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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Not sure what to make of someone who calls herself a “polyamorous tantric sex guru,” but she certainly has nailed it here, as we’ve often discussed.  The more severe conditions get on this planet as a result of its warming, the more pain will be felt by the people living on it.  But that pain will be distributed quite unevenly, and, in fact, unfairly, with the people who had no role in causing the suffering experiencing it the most.

What are we going to do with, perhaps one hundred million “climate refugees?”  Rich people don’t know, nor do they care, as long as law enforcement can keep them far, far away from them. Regardless of how horrific things get here, there will always be juicy steaks, fine cars, yachts the size of small cities, and sexy members of the opposite gender to enjoy.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

The post title above comes from this article, which is certainly interesting, though it seems to raise more questions than it answers.  It appears the Pontiff believes that God created evolution and Big Bang, but in a way that isn’t magic.  That doesn’t elucidate too much, for me at least.

In any case, taking theological steps like this one is going to become more important as time goes on, and the hard scientific evidence of cosmology and biology continues to grow stronger and harder to refute.  If theistic religion is to remain a part of human culture, concessions like these are going to be necessary.

Of course, one could ask: if God created the Big Bang, how different is this from saying the Big Bang simply happened in some way that humankind can never comprehend, and simply remove God from the equation altogether?

Questions like these are above my pay grade.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Texas governor Greg Abbott concocted a grossly erroneous explanation of his state’s energy debacle, blaming wind energy and the “Green New Deal” for the costly tragedy. When the audience at Fox News ate it up with a spoon, mainstream media which immediately handed him his head, as exemplified in this interview he foolishly signed up for with CNN’s Brianna Keilar. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s the start of an article in the blog “The Long Tail Pipe,” with a few of my comments beneath it.

A few days ago Royal Dutch Shell announced it was accelerating its strategy to drive down carbon emissions while continuing to deliver value to its shareholders. But, while the press release focuses mostly on carbon emissions, in the details you see Shell admitting its oil production peaked in 2019. That makes it likely there’s another factor at play, which is the inability for Shell to increase its business through increasing oil production, and therefore the company is forced to shift to renewable energy. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’ve long admired Bonhoeffer, and the punch of this short essay is one of the reasons why.

Trumpism as a 21st Century American phenomenon, however, is  only partially fueled by stupidity; strangely, there are some very intelligent Trump supporters.  And yes, as Bonhoeffer observes, reasoning with them is as futile as pushing a rope.

The former president has an amazing gift for filling people’s heads with utter crap.  He taps into the objects of his audience’s nightmares: what they hate, their fears, their passions, their misunderstanding about the world around them–and he uses that connection to implant ideas that have no basis in reality whatsoever, coupled with the absurd notion: “I alone can fix this.”

A great deal of his success is the stupidity of his followers, but it runs so much deeper than that.

A danger even more grave: this can happen again at any time.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As expressed at left, things may be looking up for the U.S.  Hate and ignorance at a national level have taken some sharp body blows.  Fox News ratings have crashed, an event insiders call a “self-inflicted wound,” referring to the channel’s doubling down on the stolen election myth, leaving many viewers shaking their heads and looking elsewhere for their information on current events.

Rule of law has been put back into place, respect for the United States from people around the world has largely been restored, and it appears that we’re looking at the beginning of the end of the pandemic.

This really could be an excellent year.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Geothermal

Hi Craig,

I think this news is exciting as finally geothermal power and heat can potentially be produced anywhere – with closed loop systems which do not need fracking or large volumes of water – and I would say no real risk of triggering earthquakes as there is no fracking to trigger movement.  True, for the moment, cost will probably be a little high, but that can change, and probably will if adopted at scale. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

We hear a great deal about the supposed liberal bias in American colleges and universities, yet whoever wrote the thoughts at the left here poses an interesting idea: suppose reality is closer aligned to what we think of today as left-wing values.

We need to keep in mind that a great deal of what we think of as political opinions really aren’t opinions at all.  They are hard, cold facts that either are understood or they are not.

Trickle-down economics doesn’t work, the death penalty does not deter violent crime, torture is an inferior method of extracting the truth, there is a positive correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths, vaccinations are generally safe and effective, there are few if any white supremacists who are well-read and well-traveled, human beings tend to be happy according to the degree to which their communities take care of one another, the evidence supporting human-caused global warming is overwhelming, policies that ignore scientific evidence generally fail, and there is no evidence of substantial voter fraud in the U.S. 2020 presidential election.

Yes, we’ve built a political spectrum out of these concepts, but in reality, these are just facts.

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The Latin “De mortuis nil nisi bene dicendum” translates into English as “Of the dead, let nothing but good be said,” and it’s a generally recognized social protocol.

But not so much when incendiary right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh passed away earlier today.

Here’s a clip from social media that puts it kindly: “If you don’t want people to speak ill of you when you die, then live decently.” Most, however, hold back very little, e.g., “Good riddance, you f***er! May God and the Devil tear your ugly corpse into shreds for eternity.”

Yowza.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Indeed, there is extreme polarization in the United States right now when it comes to all things political, yet we’re fortunate that the “Kindness Movement” is a significant part of the American ethos.

Of course, not everyone gets this, and Tim Boyd may be one of our nation’s best examples.  He’s the mayor of a small city called Colorado, Texas, about 150 miles west of Dallas, in a rural part of the state that has been so badly devastated by the cold snap and the resultant power outages. (more…)

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