Working on a vid right now about the complexity of the energy transition, which we are seeing play out right in front of us this fall.
Europe is in the grips of energy anxiety as the Covid Recovery has taken energy providers by surprise and left the continent, in particular the UK and a few others, somewhat vulnerable to shortages if there is severe weather this winter. It’s complicated by the fact that Northern Europe suffered a once-in-a-century “wind drought” between may and august this year, which caused more demand for fossil gas than was expected. Inventories, already low due to unexpected economic growth, got hit.
With French nukes already suffering from covid related maintenance delays, there was a fire at the French/UK transmission connection blocking French nuclear electricity sales to the UK,. Spain gas supplies were compromised by a political squabble in North Africa, where their supplies come from – and over everything, there has been Russian gamesmanship with gas supplies, related to their desire to apply pressure around the Nordstream pipeline, which remains in German regulatory limbo.
I spoke to a lot of well informed folks – and one important, and fair point, that drillers make is that there’s a whole lot of stuff that this civilization uses (look around your room) that come from oil, not just fuel – and for now, the expansion of renewables in the utility space hasn’t really touched basic demand for transportation fuel. Obviously that’s coming, I believe sooner than a lot of folks think, but in the meantime we’re stuck with gasoline dependence.
So there’s tension between the investors who are pushing energy companies to back off of new fossil investments, concerns about new assets becoming “stranded” sooner than expected, ever intensifying climate enhanced extreme events, like Hurricane Ida, and the warm spell currently unfolding across North America, and of course, wild cards like Covid, which still has not run its course.
2020s are gonna be lit.
Leaders of the world’s biggest oil companies have used an industry gathering in Houston to launch an attack on the speed of transition to clean energy, claiming a badly managed process could lead to “insecurity, rampant inflation and social unrest”.
Executives from oil companies including Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, and US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron publicly described the shift towards clean energy alternatives as “deeply flawed”. They called for fossil fuels to remain part of the energy mix for years to come despite global efforts for an urgent response to the climate crisis.
Saudi Aramco’s chief executive, Amin Nasser, told delegates at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston, Texas, that adapting to cleaner fuels “overnight” could trigger uncontrolled economic inflation.
“I understand that publicly admitting that oil and gas will play an essential and significant role during the transition and beyond will be hard for some,” he said. “But admitting this reality will be far easier than dealing with energy insecurity, rampant inflation and social unrest as the prices become intolerably high, and seeing net zero commitments by countries start to unravel.
“This morning at the ALEC Committee meetings,” Jason Isaac, director of the Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote last Friday morning, “you’ll have the opportunity to push back against woke financial institutions that are colluding against American energy producers.” The email—obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, and first reported by CMD investigative journalist Alex Kotch—offers a window into a rapidly congealing strategy among Republican state-level officials: declaring war on “critical energy theory” within the financial sector.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, held its States and Nation Policy Summit in San Diego last week. The event—attended by a mix of state legislators and representatives from the private sector—featured spirited discussions about a potential Constitutional Convention, as well as lots of excitement about Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s attempt to galvanize voters around “critical race theory,” the once-obscure academic subfield that right-wingers now regularly rant about, claiming that CRT has infected the K-12 curriculum and that teaching students accurate facts about slavery and segregation is somehow unfair to white people.
Now ALEC seems gearing up for a similar move on energy policy. The group’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, which met on Friday, voted to back two pieces of model legislation that portray climate policy—even climate policy that doesn’t exist yet—as unfairly discriminating against fossil fuel companies. The “Resolution Opposing Securities and Exchange Commission and White House Mandates on Climate-Related Financial Matters” encourages states to take up legal challenges against forthcoming rules from federal financial regulators around climate risk and disclosures, potentially aiming to trigger a similar wave of lawsuits from states that followed the Clean Power Plan during the Obama administration. This follows a letter sent to the “U.S. Banking Industry” by state treasurers, plus a comptroller and auditor, from 16 extraction-heavy, Republican-controlled states just before Thanksgiving, pledging “collective action” against “reckless attacks on law-abiding energy companies.”
The “Energy Discrimination Elimination Act,” voted through unanimously on Friday, directs states to compile a list of entities that are supposedly boycotting fossil fuel companies, explicitly citing banks that are “increasingly denying financing to creditworthy fossil energy companies solely for the purpose of decarbonizing their lending portfolios and marketing their environmental credentials”; institutional investors that are “divesting from fossil energy companies and pressuring corporations to commit to the goal of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050”; and large investments that are “colluding to force energy companies to cannibalize their existing businesses.”
Both draft laws exhibit the emerging right-wing argument that policy that reduces emissions is in fact discriminatory. “Major banks and investment firms,” Isaac argued in his email to participants, urging them to vote for the measure, “are colluding to deny lending and investment in fossil fuel companies, using their market power to force companies to make ‘green’ investments.” The model legislation opposes that, he adds, by setting forth “a strategy in which states use their collective economic purchasing power to counter the rise of politically motivated and discriminatory investing practices.” Texas already has a similar law on the books. Arguing in favor of the bill, Texas state Representative Dennis Paul said there was a need to “stand up to this wokeness.”
“.. claiming that CRT has infected the K-12 curriculum and that teaching students accurate facts about slavery and segregation is somehow unfair to white people.”
This denialism of reality by mouthpieces of the ‘liberal’ center like this New Republic writer (yes, the Woke identity ideology has infected and conquered not just education but is currently ruling all kinds of business, government, and where able – like Canada – law under the moniker of ‘doing the work’ towards more ‘inclusion, diversity, and equity’) is the very fuel people who might mean well are giving over to those who wish to discredit necessary energy change.
Let’s be clear: those who enable and excuse and dismiss the Woke and this racist, bigoted, antiliberal incoherent censorious ideology they impose on others as if ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ or even ‘honest’ are serving one master here: convincing the vast middle of the political spectrum to lean away from the woke and give support to the ONLY alternative in town: the populism of the far Right. Supporting the misguided Woke IS empowering the Right. This IS the fuel.
These “accurate facts about slavery and segregation” aka asking primary school children to identify their racial category and then segregate into same race ‘affinity groups’ is EXACTLY why middle income mothers of school age children in Virginia swung 15% points in the state election away from the woke Democrats who support this nonsense and excuse it to the Republicans who resist it.
So denialism of reality like from the New Republic writer here and almost every major source of mainstream media that both champions and excuses the incoherent Woke ideology in all its identity manifestations is the very engine that will empower those most resistant to addressing meaningful and timely climate change policies and practices. This is accomplished by supporting idiocy that vilifies the vast majority of voters. It requires a special kind of stupid to fail to grasp why following this ‘plan’ shifts the political spectrum away from it. And the only direction available on the ballot is to the Right and those interests that finance it… including petroleum. Go figure.
Agree ham handed lefties are their own worst enemies.
2nd worst enemies.
“These “accurate facts about slavery and segregation” aka asking primary school children to identify their racial category and then segregate into same race ‘affinity groups’ ”
What US primary schools have implemented what you described?
Many. But not often reported. In fact, such teachign is often hidden from parents. Intentionally. (Just google Abigail Schrier’s latest gender grooming bombshell.)
Teaching racial identity – and activism in supporting it – is often part of the curriculum under the heading of teaching children to see and assign meaning to “skin tones” and is part of today’s ubiquitous and oh-so-virtuous anti-racism ideology. There are also many examples like this one.
The point, however, is to notice how even petroleum advocates are using the anti-woke positioning and messaging to gain support not from alt Right extremists but from the vast middle of the political spectrum raised on the idea that it is virtuous to judge someone by the quality of their character RATHER than the color of one’s skin. Today’s anti-racism ideology (Kendi and D’Angelo’s profitable multimillion dollar approach in speaking fees and best selling books vilifying all things ‘white’) is exactly the opposite of ML King’s dream for his daughters. It is racist to the core even if the term CRT itself (Critical Race Theory) isn’t what’s specifically taught as a comparative theory but assigning social hierarchy and meaning to race IS what is acted upon in classroom, in board meeting, in mass media, in law. That’s why the woke are handing fuel for the populist Right wing candidates to win election after election after election. Parents KNOW this is wrong, this is racism in action. Without that political fuel given to them by misguided and badly fooled ‘liberals’ pushing this ridiculous anti-liberal ideology in all it guises, they have nothing positive to run on. They have to face the blunt fact that burning carbon for energy has to be replaced.
Concern about CRT is manufactured outrage, pure and simple. The right needed something to bash the left with, and that’s what they came up with. (The right needs fuel as you say, they built the outrage about CRT, they got the support.) It’s been effective, granted. They won Virginia because of it. But, it’s pure BS – and distraction from the real problems we do face.
Up until it became headline news, it was a single class on one college campus based around one person’s theory and book. It had very minimal effect on American culture, and none on K-12 education.
Societal trends, you describe it in derisive terms like ‘wokeness’, favoring greater understanding of racial and sexual attitudes have been building for over a generation. Some take it too far. The media certainly uses to win points with certain segments of the population. But, it’s not going to stop. For centuries upon centuries, racial and sexual minorities have been treated with the gamut from social denigration to lynching. And now, in the past ten years, people are standing up to that – and it’s all THEIR fault? Seriously, WTF.
The right (and frankly, the white) reacts against it because it threatens their POWER. It’s all about maintaining superior social and economic standing. Of course they are going to react poorly to it.
I say – give women, and minorities, and sexually different persons the power. It’s not like straight, white males (like me) have done a bang up job running things the past century. In any case, what we’re witnessing is broad social change, and it won’t stop. How one reacts to it says far more about that individual than the change itself.
Well, it’s not manufactured. It’s very real. And it is widespread. Just this week, for example, we have Maori mythology to be taught in NZ science classes as an equivalent ‘way of knowing’; we have a doctor of indigenous studies getting a over million healthcare dollars in Canada to study indigenous medicine; we have fully intact male inmates claiming to be ‘real women’ committing sexual crimes in women’s prisons (plural, and again in Canada); we have unanimous approval from the Canadian parliament (both Houses) to outlaw ‘conversion therapy’ which includes ANY counselling – medical, social, psychological, or psychiatric – of vulnerable prepubescent female children groomed to think undergoing sex change transition will ‘solve’ their medical, social, psychological, or psychiatric conditions and challenges and stresses… even if they are unaware of the accompanying sterility and life-long medical treatment they are signing up for. In effect these kids can write their own prescriptions if ‘gender identity’ is used to justify it and anyone – including parents – who try to talk them out of it are guilty of ‘conversion therapy’ which is now a hate crime under the criminal code! But does anyone stop and think that maybe, just maybe, this kind of insanity is very much a very fuel for swinging elections to favor whoever stand up to this woke bullying?
The Toronto District Board just cancelled a Nobel prize winning author from speaking to a high school book club because as a victim of ISIS, her book might offend local Muslims and so had to be cancelled because the author’s real life experiences promotes ‘Islamophobia’, you see. And yesterday a Jewish Trustee of that same school board was censured for calling teaching material anti Semitic that described suicide bombings to kill as many civilians as possible ‘legitimate expression of grievance’. Although a separate review paid for by that Board that admitted as much was used in her defense, the truth and facts do not protect anyone these days from being vilified by the Woke if it they dare commit blasphemy against the One True Message.
So yeah, CRT and all it’s group-identity hierarchy framing of all things as political power committed by the ‘Victimizers’ against the ‘Victims’ is a potent fuel that will burn the West to the ground by swinging these vital elections to anyone – including authoritarian populists only too happy to dismantle liberal institutions – who stands against such incredible idiocy, which then allows real issues like altering our energy system to wither on the vine and get back to relying on ‘clean’ petroleum to carry on carrying on.
Your language clearly indicates you are outraged. And where did you learn these things that caused this outrage? Please, point to sources. And then, I will track down the sources behind the sources. These particular examples might indeed exist (they likely do) but they were publicized widely (and therefore manufactured) by the right in their media to push the right’s agenda. They create outrage as a political tool to try and maintain their political and social standing.
I won’t argue it’s not working (for the time being). The right is successful with this tactic.
But again, and as I have already said some do go too far, in a broader context, what we are seeing is a change in social standing and power structures – from what has existed as a de facto right given by birth to one segment of society, to new segments. You and I can’t stop it any more than standing in the ocean to prevent a wave – and frankly, I think it’s about time.
Whether or not this tactic by the right will continue to be successful (or as you claim, burn the West to the ground), only time will tell. But here’s what I also see – the younger generations are the ones pushing this change, and the older ones are the ones fighting it the most. Guess who wins that one eventually? In the States, the right is pretty effectively killing themselves already by refusing the vaccine. I’m not certain this won’t eventually swing some major states in the next Presidential race. Over time, all the outrage baiting by the right will lose its novelty, and therefore its ability to outrage. Additionally, it’s clear that some of the most powerful interests in the States and elsewhere have already chosen their side, and this doesn’t look likely to change.
And the moral high ground ultimately belongs to the left, anyway. I am a child of the American South. A great many of my ancestors both fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves prior to that. My grandmother, whom I loved, was a proud member of the Daughters of the Confederacy who got upset when Martin Luther King Day was announced. I know my people, and I’ll be the first to say what we have done over hundreds of years is far, far worse than some recent school board’s decision.
See what you’ve done? You’ve dismissed legitimate illiberal actions that occur daily under the name of being ‘woke’ and assigned all of it to be ‘manufactured’ by some mysterious rightwing agency. You then draw on historical racial grievances as if they legitimize the dismissal of the group-based victim/victimizer hierarchical ideology without granting that the liberal progressive arc has achieved anything at all when it so obviously has. You then assign righteousness to the woke dismissal because it is a ‘younger’ cohort that will ‘win’.
You will find – as have the cohorts who came before you and started and supported the progressive arc with blood and toil and tears and sweat – you have ‘won’ nothing worth winning. This is what a large segment of the central portion of the electorate sees as a greater danger to the damaged liberal state you will inherit than the populism behind whatever political alternative there is.
Your assumptions are dismissive because you don’t recognize the death of liberalism that occurs after a thousand cuts. That’s the problem.
So the right question you should be asking yourself is why do you think this way, why you are not equivalently outraged that the mainstream media and the academic institutions that should be making you think and question and criticize on merit has not exposed and criticized such illiberal acts supported by so-called ‘liberals’ and questioned why dismissing what are OBVIOUSLY truth and facts seems to be okay to the younger cohort?
Liberalism is the worst kind of political ideology… one that relies on individual autonomy in law be respected by all and the freedom to speak your mind to be supported by not only by our public institutions but by each citizen who wishes to share the same rights and freedoms in law as every other citizen without professional or personal censure… except for all the others. At this rate, you will learn the lesson too late. But you will feel very virtuous doing so, not realizing the democracy is mob rule; it is liberalism that makes it work. That’s what the woke are tearing down.
The chances of implementing such a huge undertaking as altering our energy system by the mob – and in time to keep the global temperature below 2.5 C by 2100 – that is ruled by the populist funded by special interests is slim to none. That’s the master currently being served by the woke. And it is as preventable as it is a civic capitulation of doing one’s moral duty to respect and DEFEND the shared rights and freedoms of all.
I know democracy is in trouble – I see it in many different ways. I tend to believe it’s not ‘wokeness’ that is its cause, though (it’s laughably lame as a cause, but whatever) – but long-term inequality, the rise of the internet, environmental destruction, governmental gridlock (which, btw, existed well before CRT), and an economy that relies on growth but can’t keep it going forever, among others.
I’m not outraged about ‘wokeness’ mostly because I haven’t ‘red-pilled’ down some BS far right Youtube and social media rabbit hole.
We’ll all lose as far as long-term trends go. It’s just not by this most recent frankly silly manufactured outrage that has you, and many other whites, in a lather for the past 2-3 years. Multi-culturalism is our inevitable destiny. It was etched in stone as soon as our economy grew to this point. We’ve outgrown single nations as a sustainable provider for local economies. With that change in our economy, cultural and societal upheavals are certain to follow.
In those upheavals, people can over-react. Some act stupidly. We can’t stop that. You think illiberal acts are the sole province of the left? You do seem to place all the blame on the ‘woke’, when it less than a year ago that a far-right mob stormed the U.S. Capitol trying to overturn an election. I strongly believe it’s not the left that are the problem – it is, has always been, and will be the right that would spearhead authoritarianism. Why aren’t YOU outraged by THEM? BLM never threatened to topple the U.S. government and kidnap Congress members.
A democracy is a fundamentally weak institution to prevent climate change. Period. We had gridlock since the Articles of Confederation – well, well before all this manufactured outrage about ‘wokeness’. We’ll have it in the future. It’s not preventable. But, get outraged about ‘wokeness’ and defend whatever you think you are defending, if it makes you feel better.
we have fully intact male inmates claiming to be ‘real women’ committing sexual crimes in women’s prisons (plural, and again in Canada)
Cite? What prison(s)?
we have unanimous approval from the Canadian parliament (both Houses) to outlaw ‘conversion therapy’ which includes ANY counselling – medical, social, psychological, or psychiatric – of vulnerable prepubescent female children
Please cite which section of C-4 specifies this.
BTW I live in Canada asd some of this sounds like it is coming from Ezra.
Yeah, that definitely needs a citation.
Sure: Just this year. Did you hear about it in Canada? Why not, I wonder?
I point this stuff out because THIS is the kind of stuff that the average person enamored with the Left and subject to constant confirmation bias knows very little about. Yet THIS is what many people in the center who are not overtly partisan politically (but generally liberal in outlook) find out represents some of what the ‘woke’ activist movement is in action when exposed by Right wing interests. I’m saying we should be doing this ourselves, demonstrating our outrage by liberals over the idiocy of and harm caused by this ideology whenever and wherever it is used in action. Where is the liberal outrage when a male swimmer at Princeton swims as a man for 3 years and THEN discovers he’s really a woman inside this 40% stronger male body and then SMASHES the ‘women’s records’ in competition! What message is REALLY being sent to half the population? And the Left thinks this is… what… ‘progressive’?
And that’s exactly what politicians like Glen Youngkin rely on: expose this part or that part of this ‘woke’ movement like CRT in classrooms AS PRACTICED to these ‘liberal’ women voters who have kids in public education and WATCH the 15% swing come your way. It’s not a mystery that this is the same plan that the petroleum industry will use to protect its interests from legitimate scrutiny and criticism. And the Left is handing this fuel over on a silver platter by trying to pretend it isn’t real or doesn’t matter; instead, they want to argue about the terminology. Good grief.
C-4
320.101
What has happened in the States is that an advocate for transitioning will advise a questioning child to say that anyone who disagrees with the ‘exploration’ of transitioning from one gender identity to another starting with puberty blockers (rather than watchful waiting, which used to be the norm) – and that ‘anyone is every responsible adult in the room and legally responsible for that child’s welfare – is exercising conversion therapy. A child in Canada can refer to section ‘e’, that the responsible adult who is not fully on board and only fully on board is repressing a person’s non-cisgender gender identity. Medical practitioners and parents are just as vulnerable to this charge, which has been exercised in many States and in many cases involving everything from social workers to psychiatrists, from teachers to parents. If the child is under age of majority, the parent loses parental rights and his or her child then becomes a ward of the State and can then receive some of the transitioning medical intervention costs through public funding while the concerned adults are stripped of any legal authority or ability to intervene.
As for transgendered women committing sexual assaults in women’s prisons in Canada, there are many dozens and dozens of examples since 2018 (go talk to Meghan Murphy or read the submitted brief by various women’s human rights organizations as I have). What Corrections Canada has been ordered to do, however, is not report the gender of those guilty, so gathering statistics is made very difficult. Intentionally so. However, when you listen to women who have been imprisoned with fully intact males, you begin to realize the scope of the problem and why addressing it is made next to impossible by respecting these gender identity changes in policy. And MSM goes along with NOT reporting these assaults. If you are actually curious, don’ trust me; go investigate it yourself.
I looked into it. There have been some male-to-female prisoners in Canada that have raped women prisoners. This, of course, is a bad thing – it should be prevented.
But, all of this boils down to two things: false equivalency and tribal identity.
On false equivalency, what about a male-to-female prisoner in a male prison? Maybe a few rapes there? Maybe far more rapes, and a long history of abuse of gay and trans prisoners in male prisons, than the Canadian cases?
So, on tribal identity, both are certainly bad, but while placing ALL the blame on leftists and the MSM, maybe also look at why one didn’t raise the same sort of outcry previously when the long, long history of abuse was happening on the other side. Same with racial relations. Same with gender relations.
The world is changing. We’re all figuring this stuff out. As I wrote on my first comment, how we react to all this says more about ourselves (and how we identify tribally) than the situation itself. A few people in historically dominant groups (white males, mainly) have suddenly found that others discriminate against them.
It’s not right, certainly, to be prejudiced against anyone else, but at the same time – the white guy who suddenly finds he can’t say whatever BS he wants on the internet without heavy negative feedback, and gets angry about it, might consider that minority groups have dealt with this same stuff in a much more dramatic way for generations.
We can wish everyone just behaves rationally – but good luck with that. People aren’t fundamentally rational. ALL of us rationalize to support our pre-existing beliefs.
Okay, on the Youngkin race, CRT did make a difference. But, a far more potent problem than CRT in that race was mask mandates. A bunch of suburban moms were hopping mad about the school closures and requirements, and this swung the race more than CRT did.
The CRT/woke thing as the cause of our failure to adopt renewables more quickly is tenuous at best. We’ve had this same problem with solar and wind since the 1980 election. Youngkin was the Virginia governor’s race. It has some effect on renewables adoption, but it’s slight. In Congress, most districts in the U.S. are heavily gerrymandered. Things like CRT would have a minimal effect. On the Presidential race, that’s yet to be tested, but I’d bet more people favor minority rights than there are super pissed voters that there are woke people on the left.
And, finally, there’s something that should be told to the ‘radical centrist’. You may consider yourself the hero for being rational about the left, but your ideas and messages DO get co-opted by the right for their own confirmation bias and political power. They publish these things widely and whip up outage. You effectively side with them while believing you are the superior being for not taking sides.
Certain things like prison rape should be condemned in the open. Moaning about Maori culture being taught in public schools doesn’t hold the same water.
Maybe its because I have family on both sides of the border between the US and Canada and sprinkled across many provinces and states that I listen to many viewpoints from many people more clever than I. But here’s something worth considering: were you surprised at the Trump victory in 2016?
No one who listened to the average voter should have been surprised by a Trump victory in 2016. Yet it seems to me that many were shocked at the result and to this day still haven’t figured out that they just weren’t listening then and are not listening now.
This matters because, as I said, you have to identify a problem accurately first before arriving a solution that should work. And I honestly don’t think people grasp that supporting the ‘progressive’ ideology as it is practiced today (like teaching Maori mythology AS EQUIVALENT SCIENCE) really does portend another election victory to a populist authoritarian who can point at the rise of crime where police have been reduced through defunding, really can point at cases of racial indoctrination endemic in education, really can point at hypocrisy about funding EV tax credits by the President (but only to unionized EV makers who themselves admit being at least 7 years away from what is currently available), really can raise the harm done by implementing gender activism against literally tens of thousands of children with public school and institutionalized collaboration, and so on. The scope and restrictive of this ‘progressive’ ideology is revealed by the average American who feels he or she cannot speak freely without being censured, revealed by North Korean defector and sex slave in China Yeonmi Park saying the level of self censoring and political correctness needed to succeed at Georgetown made her say, “Even North Korea isn’t this nuts.”
When we don’t really HEAR just how much this shifts the center of political support away from the Left BECAUSE it widely endorses this craziness and excuses it from legitimate criticism and even justified outrage (but usually doubles down in certainty like religious zealots do), we are failing not our ‘side’ but liberal democracy as a whole. This failure will continue to fuel what is most feared by the Left: an authoritarian populist who will finish the job of dismantling liberal democracy in the name of ‘protecting it’ so widely supported by badly confused and mostly deaf ‘liberals’ who will continue to blame everyone but themselves and then sit mystified how such an authoritarian populist could ever have been elected… not once but TWICE! And on our watch.
Was I surprised in 2016? No. And I got a lot of grief here for it:
https://climatecrocks.com/2016/09/07/clinton-on-climate/
I lived in a state where there was a strong feeling Trump could win, and I thought HC was a bad candidate – not as bad as Trump, though, so I thought she’d still edge it out, but I thought it would be a lot closer than the polls showed at the time.
Tesla orders would get an EV tax credit under BBB. They just wouldn’t get as large a tax credit as Ford and GM. But let’s be clear – Musk is in favor of ditching BBB ENTIRELY because he says the deficit is too large already. I fail to see how ditching BBB completely helps with climate change.
Now the American left is worse than North Korea to you? Seriously, hyperbole much? Are you really being rational here?
2024 is a long way away. Americans have a history of switching from D to R to D to R with regularity, but we’ll see. I’m not certain Trump will run. I tend to put stock in the theory that his ego ultimately won’t allow him to run – that he’ll bow out before risking losing again. And I’ve already listed here in my second comment to you some thoughts on 2024.
JB, you say, “Musk is in favor of ditching BBB ENTIRELY because he says…”
I suspect you should have qualified that statement as something someone else told you because what he said was significantly more than this out of context snippet. He said he wanted all subsidies dropped not just for the upcoming automotive manufacturer EVs but also the petroleum industry that has worked hand in glove to keep ICEs as the predominant energy system for transportation. This heavily tilted playing field by supposedly climate concerned governments is what Tesla has successfully competed against.
He was also against the public paying for recharging stations because this, too, is part of the economics he and Tesla had to overcome on their own (while dealing with chronic short-sellers on its stock) to become a profitable company and so it seems rather unfair to Tesla – that has created over 30,000 such stations to date – for the government to NOW use public money this way that favors only EV competition to Tesla. He has a valid point even if one disagrees with the conclusion.
So this is the kind of commentary I encounter all the time that constantly paints Musk and Tesla in about as poor a light as can be done. Again, though, it makes one wonder why is this so common? Could it be an intentional manipulation by the press or part of the algorithms used by social media? The guy has created an alternative and clean energy system for transportation and yet receives so much negative press. Interesting, eh?
You should be shocked that a young and articulate North Korean escapee as well as an escapee from the Chinese sex/slave trade would say such a thing. (I didn’t say it, jimbills; I quoted it.) And she’s far from alone from people who have lived under totalitarian regimes and are shocked and deeply dismayed at how anti-liberal so many young but educated ‘liberals’ are, how amazed that what so many in the world try to obtain for themselves and families is treated so callously and yes, stupidly, by those who have been raised in the luxurious waters of liberal democracies and find it all too lacking in virtue. Check out someone raised under Communist Romania’s brutal Ceaușescu regime: Princeton’s math prof Sergiu Klainerman’s thoughts. He’s written several good articles on the subject.
I think no one sums up what’s going on better than Thomas Sowell:
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”
When our elected choices are either woke or authoritarian populism, I suspect the majority will go with the security of authoritarianism. In either case, addressing climate change will rank too low on the political spectrum to stop by my estimates 3.5C by 2100. Please, let me be wrong.
‘Can this bill’:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-joe-biden-tesla-b1971384.html
Two things: I’d suggest the energy transition needs more than just one company, and maybe Occam’s applied to Musk and the mainstream media – they don’t criticize him because he’s been instrumental with EV adoption (and there’s a grand conspiracy to stop him), but because he constantly says a bunch of whackadoo sheet.
Well, there is that…!
[Can’t reply to end of thread.]
Thank you for the CAEFS report link. It looks like the vetting for transfers is weak to non-existent.
Not unlike the new pseudo nature-loving nest for the same old anti-renewable tropes, from False (Progress) and others:
http://disq.us/p/2198li4
and
https://climatecrocks.com/2021/10/14/vast-expansion-of-offshore-wind-envisioned/comment-page-1/#comment-121734
How hard is it just to say “We have to stop combusting fossil fuels” or “Electricity stops us from combusting fossil fuels”?
Besides which, there are several efforts in parallel that those West Texas drillers might have trouble laughing off:
(1) The move away from combustion-based transport
(2) The global grass-roots transition away from disposable/single-use plastic items (even the poorer parts of the world)
(3) Heat pumps increasingly replacing oil and gas furnaces
(4) Growing tech to replace petroleum-based products (bamboo, laminates, cellulose constructs, etc.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOPHHgJgJ2s
https://www.energy.gov/articles/hows-and-whys-replacing-whole-barrel
I used that 2016 video to show the nonlinear nature of changes in supply or demand on the oil market, but the estimates and predictions from back then are worth assessing:
Tesla’s goal back then was making 500,000 cars in 2020, and they came pretty damn close: They made 499,550 vehicles in 2020, but more importantly 2021 production has rocketed and the Gigafactories in Austin and Berlin haven’t started cranking them out, yet.
Oops, wrong energy.gov link:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_article_width/public/Barrel.png
Because of serious pro-EV policies stuck to for years, Norway’s EV market share is now an astounding 90%
Iceland is at 62%; Sweden (a market twice the size of Norway’s) is about 45%. Finland 28, Denmark 27, Germany 22, Netherlands 20, Ireland 17, France, UK, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium 15%…
China 11%!
Most of these countries are going up so fast it’s hard to keep track of them, going up month by month and often with doubling times of 1-2 years! They’re on the vertical part of the S-curve; a couple are even leveling off at the top and virtually every car on the road will be an EV by 2030 if not before. Those countries—especially Norway & Iceland—have grids that are at or near 100% renewable so are rapidly closing in on 100% renewable ENERGY, and others are not far behind—50-80% RE grids. So they also have about the cleanest-running EVs in the world.
But of course, those countries are not ruled by psychopaths and populated by mentally ill morons. The US has just inched up to 3% market share, 18% RE grid, 8% primary energy with doubling times for each of whothefuckknows?
Maybe I’ll start learning to speak Scandinishian.
Remember, we’re measuring percentage of new cars that are EVs in most of these analyses. The secondary market for ICE vehicles will be long and strong. This is the downside of the quality improvement in the design and manufacture of cars since the 1980s.
It’s another one of those ironies that EV uptake will lower gasoline prices and keep more (especially poor) people driving combustion vehicles.
I read earlier that Norway is now over 50% total cars are EV.
Yes, I wish we were always given figures for both market share and cars-on-road. IIRC, Norway has taax on
Dang, didn’t mean for that to happen. IIRC, Norway has tax on ICEVs that will make even used ones less attractive, and they have poor people maybe 4 or 5 orders of magnitude lower than the US. Within 3 years I’m guessing every Norwayan, Swededishian, Icelandrover, and Denmarker who can buy a car will be able to buy an EV. Not sure about those Finlandias, but once 830 of the 837 of them own EVs what else is there to say?
Unfortunately, used ICEVs will probably find their way to eastern Europe and beyond but maybe that will raise the price enough to shorten their attractiveness, as EVs continue to drop in price. “Irregardless” of gasoline price, as it gets harder and harder to even find the back alley where the stuff is sold, the numbers will drop even rapiderer. In any case, at some point between 90 & 100% market share, it becomes moot. The few hangers-on will have near-zero effect on emissions. In the US, it will be a different story. The right will spread who knows what lies; that
Damn, some new macro/shortcut keeps posting prematurely.
The right will spread who-knows-what lies about EVs; that Venezuela makes 10% on each one? That the lithium gets pushed up through the seat into butt cracks and takes over people’s brains, turning them Black. And gay? Policies have to be created to get people to scrap ICEVs and take transit. To do that we’ll need a new congress and president.
And what cars are they driving in Scandinavia?
Even without the Tesla Berlin gigafactory up and running, look at the percentage that is Tesla. Yet we are told from the highest echelon in the US that GM is what amounts to The Great Automotive Savior and that Musk, who took all the risk and accepted stock as payment for an EV startup called Tesla, is some kind of Bad Guy rather than an American success story in how to deal with altering and implementing and profiting from a different energy system… focusing today on transportation. Yup, he’s the worst kind of person, donchaknow.
Iceland and Norway have 100% renewable electricity, but the ones with the next lowest power emissions are Sweden, France, and Belgium, which all have a substantial tranche of nuclear. Denmark sometimes makes it into the top bunch when they’re importing a lot of power from Sweden. Finland also gets clean power by proxy, but once they open Olkiluoto and Hanhikivi they should be well clear of Denmark, even on windy days.
‘Seven of the biggest 15 were renewable and 23 of the biggest 43.’ From a post of yours referencing largest per capita zero carbon power developments. In other words, 8 of the top 15, and 20 of the top 43, were nuclear – and only one of the top 25 was wind.
AND AS I ALSO SAID, EVERY ONE THAT STARTED THIS CENTURY (AND ALL BUT ONE IN THE LAST 25 YEARS) HAS BEEN RENEWABLE, (AND SCOTLAND (69% WIND, 90% R.E.) ISN’T INCLUDED.)
FURTHER, AS I’VE SAID NUMEROUS TIMES CLEAN SAFE RENEWABLE ENERGY DOESN’T WORK SINGLY; IT’S A COOPERATIVE EFFORT BETWEEN A BUNCH OF TECHNOLOGIES. THAT’S NOT ACCOUNTED FOR IN THIS FLAWED MODEL.
ONCE AGAIN, YOU’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES; YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT DIFFERENT ERAS IN ENERGY DEVELOPMENT. ONE WITHOUT SENSE, HEEDLESS OF SAFETY, SUBSIDIES AND ECOLOGICAL DESTRUCTION WHEN ELECTRICITY USE WAS EXPANDING WHERE THERE WAS UNLIMITED MONEY, AND ONE PAYING ATTENTION TO ALL THOSE THINGS IN WHICH ELECTRICITY USE IS ONLY EXPANDING WHERE MONEY IS TIGHT AND THEY’RE TRYING TO CATCH UP IN EVERY WAY AT ONCE. ONE ERA IN WHICH NUKES WERE CHEAP BECAUSE THEY WERE BUILT UNSAFELY, AND ONE IN WHICH NUKES ARE BEING TREATED AS THE INSANE CONSTRUCTIONS OF PSYCHOPATHS THAT THEY ARE, AND CLEAN SAFE RELIABLE RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES HAVE COME DOWN IN PRICE ENOUGH SO NUKES CAN’T COMPETE WITHOUT MASSIVE GOVERNMENT LARGESSE AND BRIBERY, AND OUR PSYCHOPATHIC ECONOMIC SYSTEM WILL FINALLY DEIGN TO USE CLEAN SAFE FAST CHEAP RENEWABLE ENERGY TO AVOID THE END OF CIVILIZATION.
(WE JUST BARELY ESCAPED THAT ERA WITH DOZENS OF NEAR-MISSES AND SEVERAL DISASTERS THAT KILLED THOUSANDS AND COULD HAVE KILLED TENS OF MILLIONS. THE INEVITABLE NEXT ONES MIGHT, IF WE’RE STOOPID ENOUGH TO BUILD ANY MORE.)
Maybe next time you’ll admit what I said. OR I CAN JUST KEEP SCREAMING.
I think you’ll find that tight money and tight energy put a strangler on the expansion of wind and solar – their prices are already going up. They only work when there’s plenty of hydrocarbon to fill the gaps.
You’re not really screaming, you just pressed Caps Lock.
NO. IN FACT IF PEOPLE WERE HERE THEY’D SEE I REALLY AM SCREAMING.
But that’s exactly what oneill does: leaps to completely evidence-free, counterfactual conclusions, refuses to understand anything, lies about everything, and then refuses to reconsider or admit anything about anything so s/he can do it all over again a few days later.
Of course as always everything oneill said is a lie, and as always s/he has refused to read, understand or admit (always impossible to tell which, online) either the practical experience of more than 2 dozen countries or the dozens of studies showing 100% clean safe renewable energy works.
Wind, solar, batteries, geothermal, tidal, EVs and other aspects of clean safe renewable energy continue to drop in price year by year, as they did from 2010 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021. Despite occasional fluctuations and other challenges ARFs relentlessly exaggerate and disinterpret, the direction is clear and will continue. We have to do whatever it takes to make it happen as fast as possible.
Dismissing the ravings of lying psychopathic lunatics is the first step.
‘A separate report from Rystad Energy released Friday said global solar panel prices have jumped 16% this year compared to 2020′s levels. Overall costs, which include soft costs like labor, are up 12% in 2021.’
‘Wind turbine prices are expected to increase by up to 10% over the next 12 to 18 months due to increases in commodity prices’
‘The latest IPCC report suggests that average wind speeds over Europe will reduce by 8%-10% as a result of climate change.’ Since wind power scales with the CUBE (forgive my shouting, but this matters) of wind speed, a ten percent drop in average windspeed can result in a much greater fall in output.
European hydro has been down too- also in New Zealand, Brazil, and California. I wonder what other power sources we might rely on ?
Seems the “free” market is all just fine with these people–but only so long as it’s dedicated to continued investments in the industries that fill your pockets and support your politics. The risks of investment in more fossil fuel production are real. Sadly, that’s not a guarantee that fossil fuels will fade into the past. But even a market pull-back from banks and investors worried (reasonably) that stranded fossil fuel assets are a serious risk to investors’ pocketbooks is stirring up outrage on the ‘burn the world’ right.
I was just thinking the same thing.
This follows a letter sent to the “U.S. Banking Industry” by state treasurers, plus a comptroller and auditor, from 16 extraction-heavy, Republican-controlled states just before Thanksgiving, pledging “collective action” against “reckless attacks on law-abiding energy companies.”
Nothing like the free market until it starts affecting profits.
And just look how Tesla and Musk are so often vilified especially by mainstream media. Because Tesla pays its employees more than GM unionized workers and offers equivalent health coverage, still the Democrats insist that EVs must be union made to receive federal subsidies.
Gee, I wonder why? Addressing climate change has NOTHING to do with it.
The fact that GM cannot compete with Tesla and is many, many years behind in equivalent technology (especially battery tech) doesn’t stop Biden from pronouncing GM is the EV savior-in-waiting… not because it’s true (it’s not) but because it’s just more chauvinistic politics-in-action rather than addressing and committing to real and effective change by those agents and agencies best positioned to do so.
politics is unfortunately real, and winning back working people is a primary goal in order to save democracy. empowering unions has multiple benefits that include helping provide a counter weight to the unlimited funding power of corporations in election politics.
Union workers have also been helpful in getting more clean energy sited around the country.
this chess game has a lot of pieces.
Yes, it does have many moving parts. But vilifying one’s strongest allies – the vast centrist voter – is not a good plan.
No such thing. The US public is overwhelmingly progressive on almost all issues with maybe a third polarized to the far right on some issues, but very likely willing to go for progressive candidates if the country can get its defecation consolidated to produce a real party of them with support, and force the overwhelmingly right wing media to report on them at all, let alone honestly. We need a mass defection of progressives (including Sanders & the Squad expansion) away from the right wing oligarchic leadership.
I get the weird, backwards idea your ideology is largely based on the ridiculous big-center lie you’re either telling or have been sold on by sources you haven’t revealed. Where do you get your information?
If it matters at all, I’m what’s called a classical liberal who favors (I’ll use the American spelling here to avoid the dreaded squiggly red line under ‘favour’) what is called ‘radical centrism‘.
I get my information first from an excellent liberal arts education that has taught me to appreciate and implement what constitutes critical thinking using the best information available (evaluating specifics on a compare and contrast Bayesian method of likelihood) so I use sources from across the political spectrum and across all ideologies and belief systems. Peter’s site, for example, uses many of the same sources I had – some in person – for one of my environmental undergrad degrees when it was brand new field, and so I respect the wide assortment of informed and expert sources he regularly uses. That’s what draws me to follow certain sites, which then leads me to further inquiry on my own. I think that when it comes to facts about reality, science is the best method we have.
I think identifying a problem is key to producing effective solutions to it and so, in this regard, appreciating reality and respecting what’s true about it (by letting reality arbitrate these beliefs) is fundamental. The reality in this case is that the petroleum industry has found a way to use today’s widespread ideological framework – group identity and the politics that has siloed everyone and everything into for-and-against groups always at odds – and harness that never-ending culture war to its advantage. And I see well informed people falling for it.
The cost will be paid by all of us for this foolishness because we generally don’t understand how our Left wing support is feeding into reality denialism in the name of inclusion, diversity, and equity (none of which are actually true within the ideology as practiced but their antitheses). The Left is as responsible as the Right. But neither partisan side seems to truly grasp how this can be. Yet it IS the problem!
I have issues with Mr. Musk (and other wealthy, tax-dodging, over-privileged people); as a person, I’m not impressed with him at all. As an entrepreneur, he has made real contributions (I remember him speaking at the AGU meeting some years ago), but I’m not a big fan of Space-X projects– cluttering up low-earth orbit is a real problem. But your obsessive panic-mongering about the “woke” (i.e. people who take the history and brutal reality of slavery and racism in the U.S. seriously) is a tell… The 1619 project is a serious scholarly project on the long and brutal history of slavery and racist. I remember being taught the “right” description of the civil war in grade 6 in a suburban school in Baton Rouge: it was “the war between the states,” and the war was only about “state’s rights”– it wasn’t about slavery at all, we were told. I’ve been woke for a long time, and that’s not going to change. If your United States still can’t accept the realities of history, I fear you’re finally going to kill the trembling quasi-democracy you have now. Climate change is the key issue we’re here about– panicking about kids being taught the truth about slavery and racism (in terms suitable to their ages) is a silly thing to panic over, and (as I said) a tell.
I wholeheartedly agree with almost all of that, and as a recent immigrant (maybe 120-170 years ago) I appreciate your attempt to be solicitous. But the us has never in 250 years been anything remotely resembling any kind of democracy, though it has cannibalized a bunch of them. For 500 years it’s been a pseudo-religious, racist, misogynist, genocidal oligarchic empire, (I’m tempted to throw in a “murderous” or 2 just for emphasis) and the best people can say about it is about to get far, far worse, if there’s anyone around to say it at all.
[First off, let me say that I didn’t know you were nearly that old.]
Democracy in the USA started very much as in Greece, where only white male property holders had the vote.
Over time, adjacent classes of people (non-landowners, then non-whites, then non-males) eventually won the franchise under the law.
At the time I was born, homosexuality was criminalized, domestic violence was beyond the scope of law, marital rape was a non-concept, segregation was overt, news articles did not use “alleged” or “suspect” for people arrested for crimes, there was no Civil Rights Act, Medicare did not yet exist, the US didn’t have no-fault divorce, the only protections for tenants was bare-bones contract law, there was no Deadbeat Dad movement to push for laws with teeth, there was no Roe v. Wade (OK, that one’s going away), and I don’t think any legislature had ever officially apologized for historic wrongs.
That’s not nothing.
Antiintellectualstan
I strongly disliked the word ‘woke’ from the first time I read it, even used straight.
But it’s flabbergasting……… yet not the least bit surprising….. that the word has been corrupted by the proto-fascist lunatic right to denigrate people for being intelligent, empathetic, and aware.
And the right wing has glommed onto “woke” well after it stopped being used by the left (apparently “woke” isn’t groovy any more).
Perhaps this will help you better understand who has altered the ’60’s civil rights term and why the claim that it has been “corrupted by the proto-fascist lunatic right to denigrate people for being intelligent, empathetic, and aware,” demonstrates everything wrong with the ideology called ‘woke’ today.
This is important to grasp because without this understanding, one is more likely to support this anti-woke fuel to the petroleum industry’s exercise for political power.
Remember, the question should be WHY associating renewables with the ‘woke’ is such an effective move by those who wish to keep on burning fossil fuels. THAT is the key concern here, that the ideology called ‘woke’ is toxic enough to stopping the political power to bear to make necessary changes to the energy system. It’s the strategy to shift a relatively small percentage (usually less than 10%) of the electorate that votes either way to swing this political pendulum. So we’re not talking about some fringe element at all but at why such a strategy by the petroleum industry aimed at the CENTER of the political spectrum achieves their goals. And with over 60% of Americans afraid to enunciate their opinions out of fear of negative consequences of this supposedly ‘manufactured’ ideological activist movement is a pretty big hint at answering the question correctly.
The reason the world “woke” is effective has nothing to do with the people the right is denigrating and everything to do with the feat mongering racists and wealthy “capitalists” seeking tax cuts and bailouts and demanding cuts in the public sector to enable still more tax cuts.
It’s just an extension of the same old list (“communism,” “socialism,” “atheism,” etc.) and used for nothing but abusive, empty rhetoric and fear mongering– the right-wing web and media have added “woke” to their list of demonic descriptives. Even when the use of the word (as noted above) has faded from most left-wing discourse, it still sounds scary to Fox’s fearful, dedicated white audience. Best of all, it’s a wonderful distraction from the massive tax cuts and tax avoidance by millionaires and billionaires with Republican (and some Democrat) politicians in their hip pockets and “open season” for dark groups (e.g. the “Federalist Society”) providing long lists of right-wing judges who are very good at recognizing the important rights of wealthy interests and delivering some of the cultural obsessions of key voting bases.
I recommend you have a look at Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” — which dates to the ’60s… (Harper’s magazine — easy to find online…).
Lots of folk who share the same concern about how this ideology is playing out also share the same uncertainty about what to call ‘it’. The ‘it’ is an anti-liberal framework being widely implemented by pretend ‘liberals’, an ideology that pretends to be inclusive, pretends to respect diversity, pretends to be against racism, pretends to be tolerant, and so on. So it’s not surprising to me but is, apparently to others, that ‘it’ is creating a pretend world. If you’ve got as better word for this ideology championed by the Left, then that is great and would be most welcome.
What ‘it’ is falls into this general description (by the much vilified Bruce Gilley), which in this case is about ‘decolonization’ and what drives this ideology and motivates its adherents (I think he has a very strong case and a very solid evidence-based thesis on this topic, but that’s beside the point) yet still usefully descriptive regarding what ‘it’ is, I think:
“Calls today to “decolonize” the West amount to an open appeal to similarly destroy the foundations of liberal civilization on which human flourishing depends. The “decolonize” movement is nothing if not consistent with the Third World nationalists of the past. It seeks a destruction of the market economy in favor of state socialism; a rejection of liberal equality in favor of neo-racism and group-based status arrangements; an overthrow of electoral democracy in favor of street protest; a circumscribing of extensive freedoms and pluralism in favor of Woke ideology and censorship; and a replacement of neutral and good governance with revolutionary agitation orchestrated by progressive political and economic elites.”
I think this ideology harms our collective ability to address climate change in a timely and productive way, and helps explain why the petroleum industry is going to effectively use an anti-woke campaign to interfere with this goal. I think that blundering on with implementing even more woke ideology in public policy serves this master and no any kind of social justice that is painfully and obviously also pretending to be just.
Decolonization is nothing but decolonization. Only in the scared minds of the colonizers do those calling for decolonization all agree on a method to use, a system of government, objectives, a larger goal, or anything else besides the need to decolonize. Everything else is just the paranoia of the enslaver.
In this case, tildeb equates expanding the western canon to include other cultures’ wisdom (a damn good and long overdue plan, especially given the destruction white supremacy (aka white nationalism aka imperialistic capitalism) has and is about to cause) with destruction of democracy. But there is no democracy and never has been in the US; we’ve always been ruled by oligarchic white supremacy. Its reaction against being slowly overpowered by demographics, in terror of being treated the same way it’s treated others, is causing the right’s mad rush toward fascism. All other avenues being closed off by the increasing control and repression by the right, that’s being resisted—very mildly and ineffectually so far—in the streets as well as electorally where small state bias, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disinformation haven’t already stolen and colonized the territories.
The rush toward fascism includes trying to establish capitalist ownership (aka colonization) of everything in advance, including reality so it can be warped to whatever meets the lunatic right wing’s ends. Thus science denial, including evolution (an assault on male supremacy in religion, and on narcissism and separation, which to conservatism means it’s an assault on the ability to stand on one’s own) and climate science (an assault on the right’s ability to insist everything is individual and hierarchical, as well as on its obsession with domination through burning things and breaking atoms in big machines, and then controlling (even just nominally) how the power is distributed from their central points.)
The outrage of * white supremacists because they’re no longer masters is ridiculous and offensive. As if it’s not obvious, their criticism of people they’ve deprived of land, material possessions, money, freedom, agency, education, and life for millennia should be rejected out of hand.
* the adjective “malignantly narcissistic” goes without saying.
So I think it’s a funny way to address these grievances… by handing over political power through self inflicted wounds to them, wouldn’t you say?
Well said. And the way tildeb has inserted CRT into this thread has shown his true colors
Scare the liberals, provide fuel for the RWNJ’s insanity, unsettle the independents, and draw attention away from climate change.
This country will NEVER become a true democracy until the tenets of CRT ARE brought into the school curriculum—-400 years is long enough to let white supremacy override common sense
CRT as it is practiced in classrooms everywhere (including the 1619 Project) is neither the alternative nor antidote to white supremacy but its handmaiden in that it keeps supporting race as a meaningful descriptor front and center. That’s what so many parents are really pissed about because they see this clearly. You do not. My point is that this kind of self-inflicted wound is what’s driving the demonstrated swing from the political center to vote for the alternative political party. I don’t think you understand this point at all but are only too willing to vilify and smear anyone who points it out – and then seek aid from Peter to help you silence the messenger. I’m not the problem here, DOG, and I certainly am not the anti-liberal you presume I am by giving voice to a very real problem that you simply wave away especially as it pertains to undermining any effective political support for addressing climate change by the political leadership that is willing to do so. I think like so many on the Left, you are utterly oblivious to how this undermines what you presume it corrects! I don’t think that obliviousness is helpful but harmful. Hence, my commentary.
Well, tildeb has climbed on his high horse in a state of high dudgeon and is sniffing madly at his perfumed sleeve hanky. To think that anyone here would dare to question him!
CRT is most definitely the alternative and antidote to white supremacy. What’s the alternative—-sitting around for another 400 years waiting for a miracle?
CRT is white supremacy’s handmaiden in that it keeps supporting race as a meaningful descriptor front and center. Yep—would you deny that we have folks of many races in this country and they have all suffered under the white supremacists?
It’s not a “handmaiden” however, but rather something for fake liberals like you to use to stir up the right. Parents are pissed because they have listened to YOUR bullshit and do not understand that whites in general are NOT being attacked.
How can you refer to the need to finally deal with our 400 year history of racism, discrimination, inequality and white supremacy as something to be afraid of? Haven’t you seen the BLM actions and the response to George Floyd’s murder for what they are?—attempts to set things “right”
As for “smears”, if you had grown up with me in NJ and behaved like this, someone would have smeared your nose across your face. Ditto in the USMC. You can’t just sit there and ignore the truth, dismiss everyone who doesn’t agree with you. That’s why I have asked Peter to ban you from the site—-we have heard more than enough of your broken record lying bullshit. We want to talk about climate change and you are getting in the way as much as any troll that has commented here.
Fear is certainly a big part, but even more to the point is the malignant narcissistic need to dominate that comes out of their specific fears. Progressives in all forms–women, people of color, children, communists, hippies, anyone with less-than-perfectly and extremely dichotomized sexuality or gender identity, intellectuals, environmental (especially climate) activists… all epitomize those awakened by their abuse by rich white males and the hierarchies they create.
The right does everything possible to hide the truth about its actions, reality, and above all, itself, as well as to atomize resistance by destroying unions, scapegoating green groups, peace groups, non-hierarchical spiritual groups, blaming all problems on individuals. So its chief fear is a coalition of people who have become aware. Thus the hatred and scorn aimed at them, whatever the name.
‘Leaders of the world’s biggest oil companies have used an industry gathering in Houston to launch an attack on the speed of transition to clean energy, claiming a badly managed process could lead to “insecurity, rampant inflation and social unrest”.’
The above quote is interesting and I wish to discuss it. From my experience so far to not jump at full speed towards Renewables has a risk of getting stuck with more expensive and increasingly unstable fossil fuels.
Solar and wind are now lower in cost with LiFePO4 batteries now being cheap stable and well stabilised. To be free from the fossil mess is the best defensive posture I can think of.
The attitude presented is the pot calling the kettle black! They are faced with a coming break down and the way the fossil industries have managed their coming collapse is to put it on everyone else to not stop using their products with all the falsehoods that an imagination can find.
The unhinged right wing have been fossil fuels allies for decades.
I was with you right up to the last sentence: “The unhinged right wing have been fossil fuels allies for decades.”
I keep raising the Biden proclamations about GM to demonstrate this belief you enunciate is factually disconnected from reality. Granted, one can be excused for not connecting ICE manufacturers in transportation allied with ‘fossil fuel’ interests because the words are different. Yet the lack of urgency to addressing policies and practices that promotes such necessary changes to the energy system I think is just another form of climate denialism… but mistakenly attributed only to the far Right!
Au contraire; by not recognizing and supporting real world progress – a progress demonstrated by Tesla – but actively demonizing it because it’s Tesla by MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND LEFT WING POLITICIANS (because it’s not unionized as if THAT is the key feature to combat climate change!), we see what’s true, that the urgency for such change is somewhere further down the political list behind LEFT WING political considerations! Biden is walking proof of this.
I think denying this aspect demonstrated by the Left IS a form of climate change denialism, in that DOING something about it that is effective and impactful isn’t really the point for either mainstream media OR Left wing politicians who are IN power. I think that deserves some criticism for not being responsible stewards. Don’t you?
, there has been Russian gamesmanship with gas supplies,
Last I heard Gazprom has been fulfilling all long-term contracts and supposedly was to start shipping more natural gas once Russian stores were topped up—they were suffering from low reserves just as the EU was.
One could argue that a major cause of the gas shortage problem was the USA playing silly-buggers and sanctioning anything left, right and centre that was vaguely connected to NordStream II. And the spineless EU nations going along or ever encouraging this.
I also think that the EU and the US forget that Russia has other markets for its natural gas. It is no longer a purely buyer’s market.
I have been offline for a while and could not believe the volume of comments on this thread, particularly by tildeb, who is a sneaky right wing nut job who is doing much damage to liberalism. His comments are nothing but fuel for other RWNJ”s, and I would ban him if this were my site.
Regarding CRT, tildeb is once again full of s**t with his commentary. I have two bumper stickers that say “GOT SCIENCE?” and “FACTS MATTER” It is a FACT that this country has a 400 year history of racism, discrimination, exclusion, and white supremacy.
Applying SCIENTIFIC analysis to all the facts and how they interrelate leads us to today. The country must address the FACTS of history and where racial discrimination and white supremacism have brought us to at present, and that does NOT imply that white people are at fault (unless, of course, they continue the behaviors of the past 400 years).
DOG, I have no problem teaching history and accepting the systemic racism it contains. But part of that story is including how and why things have changed. The core is liberal values.
You presume criticism of CRT as it is practiced – especially in education which has been my profession – is about denying this history. This is factually wrong. I urge you to check out pro-humanism as a legitimate alternative to the racism inherent in categorizing everything in terms of race that is central to CRT and the diversity, inclusion, and equity label under which it is taught and sold to great social harm and division. Diametrically opposed to this is the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism and is well worth your time and, hopefully, your support. Your charges against and description of me are without any merit in reality. To on the one hand call me a right wing nut job who is doing much damage to liberalism while on the other calling to ban me is hardly a ringing endorsement of your own version of liberalism!
Thank you DOG, I couldn’t believe the volume and content of tripe being discussed either, from prison rape to the Maori. I had to keep referring to the introductory video to see if I’d missed something. CRT stands for Cathode- Ray Tube and ALEC is a trouble making denial group. What a jumble.
You’re welcome, Sky. Welcome to the world of the Gish Galloper, who piles it on so deep that no one can really take the time to refute his BS. I think he is as damaging to the site as others we have had banned—Peter?
Your tolerance of diverse viewpoints and your willingness to insist on inclusivity while fighting censorship is laudable, DOG. Yes, you truly are a fine example of woke liberalism in action.
The only thing missing from you beyond denialism and name calling is a cogent counter argument. I don’t care you’re offended because that’s not an argument. May I suggest you steel-man what what I’ve said and see if you can still show where my reasoning goes astray.
BTW, did you listen to Paul Rossi’s recordings from his Head of School? No one who respects reality could say CRT is not being imposed on teachers by administrators and exercised widely in schools in the face of such evidence. How did you manage to miss all of that mountain of day to day evidence in your 50 years in the profession, I wonder… unless perhaps you were a willing and enthusiastic participating ideologue and see all of this as a ‘progressive’ step you cannot bear to defend now that adverse results are mounting?
Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit! Paul Rossi’s recordings from head of school are exactly why I call you all RWNJ’s. You want to terrorize the left and make them afraid of dealing with white supremacy because the right will use that against them. That is borne out by your comment that “all of this as a ‘progressive’ step you cannot bear to defend now that adverse results are mounting??”.
The white supremacist racists have latched onto all this as a means to fight racial progress and remain on top in the areas of education, jobs, housing, and being the lynchers rather than the lynchees. Sit on those black folks and anyone who seeks to help them become full citizens. We’ve gotten away with it for 400 years and we only have to keep slinging bullshit to keep it up
.
You spread bullshit about teachers being “forced by administrators”. It isn’t happening. I missed nothing in my time in education. I saw evidences of racism in classes and dealt with it. Teachers of history and government who didn’t teach the FULL truth were taken to task for it. We held workshops and training sessions for teachers of all subjects to help them understand the need to deal with racism and white supremacy and how to do it.
And, for the record, what degrees do you hold in what fields, what subjects did you teach and where, where were you born and where did you grow up?
Timely. Unless one considers good writing and relevant information a ‘Gish Gallop’ that falls under the term ‘this’ in the quotation that follows:
“The corollary to this, of course, is that there is one serious political arrangement that can manage such huge racial diversity without engaging in civil war or social breakdown: liberalism. Rest politics on the individual’s rights, regardless of his or her identity, and these toxic, unwinnable racial conflicts are far less likely. Tackle discrimination on an individual and not a group level, and our ever-intensifying multiracial society can function without a deadlock. Keep government limited, and let a vibrant, free culture sort through all these conflicts and nuances the way it always has in America. Left alone, we’ll figure out the complexities. But if forced to adjudicate every one on the basis of “oppressor” and “oppressed,” we’ll be in an endless, self-perpetuating race war before we know it.”
I too have had a career in education—-30 years, most of in school administration where I sat on textbook adoption committees, curriculum committees, and observed many hundreds of classes in all subject areas.
I will say again—-since CRT is not being taught in schools in this country and has not been, any comments you make are designed to sow dissension and provide fuel for the right. “pro-humanism? FAIR? A group that sounds god, but close examination of their website raises serious doubts about their mission
My charges against and description of you are based on my “reality”—the reading of your comments in this thread, and my analysis do lead to IMO what is a valid conclusion—-if you don’t like it, too bad. Calling you a right wing nut job who is doing much damage to liberalism and calling to ban me is indeed a ringing endorsement of my own version of liberalism. Semper Fidelis!
DOG, you say with certainty that “CRT is not being taught in schools in this country and has not been…”
This is what I am talking about. Assurances like these you make serve one master. You think it serves what’s true. I think you honestly believe this. This is a problem.
You will note that I have referenced CRT as it is practiced in classrooms across all grade levels and NOT the teaching of CRT as the academic subject it is in post secondary settings. These are not the same thing. I know perfectly well that the academic theory is not taught specifically below post secondary education. But I also know anti-racist ideology and all the associated language that comes from CRT is not only practiced in classrooms (and used to frame the study of social issues) but is central to teacher training. I’ve experienced it. The evidence for this is overwhelming in literally thousands of classroom examples, so much so that referencing these well documented examples has been successfully used by Republican candidates to win elections and is the fodder for Republican states to write and pass legislation banning it, neither of which I’m for.
By sticking to the truthful claim that ‘CRT’ is not taught utterly fails to address the point of all these comments I’m making, that the Left by supporting the ‘woke’ ideology as it is practiced (including the core anti-racism philosophy of CRT) in so many areas of society today is helping Republicans to shift enough voters from the center to win power (as well as use all the gerrymandering and voting suppression and all that included) and that THIS is a huge problem trying to implement much needed policies to mitigate the causes of rapid climate change because that requires wining elections and gaining political power.
By offering such carte blanche support for the ‘progressive’ agenda and denying this agenda like the core values of CRT as it is practiced in classrooms today does, in fact, swing voters away those who want to write and pass legislation to address the causes of rapid climate change.
If I were a right wing nut job trying to harm liberalism as you so smugly assert, the last thing I would do is urge anyone from the Left to stop supporting this ideology in action because it’s obvious that ‘my’ side uses pointing out its negative effects to great electoral success. I know you want to vilify my character for pointing out this ongoing enthusiasm for self-inflicted wounds the Left insists is ‘doing the work’ and ‘on the right side of history’ but it serves only those who would make climate change harder and less likely to effectively address. That’s why the petroleum industry is using it for leverage and you’re the one offering them help to do this by denying it’s even a problem.
It’s been a few days since we’ve heard from blubdub. Has he been banned from the site? If so, thank you Peter—–a great stocking stuffer.
Or has he been busy getting it together as a Trojan Horse’s Ass, all painted up on the outside with “I’m a liberal”, “I’m super smart”, Freedom for all” and similar statements of mental and moral superiority?
If so, one should be cautious opening his message. The Gish Gallop of smelly bullshit that will emanate from within will be spectacular.
I just thought you needed some alone time. Always ready to help.
Thank you. When you come back, if you talk only about climate change and say nothing about white supremacy we night even be able to have a valuable conversation.
DOG, your performative virtue signaling here is an example of what aids the Republicans gaining electoral power and helps protect the petroleum industry from policies that force much needed reduction to deal effectively with climate change: woke ideology at work.
Remember, the issue raised was that the petroleum industry’s strategy is to use these same examples of wokism-in-action to appeal to a broad anti-woke sentiment that has come about as a result of anti-liberal effects this ideology has produced when put into action. And the reason why this is a potent business strategy is because of the inherent intolerance and racism and anti-liberal ‘virtue’ that has come about through woke policies enacted by the Left and then used as a justification for them is so toxic to the central liberal and enlightened values of the Constitution. This woke ideology when supported and put into action – not me – is very much a real world problem because it IS being used by Republicans SUCCESSFULLY to gain real world political power by shifting enough voters from the political center to gain electoral victory. I’m just pointing it out. I’m pointing out that addressing climate change is going need people like you from not automatically and slavishly vilifying (and trying to cancel or censor) anyone who disagrees with the ideology you so obviously think is tolerant, against racism, and liberal. You are absolutely wrong on all counts but don’t realize it… in spite of doing exactly what I accuse the ideological followers of doing… versus me in this case.
I know you don’t want to hear this, and I know you think of yourself and attitudes as part of the ‘solution’. I’m here to say you’ve demonstrated otherwise and that’s why I thought giving you time to reflect on the level of vitriol you have aimed at me, calling for censoring of my point here, and rejecting wholesale all of these examples demonstrating why what I think is justified, might just be self-revealing. Goin along and supporting wokism is serving only the Republicans and, by extension, the petroleum industry. I think more of us need to stop blaming everyone else and start accepting some responsibility for enabling them.
How about this week in health care?
But of course if you don’t believe me (and why should you?) that wokism is endemic, you’re welcome to read this court appeals opinion and all the citations it uses.
To claim all of this is ‘bullshit’ is exactly the same denialism of reality as those who deny rapid climate change caused by human activity from the burning of fossil fuels is a pressing concern we need to do something about. Denialism is denialism no matter how virtuous it may appear to be to the True Believer.
Have you ever wondered how tildeb came up with such a weird handle? Others of us go by names or initials or names that offer multiple opportunities for fun (dumboldguy, DOG,WOOF). It doesn’t surprise me that our lying POS white supremacist and racist troll chose a name from the dark underworld of the web—he probably spends much time there doing dirty work
“On April 14, 2017, The Shadow Brokers (TSB) leaked a bevy of hacking tools named “Lost in Translation.” This leak is notorious for having multiple zero-day remote code execution vulnerabilities targeting critical protocols and applications”. Read more
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/18/l/tildeb-analyzing-the-18-year-old-implant-from-the-shadow-brokers-leak.html
Interesting link. Nothing to do with me, however. I use the handle because my family and I were attacked and property damaged by some wingnut so I try to stay anonymous for their sake. Simple as that.
What total BS—-you do it because you are proud of your association with disruptive malware sites. No one who is not narcissistic and deluded would pick such a handle.
You could have instead picked a “joke” handle like dumboldguy, which shortens to DOG and allows me to “woof”.
You could have picked a handle that used some of the parts of your real name and changed them slightly, as as I suspect of jimbills, which could be read as Jim Williams.
You could have chosen a name of someone from history that means something to you, as J4zonian did.
Instead ???????????????????????
Colorado Spring’s District elections are a simple case in point where candidates with conservative platforms won nearly all the contested board races.
The root issue? The Equity and Inclusion policies. See why the Petroleum industry is using this gift from deluded Democrats?
The Equity and Inclusion department of District 11 has recently come under criticism as some parents and residents – most but not all of them white, as if this matters – have accused the district of shifting away from the teaching of basic academic skills in favor of advancing a political agenda. That criticism has merit and so it swings elections.
Of course, any criticism of Equity and Inclusion is going to be painted as racist and we will be bullied into believing that anything less that complete submission is held only by the most terrible of people but I think District 11 offers us a alternative model that dismantles this policy, eliminates the 40 member volunteer board that promotes it in every school at every grade level, and replaces it with a policy that I think makes elections winnable for Democrats, namely the pro-human values promoted by advocates (I’m one of them) of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR): to eliminate race-essentialist assumptions about systemic racism and group outcomes and revise equity policies to reflect the need for fair and equal treatment of all individuals, regardless of group identities.
Shockingly racist, I know.
Once upon a time in the 60s this equality and merit position was called woke! How ironic, eh? And it was liberal! Well, clutch my pearls. And it was central to the civil rights movement and was used by people like Ginsberg to be the legal basis for dismantling systemic discrimination in law!
My, how times have changed. And not for the better as Republicans rack up election victories at every level on the coattails of the today’s deluded anti-liberal Democrats.
For this week’s example of CRT being implemented in schools, in spite of DOG’s irretractable denialism… here’s Boulder Colorado.
You re really insulting all of us with this link. It is all comments from racists and white supremacists. If the event was asked for by Black parents who hoped it would promote better relations, it was not any of the things that all theses RWNJs and white supremacists spouted,
Right. ‘Affinity’ play times organized by the school and based on the color of one’s skin is ’caused’ by white supremacists. No activist racism going on here. Just move along.
You have really got your brain wrapped around the axle, BLTDUB. If black students and parents attempt to do anything to get this country to live up to the promises of “We, The People…” and “One Nation Under God…” they are guilty of “activist racism”? WHAT???
And the activities planned amounted to a bit more than “playtime” and are not based on the color of anyone’s skin bur rather on the fact that there is a group of students hat want to talk to one another. This seems to be a serious attempt at opening communication. Only a white supremacist like you would call them such a disdainful term as “playtime.”
You have shot some toes off with this smug, glib, ill thought out message that only ptoves what a useless POS you are. PLEASE GO AWAY
I can vouch for the veracity of tildeb on each and every point he has made about CRT – I have been reading about it for months. And he is just scratching the surface.
To call him a sneaky right-wing such and so is completely bonkers. The fellow has already given his liberal CV. He is warning us all that radical wokism is going to be used by outright right-wingers as an election issue and I, for one, believe he is spot on about that.
Thank you, Gb.
You’ve studied CRT for MONTHS? WOW! I have LIVED it for FIFTY years since taking a school administrator’s job in 1971 in the recently desegregated schools in Fairfax County, VA,
How about giving us a list of the books you have read in your quest for knowledge?, (I can give you a list, if you’d like). I think you’re going to need to spend a couple more years before you really understand it.
And you can vouch for EACH and EVERY point that tlldeb has made? Go for it. He is a Gish Galloper of the first order who has piled it so high and deep that one would have to be crazy to spend time to “debate” him or try to sort the truth out from the ANTI-liberal BS that he has dumped all over this thread.
(And I can vouch for the tastiness of OREO cookies