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Stylo: I did not mean to imply that you are materialistic, selfish and unwilling to make a sacrifice. I’m sorry if that’s the way it came across. I wouldn’t suggest giving up the vino. My intention was to convey that at the very least, you have options…even though they may be limited. Again, my apologies for being insensitive.
No need to apologize. I didn’t take it that way. I was responding more to the topic title. I think, deep down, I feel guilty about using coal, so that…combined with a broken tooth…made me a little touchy.
Answerer: You realize, of course, that’s the narrow view that controllers who place us in these positions count on to maintain the status quo.
Not sure what you mean by this. Which of my views is narrow? My mood of resignation? I don’t know…it’s sometimes hard to think of the big picture when you’re so busy focusing on the little picture.
Answerer: You realize, of course, that’s the narrow view that controllers who place us in these positions count on to maintain the status quo.
Not sure what you mean by this. Which of my views is narrow? My mood of resignation? I don’t know…it’s sometimes hard to think of the big picture when you’re so busy focusing on the little picture.
You said it, it’s hard to focus on the big picture when you’re busy focusing on the little picture. Malsow’s hierarchy of needs. Who gives a shit about the planet when you have one foot out the door and living hand to mouth and a job spilling oil helps to put food on the table. That’s what the oligarchists need to thrive.
I have a coal burning insert in my fireplace which lowers my heat bill considerably, but the damn price of coal is skyrocketing because of shortages. Why? The Chinese are buying our coal! It is putting small companies out of business because they can’t even obtain the coal Anyway, we are finally exporting something, which is good news. Despite the mild winter and our use of coal, my heating bill was enormous this year because the price of oil went up.
So, anyway…..if you want to know what makes people inhuman, you can interview me and all the citizens of West Virginia whose standard of living is being raised by digging for coal. Is it greed? I don’t know. Most people I know are just trying to put some money in the bank instead of spending it all as soon as it comes in.
Yes, that picture is very depressing, but, at this point, all our options suck. It’s not the best time to ask people to make sacrifices. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.
You realize, of course, that’s the narrow view that controllers who place us in these positions count on to maintain the status quo.
Notice, for a few examples of the status quo, that there’s money to make golf courses, $300 million to make stupid movies, hype to advertise and sell millions of gas-guzzling cars, trillions to finance tragic boondoggle wars, but there’s no money to help people install geothermal heat pumps. These can often cut home heating and air-conditioning costs in half. A nation-wide project to make and install geothermal heat pumps would put millions of people to work - manufacturing (made in U.S.A.) and installation, lower our carbon footprint, help clean the air, and set an example for China and other coal-dependent countries.
unsmoked: Notice, for a few examples of the status quo, that there’s money to make golf courses, $300 million to make stupid movies, hype to advertise and sell millions of gas-guzzling cars, trillions to finance tragic boondoggle wars, but there’s no money to help people install geothermal heat pumps. These can often cut home heating and air-conditioning costs in half. A nation-wide project to make and install geothermal heat pumps would put millions of people to work - manufacturing (made in U.S.A.) and installation, lower our carbon footprint, help clean the air, and set an example for China and other coal-dependent countries.
Will it be other countries setting an example for the U.S. and selling us the units?
If they go on sale at Home Depot, I’ll be the first to buy one.
but, seriously,...I agree with everything you say. Our priorities are all screwed up. Geothermal heat pumps are a great idea. The other day, I was having fantasies about giant satellites with solar panels, but I guess that’s far-fetched. Just seems like we aren’t taking advantage of all that sunlight power.
I have a coal burning insert in my fireplace which lowers my heat bill considerably, but the damn price of coal is skyrocketing because of shortages. Why? The Chinese are buying our coal! It is putting small companies out of business because they can’t even obtain the coal Anyway, we are finally exporting something, which is good news. Despite the mild winter and our use of coal, my heating bill was enormous this year because the price of oil went up.
So, anyway…..if you want to know what makes people inhuman, you can interview me and all the citizens of West Virginia whose standard of living is being raised by digging for coal. Is it greed? I don’t know. Most people I know are just trying to put some money in the bank instead of spending it all as soon as it comes in.
Yes, that picture is very depressing, but, at this point, all our options suck. It’s not the best time to ask people to make sacrifices. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.
You realize, of course, that’s the narrow view that controllers who place us in these positions count on to maintain the status quo.
Notice, for a few examples of the status quo, that there’s money to make golf courses, $300 million to make stupid movies, hype to advertise and sell millions of gas-guzzling cars, trillions to finance tragic boondoggle wars, but there’s no money to help people install geothermal heat pumps. These can often cut home heating and air-conditioning costs in half. A nation-wide project to make and install geothermal heat pumps would put millions of people to work - manufacturing (made in U.S.A.) and installation, lower our carbon footprint, help clean the air, and set an example for China and other coal-dependent countries.
Will it be other countries setting an example for the U.S. and selling us the units?
But they’d cut into the profits of companies like PG&E. Thus they are discouraged.
Further, a simple amendment to building law increasing minimum insulation requirements for homes would further decrease heating/cooling costs. That’s money up-front when buying a home, instead of a slow-trickle of escalating heating costs that fluctuate with the weather, so people notice it more, and fewer buy into the notion.
Sometimes even just investing in better weather-stripping and re-caulking windows and doors can save a ton on heating.
Will it be other countries setting an example for the U.S. and selling us the units?
I think your statement, unsmoked, also goes to show that those people with all the money (multi-millions/billions) to invest in potentially lucrative products/services are either too stupid to see how our not-so-distant future will be unfolding or they are blinded by their needs for immediate financial gratification. Like you say there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in stupid movies (a whole lot of which actually lose money) and other ridiculous ideas, meanwhile proven technology that will alleviate our dependence on foreign fuels is basically ignored in the larger economic scheme of things. Obviously something is gone wonky in the minds of those who own everything?
Will it be other countries setting an example for the U.S. and selling us the units?
I think your statement, unsmoked, also goes to show that those people with all the money (multi-millions/billions) to invest in potentially lucrative products/services are either too stupid to see how our not-so-distant future will be unfolding or they are blinded by their needs for immediate financial gratification. Like you say there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in stupid movies (a whole lot of which actually lose money) and other ridiculous ideas, meanwhile proven technology that will alleviate our dependence on foreign fuels is basically ignored in the larger economic scheme of things. Obviously something is gone wonky in the minds of those who own everything?
Agree. It’s the short-sightedness syndrome the American capitalist money making segment seems to be afflicted with and which the capitalist vs socialist diversion perpetuates. It’s not so much that money is generated and/or lost in a variety of business endeavors for which there are legitimate markets, it’s that there is a resistance to siphoning off an adequate portion as taxes under the auspices of government/business partnerships as investments in the greater public good no matter what the endeavor, from healthcare, to social security to the environment to specific industries when necessary such as American auto manufacturing and alternative energy production.
But they’d cut into the profits of companies like PG&E. Thus they are discouraged.
Actually they are very much encouraged by PG&E and every utility that I’ve had in the last 15 years. Between flyers in my bills, ads in the media and their websites you would have to be clueless not to know what your options and incentives are.
Will it be other countries setting an example for the U.S. and selling us the units?
I think your statement, unsmoked, also goes to show that those people with all the money (multi-millions/billions) to invest in potentially lucrative products/services are either too stupid to see how our not-so-distant future will be unfolding or they are blinded by their needs for immediate financial gratification. Like you say there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in stupid movies (a whole lot of which actually lose money) and other ridiculous ideas, meanwhile proven technology that will alleviate our dependence on foreign fuels is basically ignored in the larger economic scheme of things. Obviously something is gone wonky in the minds of those who own everything?
Agree. It’s the short-sightedness syndrome the American capitalist money making segment seems to be afflicted with and which the capitalist vs socialist diversion perpetuates. It’s not so much that money is generated and/or lost in a variety of business endeavors for which there are legitimate markets, it’s that there is a resistance to siphoning off an adequate portion as taxes under the auspices of government/business partnerships as investments in the greater public good no matter what the endeavor, from healthcare, to social security to the environment to specific industries when necessary such as American auto manufacturing and alternative energy production.
I ran across these lines in an article about UK/US political sitcoms in the March 26 New Yorker Magazine:
“In a recent e-mail, Hurwitz said that he saw similarities between “Arrested Development” and “The Thick of It,” which, in his reading, was about “people whose big outward and ‘important’ lives are run on a very small and impaired set of inner resources.” He went on, “That just really appeals to me comedically . . . Big people with small hearts. Stupid people with high I.Q.s”
But they’d cut into the profits of companies like PG&E. Thus they are discouraged.
Actually they are very much encouraged by PG&E and every utility that I’ve had in the last 15 years. Between fliers in my bills, ads in the media and their websites you would have to be clueless not to know what your options and incentives are.
PG&E telling customers to use energy-saving light bulbs, weather stripping and so forth, is like Octomom telling her kids to eat less so she can give birth to 8 more.
As concrete is poured over surrounding farms and forest land, and energy guzzling houses spring up, PG&E Octomom’s new kids will have 8-bedroom-4 bath monstrosities to heat and cool. They’ll use 4 times the world average, twice the European average per capita energy consumption. Naturally it will be necessary to build more coal-fired or nuclear power plants. This is called PROGRESS, JOBS, AND PROSPERITY
Do we hear PG&E and company saying, “Whoa! Hey people, do you really want to frack the shit out of your country? Do you really want to double your population every few years and live in polluted gridlock? Do you really want the sea level to rise and flood the world’s lowlands and coastal cities? Do you know what that will cost?” Do we get any fliers or ads from corporate America like that? Not their job?
It takes 5 coal trains a day to supply a coal-fired plant; each train 124 cars long. One plant burns 25 coal cars per hour - 1288 tones of coal per hour. For example, check out the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant near Macon, Georgia. A 124-car coal-train is unloaded in less than 90 minutes, then the next one pulls in.
But they’d cut into the profits of companies like PG&E. Thus they are discouraged.
Actually they are very much encouraged by PG&E and every utility that I’ve had in the last 15 years. Between fliers in my bills, ads in the media and their websites you would have to be clueless not to know what your options and incentives are.
PG&E telling customers to use energy-saving light bulbs, weather stripping and so forth, is like Octomom telling her kids to eat less so she can give birth to 8 more.
As concrete is poured over surrounding farms and forest land, and energy guzzling houses spring up, PG&E Octomom’s new kids will have 8-bedroom-4 bath monstrosities to heat and cool. They’ll use 4 times the world average, twice the European average per capita energy consumption. Naturally it will be necessary to build more coal-fired or nuclear power plants. This is called PROGRESS, JOBS, AND PROSPERITY
Do we hear PG&E and company saying, “Whoa! Hey people, do you really want to frack the shit out of your country? Do you really want to double your population every few years and live in polluted gridlock? Do you really want the sea level to rise and flood the world’s lowlands and coastal cities? Do you know what that will cost?” Do we get any fliers or ads from corporate America like that? Not their job?
It takes 5 coal trains a day to supply a coal-fired plant; each train 124 cars long. One plant burns 25 coal cars per hour - 1288 tones of coal per hour. For example, check out the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant near Macon, Georgia. A 124-car coal-train is unloaded in less than 90 minutes, then the next one pulls in.
PG&E has no say in population and if they tried they would be told to mind their own fucking business and keep the energy flowing. Least you forget even the liberals on this site view any government involvement in population control as evil.
But they’d cut into the profits of companies like PG&E. Thus they are discouraged.
Actually they are very much encouraged by PG&E and every utility that I’ve had in the last 15 years. Between fliers in my bills, ads in the media and their websites you would have to be clueless not to know what your options and incentives are.
PG&E telling customers to use energy-saving light bulbs, weather stripping and so forth, is like Octomom telling her kids to eat less so she can give birth to 8 more.
As concrete is poured over surrounding farms and forest land, and energy guzzling houses spring up, PG&E Octomom’s new kids will have 8-bedroom-4 bath monstrosities to heat and cool. They’ll use 4 times the world average, twice the European average per capita energy consumption. Naturally it will be necessary to build more coal-fired or nuclear power plants. This is called PROGRESS, JOBS, AND PROSPERITY
Do we hear PG&E and company saying, “Whoa! Hey people, do you really want to frack the shit out of your country? Do you really want to double your population every few years and live in polluted gridlock? Do you really want the sea level to rise and flood the world’s lowlands and coastal cities? Do you know what that will cost?” Do we get any fliers or ads from corporate America like that? Not their job?
It takes 5 coal trains a day to supply a coal-fired plant; each train 124 cars long. One plant burns 25 coal cars per hour - 1288 tones of coal per hour. For example, check out the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant near Macon, Georgia. A 124-car coal-train is unloaded in less than 90 minutes, then the next one pulls in.
PG&E has no say in population and if they tried they would be told to mind their own fucking business and keep the energy flowing. Least you forget even the liberals on this site view any government involvement in population control as evil.
I thought PG&E was a private company, not the government. If a private company sees that its customers’ habits are unsustainable, leading to disaster, (rising sea level, increased hurricanes and tornadoes, spreading wildfires and range land turning to desert, oceans turning acidic and shellfish and coral reefs dying, and so forth) it seems that the private company, interested in its own survival and the welfare of its customers, would speak up and share what it saw as a prudent course of action.
Is it your opinion that PG&E and other energy companies don’t see global warming, the melting of polar ice etc., as an impendent global disaster? That they don’t see the population explosion and increased burning of fossil fuel as reason gone awry?
Is it your opinion that PG&E and other energy companies don’t see global warming, the melting of polar ice etc., as an impendent global disaster? That they don’t see the population explosion and increased burning of fossil fuel as reason gone awry?
Energy companies, car makers, home builders, electronics producers and on and on are made of of the very same people who want those things and keep making babies who want them to. Stop trying to find some one to blame and blame everyone.
