Heavy rains have caused flash floods in large parts of fire-ravaged Australia, but they’re the answer to many people’s prayers nonetheless.
Climate change isn’t a pretty thing, but when relief comes from one of its disasters (what would formerly have been called “natural disasters”), the celebrants aren’t limited to people, at least from the looks of the pic here.
Iceland is an admirable land, and there is certainly a reason to smile at this announcement, but I would let the free market decide on matters where no real injury is born, except to those willing to choose it. (more…)
From the “Good News Network“:
David Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, recently wrote an editorial in the Financial Times in which he laid out the premise behind a $750 billion plan for a decade of investing, financing, and advisory activity that will exclusively cover nine climate-critical areas such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and carbon reductions. (more…)
People have been talking about building roads out of solar panels since long before I developed an interest in renewable energy. (more…)
Anyone who’s tried his hand at the written word and has reread something he wrote last year, or, Gold help him, 30 years ago, has had a feeling of vague self-contempt. As exacting as we try to be with our language, we’re inevitably sickened at our inability to choose our words with the precision that hindsight and a bit more practice will later afford us. Yet this doesn’t stop us from criticizing others, does it? (more…)
While American liberals and conservatives have never agreed on much, it’s hard to imagine that anyone expected anything like what we have here today in U.S. politics, i.e., government run by criminals. I didn’t think too much of people like George H.W. Bush or his predecessor Ronald Reagan, but please don’t try to tell me that they would have stooped to this.
The Dalai Lama says, “My religion is kindness.”
It’s easy to forget that people who are treated kindly tend to treat others in a similar fashion, and that the way we treat others has an effect that ripples through hundreds of others.
It’s hard to imagine a sustainable civilization that doesn’t have some level of compassion for others at its core. This may be the precise problem we face in the world right now, with our insatiable appetite for war, our thirst for the cruel treatment of immigrants, and our indifference to others’ suffering more generally.
With everything we’re reading about the impeachment trial, there doesn’t seem to be a resolution on the fact that top Republicans have sworn to be both impartial and not impartial, i.e., totally committed to acquitting the defendant before the trial begins and the evidence introduced.
At the same time, no one seems anxious to address the minor detail that bushels of new evidence damning to the defendant’s case are coming forth on virtually a daily base. Isn’t it customary to gather the evidence before the trial.
Germany continues to impress the world with its bold adventures into sustainable energy and transportation. Their decision to get rid of both coal and nuclear means lots of natural gas, and a huge commitment to renewable energy, which, given the variable nature of solar and wind makes it hard to integrate into the grid mix at extremely larger percentages.
Fortunately, trains do no put a terrible strain on the grid; trains can move a ton of freight over 470 miles on a single gallon of fuel, or its equivalent in electrical energy, which is about 35 kilowatt-hours.
girl running across a small creek followed by friend
When Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was determined to roll back regulations that would keep America’s waterways free of toxic industrial pollution, they faced a dilemma. Could they get away with simply lifting a ban on known poisons? Sure, Trump supporters will be thrilled to see another relic of the Obama-era demolished, but won’t everybody else go through the roof? (more…)
