Former GOP U.S. representative Joe Walsh is not timid about his deep antipathy for the party he left in disgust.
That’s all well and good, but is it “worse than you think?” I’m not sure how that’s possible.
The author of this article has gone to an enormous amount of effort to look through thousands of different midterm elections at the state and local level, and examine the impact that each one has with respect to climate change.
This may sound like an exercise in pedantry; after all, how much impact does some county government have on the CO2 levels in our Earth’s atmosphere?
Well, keep in mind things like:
Achieving supermajorities that can overturn vetoes from right-wing governors
State utility regulatory commissions
Building codes that aim at net-zero carbon targets
Decommissioning coal-fired power plants
New spending on public transit
Incentives for EVs
Restoring forests, grasslands, and wetlands
In all , this is a fascinating piece of reporting.
In fact, this nation has great reason to fear Christian nationalism. The word “Christian,” of course, has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ, and thus “Christian nationalism” should more properly be called “white male nationalism.”
There are several different problems associated with Christian nationalism, or whatever one wants to call it:
Racism and Sexism. This is the assertion of white male superiority and the systemic subjugation of non-whites, as well as Jews, Muslims, women, LGBTQs, etc.
Lawlessness and Violence. As we’re seeing in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, an entire party really couldn’t care less about the truth, and the lower end of these folks live for things like armed insurrection, thus the real possibility of a second Civil War.
Rejection of Science. Dealing with things like pandemics and environmental degradation becomes quite difficult in the presence of hateful morons.
The problem here is that, when it comes to the word “entitlement,” there is a difference between its denotation, i.e., the definition found in a dictionary, and a common connotation as it’s used in the United States. It literally means things to which people are entitled, e.g., a worker’s paycheck at the end of the work week. If Sheila cuts my hair, she is entitled to the fee posted on the wall of her salon. Similarly, people who paid into Social Security are entitled to its benefits, and thus the monthly payments that seniors receive are, by definition, entitlements.
An issue arises when people use the word to mean government programs that are not connected with the actual exchange with the citizenry. It’s common to say things like “We need to cut entitlements, such as free food and housing for the poor.”
Needless to say, politicians take full advantage of the equivocation, the use of a word with two different meanings.
Senior energy analyst Glenn Doty once told me that he believes the concept of “Mother Earth” is actually damaging at this point in our environmental decay, insofar as it implies a higher power that serves to limit the damage that humankind is inflicting on the planet.
He has an excellent point here, one that is heightened by adding religion into the mix. We have congresspeople who deny climate science on the basis of a line from the Book of Genesis: Only God can destroy the Earth.
That’s problematic, putting it kindly.
Sequestering carbon dioxide, aka carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is an important topic in today’s world of climate change mitigation.
Here’s an article, submitted by 2GreenEnergy supporter Cameron Atwood, that promotes the concept of pumping CO2 into rock formations and allowing the gas to be transformed into solids (carbonates) that are more likely to “stay put” than simply pumping the gas itself underground and hoping it doesn’t leak to the surface.
Incidentally, this is a phenomenon that occurs naturally in our ocean biomes, where high concentrations of CO2 enable shellfish to flourish. Upon the death of these animals, their carbon-rich shells sink to the bottom, where they are sequestered for hundreds of millions of years, as they are subducted under tectonic plates. Talk about “staying put.”
People who believe the legitimacy of this video don’t understand Newton’s laws of motion.
I’m reminded of a grade school science teacher who points out to her students that Superman’s flying through the air would require him to be continuously farting, an image of great humorous appeal to 12-year-old boys.
The meme here made me smile, and provided a heartening reminder that fossil fuels really are on their last legs.
Here’s another piece on capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air (DAC).
As I’ve said, I find this subject impossible to take seriously; it’s even harder to conceive than carbon capture and sequestration CCS, for several reasons:
The apparatus that performs CCS can be located at point sources of CO2, e.g., concrete manufacturing facilities and fossil fuel-fired power plants that spit out >40% CO2 (vs. 0.04% for DAC).
DAC faces the challenge of moving vast volumes of air through its devices. If one considers the lower troposphere to be the five miles of atmosphere above the Earth’s surface, we’re talking about 961 million cubic miles of air.
Where CCS requires very little external energy, I can’t imagine how to power fans to process that volume of gas.
The whole enterprise is a scam, as far as I’m concerned.
From the Washington Post:
