Tag Archives: explainer

Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Observation

The Real Dream of Clean Energy: Video Eureka Moment from Cleo Abram

Video

Reducing fossil fuel use is important, but it’s more important to increase zero carbon energy production

Increasing sustainable energy production is possibly the most important goal for the world today. This idea is mostly couched, however, in negative terms, the idea that without a shift to clean, green sustainable sources climate change will destroy the future.

This is an important and essentially true statement.

However the automatic association of sustainable energy as being inevitably connected to less energy availability is a false premise. One that can be proven wrong with positive action towards building clean energy infrastructure, not as a defensive, desperate survival goal, but as a natural expansion of more energy and power that could lead to increased prosperity for the human race.

Deeply embedded thought patterns prevent us, perhaps, from imagining a world where more energy is not associated with more pollution, eventual depletion of a finite and limited resource and ultimately death, destruction and a CO2 induced climate catastrophe.

Optimism and abundance are linked with hope and a dream of a better standard of living for all. That dream is possible not with less energy use, but rather, more and cheaper energy availability that can be created by building a global, sustainable, renewable energy infrastructure.

A change in thought and perspective is necessary and could be more powerful than the sun

Utopia is a word that will get you laughed at, while oblivion is becoming the expected outcome of our century. Predicted by R. Buckminster Fuller in his book ‘Utopia or Oblivion‘, the choice we face in this century is not oblivion and catastrophic suffering or ‘business as usual’, it is not survival vs extinction, it is survival by unleashing utopian potential or total annihilation.

The paradox of sustainable energy is that, without it becoming the primary energy production system for the planet, combined with reduced consumption of fossil fuels until 100% sustainability is reached, oblivion or at least massive pain is assured; while at the same time, achieving 100% carbon free, clean energy from sustainable sources like solar, wind and geothermal, can create virtually unlimited increases in beneficial uses of energy, leading to an almost utopian potential for quality of life.

Thinking is the Difference Between Utopia or Oblivion

The clarity of realizing that clean sustainable energy ubiquity means unlimited energy consumption is non-destructive, and can end the malthusian nightmare of finite resources, that so many have fought over and even died for, is truly mind altering.

More is less, is another way to say it. Or at least more consumption and benefits, but none of the negative costs to the environment that we have come to see as inextricably linked to fossil fuel energy production and use.

At the same time it also harkens back to Elon Musk and Tesla’s mission statement. Tesla has had a vision for sustainable energy that is S3XY; more luxury, more beauty, more fun.

That mind-set, a mind set of abundant clean unlimited energy from sustainable sources, used to power beautiful powerful EVs, has made the company the enormous success that it is and ushered in an era EV production as job #1 throughout the entire auto industry.

The genius of this perspective centers on the idea that humans, when striving toward a positive goal, are always more powerful and successful than they are when simply trying to avoid a negative outcome.

Interestingly, the dream of reaching Mars, Musk’s other stated goal, is both positive and negative, since one reason for the urgent need to establish colonies there could be the destruction of earth due to climate disaster, caused by a failure to create a sustainable clean energy infrastructure in time.

It is the power and dream of much more abundant energy that can remove the idea from our minds that energy consumption is inherently bad, just because it does have negative ramifications galore when the source for that energy is dirty fossil fuels.

The Utopian Mindset must begin to permeate our consciousness if we are to overcome the challenges of 2000-2050 and beyond

Energy abundance is not the only type of abundance that our minds must learn to accept as possible for our species if we hope to turn things around. Bitcoin, for example, is currently being scapegoated in the media generally and is having endless disinformation hurled at its proof of work mining system based on the premise that it uses “too much” energy and too much of that energy is sourced from fossil fuels at this time.

But why not focus on the real problem? Why not see that a monumental and heroic effort to rid the world of dependence on “bad” and ultimately finite and limited sources of energy from fossil fuels and shift, ultimately, 100% of production to clean and renewable sources, needs to be job #1 for team earth?

Again, in an all-or-nothing scenario there is no option to equivocate. The negative reasons that fossil fuels must be phased out as soon as possible (‘the stick’ as per Cleo Abram in her video below) become more inevitable each minute and are already threatening everything humans have accomplished to date.

The positive motivation is less obvious for most at this point (‘the carrot’) and yet is ultimately more powerful (S3XY!) since it carries with it the hope that we can not only avert disaster, death and destruction, but can build a clean, abundant and infinitely expandable energy supply that could be used to build the first tentative steps toward a utopian dream.

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Business, Elon Musk, Observation

WtF is a Centibillionaire? New Video from Robert Reich

Video

A very real problem vividly illustrated for the rest of us

In a new video from Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and accomplished author, an extremely timely, entertaining and absolutely crazy subject is front and center.

The need to create an actual word for a human being with more than $100 billion is a strange problem to have in a world where so many struggle merely to survive.

Just as is the case, but even more, so with trillion dollar market cap big tech firms, that happened to be the source of this insanely huge amount of money being attributed to a single individual.

There is a very human inability to comprehend such massive numbers that is at the heart of our struggles to understand the meaning of this phenomenon.

An example would be a company such as Amazon which is hundreds, if not thousands, of times larger in terms of market cap then what used to be considered massive international corporations.

And being thousands of times larger than what is already considered to be an unwieldy massive behemoth can create problems not so much for the company but for the rest of us.

How do you control if you are the government or the people something so massive that it is virtually untouchable. too big to fail? Too big to reign in, absolutely.

Although attempts are being made, such as the many antitrust actions in the US, or the recent new regulations in Europe, but somehow they always seem like a tiny pittance, or annoying mosquito on a battleship.

In the video below there are some fantastic examples of how the massive wealth of these individuals can be measured in terms that actual humans can understand.

“Are they really 100 times smarter than the typical billionaire?”

Perhaps, more accurately, it enables us to understand how absolutely unbelievable and insane this level of wealth and power actually is.

Although the subject may be too large and complicated, it would be great to see a follow on video illustrating the size of the companies that bestowed such massive amounts of cash on these ridiculously overvalued individuals.

And, of course, how those companies grew through the same kinds of favoritism and maneuvering in the public realm that the centi-billionaires themselves directly benefit from.


How Much is $100 Billion, Really?

The word “‘billionaire” didn’t even exist until 1844. Fifty years later, we got “multibillionaire.” And for the next 127 years, that was enough. 

But in 2020, while the working class faced near-record unemployment during the pandemic, the wealthiest Americans faced a different problem.

Some of them had gotten so rich, there was no longer a word to describe just how rich they were. 


That’s why today I want to bring you one of the newest additions to the English language: “centibillionaires,” people with $100 billion or more.  

What’s it like being one of history’s first centibillionaires? It’s hard to even imagine, but let’s try it by comparing them to the less fortunate.

By which I mean just … regular … billionaires. 
If you’re a regular billionaire, you can afford a private jet. If you’re a centibillionaire, you can afford a brand-new Gulfstream jet every single day for more than ten years.


Not sure what you’d do with a new Gulfstream every day — maybe give one to each of your closest 4,000 friends?

A regular billionaire would struggle to buy their own professional baseball team. Sad, I know. But a centibillionaire could easily buy every team in the entire major league. 

If you’re a regular billionaire, you can donate to your alma mater and get your name on a building. If you’re a centibillionaire, you could single-handedly give every teacher in America an $8,000 raise for 5 straight years. 


Of course, that’s not all you could do. $100 billion is enough to wipe out all the medical debt in the United States.

Or provide permanent shelter for every homeless person in America. Or buy Covid-19 vaccines for the entire world.


Basically what I’m saying is, $100 billion is a lot of money. More than two and a half million times what the average American worker makes in a year.


So here’s the big question. Are these centibillionaires so rich because they work two and half million times harder than the average American?

Are they really 100 times smarter than the typical billionaire?


I don’t think so.

The reason for the rise of centibillionaires is that for decades, wealth hasn’t trickled down, it’s gushed up, all the way to the very top. That’s not an accident. As it turns out, the system that the super-rich themselves carefully crafted and lobbied for, benefits… the rich!

And while you may not own more private jets than your average centibillionaire, you probably do pay a higher tax rate. And thanks to legal loopholes and the Trump tax cuts, when the wealthiest Americans die, they get to pass on most of their centibillions to their kids tax-free. 


We’ve got two choices as a country. We can tax the richest Americans fairly, and invest that money in ways that benefit all of us.


Or we can keep doing what we’re doing, and watch as centibillionaires get even richer while the rest of us get left behind.

If you think wealth and power are too concentrated in the hands of a privileged few now, just imagine what a few more years of trickle-down nonsense will bring.


Of course, it won’t be all bad. At least “trillionaire” is easy to say.

Economics, News, Observation, Politics

The Real Reason Congress Gets Nothing Done

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

How do things really get done (or more often not) in Washington D.C.?

In a new video from Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and accomplished author, the sad subject of so-called ’gridlock’ in government is addressed. This perspective is particularly useful and helpful to consider since this year is an election year.

There’s an unfortunate lack of understanding regarding how things actually work and, more importantly what can be done about it.

Inequality Media, the Org, led by Robert Reich, that is responsible for this content, is putting out clear and incisive messages on topics like this on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. Getting these kinds of valuable messages out to places like YouTube, TikTok and social media is important at anytime. Now, in such a critical moment in our history, it’s essential.

Why doesn’t Congress get anything done?

Well, one chamber actually does. Hundreds of bills have been passed by the House of Representatives, but have been blocked from even getting a vote in the Senate. Bills like The Freedom to Vote Act, The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, The Equality Act, Background checks for gun sales, Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, The Build Back Better Act. The list goes on.

So why aren’t these crucial bills getting a vote in the Senate? Because the filibuster makes it impossible.

All told, the House passed over 200 bills in 2021 that have not been taken up in the Senate. Everything from investing in rural education to preventing discrimination against pregnant workers to protecting seniors from scams – bills that have real, tangible benefits for the public; bills that have widespread public support.

So don’t believe the media narrative that Congress is trapped in hopeless gridlock and both sides are to blame. One chamber of Congress, led by Democrats, is passing important legislation and delivering for the people. But Republicans in the Senate, and a handful of corporate Democrats, are hell-bent on grinding the gears of government to a halt.

Why are Senate Republicans doing this? Because their midterm strategy depends on it. Republicans are blocking crucial legislation so they can point to Democrats’ supposed inability to get anything done, and claim they’ll be able to deliver if you give them majorities.

Don’t fall for it.

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Science

Scientists, here’s how to use less plastic

Above: Photo / Unsplash

Meet the researchers making science more sustainable.

The lab is quietly bustling with scientists intent on their work. One gestures to an item on her bench – a yellow container, about the size of a novel. It’s almost full to the brim with used plastic pipette tips – the disposable attachments that stop pipettes being cross-contaminated. She stares down at it, despondently. “And this is just from today.”

We’re at the Francis Crick Institute, a towering biomedical research facility in the heart of London. The scientist in question is Marta Rodriguez Martinez, a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Every day in her lab, pipette tips, petri dishes, bottles and more are used and discarded. The scale of the waste is immense – research by the University of Exeter estimates that labs worldwide generate 5.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year.

Newsletter: 

Alongside her research, Rodriguez Martinez doubles as a sustainability rep, tirelessly working to reduce the plastic waste her lab produces. The Crick’s sustainability team consult her about the unique behaviours of scientists. In return, she encourages colleagues to stop using unnecessary plastic and teaches them about sustainable alternatives.

It’s a difficult task, but one she feels passionate about. “We have in our heads that plastic is a one-use material, but it is not. Plastic can be autoclaved, it can be washed. Most plastics we use in the lab could be re-used as efficiently as glass.”

The Crick is taking behaviour change seriously. Alongside reps like Rodriguez Martinez, it offers sustainability workshops and waste training to employees. A pipette-tip audit is underway, which will show which products come with the lowest excess plastic. It’s also developing an interactive dashboard for teams to see how their waste compares to other labs’.

But behaviour change is only the beginning. Rodrigo Ponce-Ortuño oversees the Crick’s contract with an eco-friendly waste-management company. He points out that the journey of plastic lab equipment stretches far beyond its short service on the workbench.

Take media bottles – the plastic containers that hold nutrients to grow cells and bacteria. “It’s just glucose that goes into the bottles,” Ponce-Ortuño explains. The liquid is non-hazardous, but in his experience, recycling companies are wary of the scientific jargon on the labelling.

“If it just said sugar, it would be fine,” he says. Instead, many companies reject the waste because they don’t understand the chemistry. But, by using contractors with the right expertise, the Crick now sends all its media bottles for recycling.

For Rodriguez Martinez, this is a milestone. “I use maybe four media bottles a week, and there are 1,200 scientists here. That we can rinse them and have a contractor recycle them is a big success.”

This tactic – of building companies’ confidence in handling lab equipment – has led to other successes, too. Cooling gel packs, polystyrene boxes and the bulky pallets used to transport products are all collected for re-use. Boxes for pipette tips are also collected – after they’ve been stacked and re-used in the labs themselves.

In fact, the Crick’s labs send no waste at all to landfill. Hazardous waste is safely incinerated, but anything else that can’t be recycled goes through a process called energy-from-waste, where electricity, heat or fuel is harvested from the material as it’s disposed of.

And they’re just as keen to reduce the amount of plastic coming in. The institute recently held a green procurement fair, where suppliers had to meet a set of sustainability criteria to attend. “Normally when you buy a product, you look at the quality and the price,” says Rodriguez Martinez. “We want to add sustainability to that equation.”

The team know that change won’t happen overnight. They need to win people over with practical measures to reduce plastics – without reducing the quality of science. So the institute is discussing best practice with other laboratories, to grow the movement for low-plastic research.

“We’re trying to educate people into a more sustainable science,” says Rodriguez Martinez.

Wellcome, which publishes Mosaic, is one of the six founding partners of the Francis Crick Institute.

The lab is quietly bustling with scientists intent on their work. One gestures to an item on her bench – a yellow container, about the size of a novel. It’s almost full to the brim with used plastic pipette tips – the disposable attachments that stop pipettes being cross-contaminated. She stares down at it, despondently. “And this is just from today.”

We’re at the Francis Crick Institute, a towering biomedical research facility in the heart of London. The scientist in question is Marta Rodriguez Martinez, a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Every day in her lab, pipette tips, petri dishes, bottles and more are used and discarded. The scale of the waste is immense – research by the University of Exeter estimates that labs worldwide generate 5.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Newsletter: 

Alongside her research, Rodriguez Martinez doubles as a sustainability rep, tirelessly working to reduce the plastic waste her lab produces. The Crick’s sustainability team consult her about the unique behaviours of scientists. In return, she encourages colleagues to stop using unnecessary plastic and teaches them about sustainable alternatives.

It’s a difficult task, but one she feels passionate about. “We have in our heads that plastic is a one-use material, but it is not. Plastic can be autoclaved, it can be washed. Most plastics we use in the lab could be re-used as efficiently as glass.”

The Crick is taking behaviour change seriously. Alongside reps like Rodriguez Martinez, it offers sustainability workshops and waste training to employees. A pipette-tip audit is underway, which will show which products come with the lowest excess plastic. It’s also developing an interactive dashboard for teams to see how their waste compares to other labs’.

But behaviour change is only the beginning. Rodrigo Ponce-Ortuño oversees the Crick’s contract with an eco-friendly waste-management company. He points out that the journey of plastic lab equipment stretches far beyond its short service on the workbench.

Take media bottles – the plastic containers that hold nutrients to grow cells and bacteria. “It’s just glucose that goes into the bottles,” Ponce-Ortuño explains. The liquid is non-hazardous, but in his experience, recycling companies are wary of the scientific jargon on the labelling.

“If it just said sugar, it would be fine,” he says. Instead, many companies reject the waste because they don’t understand the chemistry. But, by using contractors with the right expertise, the Crick now sends all its media bottles for recycling.

For Rodriguez Martinez, this is a milestone. “I use maybe four media bottles a week, and there are 1,200 scientists here. That we can rinse them and have a contractor recycle them is a big success.”

This tactic – of building companies’ confidence in handling lab equipment – has led to other successes, too. Cooling gel packs, polystyrene boxes and the bulky pallets used to transport products are all collected for re-use. Boxes for pipette tips are also collected – after they’ve been stacked and re-used in the labs themselves.

In fact, the Crick’s labs send no waste at all to landfill. Hazardous waste is safely incinerated, but anything else that can’t be recycled goes through a process called energy-from-waste, where electricity, heat or fuel is harvested from the material as it’s disposed of.

And they’re just as keen to reduce the amount of plastic coming in. The institute recently held a green procurement fair, where suppliers had to meet a set of sustainability criteria to attend. “Normally when you buy a product, you look at the quality and the price,” says Rodriguez Martinez. “We want to add sustainability to that equation.”

The team know that change won’t happen overnight. They need to win people over with practical measures to reduce plastics – without reducing the quality of science. So the institute is discussing best practice with other laboratories, to grow the movement for low-plastic research.

“We’re trying to educate people into a more sustainable science,” says Rodriguez Martinez.

Wellcome, which publishes Mosaic, is one of the six founding partners of the Francis Crick Institute.

This article first appeared on Mosaic and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0).

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Hot-Lynx

No, the Richest One Percent Don’t Pay 40 Percent of the Taxes

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

NYMag Article details this deceptive talking point endlessly repeated by the Right

It’s hard to trace the origin of the partially accurate, yet highly misleading, stat that has been so often used to refute the idea that the current tax burden in the U.S. is not falling enough on the richest 1% compared to the rest of society.

The stat, which under the very narrow definition of “taxes” as federal income tax, calculated separately from any other form of tax, is, in this narrow sense, basically true. This isolated and totally meaningless fact does not address the overall taxes paid by the “top 1%” (which itself is an arbitrary category).

The reality, when overall taxes paid are taken into account, as the NT Mag article points out, is actually much less dramatic and has completely different implications for any call to “tax the rich” which was made by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Dress, as an example.

First, the top 1% represent 21% of all income, which means, by the narrow definition of declared income for tax purposes, that they “earn” more than 20% of the total income declared.

Above – :Bob Woodward’s new book: Peril – release date 09/21/2021 available to pre-order now

Further, this does not include the loopholes that allow billionaires to have virtually no declarable income and still avoid capital gains taxes via Roth IRAs and other methods, even as the calculated net worth of theses individuals increases by billions.

Opinion: ultimately, rather than defending the current system as if it is already adequate and somehow fair, the facts show that, on so many levels it’s hard to delineate them all, the system is functioning in a way that is not only unfair, but so corrupt that change would need to be nearly total before it could even be accurate to say that it was functioning fairly for the majority.

According to the article, the actual stat, with the above dodges, that are universally used, still not taken into account, is that: “the richest one percent earn about 21 percent of the income and pay 24 percent of the taxes”.

Which is a far cry from the ubiquitous sound byte that “1% pays 40% of taxes”.

Read more at:

NY MAG

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Breaking News, Observation, Politics

Trump’s End game: Is a Moscow Asylum offer in the cards?

Russia and others speculate on what will become of ‘Trumpusha’ 

When Trump leaves the White House come January 20th, he will undoubtedly have many obstacles to face, both legal and in his business concerns. Meanwhile, it still remains unclear if Trump has plans to try and preemptively pardon himself (and that point is moot since it only covers federal crimes), as he stands to face charges for numerous offenses related to fraud, tax evasion and sexual assault. 

Read More: Trump’s election themed holiday meltdown thanks to South Park creators

What will happen with Trump as he makes his likely final exit as president is a question on many people’s minds, including at the Kremlin, interestingly.

Russian state media have expressed concern about their dear “Trumpusha” or “Comrade Trump” as he is sometimes referred to.  During a state-run TV talk show ‘Russia-1’, Olga Skabeeva brought up the “serious” possibility that the soon to be ex-President should seek asylum within Russia in order to avoid the prosecutions that will surely follow him at the end of his term. 

Other Russian leaders also had more to say, such as Defense Ministry’s Public Council Igor Korotchenko, who also spoke out to defend Trump; which is reportedly a stark contrast to his traditionally combative stance toward other Western leaders.  

“Russia can offer political asylum to the persecuted former president of the United States, Donald Trump. But let him not simply arrive to Rostov or elsewhere, but also transfer his capital here and finally build his famous Trump City somewhere in our New Moscow.”

Day by day the options for Trump dwindle and recede, it seems…

U.S. laws may or may not allow Trump to roam free after he is no longer protected by presidential immunity to prosecution. Yet in Russia, a country who’s laws have the ability to stretch and blur leaders’ accountability, like the constitutional amendment barring any criminal liability for Putin, should he ever step down, that was recently advanced.

The amendment that would secure immunity from any type of criminal prosecution not just within the tenure of the country’s former presidents, but lifetime criminal immunity. Which is just the kind of thing Trump might be wishing for right about now.  

During the Russia-1 TV show, politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky spoke to the idea of potential last-minute surprises that could still be unveiled prior to the 20th of January.

“You don’t know Trump, he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve and can still cause lots of damage to America and the entire world.” This could be an indicator of the reason why Putin held out for as long as possible in acknowledging President-elect Joe Biden.

Ever the Trump cheerleader, Putin has some encouraging words

During an annual news conference, Putin, on center stage, spoke of Trump, future U.S.-Russia relations, as well as continued to deflect questions stemming from the long-standing allegations of Russia’s involvement with hacking and interference in the 2016 presidential elections.  

When asked about the U.S. elections and what Trump’s future would hold, he seemed very optimistic on Trump’s possible future options when he said:

“He is an experienced man both in domestic and foreign policy, and we expect that all the problems that arose, or at least some of them, will be solved with the new administration. Trump, in my view, doesn’t have to find a job, almost 50% of the [US] population voted for him if we count the number of voters, not the electoral college. He has quite a large base of support in the U.S. and, as far as I understand, he is not going to leave the political life of his country.”

Vladimir Putin
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