Month: October 2025

Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit.

The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit.
The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.”
The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit.
Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, “You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can’t help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing.”

“That’s not true”, responded the second economist. “We increased the GDP by $200!”

Bloomberg:

Helene churned through Florida and Georgia last September before it detoured into Appalachia, where it unleashed record rain that caused mudslides and raging floods. More than 100 people died in North Carolina alone. The devastation in the western part of the state was overwhelming. Fixing communities affected by Helene would cost $59.6 billion, the state estimated in December. Federal and state agencies sent more than $5.7 billion to the stricken region through September.

Weather disasters like Helene are becoming both more frequent and more severe because of climate change. Although they blow over fast in physical terms, the economic impacts play out slowly. It takes three to six months for survivors’ insurance checks to land, at best; maybe three years for federal reimbursements to cash-strapped localities to drip out.

The result is that the US is now always paying to recover from disasters, and this is contributing a larger and larger share of GDP growth. The US has run up about $7.7 trillion in climate-related costs since 2000, according to research by Andrew John Stevenson, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“It is undeniable now that climate change is having significant effects on the drivers of the economy,” says Sarah Bloom Raskin, a professor at Duke Law School and former deputy treasury secretary in the Obama administration. “You don’t have to squint hard to see that extreme weather events are so harsh and strong, and so repeated, that they are affecting labor-market functioning, supply chains, insurance markets and inflation dynamics in ways that are pronounced, prolonged and pervasive.”

Continue reading “Disaster a Growth Industry in the Climate Altered World”

Kandiss Taylor, who ran for governor in 2022 and recently became a Georgia GOP district chair, is a flat earther: "Everywhere there's globes … and that's what they do to brainwash." pic.twitter.com/PEz1sqOTvA

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 22, 2023

Not metaphorically. Really.

Above, Kandiss Taylor, who ran for Governor of Georgia on a “Jesus, Guns and Babies” platform, weighs in on the global conspiracy about, well, globes.
Also, below, Moon landing was fake.

Continue reading “GOP’s Flat Earth Problem”

Washington Post:

..a new study from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the consulting group Brattle suggests that, counterintuitively, more electricity demand can actually lower prices. Between 2019 and 2024, the researchers calculated, states with spikes in electricity demand saw lower prices overall. Instead, they found that the biggest factors behind rising rates were the cost of poles, wires and other electrical equipment — as well as the cost of safeguarding that infrastructure against future disasters.

“It’s contrary to what we’re seeing in the headlines today,” said Ryan Hledik, principal at Brattle and a member of the research team. “This is a much more nuanced issue than just, ‘We have a new data center, so rates will go up.’”

Continue reading “High Electric Prices: It Might not be Due to Data Centers”

UPDATE: CBS news mid-day Monday report

Washington Post:

As of Monday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center warned that the core of Melissa, which has been crawling along at 3 mph, was set to move near or over Jamaica late Monday and Tuesday. So strong were its winds that a NOAA aircraft gathering data inside the storm had to abandon its mission early “after experiencing severe turbulence in the southwestern eyewall,” the hurricane center wrote in a Monday update.

During Melissa’s rapid intensification the storm drifted slowly over exceptionally warm ocean waters that were 1.4°C (2.5°F) warmer than average — these conditions were made up to 700 times more likely because of human-caused climate change. (via @ClimateCentral) 1/2 pic.twitter.com/lc3pdZpVkB

— John Morales (@JohnMoralesTV) October 28, 2025

USAToday:

As Hurricane Melissa barreled toward Jamaica on Monday, Oct. 27, the nation braced for possibly its worst hurricane in recorded history, evacuating parts of its capital, closing airports and opening hundreds of shelters.

Melissa, now a Category 5 storm, was expected to slam into the southern coast of Jamaica on Tuesday, Oct. 28, before approaching Cuba and the Bahamas, forecasters said.

Melissa was centered about 135 miles south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, as of 8 a.m. ET, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph and was moving at a sluggish 3 mph.

With the model guidence showing more agreement this afternoon, it confirms that Tropical Storm #Melissa will produce near-historic amounts of rainfall and flooding for Jamaica, Hispanola, and eastern Cuba when it makes landfall as a major #hurricane. pic.twitter.com/mFczIJkDUU

— Da'Vel Johnson (@Da_VelJ) October 25, 2025

Continue reading “Cat 5 Hurricane will Hammer Jamaica”

New York Times:

Most politicians rarely discuss electricity costs. But in New Jersey, they have been featured prominently in campaign ads and stump speeches in the run-up to November’s election for governor.

This generally obscure topic has become critical in New Jersey because electricity rates this summer climbed 22 percent from a year earlier — faster than all but one state: Maine.

As the governor’s race has tightened and affordability has become a key issue, power costs have become a predominant theme in ads paid for in part by groups associated with both national parties.

What happens in New Jersey is likely to be an early read of the national political mood in 2026, when a majority of governors’ mansions will be up for grabs as well as congressional and state legislative seats. That’s because electricity rates are rising sharply in many states — the national average residential rate was up 5 percent in July from the same month last year, and energy experts say rates are likely to keep climbing quickly for the foreseeable future.

Continue reading “New Jersey Guv Candidate Doesn’t know Jack about Energy”

New Netflix production directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”, and directed “Zero Dark Thirty”, about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Been a while since we had a reminder about the immediate reality of nuclear conflict, and the potential for miscalculation.
Teaser above features the gut wrenching words of Carl Sagan reading from his “Pale Blue Dot”.

Longer form trailer here:

NBC news examines the movie below:

Continue reading “Trailer: House of Dynamite”

Accelerating uptake of renewable energy in the global south is a big story.
The Trump/Putin/Saudi fossil fuel axis has convinced itself that they can lock emerging economies into fossil fuel dependence that will last many decades into the future.
But with the emergence of massive over-capacity for clean energy, solar and battery manufacturing in China, the prices for new clean energy have become irresistible.
Pakistan’s rapid deployment of solar is now legend, and is becoming a template for other countries across Asia and Africa. The TED talk above was delivered in Kenya, which is rapidly moving toward 100 percent clean energy.

Developing countries often lack either oil resources, refining capacity, or both, and must therefore find ways to attract the dollars they need to pay for gasoline.
They are figuring out that by going to EVs for transportation, and renewables for generation, they can step off the colonial path and determine their own destiny without dependence on the great powers to the north.

Continue reading “India’s Solar Ambition a “Beacon of Hope””

Unbelievable, humiliating clown show as ICE raids have sabotaged a multi-billion dollar battery plant in Georgia.
Georgia Governor Kemp is heading to Korea to humbly beg angry Koreans to come back and put themselves at risk of being clapped in irons again.

Not surprisingly, the administration that road to power as a tool of the fossil fuel industry, is crapping on the hand that feeds it.
Everything Trump touches dies.

New York Times:

The price of oil has dropped to some of its lowest levels of the year, making it less expensive for Americans to fuel their cars, but further straining U.S. oil companies, which have been idling drilling rigs and shedding thousands of workers.

At less than $59 a barrel, U.S. oil prices are now about 19 percent lower than they were at the end of last year. That is low enough that it no longer makes financial sense for many companies to drill new wells.

The main reason for the drop is that global oil production has been growing more quickly than demand.

The recent slide below $60 a barrel came this month, after Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, alleviating concerns that Middle East conflicts would disrupt the flow of oil. At the same time, heightened trade tensions have weighed on expectations for economic growth worldwide and, thus, demand for fuels.

Continue reading “Drilled: Trump Policies Gutting US Oil Production”