May 24, 2023·edited May 24, 2023Liked by Christopher Cook
As Winston Churchill said: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Not the same as Chris' position, but related!
The common thread is the left’s primary motivation: redistribution. Better known as…people who did not produce a thing using violence to take it from people who did.
As a friend put it, modern liberalism has all the qualities of Christianity except redemption. You're guilty, and you can't get away from it.
I'm reminded of the book We the Living, by Ayn Rand, where the Communists took over Russia by guilting people into being more and more "altruistic", but actually just slaves.
May 24, 2023·edited May 24, 2023Liked by Christopher Cook
All this crap is cut from the same whole cloth if you ask me. Every 15 or 20 years Libruls have to re-invent themselves because all their stupid ideas and social programs are falling flat on their face which means they’re about to become irrelevant. Absolutely nothing is more terrifying to a Librul than becoming irrelevant. This is what the latest re-invention is all about. The Leftist-Marxist racist elites, and they indeed racist, have simply finally given up on the ghetto. The cultural divide, and it’s a divide of their own making, is just too great.
They’ve finally realized they’re not going to take a Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Chicago and turn it into a Chinatown San Francisco. They don’t have a choice, anymore. They have to transform America into a country where cis-gender white males are responsible for everything, people of color aren’t responsible for anything, and the Asians are invited to keep their mouths shut. If you ever want to shut a liberal up all you have to do is start talking about black fathers, or lack thereof, and Asians. Try to get a white Librul to admit that a black father is more important than a welfare check. And good luck with that.
If extreme leftist policies were so noble, they would not have to use sugary, misleading euphemisms to disguise the names of their pet policies. Ex: Inflation Reduction Act was more "Green New Deal" propaganda than anything related to reducing inflation. In fact, the excess spending from that bill, was a prime cause of the current inflation we suffer through.
Oct 25, 2023·edited Oct 25, 2023Liked by Christopher Cook
"People don’t like force. People know, explicitly and intuitively, that it is wrong to use force on any peaceful person who is innocently minding his own business"
You lost me here, because really, people do not know this intuitively unless they are taught. By Christendom, and by pre-Diaspora Judaism (I have no idea what the Talmud and commentary teaches. I suspect it varies widely). The vast majority of humanity know that the ruled keep what they have at the sufference of the rulers who have a monopoly on force.
Both so-called climate change and racism are a subversion of Christian beliefs about the duties men owe God and, as a derivative, what we owe each other. It works because there is a God-shaped hole in men's hearts and Nature abhors a vacuum.
Also effingy sins and virtues are much easier to eschew and hew to, as Jesus pointed out back in the day. Honoring and sacrificing for one's (often tiresome or expensive) parents is harder than the corban game.
Making loads of cash at the expense of the nouveau peasantry is more of a bonus.
"You lost me here, because really, people do not know this intuitively unless they are taught."
—That is largely true vis-a-vis government force. IOW, most of us have to have the veil of legitimacy peeled back to reveal the fundamentally violent nature of everything government does. Then we see it.
But in terms of basic force, you generally do not have to be taught. If someone attacks you, you know it is wrong. If someone takes your stuff, you know it is wrong. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you that you have to pay for his cousin's surgery or he's gonna lock you in his basement, you know it is wrong.
Studies have been done and even very young children have an intuitive sense of this. If a teacher says that it is against the rules to eat in the nursery school classroom, and then later amends that rule, the littlest of children will start eating in class. But if a teacher says, "New rule—now it is okay to hit each other," those same children react with shock. "That is bad. Teacher should not say that."
"Studies have been done and even very young children have an intuitive sense of this."
Citation needed. Were these studies down outside of what is left of Christendom? Because I doubt it.
But yes, everyone resents being the powerless/ruled which does not translate into an understanding of what is owed if they get their hands on the reins.
you start off quite brilliantly, but when you get to climate change--that is my field, even though I was marginalized because the solutions proposed are obviously not solutive. The truth is that humans have had an impact and humans could effect a change, but I have failed to see any direction or any sense, Climate is not singular (only determined by greenhouse gases collected in the upper troposphere.) In fact those gases are essential, the problem is imbalance. When nature, by the very nature of the elements upon which it is built upon, is unbalanced, new reactions by those elements (and I am trying to simplify, so if your knowledge is great, recognize I know it's a little more complicated) but from the very beginning of what is called the big bang, two things began to occur. The first was a high velocity of those elements and forming heavier elements that then spat out lighter elements (so to speak. The temperature was so hot that stars could not exist and the speed at the change so fast the speed of light pales. Eventually though as the elements combined the lighter elements began to drift away and decrease both the temperature and the heavier elements moved at a slower velocity. The lighter elements began to combine with each other and to develop a great mass that became stars but this became such a mass that they formed what is known as gravity which pulled the heavier elements into their fields of gravity then spit them out again to form planetary and other non-star bodies. So the first thing that makes the universe what the universe it is is that it must evolve constantly. Stars evolve by more or less burning themselves out---change occurs every time there is a reaction, creating a counter reaction. But the pace of change slows then increases with speed as more change occurs and there is this continual fluctuation in what seems to be the pace of change. But this a false assumption. If you boil a large pot of water it seems to be heating very slowly at first and then to start boiling more rapidly, but actually that is because heat begins to alter the nature of one molecule which effects the next and so it only appears to increase the pace, the pace is the same, but the heated molecules themselves more molecules and and as there are more and more molecules heated they effectually more and more other molecules. Well if you liken this to environmental change the change occurs at an ever increasing pace, but it changes everyday everytime any animal defecates, it happens inside your body before you defecate. Change is the necessity of the elements. The elements are seeking stability and that very seeking creates instability and on the grander scale of human activity we effect change, that just happens because it must happen.
But the problem doesn't rely on large redistribution of the resources, as you suggest, and I agree. But it's like the large pot of boiling water. If you heat a smaller pot of water then it is more efficient and you use less water to accomplish the same effect.
The problem is often centered on exchanging one source of energy for another but as I said that is non-solutive if the system that distributes the energy is so large to comply with the need for energy, then it is not more or less "natural"-- what the hell is oil or gas if they are not natural sources of energy? Strange term.
So of course there is no way to "redistribute" wealth or "energy". You can redistribute to your heart's desire and the only result is a change in who controls the wealth. The solution is not to redistribute the wealth, but the power, "the entity of control" to smaller groups of people that will allow greater individual freedom; and likewise if energy is provided by these communities for themselves you have less environmental change because it takes less energy to boil a smaller pot of water. You may say well you'd just to have boil more pots of water, it's not the same because all of the small pots still provide the result and more directly and therefore effect less change than the big pot.
So you may right that there is a perceived connection somewhere between white power and climate change, but I am not getting it, although I think there is a similarity in that both individual freedom grows by redistributing the power to smaller groups of people, and energy consumption creates less environment harm if it is more direct to individual community needs. i could go on eternally about the false notions of energy distribution however you would need to explain in greater detail how guilt over the environment creates white power because I don't view the redistribution of wealth as parallel to changing energy production from one source to another source. But the maybe you are correct in the sense that redistributing wealth, at best, only would accomplish the same thing, should it be successful.
Categorically, I agree that power over the individual human person's life must be devolved back to where it belongs: in the hands of the individual…and that from there, smaller units (communities, e.g.) are preferable to larger units (large nations, supranational entities, etc., e.g.).
But I am fuzzy on your last paragraph—on its meaning and disagreement. I am saying this:
"Climate change" (and before that, AGW--anthropogenic global warming) is, from a scientific standpoint, garbage. It is not real. Rather, it is an ideological tool—a construct with a purpose. Its purpose is to establish categorical guilt for all humans, just for existing. People know, intuitively or explicitly, that acts of protective force are justified in response to the initiation of coercive force. Toddlers know it. The left, along with a global power elite, want to control the human herd. Control requires force. They know we will resist if they just start using force against us. But if they can convince us that we are guilty just for existing, then we might acquiesce. The climate-change portion here applies to all humans, niot just to whites. So I don't really get what you're asking…
Well my point is everything we do, does effect the environment. The fly you swat is never going to eat your poop tomorrow. But I think I understand why you are saying about the guilt now. Let me put it this way. If I buy a candy bar at a supermarket that doesn't provide a trash can because many just throw the wrappers on the ground even if they have a can and they have to hire someone to sweep or pick up the candy wrapper, I don't feel any guilt for littering because I don't think it is when I know it will be picked up. We do have some responsibility for our actions and I won't throw the wrapper where it will pileup, if for no other reason that it just looks ugly. So I suppose what you are trying to say is that society does try to make you feel guilty for throwing the candy wrapper down (even when you know it will be picked up.) I refuse. Compound that to any degree you might. I still think we have a responsibility to use our resources as efficiently as we can. I spent my career studying energy sources, from the creation, extraction, design, development, production, transference and use. All of the sources, except fusion, which has not yet gone through such studies. I will tell you emphatically I was outcast because I claim no source is better, cleaner or less effective upon the environment. But all do affect the environment. If the guilt you claim is over some one's idea of better energy source, ignore it because it doesn't exist. But there are better ways to design the systems we use that will be less effective on the environment. But just being born changes the environment because you are now it. We are capable of designing more responsible ways to minimize the effect, but changing from a gas powered car to a battery powered car is a joke upon rationality. Maybe you are correct, maybe they are attempting to make you feel guilty, I have just never felt that way. But the entire dialogue is ridiculous because it is not about efficient use of energy but about the source you obtain it from.
An example--water, not power--in the late 18th century New York City thought that they needed to find a system for fresh water delivery because it was growing in size. They bought a swath of land up to the Catskills and a couple of lakes, built a channel to the city, designed a purification process and transferred it back to the lake. New York City still owns that land and the channel and the lake(s). Of course over three centuries, repairs and updates have been made. But it is basically the same system, the lake has had less fluctuations in volume because they put back almost as much as they take out than other water sources in the vicinity and it remains high quality water. Systems can be designed with foresight and planning. A community that was not on a power grid once had me design an energy system for them. They had a lot of cattle (diary) and I built them a generator that burned the dung and supplied their needs (it was only about 40 people).. Their children live there now and still use the generator. Yes it's a lot of work most of us don't want to do, but the muck was piling in and they spent most of their going back and forth through it anyway. It now supplies that small, and rather weird cult the energy to supply their limited needs and is basically limitless as a source.
And if, as you say, the left is trying to make people feel guilty by not using a preferred source of energy, well as I said, it's a false debate. No side has the right answer if they deny there will be no harm by use or that you can eliminate it by changing the source. We do have the intelligence and the knowledge to reduce the overall effects and recycle and reuse much of the waste.
But to accomplish that it would certainly not be by trying to make people feel guilty (the average user) for use; the only thing they have is "renewable" but I've seen no designs to renew anything only change the source, as if that change alone is somehow a magic elixir.
I agree, as do most people who have studied the issue. Most don't have your level of experience, but we can read the analyses of those who do, and we know that the notion that we can somehow power the needs of the human race on solar and wind is a lie. That those sources are somehow "cleaner"—when batteries and mineral extraction and transmission and repairs and operational life and backup generation are taken into account—is a lie. That they will save the planet is a lie.
But you see, they are not trying rto make you feel guilty for this energy source or that. Indeed, your FEELING of guilt is just a fringe benefit for them, to make you more compliant, to make you believe their shtick. No, they have DECLARED you guilty for breathing, for using energy, for existing. They needed an excuse to do WHATEVER they want to do to you—to take whatever they want to take, to control you in any way they wish. This is their excuse.
15-minute cities are an example. The EXCUSE for them is "climate change." The REASON for them is to concentrate humans into specific areas, in order to better control them. To better manage the human herd. A 15-minute city is a concentration camp. Climate change is the excuse they use to put you in the camp.
Climate change is the EXCUSE they use for limiting your beef consumption. But the real REASON to limit your beef consumption is to gain control of what you eat. Control people's food and you control people.
Climate change is the EXCUSE for smart meters on people's homes. Control of their energy—to force them to comply—is the reason.
Do you understand. This is SO MUCH BIGGER than a debate about energy sources, food sources, or what you set your thermostat to. Those are a distraction.
Your "guilt" is just the thin cover—the "justification"—for turning you into a herd animal. THAT is the point. Not saving the earth. The architects of this do not give a crap about saving the earth.
I don't know why you don't like smart meters, however, mine was installed when we got this old mobile home years ago and did mine own wiring and have direct current into each outlet, rather than a control box. Unfortunately I had to still hook up to the power grid. And that angers me because they charge me extra because there is not one meter to read but 12. So I pay more for them to read my meters than I pay for the electricity they provide. But the county refuses to allow me to build my own generator.
If you really want a "clean" vehicle, natural gas is the answer---not gasoline. I had a natural gas and it is so clean because it consumes almost all of the fuel and emits almost nothing. I leased a natural gas cab, the only problem was there was only one place to fuel it in town, and they were not really a gas station, they mostly sold natural gas, so I could only fuel from 6 til 7 AM. Direct natural gas is the cleanest energy on earth, and even supplied by a power co. is at least 70% efficient at the worst facilities, but can be higher. I mean if you are talking about efficient energy. All others sources, including solar panels are way low. Energy companies scoff at efficiency, but if it takes more energy to create the energy then the consumer pays for the waste (otherwise there would be no profit.) That is the main problem with nuclear, it takes so much energy to create the energy that it is totally outrageously expensive. That's kind of what I mean by the smaller pot being more efficient than the big pot. Right now I'm boiling some potatoes and I wanted to boil a lot of potatoes, so I'm using a big pot. But that does take longer so it uses more energy (as well as water.) Efficiency is important for your pocketbook as well as for the environment, although that doesn't seem to concern you. My point is big energy consumes more resources, is less efficient, and therefore takes more energy and therefore costs the purchaser more.
essentially it is unlikely that every household will be able to directly supply their own needs, but smaller communities can bind together and supply their own needs, it would be much more environmentally sound, much more efficient, and much cheaper and it would give more power to the individuals (political power) to determine how they wished to supply their own needs.
And believe don't use the joke California perpetrated a few years ago to be contra to what I am referring to. They did not create local energy, but brokers who had no energy and bought from others who produced it. It was the stupidest thing I ever heard of. And I might be partly responsible which bugs me. The California legislature was the first to ever show interest in my work enough to make me feel encouraged and then the program they designed just negated absolutely everything I had outlined for them.
Okay, I got to go, but you don't like wind, or don't think it could supply enough energy. You're right, and do you why? It diverts the wind. So this big wind warm in Europe was not created any energy two years not because all of the wind was 30 miles south as they told everyone, but because if the wind strength is not a very broad wind that covers several hundred miles but a narrow wind, then the turbines actually blow it away. Of course proponents refute it, but the phenomenon has been observed as far back as the 19th century in areas of high concentrations of windmills. when there were dry conditions and only a narrow stream of window, the farmers themselves became quite perplexed because they observed the wind that was coming towards them, suddenly shifted north and away from their windmills. It's not considered "scientific" but the phenomenon was noted over several years and reported in old farm journals.
After I made a small change (41,000 to 8,000) and hit the save button it was the same comment w/o the change. Maybe I needed to refresh website. I have an iMac. No bigee.
Fair enough but your pot of boiling water argument is a false analogy and for this reason. The differences are not just between big and small. In a year or two some of them are going to be golden pots on gas stoves at 8.000 foot cabin altitude on the way to Davos and my pot is going to be barely big enough to pee in on a virtual-reality Coleman burner powered by two D cell batteries.
As Winston Churchill said: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Not the same as Chris' position, but related!
The common thread is the left’s primary motivation: redistribution. Better known as…people who did not produce a thing using violence to take it from people who did.
Agreed.
As a friend put it, modern liberalism has all the qualities of Christianity except redemption. You're guilty, and you can't get away from it.
I'm reminded of the book We the Living, by Ayn Rand, where the Communists took over Russia by guilting people into being more and more "altruistic", but actually just slaves.
It is true that they are getting people to bend the knee by convincing them that they are actually guilty of something. Evil.
Yes, and it is evil.
All this crap is cut from the same whole cloth if you ask me. Every 15 or 20 years Libruls have to re-invent themselves because all their stupid ideas and social programs are falling flat on their face which means they’re about to become irrelevant. Absolutely nothing is more terrifying to a Librul than becoming irrelevant. This is what the latest re-invention is all about. The Leftist-Marxist racist elites, and they indeed racist, have simply finally given up on the ghetto. The cultural divide, and it’s a divide of their own making, is just too great.
They’ve finally realized they’re not going to take a Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Chicago and turn it into a Chinatown San Francisco. They don’t have a choice, anymore. They have to transform America into a country where cis-gender white males are responsible for everything, people of color aren’t responsible for anything, and the Asians are invited to keep their mouths shut. If you ever want to shut a liberal up all you have to do is start talking about black fathers, or lack thereof, and Asians. Try to get a white Librul to admit that a black father is more important than a welfare check. And good luck with that.
You are entirely correct. Leftism does not work in any form. Rather than accepting this, they keep modifying its form to try to make it work.
I didn’t want to write a book with my first comment but here’s a list.
If anyone has any to add please do so.
All their social engineering programs have flopped:
1920s Look-Say reading method (think Why Johnnie Can’t Read)
1963 War on Poverty
7% black children without fathers
Today ten times worse
Project Head Start 1965
School bussing liberal Boston 1974
Hillary’s midnight basketball
In the 80s if you saw color, racist
Today, if you don’t see color, racist
$billions to promote common core math
Oops, common core math racist, need woke math
Cultural Appropriation bad except drag queens and tranny athletes
Want to shut up a liberal? Just talk about Asians and black fathers, or lack thereof
Excellent examples!
After a while one has to ask if these failures are au fond features rather than bugs.
There's a whole lot of intentional resentment packed into these policies.
Oh, I am pretty convinced to the cognoscenti at least, these are absolutely features.
If extreme leftist policies were so noble, they would not have to use sugary, misleading euphemisms to disguise the names of their pet policies. Ex: Inflation Reduction Act was more "Green New Deal" propaganda than anything related to reducing inflation. In fact, the excess spending from that bill, was a prime cause of the current inflation we suffer through.
Picture = 1,000 words:
https://www.freetothrive.com/content/images/2023/06/image5.jpeg
"People don’t like force. People know, explicitly and intuitively, that it is wrong to use force on any peaceful person who is innocently minding his own business"
You lost me here, because really, people do not know this intuitively unless they are taught. By Christendom, and by pre-Diaspora Judaism (I have no idea what the Talmud and commentary teaches. I suspect it varies widely). The vast majority of humanity know that the ruled keep what they have at the sufference of the rulers who have a monopoly on force.
Both so-called climate change and racism are a subversion of Christian beliefs about the duties men owe God and, as a derivative, what we owe each other. It works because there is a God-shaped hole in men's hearts and Nature abhors a vacuum.
Also effingy sins and virtues are much easier to eschew and hew to, as Jesus pointed out back in the day. Honoring and sacrificing for one's (often tiresome or expensive) parents is harder than the corban game.
Making loads of cash at the expense of the nouveau peasantry is more of a bonus.
"You lost me here, because really, people do not know this intuitively unless they are taught."
—That is largely true vis-a-vis government force. IOW, most of us have to have the veil of legitimacy peeled back to reveal the fundamentally violent nature of everything government does. Then we see it.
But in terms of basic force, you generally do not have to be taught. If someone attacks you, you know it is wrong. If someone takes your stuff, you know it is wrong. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you that you have to pay for his cousin's surgery or he's gonna lock you in his basement, you know it is wrong.
Studies have been done and even very young children have an intuitive sense of this. If a teacher says that it is against the rules to eat in the nursery school classroom, and then later amends that rule, the littlest of children will start eating in class. But if a teacher says, "New rule—now it is okay to hit each other," those same children react with shock. "That is bad. Teacher should not say that."
We know. Little children know. Animals know.
"Studies have been done and even very young children have an intuitive sense of this."
Citation needed. Were these studies down outside of what is left of Christendom? Because I doubt it.
But yes, everyone resents being the powerless/ruled which does not translate into an understanding of what is owed if they get their hands on the reins.
Kluger, Jeffrey. “What Makes Us Moral.” TIME.com, November 21, 2007. http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1685055_1685076_1686619,00.html
you start off quite brilliantly, but when you get to climate change--that is my field, even though I was marginalized because the solutions proposed are obviously not solutive. The truth is that humans have had an impact and humans could effect a change, but I have failed to see any direction or any sense, Climate is not singular (only determined by greenhouse gases collected in the upper troposphere.) In fact those gases are essential, the problem is imbalance. When nature, by the very nature of the elements upon which it is built upon, is unbalanced, new reactions by those elements (and I am trying to simplify, so if your knowledge is great, recognize I know it's a little more complicated) but from the very beginning of what is called the big bang, two things began to occur. The first was a high velocity of those elements and forming heavier elements that then spat out lighter elements (so to speak. The temperature was so hot that stars could not exist and the speed at the change so fast the speed of light pales. Eventually though as the elements combined the lighter elements began to drift away and decrease both the temperature and the heavier elements moved at a slower velocity. The lighter elements began to combine with each other and to develop a great mass that became stars but this became such a mass that they formed what is known as gravity which pulled the heavier elements into their fields of gravity then spit them out again to form planetary and other non-star bodies. So the first thing that makes the universe what the universe it is is that it must evolve constantly. Stars evolve by more or less burning themselves out---change occurs every time there is a reaction, creating a counter reaction. But the pace of change slows then increases with speed as more change occurs and there is this continual fluctuation in what seems to be the pace of change. But this a false assumption. If you boil a large pot of water it seems to be heating very slowly at first and then to start boiling more rapidly, but actually that is because heat begins to alter the nature of one molecule which effects the next and so it only appears to increase the pace, the pace is the same, but the heated molecules themselves more molecules and and as there are more and more molecules heated they effectually more and more other molecules. Well if you liken this to environmental change the change occurs at an ever increasing pace, but it changes everyday everytime any animal defecates, it happens inside your body before you defecate. Change is the necessity of the elements. The elements are seeking stability and that very seeking creates instability and on the grander scale of human activity we effect change, that just happens because it must happen.
But the problem doesn't rely on large redistribution of the resources, as you suggest, and I agree. But it's like the large pot of boiling water. If you heat a smaller pot of water then it is more efficient and you use less water to accomplish the same effect.
The problem is often centered on exchanging one source of energy for another but as I said that is non-solutive if the system that distributes the energy is so large to comply with the need for energy, then it is not more or less "natural"-- what the hell is oil or gas if they are not natural sources of energy? Strange term.
So of course there is no way to "redistribute" wealth or "energy". You can redistribute to your heart's desire and the only result is a change in who controls the wealth. The solution is not to redistribute the wealth, but the power, "the entity of control" to smaller groups of people that will allow greater individual freedom; and likewise if energy is provided by these communities for themselves you have less environmental change because it takes less energy to boil a smaller pot of water. You may say well you'd just to have boil more pots of water, it's not the same because all of the small pots still provide the result and more directly and therefore effect less change than the big pot.
So you may right that there is a perceived connection somewhere between white power and climate change, but I am not getting it, although I think there is a similarity in that both individual freedom grows by redistributing the power to smaller groups of people, and energy consumption creates less environment harm if it is more direct to individual community needs. i could go on eternally about the false notions of energy distribution however you would need to explain in greater detail how guilt over the environment creates white power because I don't view the redistribution of wealth as parallel to changing energy production from one source to another source. But the maybe you are correct in the sense that redistributing wealth, at best, only would accomplish the same thing, should it be successful.
Obviously there is a lot to unpack in that.
Categorically, I agree that power over the individual human person's life must be devolved back to where it belongs: in the hands of the individual…and that from there, smaller units (communities, e.g.) are preferable to larger units (large nations, supranational entities, etc., e.g.).
But I am fuzzy on your last paragraph—on its meaning and disagreement. I am saying this:
"Climate change" (and before that, AGW--anthropogenic global warming) is, from a scientific standpoint, garbage. It is not real. Rather, it is an ideological tool—a construct with a purpose. Its purpose is to establish categorical guilt for all humans, just for existing. People know, intuitively or explicitly, that acts of protective force are justified in response to the initiation of coercive force. Toddlers know it. The left, along with a global power elite, want to control the human herd. Control requires force. They know we will resist if they just start using force against us. But if they can convince us that we are guilty just for existing, then we might acquiesce. The climate-change portion here applies to all humans, niot just to whites. So I don't really get what you're asking…
Well my point is everything we do, does effect the environment. The fly you swat is never going to eat your poop tomorrow. But I think I understand why you are saying about the guilt now. Let me put it this way. If I buy a candy bar at a supermarket that doesn't provide a trash can because many just throw the wrappers on the ground even if they have a can and they have to hire someone to sweep or pick up the candy wrapper, I don't feel any guilt for littering because I don't think it is when I know it will be picked up. We do have some responsibility for our actions and I won't throw the wrapper where it will pileup, if for no other reason that it just looks ugly. So I suppose what you are trying to say is that society does try to make you feel guilty for throwing the candy wrapper down (even when you know it will be picked up.) I refuse. Compound that to any degree you might. I still think we have a responsibility to use our resources as efficiently as we can. I spent my career studying energy sources, from the creation, extraction, design, development, production, transference and use. All of the sources, except fusion, which has not yet gone through such studies. I will tell you emphatically I was outcast because I claim no source is better, cleaner or less effective upon the environment. But all do affect the environment. If the guilt you claim is over some one's idea of better energy source, ignore it because it doesn't exist. But there are better ways to design the systems we use that will be less effective on the environment. But just being born changes the environment because you are now it. We are capable of designing more responsible ways to minimize the effect, but changing from a gas powered car to a battery powered car is a joke upon rationality. Maybe you are correct, maybe they are attempting to make you feel guilty, I have just never felt that way. But the entire dialogue is ridiculous because it is not about efficient use of energy but about the source you obtain it from.
An example--water, not power--in the late 18th century New York City thought that they needed to find a system for fresh water delivery because it was growing in size. They bought a swath of land up to the Catskills and a couple of lakes, built a channel to the city, designed a purification process and transferred it back to the lake. New York City still owns that land and the channel and the lake(s). Of course over three centuries, repairs and updates have been made. But it is basically the same system, the lake has had less fluctuations in volume because they put back almost as much as they take out than other water sources in the vicinity and it remains high quality water. Systems can be designed with foresight and planning. A community that was not on a power grid once had me design an energy system for them. They had a lot of cattle (diary) and I built them a generator that burned the dung and supplied their needs (it was only about 40 people).. Their children live there now and still use the generator. Yes it's a lot of work most of us don't want to do, but the muck was piling in and they spent most of their going back and forth through it anyway. It now supplies that small, and rather weird cult the energy to supply their limited needs and is basically limitless as a source.
And if, as you say, the left is trying to make people feel guilty by not using a preferred source of energy, well as I said, it's a false debate. No side has the right answer if they deny there will be no harm by use or that you can eliminate it by changing the source. We do have the intelligence and the knowledge to reduce the overall effects and recycle and reuse much of the waste.
But to accomplish that it would certainly not be by trying to make people feel guilty (the average user) for use; the only thing they have is "renewable" but I've seen no designs to renew anything only change the source, as if that change alone is somehow a magic elixir.
I agree, as do most people who have studied the issue. Most don't have your level of experience, but we can read the analyses of those who do, and we know that the notion that we can somehow power the needs of the human race on solar and wind is a lie. That those sources are somehow "cleaner"—when batteries and mineral extraction and transmission and repairs and operational life and backup generation are taken into account—is a lie. That they will save the planet is a lie.
But you see, they are not trying rto make you feel guilty for this energy source or that. Indeed, your FEELING of guilt is just a fringe benefit for them, to make you more compliant, to make you believe their shtick. No, they have DECLARED you guilty for breathing, for using energy, for existing. They needed an excuse to do WHATEVER they want to do to you—to take whatever they want to take, to control you in any way they wish. This is their excuse.
15-minute cities are an example. The EXCUSE for them is "climate change." The REASON for them is to concentrate humans into specific areas, in order to better control them. To better manage the human herd. A 15-minute city is a concentration camp. Climate change is the excuse they use to put you in the camp.
Climate change is the EXCUSE they use for limiting your beef consumption. But the real REASON to limit your beef consumption is to gain control of what you eat. Control people's food and you control people.
Climate change is the EXCUSE for smart meters on people's homes. Control of their energy—to force them to comply—is the reason.
Do you understand. This is SO MUCH BIGGER than a debate about energy sources, food sources, or what you set your thermostat to. Those are a distraction.
Your "guilt" is just the thin cover—the "justification"—for turning you into a herd animal. THAT is the point. Not saving the earth. The architects of this do not give a crap about saving the earth.
I don't know why you don't like smart meters, however, mine was installed when we got this old mobile home years ago and did mine own wiring and have direct current into each outlet, rather than a control box. Unfortunately I had to still hook up to the power grid. And that angers me because they charge me extra because there is not one meter to read but 12. So I pay more for them to read my meters than I pay for the electricity they provide. But the county refuses to allow me to build my own generator.
If you really want a "clean" vehicle, natural gas is the answer---not gasoline. I had a natural gas and it is so clean because it consumes almost all of the fuel and emits almost nothing. I leased a natural gas cab, the only problem was there was only one place to fuel it in town, and they were not really a gas station, they mostly sold natural gas, so I could only fuel from 6 til 7 AM. Direct natural gas is the cleanest energy on earth, and even supplied by a power co. is at least 70% efficient at the worst facilities, but can be higher. I mean if you are talking about efficient energy. All others sources, including solar panels are way low. Energy companies scoff at efficiency, but if it takes more energy to create the energy then the consumer pays for the waste (otherwise there would be no profit.) That is the main problem with nuclear, it takes so much energy to create the energy that it is totally outrageously expensive. That's kind of what I mean by the smaller pot being more efficient than the big pot. Right now I'm boiling some potatoes and I wanted to boil a lot of potatoes, so I'm using a big pot. But that does take longer so it uses more energy (as well as water.) Efficiency is important for your pocketbook as well as for the environment, although that doesn't seem to concern you. My point is big energy consumes more resources, is less efficient, and therefore takes more energy and therefore costs the purchaser more.
essentially it is unlikely that every household will be able to directly supply their own needs, but smaller communities can bind together and supply their own needs, it would be much more environmentally sound, much more efficient, and much cheaper and it would give more power to the individuals (political power) to determine how they wished to supply their own needs.
And believe don't use the joke California perpetrated a few years ago to be contra to what I am referring to. They did not create local energy, but brokers who had no energy and bought from others who produced it. It was the stupidest thing I ever heard of. And I might be partly responsible which bugs me. The California legislature was the first to ever show interest in my work enough to make me feel encouraged and then the program they designed just negated absolutely everything I had outlined for them.
Okay, I got to go, but you don't like wind, or don't think it could supply enough energy. You're right, and do you why? It diverts the wind. So this big wind warm in Europe was not created any energy two years not because all of the wind was 30 miles south as they told everyone, but because if the wind strength is not a very broad wind that covers several hundred miles but a narrow wind, then the turbines actually blow it away. Of course proponents refute it, but the phenomenon has been observed as far back as the 19th century in areas of high concentrations of windmills. when there were dry conditions and only a narrow stream of window, the farmers themselves became quite perplexed because they observed the wind that was coming towards them, suddenly shifted north and away from their windmills. It's not considered "scientific" but the phenomenon was noted over several years and reported in old farm journals.
Side note - I can't ever get the edit button to work like I expect.
Huh. I have never had an issue.
After I made a small change (41,000 to 8,000) and hit the save button it was the same comment w/o the change. Maybe I needed to refresh website. I have an iMac. No bigee.
Fair enough but your pot of boiling water argument is a false analogy and for this reason. The differences are not just between big and small. In a year or two some of them are going to be golden pots on gas stoves at 8.000 foot cabin altitude on the way to Davos and my pot is going to be barely big enough to pee in on a virtual-reality Coleman burner powered by two D cell batteries.