As the days tick by, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that Trump will be removed from office via any other means than losing the November election and leaving accordingly.  I base this on three-plus years of lies and criminality, which haven’t even perturbed congressional Republicans, let alone driven them to put a spear through his presidency.

Given all this, let’s all observe the point made in the meme here.  I’ve voted for Green Party candidates in the past, but not when there’s so much on the line.

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Reader Ankur Gupta asks, “What is the biggest bottleneck in the energy sector that prevents green energy from becoming a dependable source at mass scale?”

Good question.  It’s that the fossil fuel companies receive enormous subsidies, making their products artificially cheap. The largest two components are: (more…)

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In 1987, it became clear that CFCs were ripping a giant hole in our planet’s ozone layer, so the countries of Earth eliminated their use. Now, 33 years later, we have the announcement that the hole, a circle whose radius is about 450 miles, has fully repaired itself.  One may have guessed that this was caused by the ongoing reduction in pollution due to COVID-19 lockdown; rather it was because of the polar vortex – high-altitude currents bringing cold air to the polar regions.
May this serve as a reminder that, in many circumstances, the Earth can heal itself if given the opportunity.

 

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According to this article in Bloomberg: Solar and onshore wind power are now the cheapest new sources of electricity in at least two-thirds of the world’s population, further threatening the two fossil-fuel stalwarts — coal and natural gas.

Currently running at $44 a megawatt-hour, electricity from onshore wind projects has fallen 9% since last summer, and the levelized cost of energy in solar projects declined 4% to $50 a megawatt-hour.

(more…)

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Bette Midler has been a force of reason and compassion over the many decades she’s been on the music and film scene, but the Trump phenomenon has really brought her to the fore as a vocal critic of American society.

She’s certainly not alone in her belief that we Americans have received precisely what we deserved, and, for many of us, this is the most maddening aspect of the whole thing: we’ve realized for the first time the true character of 40+% of our electorate, and it’s not an easy thing to realize.

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What a loathsome human being.

If I were the receptionist I would have called security and had him removed as quickly and forcibly as possible.

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At a certain point in his life, (American musician/composer) Leonard Bernstein said, and I paraphrase, “I never wanted a life like (Italian conductor of classical music, noted for interpretations of Beethoven, Arturo) Toscanini, constantly relearning the same 50 pieces of music.”

About 30 years later, (master of rock guitar improvisation) Frank Zappa said this (starts at 13:25 in the interview), i.e., performing note-for-note guitar solos is not much different than punching a timeclock. (more…)

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This comes under the heading: “No reason it can’t be done, but no reason to do it.”

Are there boaters who don’t like deck space?  Other people?

 

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Here’s a piece that was published a couple of days ago in the Irish Times, discussing the principal emotion that those living elsewhere experience when they think about the U.S.   

Until the pandemic came along, I was a part-time Uber driver; I used Uber as a constructive and enjoyable way to take perhaps two or three breaks per day from all the reading and writing I do. Instead of making myself a sandwich and gaining another half-pound, I get to meet cool people from all over the world.  Insofar as this is a wine-tasting destination, it’s rife with tourists, who tend to be friendly, sophisticated, and quite easy to engage in conversation. (more…)

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Michael Moore at the Cannes Film Festival, 2019

Here’s something I just wrote to a friend who praised Michael Moore’s new documentary, Planet of the Humans.

As the author of four books on renewable energy (and 9000+ blog posts on cleantech more generally), let me weigh in. The film is a patchwork of cherry-picked half-truths and ideas that are deliberately misstated or taken out of context. If this were 2012, a lot of this (but not all) would be true, but, again, at this point it’s almost entirely garbage. (more…)

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