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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It seems just like yesterday that the MAGA crowd was infuriated that government was “taking away their freedoms” by forcing them to wear masks.

Now they’re ecstatic that 12-year-old girls who get abortions following rape or incest, or due to nonviable pregnancies, can be prosecuted for murder.

No one expects these people to be particularly bright or kind, but this type of inconsistency is hard to accept.  We need to acknowledge the truth: They don’t want small government; they want to refashion government such that it’s as hostile as possible to the rights of everyone but white males.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized
From this piece: The Depressing Final Act of Eric Clapton: Bigotry and ignorance, in the age of the internet, have a way of catching up with you. And Clapton’s racism and conspiracy theories can no longer be ignored.
A friend writes:  This sad sack of fertilizer left some great songs on a slimy trail, in the process showed us his greed and racism, once it bubbled up to haunt him after COVID shut down his money machine…..  Then, Van Morrison followed him into the pit.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s gratifying that there are still operational school boards, even in the moral hellhole states in the American south, that are still concerned about what’s best for the kids.

I would no more educate my children in the public schools of Florida or Texas than I would sell them into slavery, but it’s good to know that there are still many decent people remaining there.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Want stronger laws?

Fine by me, but what Thomas did was clearly illegal.  He should be removed from the court.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

My guess is that dairy is on its way out.  All the positive PR and advertising (“Got Milk?”) in the universe cannot mitigate the fact that milk products are not conducive to human health.  In addition to the carbs and calories, there are certain mysteries that are reason for concern, e.g., Why are we the only species of animal that consumes the milk of another species?

Also, insofar as beef and dairy are responsible for 14% of all our carbon emissions, the whole cow-thing needs to get left behind.

As we make this transition, if dairy farmers want to generate clean energy, I hope they’ll do it in more effective ways than tiny, isolated bits of solar PV and small wind shown here.  As long as we have cows, there is no reason that they can’t graze under wind turbines that are hundreds of times larger than these.

Since the area of a circle is proportionate to the square of the radius, doubling the radius quadruples the area, and thus the power of the turbine.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles
Here’s a blurb on the interview I conducted with Johanna Wald from the Natural Resources Defense Council for my first book, Renewable Energy–Facts and Fantasies.   Her job was (she’s since retired) to use the court system to force public and private entities to conform to laws that are in place to protect the people and the planet we call home; sounds like a great career to me.
Here we are, 12 years later, and the NRDC is still hard at work on our behalf.  They write:
Neither rain, nor sleet, nor climate catastrophe will stop the Trump-appointed leader of the U.S. Postal Service from trying to buy dirty, polluting delivery trucks.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s an excellent point about the “sanctity of life,” not that it’s news.

We live in a country that uses the death penalty, and, as the woman here notes, we have no problem with our own citizens dying of treatable diseases, including our war veterans, simply because they can’t afford health insurance.

Around the world, nine million children under the age of five die each year of malnutrition, a problem that could be solved with a few billion dollars, far less than 1% of the defense budget, or about 2% of Elon Musk’s net worth.

When it comes to saving lives, we really couldn’t care less.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I understand this guy is vigorously promoting his new book, and that he’s looking for soft, palatable suggestions to fix what’s wrong with U.S. politics.  But give me a break.  His solution is to “pass the baton” to younger people?

Shouldn’t we be more concerned with these people’s morals than their age?  Speaking for myself, I’ll take a Bernie Sanders over some young white supremacist insurrectionist Trump supporter who wants to ban abortion and destroy the environment for profit.

We have real problems, like an entire political party that is trying to overthrow the United States government.  These people need to be charged, convicted, and incarcerated, thus ensuring this country doesn’t become the next banana republic.

This is a mealy-mouthed solution akin to handing out lollipops.

I’m not sure I was ever a Gergen fan, but this seems like a bad joke.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Those not familiar with the One America News Network (OAN) should think of it as Fox News on steroids.  Take someone with the most outrageous, easily debunked far-right-wing claims about Trump, the “stolen election,” critical race theory, wokeism, Biden’s “senility,” you name it, put a camera in front of him, and you have OAN.

What makes this even more pathetic, not to mention cowardly, is that as soon as legal action is taken against them, e.g., a defamation law suit by two election workers, they back down and admit the truth.

OAN helped push that groundless claim of voter fraud for months, but on a May 9, 2022 broadcast, they stated that that there had been no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

What type of person watches garbage like this?  Aren’t they ashamed of themselves?

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This from Pastor John Pavlovitz: If there’s a hell, it will be for professed Christians who pretended to care about “life” while making this place a living hell for so much of it.

I disagree, and I have to say that I’m surprised to hear this from him.  I think there is something profoundly wrong, morally, with those who believe in everlasting punishment, inflicted for behavior, regardless of how heinous, in one lifetime. (more…)

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