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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized
Senior Energy Analyst Robert Rapier writes:
Starting tomorrow—November 1st—I’m declaring it “No Trump November” on my Facebook page. I need a break from the daily circus, so I don’t plan to mention him at all during the month. I’m cutting myself off cold turkey. No posts, no comments, no rants. Please don’t tempt me with articles, videos, or breaking news.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Robert:  That’s fine; I won’t post a link to this post on your FB page, the way I normally would.
I would point out, though, that in a way this plays into Trump’s hands.  The work of fine and intelligent people like you impedes his ability to inflict damage on our formerly great country.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Many of us have been interested in this subject since we were young: What actually is the proper role of government in our lives?

What Brandon Bradford says here is interesting, but very few Americans, even progressives, would agree with him.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business
When one gets to arguing about the greatest baseball players of all time, or, in this case, the greatest rock guitarist, people’s blood gets to roiling.  I’m willing to take that risk, and so here’s my assertion: it’s a three-way tie between Steve Howe of Yes, Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin, and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
I’m sure all three became unfathomably rich, but perhaps Gilmour has the best, most heart-warming, story to tell.
(Gilmour) earned so much money that he called it “obscene.” He once said he would wake up in the morning and write cheques to charity — just to make sense of the fortune he had. But one day, he decided to go even further. After selling his London home for £4.5 million, Gilmour gave all the proceeds to Crisis, a charity that supports the homeless. “I don’t need the money and I just thought it would be a good thing to do,” he said humbly.
In his quiet wisdom, Gilmour reflected on the simplicity he longed for: “You collect Ferraris and then you’ve got to collect buildings to house the Ferraris, and then you need more people to look after the people who are looking after things. Life gets very complicated. And eventually, at least in my case, you think, ‘I don’t need this stuff.’ And suddenly life gets simpler.”
I’m sure there are many different reasons to support those least able to support themselves, but simplifying one’s life sounds good to me.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Many of us boomers grew up in the 1960s and can remember to our astonishment that the reason we could pick up our phone and call someone in Paris was the transAtlantic cable. Speaking for myself, it blew my mind that the technology of the day enabled us to navigate a boat across an ocean and spool out 4000 miles of thick wire (with even thicker insulation around it) from the East Coast of the United States to the shores of Europe.

As if that weren’t enough, there are similar cables that went back to the age of telegraphy in the mid-19th Century.  On July 13, 1866 the cable laying ship Great Eastern sailed out of Valentia Island, Ireland and on July 27 landed at Heart’s Content in Newfoundland, completing the first lasting connection across the Atlantic. It was active until 1965.

I considered myself cool when I strung two cans connected by a string from my bedroom to my best friend’s in our neighbor’s house in 1961 or ’62.  See photo below.  My room: house on the left, second floor.

This may be a long way of saying that the graphic at left is total bulls***.  The distance is 2700 miles, and the idea of transmitting energy for no reason is stupid beyond words.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes:

 … a new presidential directive called NSPM-7 … may be the most sweeping attack on the First Amendment that I’ve seen in my 60 years in politics.

NSPM-7, which stands for the National Security Presidential Memorandum #7, defines a sweeping range of commonly held political beliefs as indicators of “domestic terrorism,” including “anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender,” and opposition to “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Unless you’re completely indifferent to the Constitution of the United States, this concept of “domestic terrorism” should scare the living hell out of you.

Our Founding Fathers would be appalled.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Few Americans respect the memory of Che Guevara, and the further they are to the right, the more that’s true.  Still, I believe (or at least hope) that most of us would agree with what he said at left.

It’s akin to what theologist Fulton Sheen said, circa 1925, “You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.”

Sadly, our society is headed in the precise opposite direction.

Workers in companies owned by billionaires are being replaced by AI and other forms of IT/automation.

The various parts of the U.S. federal government that formerly provided help for those who need it are being dismantled, and the proceeds distributed to wealthy Republican donors.

Environmental deregulation is causing toxic pollution and climate change, the effects of which disproportionately are hitting the poor.

Would be great to see all this reverse course.

 

 

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

What Malaysia is doing with respect to renewable energy (see left) is a reminder of two things:

1) This planet will eventually achieve a sustainable approach to energy and transportation.  The only open question is how much damage we will inflict in the process.

and

2) Big Oil can only hold on so long, before the scale of clean energy development makes solar, hydro, etc., so cheap that fossil fuels can no longer compete.

There is a white paper for sale online that purports to tell the reader “who will get hurt in oil/gas investment.” The obvious answer: anyone who owns stock in these companies when their price/share starts to spiral downward.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

At left is a piece by the late Gahan Wilson, whose work, which he produced for more than half a century, could be called morbidly funny.

I actually don’t think there will come a day when the world suddenly realizes that the world’s physicists were right and the climate deniers were wrong. The Earth is not going to self-ignite and burn like a marshmallow that’s fallen into a campfire.

As our planet slowly heats up, the incidence and severity of wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, heat-related deaths, and so forth will increase corresponding.

It’s probable that, long after I’ve left this planet, there will still be the Donald Trumps of the world who have no regard for truth, who are doing their best to convince the planet’s morons that the Earth is actually cooling and that our scientists are woke communists.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I get that this fellow is a conservative and has all manner of charming little platitudes to articulate his political point of view.

Look, sir.  The majority of Americans simply want to live like the citizens of the happiest countries on Earth.  These are the “social democracies” of Scandinavia, Europe, Iceland, Austria, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and many others.

Their people are productive, but they aren’t over-stressed, diseased, or scared of fascism.  They take care of one another–and their environment. They are led by sane and compassionate people, and they’re not fed utter crap by their government.

One other thing they’re not: irresponsible.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When you or I read what Joe Biden said last night (see left), we tend to think: “Of course. Our democracy is indeed in danger, and we need to fight to keep it from being usurped by Trump and his supporters.”

Unfortunately, when Trumpers read this, they have a very different reaction: “There they go again.  Those radical woke leftist extremists trying to make less of the work that the President has done in bringing down prices, and making America respected again by the rest of the world.”

I’ve had more productive conversations with my dogs.

 

 

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