You said that politics is politics, and environmentalists don’t always get their way. That is both wrong and an understatement. Politics is now rigged by SCOTUS decisions that have greatly increased the power of giant greedy oil corporations and their lobbying organizations such as the Western States Petroleum Association. And, at the same time, the political power of the people has been greatly reduced along with any chances of adequate science based energy policies.
But we have a chance to pass an “end run” around Citizens United, in California with AB83. And Minnesota just passed it and it was signed into law last week!!!
AB83 will block partially foreign owned corporations and their lobbying organizations from polluting our elections with their unlimited money. Because these corporations are partially foreign owned they won’t be able to spend a penny in our elections! And because foreign election influence is illegal, and percentages of foreign ownership has already been established by the FEC, these corporations can’t challenge this new regulation in court and win!
Learn more, and sign your organizations on to this campaign at moneyoutvotersin.org And start making calls to California’s Appropriations Committee members, to get AB83 of the Suspense File, and back to moving through committees! We can regain the power advantage of We the People and our science based solutions to climate catastrophe!!! Also help on at movetoamend.org and sign on your organization at movetoamend.org/organizations Together we can save democracy in time to save our planet! ♥️♥️♥️
Empathy is the soul of democracy, citizens caring for others to expand freedom and fairness for all. Conservatism, which includes racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, union busting, etc., doesn’t govern with empathy. You could have used the word “conservatives” in place of “racist,” according to cognitive scientist George Lakoff. “Zoning has often been a way for racists to make sure that no one builds in their neighborhoods.” Thank you for all you do!
The question of permitting is a case in point for demonstrating the limitations of government as a social architecture for agency by human beings in changing our energy choices based on new learning climate science is learning about how the laws of nature operate to shape the habitats on earth.
Permitting is reactionary. Some enterprising visionaries decide they can make money putting up a new power generating installation, and the government arbitrates objections to allow the project to go forward, or not.
This leaves market forces in charge of redesigning and reconstructing our global energy economy. Piecemeal. Opportunistically. Contentiously.
Hence, the need for governmental permitting.
But climate science is teaching us that energy extraction from hydrocarbons is diminishing the habitats on earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing, and demanding that we stop extracting energy from hydrocarbons in order to stop diminishing the habitats on earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing.
What climate science does not say, because, in fairness, that is not within its remit, is that in order to stop extracting energy from hydrocarbons, we first have to replace hydrocarbons with new energy technologies. Globally. Right away.
Humanity stands today, relative to preserving human-friendly habitats on earth, in the same place the United States stood relative to space flight in 1960, when JFK committed the Nation to the Mission of putting a human being on the Moon, and bringing them back to earth, safely, by the end of the decade.
At the time, in 1960, the technology for doing that did not exist, and nobody really know how the US was going to achieve that mission.
Nine years later, Neil Armstrong, Mission Commander of the Apollo 11 Spaceflight took his historic "One small step for a man. One giant leap for Mankind."
We learned another thing in 1969 that we did not know in 1960. The step Neil Armstrong took was not the leap into the New Frontier of Space Exploration and Colonization that we were expecting it would be. It was a leap into a New Reality, that we have the earth, and it is well and truly ours. Also, it is what we have. We have to take care of it.
Part of taking care of the earth, we are leaning in the 21st Century, includes preserving the habitats o earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing, which requires rapidly redesigning and reconstruction our global energy economy to replace hydrocarbons with new energy technologies.
We don't really know right now what these new technologies will be. We need to figure that out.
This figuring cannot be done at the level of the nation-state. Their boundaries are too small.
This is a job for all of humanity, acting together, as earthlings living together on one shared earth.
We need a global equivalent of NASA to organize and underwrite this redesign. But there is no global government that can create that agency and tax the world to pay for it.
We need to find another way to get the money that is aligned with the mission of stewarding the earth towards a good future for all humanity.
That money already exists. We just have to set it free to do its proper job, properly.
Your last point about the importance of forests and big, mature trees is well taken. Unfortunately, population growth inevitably leads to taking down those big mature trees, and the Census Bureau projects the US will grow by 75 million over the next 40 years, which is nearly equivalent to four New York States. A lot of forests will come down to accommodate that growth, 90 percent of which will be from immigration.
Lest anyone think of countering with the notion that the projected immigrants will have to go somewhere, the US is the only country that we Americans have control of, and given the urgency of global warming, we should be doing all we can to stabilize our population, or even reduce it.
Furthermore, we are the major industrialized with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, and thus the worst place on the planet to put more people. GH emissions of immigrants to the US, who come mainly from third world countries, rise threefold after arrival.
Yes, the GOP is in denial about global warming. But the Left is in denial about immigration's impact on global warming.
Here is my suggestion for everyone who reads this, their friends, their family and anyone who REALLY, HONESTLY wants to DO unto others as they would have them DO onto you: Stop using your water heater. I live in Vermont. I have resided here for 26 years. As anybody with a passing knowledge of geography and climate knows, it gets kinda cold here for most of the year, every year. The "stay warm" greeting often used by the locals in Vermont is experience based. In August of 2017 the electric water heater in my manufactured home failed. I did not replace it. I have lived without a water heater for six years. Yes, I do heat some water manually (four gallons is all you need if you use the cold water for getting wet and some of the rinsing), but I am certain I have saved quite a bit in nega-watts. In the summer you just need to fill four (or as many water gallon jars you think you will need) with tap water and leave them out on the deck for a while. Even in the dead of winter, just filling the gallon plasic bottles and leaving them on top of the washing machine for several hours will get you a temperature you can handle, so you don't have to heat the water on the stove (if, of course, you aren't a "modern" overly pampered ninny). If I can do it at nearly 80 years of age, you can do it. I don't want an attaboy or a pat on the back. I want YOU TO STOP USING YOUR WATER HEATER! I want to make USING LESS a thing. It is NOT about water heaters; it is about LESS IS BETTER, get it? The rich hate that healthy, reality based, frugal, principled, caring attitude. That's all the more reason to DO IT! As Bill says, the issue before us is using LESS energy, not more.
In the name of Jesus Christ, STOP USING A WATER HEATER! God won't Damn you for using a water heater, but He will Damn you for selfish behavior that hurts other people and all kinds of animals. And even if you don't think God is going to judge you, it is irrational for we poor and middle class to wait for the "modern" greedballs ruining our country (from BOTH mainstream political bought an paid for "parties") to take appropriate action. We will see Hell on Earth sooner than later if we leave it up to our "leaders". And yeah, those who insist on a carbon footprint ABOVE what is reasonable ("REASONABLE" = heating and coolling NO MORE than 500 square feet per occupant!) should be heavily taxed for it, unless they are below a certain income threshhold.
It is ALSO time to RETIRE the ridiculously wasteful, zoning nazi forced on Americans, LAWN requirement, though I'm not going to hold my breath expecting that this irrational love affair with the "killing fields" lawn around the "castle", handed down from history, will become the laughing stock that it deserves to be. Grow FOOD, not inedible, poisonous chemicals laden, grass! You and all the critters that frequent your yard will be healthier and live longer.
The above "home and landscape" design stopped being rational about three centuries ago.
Bill, I'm not an important environmentalist like you, but I have done my best to warn people of all that is going wrong with the environment, and given my two cents worth (often) on what we are supposed to do about that. That said, my concern is mainly for the spiritual condition of people, as I view the "modern" modus vivendi of too many out there as the path to perdition after this life, in addition to being representative of the pernicious worldview that is directly responsible for motivating unprincipled behavior. This wanton behavior is causing the severe degradation of the biosphere that we all depend on in this life. Back in 2015 I gave Vermont State Government Officials my advice on Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). They did exactly nothing with it. So it goes.
This is 8 years old, but even more valid in 2023 than it was in 2015:
AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)
SNIPPET:
In regard to private land and grounds in front of government buildings, why doesn't Vermont outlaw all local ordinances that require having a sterile, chemically polluted lawn that requires a lawn mower spewing totally unregulated emissions?
Is this a throw back from the European castle tradition of having a low cut "killing field" in front of the castle? It's time to get rid of that pretty lawn, Vermont. If you don't want to force somebody to do it, at least put a carbon tax on lawns and overrule all local ordinances that require them.
There are a lot of yards in Vermont that can join the fight to have a viable biosphere if the lawmakers would just recognize the importance of having pollution free yards in this battle. It's time to outlaw those signs on lawns that say, 'do not walk on lawn due to chemical treatment". We don't need that pollution and it isn't doing wonders for future generations either. Let the lawn care industry switch to organic yard gardening products.
Read more of my quixotic comment and get in someone's face about using too much energy:
Good day
You said that politics is politics, and environmentalists don’t always get their way. That is both wrong and an understatement. Politics is now rigged by SCOTUS decisions that have greatly increased the power of giant greedy oil corporations and their lobbying organizations such as the Western States Petroleum Association. And, at the same time, the political power of the people has been greatly reduced along with any chances of adequate science based energy policies.
But we have a chance to pass an “end run” around Citizens United, in California with AB83. And Minnesota just passed it and it was signed into law last week!!!
AB83 will block partially foreign owned corporations and their lobbying organizations from polluting our elections with their unlimited money. Because these corporations are partially foreign owned they won’t be able to spend a penny in our elections! And because foreign election influence is illegal, and percentages of foreign ownership has already been established by the FEC, these corporations can’t challenge this new regulation in court and win!
Learn more, and sign your organizations on to this campaign at moneyoutvotersin.org And start making calls to California’s Appropriations Committee members, to get AB83 of the Suspense File, and back to moving through committees! We can regain the power advantage of We the People and our science based solutions to climate catastrophe!!! Also help on at movetoamend.org and sign on your organization at movetoamend.org/organizations Together we can save democracy in time to save our planet! ♥️♥️♥️
Empathy is the soul of democracy, citizens caring for others to expand freedom and fairness for all. Conservatism, which includes racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, union busting, etc., doesn’t govern with empathy. You could have used the word “conservatives” in place of “racist,” according to cognitive scientist George Lakoff. “Zoning has often been a way for racists to make sure that no one builds in their neighborhoods.” Thank you for all you do!
The question of permitting is a case in point for demonstrating the limitations of government as a social architecture for agency by human beings in changing our energy choices based on new learning climate science is learning about how the laws of nature operate to shape the habitats on earth.
Permitting is reactionary. Some enterprising visionaries decide they can make money putting up a new power generating installation, and the government arbitrates objections to allow the project to go forward, or not.
This leaves market forces in charge of redesigning and reconstructing our global energy economy. Piecemeal. Opportunistically. Contentiously.
Hence, the need for governmental permitting.
But climate science is teaching us that energy extraction from hydrocarbons is diminishing the habitats on earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing, and demanding that we stop extracting energy from hydrocarbons in order to stop diminishing the habitats on earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing.
What climate science does not say, because, in fairness, that is not within its remit, is that in order to stop extracting energy from hydrocarbons, we first have to replace hydrocarbons with new energy technologies. Globally. Right away.
Humanity stands today, relative to preserving human-friendly habitats on earth, in the same place the United States stood relative to space flight in 1960, when JFK committed the Nation to the Mission of putting a human being on the Moon, and bringing them back to earth, safely, by the end of the decade.
At the time, in 1960, the technology for doing that did not exist, and nobody really know how the US was going to achieve that mission.
Nine years later, Neil Armstrong, Mission Commander of the Apollo 11 Spaceflight took his historic "One small step for a man. One giant leap for Mankind."
We learned another thing in 1969 that we did not know in 1960. The step Neil Armstrong took was not the leap into the New Frontier of Space Exploration and Colonization that we were expecting it would be. It was a leap into a New Reality, that we have the earth, and it is well and truly ours. Also, it is what we have. We have to take care of it.
Part of taking care of the earth, we are leaning in the 21st Century, includes preserving the habitats o earth in which modern humanity can keep ourselves ongoing, which requires rapidly redesigning and reconstruction our global energy economy to replace hydrocarbons with new energy technologies.
We don't really know right now what these new technologies will be. We need to figure that out.
This figuring cannot be done at the level of the nation-state. Their boundaries are too small.
This is a job for all of humanity, acting together, as earthlings living together on one shared earth.
We need a global equivalent of NASA to organize and underwrite this redesign. But there is no global government that can create that agency and tax the world to pay for it.
We need to find another way to get the money that is aligned with the mission of stewarding the earth towards a good future for all humanity.
That money already exists. We just have to set it free to do its proper job, properly.
Your last point about the importance of forests and big, mature trees is well taken. Unfortunately, population growth inevitably leads to taking down those big mature trees, and the Census Bureau projects the US will grow by 75 million over the next 40 years, which is nearly equivalent to four New York States. A lot of forests will come down to accommodate that growth, 90 percent of which will be from immigration.
Lest anyone think of countering with the notion that the projected immigrants will have to go somewhere, the US is the only country that we Americans have control of, and given the urgency of global warming, we should be doing all we can to stabilize our population, or even reduce it.
Furthermore, we are the major industrialized with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, and thus the worst place on the planet to put more people. GH emissions of immigrants to the US, who come mainly from third world countries, rise threefold after arrival.
Yes, the GOP is in denial about global warming. But the Left is in denial about immigration's impact on global warming.
Here is my suggestion for everyone who reads this, their friends, their family and anyone who REALLY, HONESTLY wants to DO unto others as they would have them DO onto you: Stop using your water heater. I live in Vermont. I have resided here for 26 years. As anybody with a passing knowledge of geography and climate knows, it gets kinda cold here for most of the year, every year. The "stay warm" greeting often used by the locals in Vermont is experience based. In August of 2017 the electric water heater in my manufactured home failed. I did not replace it. I have lived without a water heater for six years. Yes, I do heat some water manually (four gallons is all you need if you use the cold water for getting wet and some of the rinsing), but I am certain I have saved quite a bit in nega-watts. In the summer you just need to fill four (or as many water gallon jars you think you will need) with tap water and leave them out on the deck for a while. Even in the dead of winter, just filling the gallon plasic bottles and leaving them on top of the washing machine for several hours will get you a temperature you can handle, so you don't have to heat the water on the stove (if, of course, you aren't a "modern" overly pampered ninny). If I can do it at nearly 80 years of age, you can do it. I don't want an attaboy or a pat on the back. I want YOU TO STOP USING YOUR WATER HEATER! I want to make USING LESS a thing. It is NOT about water heaters; it is about LESS IS BETTER, get it? The rich hate that healthy, reality based, frugal, principled, caring attitude. That's all the more reason to DO IT! As Bill says, the issue before us is using LESS energy, not more.
In the name of Jesus Christ, STOP USING A WATER HEATER! God won't Damn you for using a water heater, but He will Damn you for selfish behavior that hurts other people and all kinds of animals. And even if you don't think God is going to judge you, it is irrational for we poor and middle class to wait for the "modern" greedballs ruining our country (from BOTH mainstream political bought an paid for "parties") to take appropriate action. We will see Hell on Earth sooner than later if we leave it up to our "leaders". And yeah, those who insist on a carbon footprint ABOVE what is reasonable ("REASONABLE" = heating and coolling NO MORE than 500 square feet per occupant!) should be heavily taxed for it, unless they are below a certain income threshhold.
It is ALSO time to RETIRE the ridiculously wasteful, zoning nazi forced on Americans, LAWN requirement, though I'm not going to hold my breath expecting that this irrational love affair with the "killing fields" lawn around the "castle", handed down from history, will become the laughing stock that it deserves to be. Grow FOOD, not inedible, poisonous chemicals laden, grass! You and all the critters that frequent your yard will be healthier and live longer.
Picture of a Castle:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422161546.jpeg
The above "home and landscape" design stopped being rational about three centuries ago.
Bill, I'm not an important environmentalist like you, but I have done my best to warn people of all that is going wrong with the environment, and given my two cents worth (often) on what we are supposed to do about that. That said, my concern is mainly for the spiritual condition of people, as I view the "modern" modus vivendi of too many out there as the path to perdition after this life, in addition to being representative of the pernicious worldview that is directly responsible for motivating unprincipled behavior. This wanton behavior is causing the severe degradation of the biosphere that we all depend on in this life. Back in 2015 I gave Vermont State Government Officials my advice on Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). They did exactly nothing with it. So it goes.
This is 8 years old, but even more valid in 2023 than it was in 2015:
AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)
SNIPPET:
In regard to private land and grounds in front of government buildings, why doesn't Vermont outlaw all local ordinances that require having a sterile, chemically polluted lawn that requires a lawn mower spewing totally unregulated emissions?
Is this a throw back from the European castle tradition of having a low cut "killing field" in front of the castle? It's time to get rid of that pretty lawn, Vermont. If you don't want to force somebody to do it, at least put a carbon tax on lawns and overrule all local ordinances that require them.
There are a lot of yards in Vermont that can join the fight to have a viable biosphere if the lawmakers would just recognize the importance of having pollution free yards in this battle. It's time to outlaw those signs on lawns that say, 'do not walk on lawn due to chemical treatment". We don't need that pollution and it isn't doing wonders for future generations either. Let the lawn care industry switch to organic yard gardening products.
Read more of my quixotic comment and get in someone's face about using too much energy:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-in-renewable-energy-growth/msg1029/#msg1029