Home › Blog › Page 735

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Those looking for a hopeful, upbeat prediction on our civilization’s capacity to head off climate change will want to skip this article, in which Tariq Fancy (pictured), BlackRock’s former chief investment officer for sustainable investing, says that ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance, aka sustainable) strategies are causing more harm that good re: climate change.  That’s because:

• Most of them are essentially greenwashing.  They fail miserably at getting anywhere near the environmentally therapeutic results they promise, and those responsible for assembling and marketing them are rarely if ever held accountable.

and

• They provide the false promise that the private sector can start to look at long-term returns at the expense of the short-term.  He calls the products of the booming sustainable investing industry “dangerous placebos.”

All this is exacerbated by the shrinking size of government and its regulatory powers.

It’s reminiscent of the quote, which, paraphrased, is: The most dangerous belief about our environmental woes is that somebody else will fix them.  

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Excellent.  A few comments:

You say you don’t teach liberal political values, but in a way you do.  Not that there is anything wrong about this, but empathy and humility actually are liberal values.  The tenets of moral philosophy, like the universality of human rights, utilitarianism, our senses of duty and obligation, and the categorical imperative, again, are liberal values. What conservatives want to conserve, i.e., American exceptionalism and white dominance, run contrary to the ideals mentioned above.

You note: “Reality itself skews left,” more commonly stated as “Reality has a liberal bias,” a very interesting notion.  When you think about it, it was conservatives who posited things that were manifestly untrue: Obama was born in Kenya, climate change is a Chinese hoax, trickle down economics is a valid theory, Hillary Clinton was running a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizzeria (that had no basement), and dangerous or ineffective drugs, as well as cleaning products are viable ways of treating COVID-19.  In that sense, reality most certainly has a liberal bias.

Yet there is another sense in which this is true as well, and it’s derived but studying anthropology and animal biology more generally.  It is from these scientific disciplines that we learn that individuals in successful species are far more cooperative with one another than they are competitive, i.e., they find ways to build sustainable ecosystems.  Unsuccessful species fail to put plans in place such that future generations can thrive.  Sadly, it looks like that’s were Homo sapiens is headed.

 

 

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The meme here came from a reader, but it’s content is completely untrue.  Largely due to the antivaccination movement, the human population is suffering though a resurgence of pertussis (whooping cough), mumps, measles and perhaps smallpox.

The Internet provides numerous benefits, including the sharing of solid information and staying connected with others.  Sadly, it also forms a place from which disinformation can be promulgated.

To their credit, the large social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are doing what they can to remove false information, but this can never be a perfect science.  Moreover, alternative sites like Parler are set up specifically for the purpose of sharing this garbage.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

As if it doesn’t go without saying, an electrician’s or real estate broker’s “doing his research” on virology is a farce.  The very idea is simply an example of how far we’ve fallen as a society.

Do those untrained in science in Japan or France who spend a few hours watching videos from questionable sources somehow decide that they know more than the scientists working in this discipline?  No.

After having voted for Obama twice and then, after imbibing a steady diet of Fox News for a year or two, a friend of my wife voted for Trump in 2016.  When my wife asked her about this, her response: “Oh, I’ve done my research.” Omg.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

A reader, apparently a QAnon-style conspiracy theorist, sent me the meme here.  Yes, there are people who think that the governments of the 206 sovereign nations are conspiring to kill a significant percentage of the world’s population.

Overpopulation isn’t a myth, but the problem with it isn’t the availability of land. Though food and potable water are issues in some places, the biggest challenge is the ever-growing demand for energy, both for transportation and for everything else in our lives.

 

 

Tagged with: , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s an article that predicts the completion of a number of high-speed railroad connections in Europe by the year 2045.  I don’t see it, because:

France’s TGV, initiated 40 years ago,  already offers services that extend to Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Conventional TGV services operate up to 320 km/h (200 mph, and can hit as much as 350 mph).  Does anyone need to travel faster than that on a fairy small continent?

I’ve never been impressed by people who make predictions that extend 25 years into the future, projecting the completion of projects that aren’t even in the planning stages.  No specific technologies are agreed to.  HyperLoop?  MagLev?

In the words of Benjamin Braddock’s father in The Graduate, “This whole thing sounds pretty half-baked.”

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Those interested in the tumultuous days at the close of the Trump presidency will enjoy this piece in The New Yorker.

It provides insight into how close the United States came to use of its military, domestically or internationally, so as to keep Trump in power.  It also answers some questions as to the legitimacy of  the actions of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in those closing days.

Nothing remotely similar to this has ever happened in the course of U.S. history, and God willing, it will never happen again.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s yet another EV whose manufacturers (falsely) claim to run exclusively on solar energy.

The math goes like this: depending on where on Earth you live, you’re receiving about 1000 Watts per square meter while the sun is close to its zenith.  If the efficiency of solar is 25%, that means you’re generating, ignoring efficiency losses, 250 Watts per square meter.   This array looks like it could be 2 meters by 5 meters = 10 square meters, so we have 2500 Watts or 3.35 horsepower.  The average American car puts out 180 – 200 hp.  There are ebikes that put out 3.35 horsepower.

If you want to charge a battery, the math goes like this: In California, we get 0.6 KWhrs per day per 100 Watt solar panel, which is 0.52 square meters. They have roughly 20 times that, so they’ll get 12 KWhrs per day.  It’s fair to say that an EV of this size will require 2 KWhrs per mile.  That means, for each day of charging, you’re getting 6 miles of range.

To call this “dismal” is to be kind.

 

 

Tagged with: ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From this:

Kevin McCarthy was allegedly the subject of foul-mouthed rants by former US president Donald Trump, who claimed that the Republican House leader “pretended” to be his friend, a new book says.

Mr Trump, according to an account from Peril, a book soon to be released by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward and his Washington Post colleague Robert Costa, flipped after Mr. McCarthy condemned the 6 January riot. (more…)

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

From the article linked below:

Environmentalists found a glaring omission when they reviewed the latest plan from House Democrats for raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to fund the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package: There’s no repeal of domestic tax breaks and other subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. Climate activists say such a repeal is crucial for keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground.

Does the failure to repeal subsidies for Big Oil really come as a shock to anyone?

There is a good reason for this.  There is a name for U.S. representatives who vote against the interests of the fossil fuel industry.  They are called “ex-representatives.”

Tagged with: , , , ,