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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The possibility that someone, through a grand act of philanthropy, could completely obliterate a terrible condition on this planet only recently arose, simply because of the exponential growth in the net worth of the world’s richest people.

Jeff Besoz, the wealthiest person in human history, is currently worth $211 billion, and, as suggested in the meme, could focus his life and fortune on something like ending world hunger. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I was just about to write a post to express my revulsion with Toyota for two things:

a) its support of the “Sedition Caucus,” the members of the House of Representatives who, after the January 6th riots were brought to a halt, voted to stop counting Electoral College votes in the hopes of overturning the 2020 presidential election, and

b) its failure to embrace the clean transportation movement when I came across the masterpiece linked above by my colleague Rinaldo Brutoco, CEO of the Santa Barbara-based World Business Academy.

He explains this at least as well as I could.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I wish I knew who wrote the words we see here, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

This is what the United States experienced from 2016 – 2020, and, to an extent, continues to suffer under.

Most of us understand this, but sadly, many others don’t.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Indeed.  As Robespierre put it, “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

But how to get there from here?  In the United States, we have essentially a two-party system, one of which has spent the last four years aggressively destroying public schools. One might suspect that’s because it knows that educated people are not going to accept various pieces of fiction that are part of its platform, like the stolen election and climate denial.
Sadly, this lands us in a position where “future Donald Trumps” are a real possibility.
Worse, Trump himself hasn’t yet “left the building.”  He’s reviled by most Americans (and virtually everyone outside the U.S.), but his core base is desperate to see him return to power.  As suggested above, the average educational level of people is appallingly low, but that’s where we are.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

From SolarPowerWorld:

A bill committing electricity providers to deliver 100% clean power to Oregon customers by 2040 passed both the House and Senate of the Oregon State Legislative Assembly on Saturday. If the policy is signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon will become the eighth state in the United States with a legislative commitment to 100% clean or renewable electricity, joining Hawaii, California, Washington, New Mexico, New York, Maine and Virginia. With this act, Oregon will also boast the fastest timeline in the country to reach this goal. The bill’s passage follows years of advocacy from a broad coalition of stakeholders and organizations, including Environment Oregon, for a clean and renewable future for Oregon. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From this:

Newly leaked video footage of a recent event hosted by the right-wing group Patriot Voices shows Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas openly admitting that his party wants “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done” as President Joe Biden, a bipartisan group of senators, and congressional Democrats work to pass climate and infrastructure legislation. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Here’s one of those kitchen appliances that turns table scraps into compost.

Anyone who thinks there is a net environmental benefit to plugging in a heating element and running it for 4 – 20 hours is a moron.

Here are the specs of a similar product that requires 500 Watts.

No bueno.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

What you’re saying here is not incorrect, but keep in mind that the reason this works is that we live in a land inhabited by some seriously ignorant people.

Climate denial is a team effort, where “success” requires both components.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I thought readers would find this interesting. (More legible version below)

Two emotions that hit me hard:

Sonder (#1).  This strikes me as the pinnacle of morality.  We live our lives thinking of ourselves as the stars of our own movies, but sonder, if we’re able to experience it, enables us to look at our fellows in a far richer way.  It is, for instance, what drives the urgency of dealing mercifully with the people at the southern border.

Ellipsism (#13).  It’s highly unlikely that I’ll live to see how/if humankind ultimately handles things like climate change and the threat of world fascism, and that pains me, though maybe it’s for the best. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Re: the meme here, senior energy analyst Glenn Doty writes:  I feel this to the core. “There is simply no possible way to become that ignorant except deliberately and maliciously.” This is the response to the people who suggest that I am wrong in assigning intent to the actions of republican supporters.

The first philosophy course I took in college was called “Reason in Practice.” It makes the point that because human beings choose their ends, unlike, e.g., lions, failure to apply reason is a vice. It’s wrong to call a lion “vicious” when they maul  a person because it acts out of instinct–but this doesn’t apply to people.

Case in point: Nazi Adolph Eichmann, who was, according to Wikipedia, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust—the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” in Nazi terminology. He was tasked with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. He was captured 15 years later and subsequently found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicized trial in Jerusalem.

His defense was tantamount to “I wasn’t applying reason.”  That didn’t work; he was executed by hanging.

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