she’s English-speaking, and that she has enough time to herself to spend some of it protesting our civilization’s disgusting disregard for the existential threat that climate change represents.

And because of that, I can say that the probability that she will “die of climate change” is actually quite small.

Sure, if she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, she could be swept away in a flood or torn to shreds in a tornado.  But well-off Americans, at least for the foreseeable lifetime of 20-something, are not going to die of starvation from desertification, dehydration, or some disease like dengue fever, carried by the proliferation of mosquitos.

They won’t drown as their homelands go underwater due to sea-level rise, nor will their sources of protein cease to exist because of ocean acidification.

Btw, the link above comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an American scientific institution headquartered in Atlanta that is slated to be wiped off the face of the Earth.  I advise anyone interested in learning more about the things like epidemiology to do so now, before Trump/Musk makes the pursuit of such knowledge impossible.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When Elon Musk said recently, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” he opened our eyes to a shocking element of who’s running the United States government at this time and the sick ethos that is currently the rule here.

The way most of us see it, teaching kids to be kind to each other, share toys, etc. has been good policy for a very long time.  By contrast, molding our children into little ass****s sounds like a deeply flawed approach.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The reason that Dan Rather can’t remember a worse time for the United States is simple: there has never been one.  Nowhere close.

Even worse, it’s likely that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In this video, we see a massive demonstration outside  the U.S. consulate in Greenland, featuring a banner that reads,”99.7% say NO!”

Are you telling me that only 3 out of 1000 Greenlanders want to see their country annexed by the United States?   How is that possible?

Well, for sure, government services like free healthcare and education will vanish.  And yes, their new leader will be a man hellbent on becoming the world’s most powerful dictator, who will, if necessary, attack them militarily.

Actually, now I think I understand.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In a recent post I mentioned that Denmark puts its schoolchildren through a course on empathy, where they’re taught that other people should be treated with kindness and decency.  At left we have another element of what kids in this region of the world learn at school: how to distinguish misinformation from truth.

The funny part of all this is that the Scandinavian countries need this the least.  Their entire culture is built around an ethos of community and fairness.

My request: bring some of this over here to the United States, where it actually is needed.  Desperately.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I had a conversation earlier today with a woman from Melbourne, Australia who lamented that her country recently ceased providing free education to all her country’s citizens.

“It’s a shame,” she said, “that we couldn’t have followed the developed countries around the world that make that investment. Most folks don’t want to live around ignorant people.  Also, an educated population does better in the workplace, and that lifts their nation’s place in the global competitive market.”

All of this is absolutely true.  So why is the United Stated systematically destroying its public education system, while it remains a million miles  away from offering its citizens free college?  Well, there are problems that educated people pose to the billionaire class, one of which is that they are capable of critical thinking, which means they can see how thoroughly they are screwed by unbridled capitalism.   Another is that they are unwilling to elect sociopathic criminals to lead them.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The video here has been around for several years, and provides a metaphorical look at the concept of privilege.

In this regard, we all have our own stories to tell.  Here’s mine:

I was adopted by two sane and productive white people who sacrificed greatly to put my brother and me through private school, college and grad school.  First and most obviously, because I was an unwanted pregnancy, I could have been aborted, and I’ll never know why I wasn’t.

But more to the point, I could have just as easily been adopted by people who simply didn’t value education, or honesty, or any of the other virtues that surrounded me as a child.

My aging mother knows that she’s not going to be around forever, and so our conversations tend to become more philosophical and personal as time passes.  Recently I brought up this topic, i.e., my profound luck, and she said, “Oh Craig, you would have shone in any circumstances.

I had to smile.  This is what mothers do.  They find reasons to stay behind their children in all cases, even where, in fact, there are no facts to support what they’re saying.  To mothers everywhere!

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The meme here presents a grossly stupid and unfair comparison.

A diet that consists of too much snack food hurts one person: you.

The beef industry, by contrast, exists by 1) destroying vast areas of rainforest that formerly was absorbing CO2 out of the atmosphere, and 2) murdering approximately 300 million cows per year (9.52 per second), most of which lived in inhumane conditions (factory farms), and all of which were capable of feeling pain and distress.

That causes agony that far transcends you and your life of Pepsi and Doritos.

 

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