I just upgraded so I could thank you and remark on the passing of one of the worst of the worst! And truly that is a class unto itself, but not in a vacuum, these people arise to do the most audaciously atrocious things because of the money involved. So, whether or not they are multinational corporate CEO's or Tin Horn dictators claiming to be socialists, it resolves around money and personal gain. This beautiful and precious Earth is doomed by our human nature being imprisoned by the worst of all incentives - fear and greed. No pass to Mr. Raymond; may he truly and fully be remembered and despised for all he helped wrought. Thank you that he must not be forgotten. More importantly, what are the lessons we can use to get beyond this history of wrong!
I believe our flaws are nurture, not nature. That is, we can change it. That is, not everyone would make the same choices. Our group read a book that lists another set of values, beliefs, Restoring the Kinship Worldview. This chart summarizes the differences between the indigenous worldviews and ours. https://kindredmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/Worldview-Chart-Starry-Sky-12-2021-FINAL.pdf
Hilarious that Michigan is considering banning Canadian owners of Chinese EV's from coming across the border. Whatever would Canadians investing in a just transition want from America??? We've got a vast country, with many relatively untouched places all along our number one highway........a highway already invested in many charge stations.
I'll be buying a red Chinese EV as soon as one gets here..........and I don't even use credit cards any longer........convinced as I am that most conveniences pay rent of one sort or another to the oligarch zombies intent on extincting this wild earth that I love.
One wonders if Lee Raymond admitted even to himself that he had done great damage to the world he was aging out of. Thank you, Bill, for calling out this red letter day with your usual trademark willingness to call a spade a spade.
This article hits home for me. My dad was on the board of a corporation in the 70s and 80s that had science confirming the cancer causing and environmentally persistent quality of an entire class of products, and he chose, along with his colleagues, to ignore and suppress that data.
Cult of money, cult of power, childhood trauma, who knows what makes these people so unable to comprehend the damage they do?
“You masters of war, I hope that you die, and your death will come soon, I’ll follow your casket on hot afternoon, I’ll see that you’re lowered into your deathbed, and I’ll stand over your grave until I’m sure that you’d dead.” B.D.
Bits of this culture war is still here in Houston. Part of it is that morality is ignored. My parents admired the rich and tried to be rich. How the rich got rich did not interest them. Part of the culture shift to the Industrial Revolution was adopting the belief that "God and morality are outmoded ideas" said Donella Meadows.
I do love Bill's talk last week about sufficiency is necessary for sustainability. I do love the our Texas candidate for Senate, Jame Talarico, preaches against the unChristian Christians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blph_2RSBno&t=26s
We've had solar panels since 2009.....put in more in 2017, bought a Kona Electric in 2019 and installed a heat pump last summer. The amazing thing about all this clean, green energy is how maintenance free it all is. Expensive to install, perhaps........but if we're as lucky with our heat pump as we've been with our car and solar electricity.........the maintenance free part of it all should be more celebrated.
Listening to the nay sayers while ditching the repair men for going on 20 years now has been an eye opener.....and now that our fossil gas furnace rarely goes on, I can't believe how much better the quality of our interior air has become.
Well, regarding doing everything, people can try and that also brings joy and makes life worth living.
What joy is there in knowing that if you do not do everything in your power, your kids will suffer the consequences?
I mean the atmosphere already contains an excess that will be plaguing us for over 100 years even if we stop now, according to MIT, so we simply can't add anymore, we are in enough trouble as it is.
So people need to stop as much as possible. I have 15 mature trees and my home looks like a forest oasis (which seems to annoy my neighbors) and even that is not enough. They are beautiful, BTW even if massive for the area.
Now, people can start as best they can with one thing at a time, but that does not mean stop trying just because you want to drive to the beach every weekend in an ICE vehicle and you cannot afford a car payment for an EV. One certainly should not be flying needlessly although I think family matters and work are necessary for some.
One can also compromise. How about skipping a week and/or renting an EV once a month that you can go crazy with and drive to your hearts content and head to the beach, etc?
It would be worth waiting for. It could even be a new family tradition.
For me, I set a 5 mile a week limit and I am at 6-7 so I am trying to figure out strategies to do better. With my current plan, I only have to fill up a couple of times a year. Next week it will have been 11 weeks and by then I may be at 1/2 tank in my small economy car. My plan was to reach 1/2 tank at 12-13 weeks making it about 26 weeks for a full tank, or 2 tanks of gas a year for 52 weeks. Yes, I would love an EV but I am on a tight budget. I am also a senior so, my hips are bad or I would do more on foot, as well.
To me, doing something in the face of a crisis brings relief and joy, not doing so would bring misery. Where is the joy in helpless indulgence? In the back of your mind one would have to know that it is not OK the whole time, and one can not truly be joyful with that nagging guilt.
I also have mentioned my solar and how my energy use in summer is very low. Most of my cost is now that darn monthly service fee they added this year in CA.
So, although my only meat is largely chicken and not even everyday, I decided to go tofu. I found a good lazy woman's way to eat tofu and that is to simply chop it up and add Italian dressing first in good quantity and then lots of tomatoes. It is a great cool delicious summer meal. I simply need to cut down on cheese. Cheese is my sin, I guess, and now that I have looked that up, and the carbon footprint for cheese, it needs to be cut back on.
A work in progress. Trying to do what is right brings joy, but no one is perfect. So keep trying.
I think when lithium-ion batteries are safe I will be on board with this. BUT until you tell me they are the safest choice, I can't help but think your preaching is empty air because these batteries are not safe. Look at Moss landing CA in Jan 17, 2025 and the ramifications this has caused to the environment since this transpired. Without the whole picture we are doomed.
I looked up the power bank batteries of the type people use at home (I happen to have EcoFlow that I got on sale at Walmart since at the time they offered in-store returns even though it was sent from EcoFlow) and could find zero issues or any complaints of fires anywhere online with the power bank batteries for at home solar, so solar panels a plus power bank seems like a good safe choice.
Batteries are now much safer than they used to be BTW.
When you hear about a fire at someone's home it seems like it was some old device that someone still had around, not the newer batteries, so do look it up to see for yourself about those.
I set them so they can't fully charge or overcharge or fully discharge as well.
Moss Landing may have been a failure with the system to keep that from happening, they are still investigating correct?
Lithium iron batteries are very safe. Lithium Nickel Cobalt batteries,used in Tesla products, are the ones you are reading about burning because they are susceptible to a thermal runaway reaction. Thank Elon for providing the fear of Lithium batteries.
You don't understand the chemistry of the batteries involved so your are only aware of the batteries used in cars. That type of battery is not very safe, I agree, and should be outlawed for use in houses. In fact, only Tesla uses it. Thank Elon. But of course if you park in a garage then your car could burn the building down.
Like so many in America, he feared not having enough. "Too much but never enough" is the title of the biography of Trump by his niece, Mary Trump. I was raised to accumulate all I could. To skrimp and save.
I just upgraded so I could thank you and remark on the passing of one of the worst of the worst! And truly that is a class unto itself, but not in a vacuum, these people arise to do the most audaciously atrocious things because of the money involved. So, whether or not they are multinational corporate CEO's or Tin Horn dictators claiming to be socialists, it resolves around money and personal gain. This beautiful and precious Earth is doomed by our human nature being imprisoned by the worst of all incentives - fear and greed. No pass to Mr. Raymond; may he truly and fully be remembered and despised for all he helped wrought. Thank you that he must not be forgotten. More importantly, what are the lessons we can use to get beyond this history of wrong!
I believe our flaws are nurture, not nature. That is, we can change it. That is, not everyone would make the same choices. Our group read a book that lists another set of values, beliefs, Restoring the Kinship Worldview. This chart summarizes the differences between the indigenous worldviews and ours. https://kindredmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/Worldview-Chart-Starry-Sky-12-2021-FINAL.pdf
Lee Raymond's denial of the role of fossil fuels in climate change gives planetary-scale meaning to "the love of money is the root of all evil".
Number one in the line-up of climate criminals? Including conspiracy to commit fraud on a massive scale.
Hilarious that Michigan is considering banning Canadian owners of Chinese EV's from coming across the border. Whatever would Canadians investing in a just transition want from America??? We've got a vast country, with many relatively untouched places all along our number one highway........a highway already invested in many charge stations.
I'll be buying a red Chinese EV as soon as one gets here..........and I don't even use credit cards any longer........convinced as I am that most conveniences pay rent of one sort or another to the oligarch zombies intent on extincting this wild earth that I love.
BOYCOTT, DIVEST AND SANCTION baby....BDS.
One wonders if Lee Raymond admitted even to himself that he had done great damage to the world he was aging out of. Thank you, Bill, for calling out this red letter day with your usual trademark willingness to call a spade a spade.
Thanks Bill — please keep on writing, it helps a lot to read your posts.
Nancy
Richmond VA
This article hits home for me. My dad was on the board of a corporation in the 70s and 80s that had science confirming the cancer causing and environmentally persistent quality of an entire class of products, and he chose, along with his colleagues, to ignore and suppress that data.
Cult of money, cult of power, childhood trauma, who knows what makes these people so unable to comprehend the damage they do?
“You masters of war, I hope that you die, and your death will come soon, I’ll follow your casket on hot afternoon, I’ll see that you’re lowered into your deathbed, and I’ll stand over your grave until I’m sure that you’d dead.” B.D.
The good news is that deniers have shrunk to only 10% of Americans says Yale's survey. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/segmenting-the-climate-change-alarmed-active-willing-and-i
Bits of this culture war is still here in Houston. Part of it is that morality is ignored. My parents admired the rich and tried to be rich. How the rich got rich did not interest them. Part of the culture shift to the Industrial Revolution was adopting the belief that "God and morality are outmoded ideas" said Donella Meadows.
I do love Bill's talk last week about sufficiency is necessary for sustainability. I do love the our Texas candidate for Senate, Jame Talarico, preaches against the unChristian Christians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blph_2RSBno&t=26s
Thank you SO much for your climate leadership and work,
One more thing: THANK YOU FOR HOPE🙏.
An Epistle to be Left on the Earth
There is little time.
Even the birds have left you.
Three billion missing
And you don’t know where they’ve gone.
There is little time.
But I would do one more thing
With or without you.
Find the hardest material
The Earth has ever known.
Send the Dwarf Kings back down
Into the depths
And bring me enough
To forge a testament
To what you are saying
While you still have a chance.
I would shape it
Into a form
as alien as I am
to this planet
Its surface will shimmer
With depths unfathomable
Place it high above seawater
Where it will stand
As testament
To your time as caretakers
Of this emerald and blue
Holy place.
Here the men of this world
Can script last words
Into its timeless surface.
“Climate Change is a hoax”
“The warming is the cost of progress”
“You’ll all have so much money you won’t know what to do with it”
“Mars is the next frontier”
These will be read
In fifty, one hundred,
One thousand years.
By those who come after.
Let’s give them something
to remember you by.
Robert T Perschel
from Numinosity
We've had solar panels since 2009.....put in more in 2017, bought a Kona Electric in 2019 and installed a heat pump last summer. The amazing thing about all this clean, green energy is how maintenance free it all is. Expensive to install, perhaps........but if we're as lucky with our heat pump as we've been with our car and solar electricity.........the maintenance free part of it all should be more celebrated.
Listening to the nay sayers while ditching the repair men for going on 20 years now has been an eye opener.....and now that our fossil gas furnace rarely goes on, I can't believe how much better the quality of our interior air has become.
REnewables are really a win-win-win.
Thank you for sharing so many excellent insights.
Just upgraded. Keep up the good work--we'll beat these bastards yet!
Thank you for putting his life and role in the evolution of energy politics in context. On the top oil influencers of our lifetime.
Well, regarding doing everything, people can try and that also brings joy and makes life worth living.
What joy is there in knowing that if you do not do everything in your power, your kids will suffer the consequences?
I mean the atmosphere already contains an excess that will be plaguing us for over 100 years even if we stop now, according to MIT, so we simply can't add anymore, we are in enough trouble as it is.
So people need to stop as much as possible. I have 15 mature trees and my home looks like a forest oasis (which seems to annoy my neighbors) and even that is not enough. They are beautiful, BTW even if massive for the area.
Now, people can start as best they can with one thing at a time, but that does not mean stop trying just because you want to drive to the beach every weekend in an ICE vehicle and you cannot afford a car payment for an EV. One certainly should not be flying needlessly although I think family matters and work are necessary for some.
One can also compromise. How about skipping a week and/or renting an EV once a month that you can go crazy with and drive to your hearts content and head to the beach, etc?
It would be worth waiting for. It could even be a new family tradition.
For me, I set a 5 mile a week limit and I am at 6-7 so I am trying to figure out strategies to do better. With my current plan, I only have to fill up a couple of times a year. Next week it will have been 11 weeks and by then I may be at 1/2 tank in my small economy car. My plan was to reach 1/2 tank at 12-13 weeks making it about 26 weeks for a full tank, or 2 tanks of gas a year for 52 weeks. Yes, I would love an EV but I am on a tight budget. I am also a senior so, my hips are bad or I would do more on foot, as well.
To me, doing something in the face of a crisis brings relief and joy, not doing so would bring misery. Where is the joy in helpless indulgence? In the back of your mind one would have to know that it is not OK the whole time, and one can not truly be joyful with that nagging guilt.
I also have mentioned my solar and how my energy use in summer is very low. Most of my cost is now that darn monthly service fee they added this year in CA.
So, although my only meat is largely chicken and not even everyday, I decided to go tofu. I found a good lazy woman's way to eat tofu and that is to simply chop it up and add Italian dressing first in good quantity and then lots of tomatoes. It is a great cool delicious summer meal. I simply need to cut down on cheese. Cheese is my sin, I guess, and now that I have looked that up, and the carbon footprint for cheese, it needs to be cut back on.
A work in progress. Trying to do what is right brings joy, but no one is perfect. So keep trying.
Thank you for keeping up all your good work to save us. I’m pleased you’re here on Substack with links to all the topics you discuss.
I think when lithium-ion batteries are safe I will be on board with this. BUT until you tell me they are the safest choice, I can't help but think your preaching is empty air because these batteries are not safe. Look at Moss landing CA in Jan 17, 2025 and the ramifications this has caused to the environment since this transpired. Without the whole picture we are doomed.
I looked up the power bank batteries of the type people use at home (I happen to have EcoFlow that I got on sale at Walmart since at the time they offered in-store returns even though it was sent from EcoFlow) and could find zero issues or any complaints of fires anywhere online with the power bank batteries for at home solar, so solar panels a plus power bank seems like a good safe choice.
Batteries are now much safer than they used to be BTW.
When you hear about a fire at someone's home it seems like it was some old device that someone still had around, not the newer batteries, so do look it up to see for yourself about those.
I set them so they can't fully charge or overcharge or fully discharge as well.
Moss Landing may have been a failure with the system to keep that from happening, they are still investigating correct?
Lithium iron batteries are very safe. Lithium Nickel Cobalt batteries,used in Tesla products, are the ones you are reading about burning because they are susceptible to a thermal runaway reaction. Thank Elon for providing the fear of Lithium batteries.
You don't understand the chemistry of the batteries involved so your are only aware of the batteries used in cars. That type of battery is not very safe, I agree, and should be outlawed for use in houses. In fact, only Tesla uses it. Thank Elon. But of course if you park in a garage then your car could burn the building down.
OOPS! We are doomed anyway, but be brave
Just had an electric car burn two houses down in or near Boston. Hmmm? Safe?
I wonder - did he manage to "take it with him"? If no - what's the point!
Like so many in America, he feared not having enough. "Too much but never enough" is the title of the biography of Trump by his niece, Mary Trump. I was raised to accumulate all I could. To skrimp and save.