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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Some people say that nonstop growth in consumption lies at the root of a healthy civilization.

If this were a planet of infinite size with resources that could never be depleted, there might be some merit to this claim.  As it is, however, humankind must find a way to keep society afloat without the mindless drumbeat of extraction, transportation, processing, manufacturing, distribution, sales, consumption, and waste disposal.

The so-called “Library of Things” is a fabulous idea in this regard.  The average cordless drill is used nine minutes from the time it leaves the shelf at the hardware store until it finds its way to the landfill. It doesn’t have to be that way.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

My wife and I were discussing my recent post: Eisenhower on War the other day, and she asked, “Eisenhower was a Republican. Did he really say that? It seems so progressive.” I explained that the platform of the Republican Party in 1956 was to the left of where the Democratic Party is today, and that, IMO, Eisenhower was the last decent Republican.

Another example of this movement to the right is shown below.  Again, we have people who care about the world around them, and environmental responsibility in particular, labeled as extremists. How extreme is it really?

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This sounds good, until you realize that we live in a world with white supremacists, COVID disinformation spreaders, climate deniers, war mongers, insurrectionists, oil company lobbyists, and a very long list of others whose doctrines must be refuted.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

There were a few short periods of time in history when it appeared that humankind might avoid the fate of never-ending war. The years that followed both the world wars of the 20th Century are probably good examples.

At this point, however, war has become the paradigm by which international tensions are resolved, whether or not they are driven by religious fanaticism.  With climate change bringing on increased scarcity of our natural resources, this can only be expected to rivet itself into place.

As Dwight Eisenhower noted, however, war comes at a cost that is far higher than simply the physical casualties.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The image here has a peculiar quality to it, does it?  It’s one of these things in our lives that suggests there can be two or more equally valid ways of looking at the world.

Some people say this applies to politics; in fact, there is a saying that the left wing and the right wing are parts of the same bird.

Personally, I don’t see it.  The current political platforms of the right and the left in the United States are quite different, but they’re certainly not both equally valid.  One wants what’s best for rich white people in the short-term, and the other wants what’s best for everyone in the long-term.

Hard to see the equivalence there.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

What makes this scene with Trump such a mess is that his supporters honestly believe that he was in the process of making America great again.  Next to the survey at left, we see: Joe Biden is trampling on President Trump’s legacy, and it’s up to us to defend it!

Fortunately, the majority of U.S. voters say: we’re goddamn lucky that someone is trampling on Trump’s legacy, because it’s one of reckless endangerment of American lives and of the environment, and, most of all, overt criminality.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

From the New York Times:

The exchange unfolded during a phone call on December 27 in which Mr. Trump pressed the acting attorney general at the time, Jeffrey A. Rosen, and his deputy, Richard P. Donoghue, on voter fraud claims that the department had disproved. Mr. Donoghue warned that the department had no power to change the outcome of the election. Mr. Trump replied that he did not expect that, according to notes Mr. Donoghue took memorializing the conversation. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

As shown at left, the rapidly increasing volume of climate-related disasters, the horrors of the pandemic, and America’s recent brush with authoritarianism have us thinking in new, frightening ways.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

How does one respond to a congregation of worshippers being told that the Delta variant is a hoax and that those who choose to come to church in masks will be ejected from the building?  This doesn’t bode well for our society’s dealing with the pandemic, does it?

If you watch this lunatic in action, you’ll get a feel for the pure animal hatred he has for those who comply with science.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Forty years after Reagan and the advent of “trickle-down” economics, it’s widely recognized that the theory was an abject failure.

Of course, it didn’t fail the rich, whose already-huge piece of the pie has ballooned since 1980, an outcome that was probably well understood at the time: give us 40 years to pillage the nation, loot the Treasury, and dismantle the federal government; we’ll re-evaluate this later.

But importantly, trickle-down economics failed the country, whose working class suffered wage stagnation and a failing public school system, resulting in the election of a criminal conman in 2016, and set the nation back decades.

Can this be turned around?  Historians aren’t bullish; they say that imbalances like this are very hard to rectify.  Once the body politic loses power, it’s tough to get it back. We’ll see.

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