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Category: Climate Change

Who Is John Galt?

Who Is John Galt?

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Photo by Michel Engels on Unsplash

It’s election day here in the US, with two major party candidates vying for the spot of President of the United States. So, let’s have some fun.

John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Set in a dystopian world where the government, which is on the brink of collapse, has taken control of businesses, and regulatory overreach is choking innovation. Galt is a shadowy figure of almost mythic proportion – and the force behind a sweeping strike on the part of innovators, which promises to bring the government to its knees.

In this age of technology, who would be a likely John Galt candidate, Galt being a brilliant inventor who, for our purposes here, while he may not necessarily be mankind’s salvation, is at least helping to tip the scales a bit? We nominate two potential candidates, both of whom, like Rand’s Galt himself, have been both glorified and vilified: Bill Gates and Elon Musk. It being Election Day, you decide: Read More...

Tech and the Weather: Storm Clouds Ahead?

Tech and the Weather: Storm Clouds Ahead?

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Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

The weather in parts of the country and the world has been extreme lately, to put it mildly, and the sector – tech – that brought you such breakthroughs as emojis and planet-saving lab-grown meats, are turning their focus to the weather itself, although note to self re lab-grown meats, “The claim that the process reduced CO2 emissions over conventional livestock farming has been comprehensively demolished: one estimate is that it increases emissions by between four times and 25 times as much as reared meat. The animal, of course, can perform its own exercise by itself, for free, while the nutrients it requires are either free or cheap. It also enhances the land on which it grazes. Producing the product requires far more energy than leaving, say, a bovine in the field to produce the same all-natural result,” MSN reported. “The alternative proteins bubble has burst.”

So next up: the weather and this just in: “A growing number of Silicon Valley founders and investors are backing research into blocking the sun by spraying reflective particles high in the atmosphere or making clouds brighter. The goal is to quickly cool the planet,” Bloomberg reported…”Reflecting sunlight to cool the planet — known as solar radiation management (SRM) — could come with dangerous consequences such as shifting rainfall patterns and changing the prevalence of diseases like malaria, to say nothing of the potential geopolitical chaos. Those risks have scientists urging caution and governments slowly working to build policies. But the tech world has rarely shied away from testing a new product and figuring out the bugs later, and prominent philanthropists are dedicating more money than ever to these radical ideas.”

“Flubbed climate test won’t deter rich donors from altering the sky,” Politico chimed in. “They funded a failed experiment to block the sun. They plan to try again.” Read More...

The Science Unintended Consequences

The Science Unintended Consequences

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Image by nugroho dwi hartawan from Pixabay

There’s an old German proverb that says that all things have an end, except for a sausage, which has two. Well, all things have a beginning, too,  including environmental issues. Especially since it seems everyone’s concerned with solving the problems, but that perhaps we’re quickly offered solutions that aren’t.

PFAs

Example: plastic straws were outlawed/removed from many fast-food establishments as they tended to end up in the oceans, endangering marine life. Enter paper straws, but as xatakaon  reported, “Paper Straws Are Often Touted as a Great Alternative to Plastic, But There’s a Small Problem: They’re Toxic… After analyzing 39 brands of straws made of various materials such as plastic, paper, glass, stainless steel, and bamboo, a team (of scientists) found that paper straws contain the most perfluoroalkylated and polyfluoroalkylated substances, also known as PFAS. These synthetic substances are considered harmful to humans, animals, and the environment.”

PFAs are ‘forever chemicals’ that “can lead to health problems such as liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, fertility issues and cancer,” according to the European Environmental Agency, and they’re also found in packaged foods, fabrics, paints, electronics, and pizza boxes, to name just a very few. Read More...

An Homage to Earth Day

An Homage to Earth Day

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Image by Ericve from Pixabay

Climate engineering is nothing new. We’ve been allowing Bill Gates et all to crisscross the skies with chemtrails to block out the sun in order to reduce global warming, or so goes the unproven hypothesis. “Controversial spraying method aims to curb global warming,” CBS News reported in 2018.

Odd, as four years later, “CNBC report on climate research didn’t confirm ‘chemtrails’ theory,” AP reported, contending that “The story reported on a federal plan to research technology such as “stratospheric aerosol injection,” the concept of placing materials in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth. Experts say the idea is being investigated and not currently in use.”

Well, look! Up in the skies! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s superscientist Bill Gates crisscrossing the skies with chemtrails! “A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong?” Forbes reported the year before. “Widespread research into the efficacy of solar geoengineering has been stalled for years due to controversy. Opponents believe such science comes with unpredictable risks, including extreme shifts in weather patterns not dissimilar to warming trends we are already witnessing.” Read More...

The Current Climate and Other Changes

The Current Climate and Other Changes

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We sometimes like to look at various parts of tech and do the math. We know that climate change and reducing the carbon footprint is a high priority for the planet, because Al Gore warned us in 2009 that “the North Pole will be ice-free in the summer by 2013 because of man-made global warming.” According to life-long politician/non-scientist Gore, carbon emissions are the culprit and note to self: that didn’t happen. Which may have contributed to the president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber’s, claim that “there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C,” as The Guardian reported.

There isn’t even a consensus among scientists that carbon emissions/fossil fuels are a problem (Putting the ‘con’ in consensus; Not only is there no 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists, many misunderstand core issues).

If the billionaires who flew to the Cop28 are so concerned about carbon emissions and the seas rising, why did they all fly to the summit on private jets and own beachfront properties? In fact, “Jeff Bezos’ Superyacht Generates 447 Times the Yearly Carbon Emissions of Average US Household,” said Gulf Insider. And “the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged (in 2007, just after he won the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary about the coming climate ‘disaster’) that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours,” ABC News reported. Read More...

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

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Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash

Given recent world events, we decided that wouldn’t it be interesting to examine what the results would be if elected officials and their policies were put under the same scrutiny as are startups – using an investor lens.

We use the following simply as an example.

There have been several mandates/regulations coming from the current administration and state and local governments that are pushing the population to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned for residential purposes and pushing us increasingly onto the power grid. Read More...

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

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Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

It’s time to offer something of a Darwin Award for Tech, which we will call the SOSy Awards – for SOS, of course, bestowed on people who are so off base in their pursuits, they clearly need help. Or a serious intervention, at the very least.  Our suggestion for this inaugural winner is none other than everyone’s favorite doctor, even though he has no medical degree, received a C+ in organic chemistry, and is a college dropout…

Bill Gates!

We’ve chosen Gates as the premier recipient for many reasons, not the least of which is his latest foray into pseudoscience: Bill Gates Funds Plan to Chop Down, Bury Millions of Trees in the of climate change, of course. You know, those things that convert carbon into oxygen, which are necessary for carbon-based species such as people to survive.

“MIT Technology Review reported that Kodama Systems had raised around $6.6 million, a hefty sum, from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, billionaire Bill Gates’s climate fund. Trees will be cut down in California and buried in Nevada for this “stealth effort,” which Kodama characterizes as “biomass burial,” PJ Media reported. Read More...

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

It was something of a travel week for us, and a good time to at long last look at articles in the ‘save for later’ pile, which we did: stopped to smell the absurdities.

Incandescent lightbulbs were outlawed recently in favor of the longer lasting and supposedly more climate friendly LED bulbs, but according to greenmatters, LED Bulbs May Not Be as Great as We Thought — Studies Show Health and Environmental Risks, reporting that “Per a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers from the University of Exeter have noted various health and environmental risks that come with LED lights. According to The Guardian, LED bulbs are becoming increasingly more common, and even though they are more energy efficient, they emit more blue light radiation”…which is harmful to human health and the environment.

What to speak of the fact that they arguably create more of an environmental hazard when it comes to their disposal. Read More...

The Heat of Summer: Cue Up the Global Warming Warnings

The Heat of Summer: Cue Up the Global Warming Warnings

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Since we’re in the heat of summer in most parts of the world, it’s a good opportunity to address climate change. For the record, according to Weather.com, last “July (was) on track to be the coolest in the U.S. since 2015, according to Todd Crawford, Director of Meteorology at Atmospheric G2.” Although not many of us were around to experience those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, to quote Nat King Cole, re last summer, how quickly we forget.

 

CNN has been all over ‘climate change’ and recently hosted the founder (whom CNN misidentified as the co-founder) of the Weather Channel, climatologist John Coleman. Read More...