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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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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Someone sent me this with the note: This should unite us. They purposely divide us to distract from their endless greed for greed’s sake.

I would like to think that humankind is catching on to the fact that Big Money is indifferent to the suffering it’s inflicting on the people of Earth.  Factually, I don’t know.

There remains the possibility that a cataclysmic event will give the environmental movement the critical mass it needs to go forward and demand solutions from the world’s governments and large private sector entities. Again, it’s uncertain.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

People sometimes ask why the transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources is taking so long.  Well, here’s a good example: Last month the governor of Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, signed a law banning state investments in businesses that cut their ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Similarly, throughout Trump’s entire term in office, the Department of Energy was working feverishly to protect the coal industry from falling into obsolescence, as the costs of operating coal-fired power plants had risen to a point that, without governmental support, they would have been shuttered.

Corruption is the standard mode of business in American lawmaking, and as long as that remains true, we can expect very slow progress in our attempts to prevent this planet from baking.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The world’s religions have many divisions among them.  Even among monotheists: Christians, Jews, and Muslims, there exists a wide range of belief systems.

Yet, bottom line, some of these sects’ positions are more tenable than others, as illustrated at left.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Truly sickening.

Of all the boycott-worthy stores in the United States, these people are probably at the very top of the list.

There are two separate distasteful elements to this:

It’s hateful.  Ironically, the notion that a non-Christian is unqualified to lead the American people is actually anti-Christian.

It’s unAmerican.  The Founding Fathers were quite explicit in their statements the new nation was not rooted in religion.

Just when you thought you had seen it all.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Note the difference in incarceration between Sweden and the U.S.  Possible underlying causes include:

Where the United States was constructed on the backs of slaves, Sweden’s involvement with slavery was both short-lived and shallow.  They don’t have a large and desperate underclass.

Like the entire rest of the developed world, Sweden offers free healthcare and education to all citizens.  They don’t like the idea of masses of ignorant people wandering unproductively through their lives, while others die of treatable conditions because they can’t afford to seek medical attention.

They rank #7 in world happiness (vs. the U.S. at #18).

It could be that a society that takes better care of its people winds up with fewer of them behind bars.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From this in “The Week,” rated as politically neutral:

A new deep dive into the 2020 electorate by Pew Research contains mostly bad news for Republicans, whose approaching demographic doom is less racial than it is generational. While it shouldn’t be news to anyone at this point that young voters are a solidly blue voting bloc, the more worrisome developments for the GOP are the unexpectedly elderly nature of the party’s coalition and the unyielding Democratic lean of younger voters as they age. If Pew’s numbers are to be believed, the only solidly Republican age demographic last year was 75 and over, meaning that every time the sun comes up, the GOP’s struggle to win a majority of American voters gets harder. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
Someone sent me this, along with this note: At least one-third of the nearly 700 Republicans who’ve filed to run for House or Senate next year have embraced Trump’s election lies. 
This should come as a surprise to no one.  As long as their voters embrace the lies, they have no choice than to do the same.  Of course, that’s not completely true; they could embrace honesty and personal integrity, but obviously, that’s asking far too much.
Deep inside, these people must hate themselves with a passion.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

It’s amazing that both the homeowner and the architect thought that a design, built as it is around stubbing toes, was a solid idea.

This is the advice I give people who want to build energy generation systems centered around technologies that are, at this point, totally impractical.  You can do it, but why?

I still see business plans for hydrokinetics, biomass, small wind, microbial fuel cells, solar thermal, or any of a dozen other concepts.  Many of these made sense 15 years ago, before the plummeting price of solar PV and wind, but by now, the winners have won and the losers have lost.

Life’s tough enough without embracing the ill-conceived.

 

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