Tag Archives: Climate Change

What If Gore Had Won?

11 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by in Al Gore, Climate Change, Politics

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        Perhaps the Supreme Court’s decision to not allow the chads votes in Florida to be counted is quite possibly the most decisive and far-reaching vote they ever made. Other decisions can be changed and re-changed but that moment in History will never come again.

            Vice President Al Gore was a leader in the fight to reduce the causes of Climate Change here and around the world. Bush II’s people were repeatedly warned about Bin Laden and the Al-Queda but ignored them when they might have prevented the 9-11 attacks. Clinton and Gore had worked with Speaker Gingrich to cut over 350,000 government jobs over eight years and paid off almost all of the bonds. Gore had worked with Gingrich and the House and Senate budget committees to fix the Social Security System for at least 75 years. Gingrich lost support of his caucus after the Lewinsky scandal hit the fan. Gore was highly respected around the world including China and Russia.

            Granted we have had four Presidents since Gore lost the Electoral College – not the popular vote – with each doing their own thing. The most far-reaching laws Bush II and Trump did was to cut taxes and ramp up the National Debt to a disastrous amount.

            We currently have a President and a group of people telling Americans Climate Change is not real. They say it is just a liberal scheme to spend money ignoring the events they can see. Had Gore been elected we would be in the fore-front of trying to keep the CO2 emissions down and reducing the effects we are now seeing and how much worse they will get.

            It is disturbing to think how life would be different here and around the world.

Another Extinction Coming

21 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by in Extinction

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        Many years ago, in fact, about 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian Period, a crack opened up in what is now Siberia. Lava poured out covering millions of square miles to a depth of several thousand feet. Millions of metric tons of heat generating lava heated the ground under it. In that ground was multiple layers of coal, oil, and natural gas which caught fire and burned releasing vast amount of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The air temperature rose, algae and bacteria bloomed killing off creatures living in the seas, and fresh water lakes, and streams. The creatures drinking the poisoned water died, too.

            This was the fourth and largest great extinction on the planet. It took millions of years for earth to recover from the few seeds, plants, and creatures that managed to survive. Since then the surface land has split apart forming mountains. Another extinction hit about 65 million years ago, wiping most of life when an asteroid hit the Gulf of Mexico just off the Yucatan Peninsula.

            Today, we are continuing to burn coal, oil, and gas in massive amounts putting those same gases in the air that caused the mass extinction. We may be doing it slower but the result could be the same. Those who are denying we are heading for disaster will be cursed by their progeny. The rest of humanity doesn’t believe in global warming we know is happening!

            Are we going to be the cause of the Sixth Great Extinction?

A Flock of Ostriches

14 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by in School Books

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        For the past several years I have read about how school text books are based on what the Texas school boards, state and local, feel their students should believe. Texans are not supposed to know about evolutionary science so it is expressed as a possibility or belief whereas a belief is a supernatural being creating everything in a few years as factual. Religion is strong in Texas which generates lots of lawsuits for and against.

            Now, Texas is going to persuade American children that climate change isn’t real. Why? It is simple. The boards use advisory groups that are basically dominated by the fossil fuel industry.  It is Texas where it is sacrilegious to speak ill of oil and gas. So instead of trying to teach Americans that it is going to get worse each year and we are at the tipping point of global disaster, Texas school boards are denying the knowledge and reality of carbon causing it. Texas can push their student’s heads in the sand, but their influence and pressure on school books around the country means teachers have to tell their students the books are wrong.

            We have a President and an Administration that is more interested in making money for themselves and their friends than continuing the efforts of previous forward looking Presidents and the rest of the world. Deniers cite China is building fossil fuel plants so we can’t cut back on ours to use solar and wind. That’s the fossil fuel obfuscation. Yes, China is building fossil fuel burners but they also have several time more wind and solar than we do and they are building nuclear plants as fast as they can. Seems like they have smart people running their energy policies and we have ostriches!

Stargate Project

28 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in Electric Generating Plant, Star Gate

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        The Stargate Project that Trump said he is initiating is not new since the planning was started two years ago from President Biden’s funding bills. The initial cost proposal for the AI Data Center was 30 Billion and to be built in Wisconsin by Microsoft.

            The problem with this project and others is the amount of power they use. Stargate will use more power than 3.5 million Wisconsin homes. Wisconsin has 2.75 million homes so where will all this new power come from? The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia took over 20 years to build and it cost 35 billion. The plant will produce 4,800 megawatts which will provide power for more than two million homes or two-thirds the amount Stargate will use. Vogtle is the Nation’s largest Nuclear Plant. Wisconsin buys power from the grid because it can’t supply its own needs.

            Lots of other data centers are being planned, being built, or already built around the country. These power hogs are supposed to be using green energy meaning supplied by wind, solar, or battery. One of the original signers of the agreement with the other tech giants has already pulled out because it isn’t feasible. Since it takes decades and billions to build a nuke, fossil fired plants are being planned and built near the data centers. These projects mean we are definitely not going to make any headway towards reducing the CO2 Emissions Goals. One estimate is it would take a solar farm the size of Kansas to supply all the green energy these centers will require and batteries covering Connecticut for night time, cloudy, and windless days.

            We might as well face the facts. We are doomed to the disastrous effects of global warming. We may not get as hot as Venus’s 600 degrees but 150 degrees or more is probable now.    

Time Is Running Out 

08 Saturday Mar 2025

Posted by in Climate Change

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Imagine being on a train speeding down the rails towards a tunnel through a mountain. Various devices have been installed to tell the engineer to slow down before reaching the tunnel. A rock slide has closed off the tunnel but crews and equipment are working to clean the tracks so our train can safely pass through. Now imagine those devices are being dismantled allowing the train to speed back up. In addition the work at the tunnel entrance has been slowed and maybe stopped. Time is running short and unless the engineer applies the brakes quickly the train will be wrecked with disastrous consequences to the passengers. The rails are climate change.      

This imaginative teaching scenario is an accurate description of what is happening here regarding efforts to deeply reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. If we don’t do it quickly the effects of climate change will become unbearable. We have known for almost 250 years that carbon dioxide kept the planet warm. We have known for almost a hundred that the level of the gas was increasing but at a slow rate so scientists studying the rise were not very concerned.

About 50 years ago they started getting concerned. About this time the scientists told their bosses at the major oil companies that they were causing a substantial increase which would lead to an uncontrollable warming of the planet. The companies managed to dissuade and con people into thinking it wasn’t true. Millions of Americans still believe their propaganda, and they just put in a President who either ignores the facts or just doesn’t care. He has said many times he wants to produce more fossil fuels and cut regulations on burning them. He wants to reduce government spending on combating the efforts to use wind and solar power.

Scientists said a 3.5 degree rise over the start of the industrial age was a tipping point and we are very near that point. We are about to hit those rocks at a high speed. How many people will survive…if any?

This Really Smells Bad

04 Monday Nov 2024

Posted by in President Trump

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        Sometimes, putting two and two together, we get five or even more. Let’s see what number all this adds up to when we put what we know together for sure.

            One, the Trump organization tried to put a hotel with his name on it in Moscow and the deal didn’t go through. We don’t know why. Did Putin want too big a price like he gets from everyone else or does he know something we don’t?

            Two, we know there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence in 2015 but not enough proof to indict anyone. We know they hacked into the Democratic Party’s files, plans, and e-mails and gave them to Trump’s campaign.

            Three, we know Trump met with two high level Russian Diplomats with only an interpreter present in the White House. The law requires notes of such meetings so the interpreter’s notes were edited and then approved by President Trump himself. This was about two years after Putin’s pick for the Ukrainian President was kicked out and the Pro-Western Zelensky installed. The Russian supported rebels and Russians undercover troops took the Easternmost Provinces and landed troops in the Crimea. Trump withheld help that the Ukraine needed and which might have kept Putin from his attempt to capture Kiev. Trump gave Putin’s lie that it was governed by Nazis.

            Four, The Russian Media has been found to be flooding the social media with lies about anyone or organization against Trump and putting out many lies in his support.

            Five, Elon Musk is suddenly putting tens of millions into a PAC supporting Trump and going to his rallies after he met several times with Putin and other Russians. What was discussed neither side will say. Both sides now say their people were wrong and the discussions never happened.

            Six, we know that several American companies are still operating in Russia and/or buying Russian oil and fuel which was refined in India. These companies contribute to the Trump PACS.

            So two and two has added up to six and how many more points I don’t know since most of this is kept secret. The American Government and NATO have named Russia as an enemy and Putin has arrest warrants against him so he must be very careful on leaving Russia or being arrested. NATO is standing with America on supplying weapons to the Ukraine and Trump wants to withdraw from NATO. Putin’s cyber teams have been supporting Trump’s views on our pulling out of NATO and stopping help to Ukraine.

            President Trump’s state and security people have said they don’t think he should be President again. Maybe it doesn’t just smell, maybe it is a terrible stink!

Big Oil Knew

31 Thursday Oct 2024

Posted by in Carbon Fuels, Climate Change

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        I am a contributor to several green organizations who try to protect us, wildlife, and the planet. Billions of people are aware of global warming and we are the cause through our burning of the fossil fuels the planet buried millions and billions of years ago. Global warming and our exploding population are causing hundreds of species to go extinct each year. Every year we dig huge holes in planet big enough to be seen from space.

            Today the global warming I studied in 1970 is now called Climate change. We have known that carbon dioxide kept the planets re-radiation’s longer rays from escaping into space for 250 years. Some of the people demonstrating during the first Earth Day tried to make people aware of the danger.

            They tried to say each of us had some responsibility for it, which is true, Big Oil was told by nuclear scientist Edward Teller in 1959 at an American Petroleum Institute meeting so they have been aware but chose to put greed over the safety of their descendants. In 1979 Exxon’s research scientists told management of the dramatic changes in the World’s climate in the next seventy-five years. That’s on track for the projections for 2054.

            The oil giants and coal companies have put money over the future health of humanity and wildlife. As we try to limit the damage we are using more of the CO2 producing fuels and not making significant changes in reducing the damaging effects. How far can the damage go? Venus is the best example of runaway global warming. Its atmosphere is enough to melt lead!

Macro-Grid Needed

11 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in Power-Grids

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            Most people who live in my area do not realize that much of the United State is not connected to those big power carrying transmission lines, I live about ten miles from Dresden Nuclear Power station which was the first commercially owned nuclear Power Station. It went on line in 1957 about 14 years before we moved into the area. The Commonwealth Edison Company built a network of those big transmission lines spreading out from the station like the strands of a spider web. When they added two more nukes, the web expanded so my area is crisscrossed with the lines. Other fossil plants have come and gone, and a new gas fired plant has been built across the road from Dresden.

             Since these lines were mostly built before we moved here. I don’t remember any big objections like I see today about pipe lines. However around the country the “not in my backyard” groups and the fossil industry are blocking attempts for a true and much needed national macro-grid so power can be sent from one region to another. That means wind, solar, and battery and nuclear power can be sent from one region to another. That means Green Energy can be moved around the country cheaply. Building a national grid would allow power to come into an area that has lost its local power generators such as what happened in Texas during 2021 winter storm froze its fossil plants. Their only outside link was Energy’s small transmission lines to some areas of East Texas. Pride goeth after the storm, because the Texas grid is going to finally connect to a regional grid for emergency high cost use. Some of Houston hasn’t recovered from the June hurricane damage.

            In some states landowners have no ability to keep those towers off their land even if they are paid for the right. We need that macro grid connecting the Southwest’s massive solar projects and the Midwest’s wind farms to the users. So how do we get it done?

            About twelve years ago a genius, Dale Osborn, working for the Midwest Power Grid (MISD) had a brilliant idea which overcomes the landowner complaints and the battle with the conservation groups. The free land exists across our nation. It is called the Interstate Highway system. The poles are located between lanes or inside the fences. The highways go where the grid needs to go.

            Osborn had worked in a European power company and was familiar with another necessary change. Instead of a power losing alternating current the macro-grid would carry direct current which would allow power from the West coast to reach the East coast with little loss. As a local company got power from the macro grid they would change it to agree with their sixty hertz grid. China uses direct current lines to ship an unbelievable twelve gigawatts at 1.1 million volts from its power generating southwest to its East Coast Plants and population. Our AC lines do not even compare.

Much of this essay can be found in the extensive article in the Sierra Club’s Fall 2023 issue. We are members of this great organization.

See For Yourself

19 Friday Jul 2024

Posted by in Climate Change

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        For those fewer and fewer people, who don’t understand what is happening to our climate, read the following sentences. The Earth has had numerous ice ages over the last million or so years. They lasted about a hundred thousand years. They would lower the sea level two or three hundred feet which is why we find amber and human settlement remains in the Baltic and out to the North Sea. In between those periods of ice is about ten thousand years where trees and grasslands soaked up carbon dioxide which caused another ice age. During the last one our species expanded and populated the world.

            We know all of that from geological and archeological findings. Notice the inter-glacial period is ten thousand years and the last ice age was a little over that average, so why is the Earth warming up and melting the remaining glaciers and ice caps? It’s that contagion that came out of Africa about 50,000 years ago – us. We have cut down the forests that soaked up the carbon dioxide, dug up the remains of those primeval forests and burned them, and pulled the remains of early single cell life in a liquid and gas and burned it. All of that has reversed the natural cycle and filled the air with carbon dioxide and methane causing the re-radiation of the Earth’s heat to be trapped.

            We have known that these gases perform that function for over 250 years. We knew this on the first Earth Day. The alarms started sounding in the 1980s and the fossil fuel companies silenced the scientists in their companies so they could continue to make money at an expense to the future generations. They still fund groups whose only function is to deceive the millions of gullible people through the internet websites and social media. Can’t you see the climate is changing fast? Each summer is hotter with stronger storms and most winter days are jacket weather. Convince those gullible people with facts and save the future.

Rising Water

09 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in Global Warming, Rising Water, Water

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Sea levels in the Gulf of Maine have risen seven and a half inches in little more than the last hundred years. The Gulf is located between Maine and Nova Scotia. This has caused much shore erosion and the increase in more violent storms has destroyed centuries old buildings and piers. Storm surges are reaching higher than ever before, flooding modern buildings. Current levels have not had a noticeable effect on upstream communities but will with the projected rises.

The scientists at the University of Maine have been studying the increase along with their climate change research. The models of the effects of climate change over that one hundred year period closely matches the seven and a half inch increase. Their programs indicate the levels will rise another ten inches by 2050 and forty inches by 2100.

As you visit coastal cities, imagine the sea levels being ten inches higher in a couple of decades and four feet higher when a child born today retires. What cities will still exist, not only on the coast, but tens of miles inland? What will Washington D. C. do in just a few years since the area is already being flooded by high tides backing up the Potomac River? Where will the Federal Government move to the next few decades? Will the climate change deniers block the need to relocate cities and tens of millions of citizens until it is too late?