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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The meme here expresses exactly what more and more Republicans are realizing to their horror.

It was never about “America first”; it was about the well-being of one man, who’s now walking through a land of disgrace, on his way to what lies on the other side: criminal prosecution and incarceration.

FWIW, I was hoping that all this would happen over a very short period of time, in a brilliant epiphany, like the luminous explosion of a star.  As it turns out, it’s happening over a period of years.

But better late than never.  This disgusting phase of American history will soon be behind us.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Lots of gratifying and actually amusing things in the news, none the least of which is the utter mess Elon Musk is making of Twitter.

I have to say that essentially everything I’ve predicted about Musk has been wrong.  Make a commercial success out of carrying cargo into space?  Can’t happen.

In fact, it was the success of SpaceX that led me to say I’d never bet against the man again.

So paying $44 billion for Twitter didn’t seem like something that would set the news cycle on fire–until it did.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I’ve been wondering why discussion about politics have gotten so toxic, so unapproachable.  Doesn’t it seem that, even while Trump was president, civil people could have some sort of peaceful conversation about him?  Why is everyone so tense about this now?

My current theory:

Until very recently, most Americans were in one of two polar opposite places:  progressive or pro-Trump.  Now, in a period of just a few months, the “pro-Trump” crowd has fractured into dozens of different pieces: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

These people claim to have a workable solution in small wind, on the basis that its unique design gets around the problems that the industry has traditionally encountered.

The main challenge in small wind, and the reason that the entire enterprise has all but completely disappeared over the last 5 – 10 years, is that, because it generates very little electricity, the devices themselves have to be cheap, and cheap stuff breaks down rapidly in real-world conditions.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

As a message on Veterans’ Day, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, apparently standing by his Peace Train, writes: I always stood for the elimination of conflict and wars, and any of those causes that ignite them.

This is perhaps the most compelling reason to address climate change, i.e., because the growing scarcities of resources, including food, potable water, and inhabitable land, will make conflicts fiercer and more numerous.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in Brazil and various aspects of the 2022 midterms here in the U.S. stand out as bright spots in terms of dealing with the trend to fascism/nationalism around the world.

On a related matter, it’s gratifying that the people involved in overturning the dreadful U.S. Supreme Court decision Citizens United, which empowers corporations to commandeer our elections, have not given up.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

It’s no secret that the American business community and the government entities that support it distrusts the Chinese when it comes to things like IP theft.

I’m not saying that this is unwarranted, but it’s certainly regrettable.  That’s because it stands in the way of cooperation, and lack of cooperation means lack of synergy, thus impeding progress in various technological disciplines.  Now, if by “technological disciplines” we were referring exclusive to 5G or Big Data, I’m not sure most people would care.

The problem is that this impasse includes the decarbonization of energy and transportation.  The COP 27 meeting in Egypt shines a spotlight on precisely why this is so catastrophic.  Midway through the conference we find ourselves facing a reprise of so many earlier events, in which everyone paying attention despairs that the 200+ sovereign countries on this planet continue to a) point fingers at one another or b) make promises they have no intention of keeping.

The gentleman I interviewed for a chapter on climate change in my first book, Renewable Energy–Facts and Fantasies, Veerabhadran Ramanathan said, “We had to stay at COP 15 an extra day, because not one of us was able to write down a single declarative statement in the English language that stated what we had accomplished in the previous two weeks.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability
“Love is wise – Hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital, to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
— Bertrand Russell, BBC Interview on Face to Face (1959)
I’m not sure Lord Russell would be too impressed with what’s happened recently in many parts of the world, but I suspect he’d be especially peeved with the UK (with its anti-immigrant sentiment that formed the underpinnings of Brexit) and the United States (with Trumpism).
The latter is one of the most shockingly disgusting setback events in the recent history of the developed world, especially since insofar it has unleashed a pandemic of hate and ignorance, the course of which is going to be very difficult to reverse.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The cartoon here would be a lot funnier if it didn’t so accurately depict the behavior of our global corporations.

Whether it’s plastics, fossil fuels, fast food nearly devoid of nutrition, exorbitantly expensive drugs, products with planned obsolescence, weapons of war, or tobacco, the people at the top are (at best) indifferent to our well-being.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I’m still struggling to understand how half the nation voted for terrorism, gutting Social Security and Medicare, and banning abortion.

We’re a very coarse bunch of people at this point.  We’re closer to Iran or Syria than we are to the America of a decade ago.

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