I do not mind sacrificing to save the planet. My situation limits the things I can do, though. I am on a fixed income. I can’t afford a new car, much less an electric car. I drive a 2005 Toyota Highlander which I purchased new in April of 2005. I plan to drive it until I am no longer able to drive. I am only able to drive in my small rural town in Virginia due to a sleep disorder. If I need to see one of my doctors 30 minutes away, I have a family member or friend drive me in my car. I also can’t afford to get solar panels. I live paycheck to paycheck. I do recycle everything that I can. I keep the house cooler than most people in winter, but I do keep my house cooler in summer than most. My senior dog and I can’t tolerate the summer heat. I would like to do more to help combat climate change, though.
Our Electrical utilities do not want us to install solar or wind power on our own property. Cities charge electrical permit fees on new solar panels each time you want to first install or add additional panels. The utilities limit how much you can install and connect to the grid and charge fees to make the connections each time you wish to add more. Many utilities want to charge monthly fees (tax on the Sun) of $5.00 to 8.00 per kilo watt hour of installed solar panels and only pay 3 cents for electricity that costs the homeowner 10 to 16 cents to produce.
All these fees stop if you install your solar panels off-grid. By not connecting to the grid and keeping the voltage below 50 volts, you can bypass permit fees, utility connection fees and monthly fees. But this does not allow you to share the electricity with your fellow human beings to fight fossil fuels collectively. When future prospective home rooftop solar prospective buyers were shown the fees and costs being proposed by the utilities, 95% said they would not install the solar on their homes.
I have solar because I saw the movie "An inconvenient Truth" and I wanted to do my part to take my home off fossil fuels. It is not easy and took me 15 years to build the system that replaces both utility electricity and natural gas with solar power. Today, many solar panel companies can build these systems for you, but the utilities do not want to allow you to connect, to the grid, a system that is large enough to do what I have done off-grid. With 15,000-watt maximums and no larger than 115% the Electrical usage you used the previous year, how can you replace the natural gas furnaces or hot water heater with electrical ones?
In a perfect world, where everyone is trying to curb fossil fuels, we could install solar on every roof, residential, commercial and industrial plus parking lot covers and keep the power production close to the customers. This is what Thomas Edison envisioned in DC electrical power. Utilities today, use fossil fuels to generate AC power hundreds of miles away at super high voltages for transmission then step the voltage down, through transformers, to the electrical voltage and power that consumers need. This system took 125 years to build out and now we want to change it all out in 25 to 30 years. A complete re-design of our distribution and transmission system that includes batteries for grid sized electrical storage is going to cost billions of dollars and that will be either done by the government through tax revenue or by utilities through higher electrical rates.
So as much as I want to see the transition, it will not happen over the next 3 month to compensate for the crisis in Ukraine. It will have to be done by individuals on their own homes and businesses to create the power they need and that could be done over the next 24 months if people are willing to put in their own solar panel systems with batteries now. If the demand is there, the solar industry can do the job, build the panels and battery systems and put Americans to work. This is our only choice, at this time, to make a difference to stop Wars for oil and natural Gas.
I sold my 14-year-old car last summer because I needed to pay off emergency dental surgery. I did it without a pause for I, too, live on a fixed income. Medicare, as all seniors know, does not cover dental. My supplemental insurance is linked to whatever Medicare does. My carbon footprint became smaller. I can't just jump in the car every day now to pick up extra items I forgot about, or just go for a drive, et cetera. I've saved money and I plan my need for rides carefully. I don't suggest this as a solution, but I walk more, spend less, and am healthier. There is much more we can do, though, then sell our cars or convert to electric if we cannot afford it. How much hot water do we use? How fully and freely does water run from our faucets? How many items in our home are left plugged in and/or charging all the time? And, how do we eat? How frequently do we consume beef and other meats? An awareness of our consumption patterns, where we can be mindful of overuse and waste in these simple matters can help our climate. Yes, we have to reduce consumption overall. However, we keep selling and eating those burgers for which rain forests that help sustain this planet have been leveled for cattle. Rachel Carson wrote about this in her 1950s book, "The Silent Spring." John Robbins (the Baskin Robbins heir who forfeited his inheritance) presented a few decades after Carson in his book, "Diet for a New America" startling facts about the negative effects on our planet, our climate, our bodies, that factory farming and animal consumption cause. More books followed. I believe there are many things each of us can "sacrifice" every day that will contribute to a better climate and less dependence on toxic things, destroying our climate, our Mother Earth.
Republicans don’t serve, or care, about the Common Good. Republicans care about Money and Power. Their leadership aspires to be a White Christian Nationalist authoritarian regime, with a few token people of color to suggest a veneer of diversity. Their donor base, including Big Dirty Hydrocarbons, demands fealty, not thoughtful planet-saving leadership. The Market, meaning our individual choice of green tech, such as electric vehicles, is the only thing that influences them……follow the money. Our votes, and our thoughtful choices, even if it means a form of personal sacrifice, are the only things that will advance the Common Good.
I agree with you, as I almost always do. I enjoy reading your viewpoint on things and hope that this Administration listens to you because you really understand the issues, including this one. I do understand that it's all about retaining the vote, but people need to understand that we are sinking fast and need to bite the bullet and make some sacrifices.
If the goal is to foster some sense of solidarity, then ok. However, to actually address the issue, I feel like the call for sacrifice should be on the handful of corporations who consume the most energy and produce the most emissions. Calling on individuals to sacrifice shields corporations from their responsibility, which a more cynical person might guess is part of corporations' marketing strategy.
It seems obvious that one solution is to lessen our depends on fossil fuels. Concentrating on clean energy solutions -- just like we did to find a vaccine for covid -- could make a significant difference both in the cost to the consumer and the health of our planet.
A couple of comments about why the sense of urgency regarding our continuing rise in greenhouse gases and political inability to take the very urgent steps which are necessary to avoid planetary catastrophe:
The CO2 we spew into our atmosphere today will largely be present for beyond 2000 years. It must be dissolved in our oceans and then incorporated into shells of tiny marine life...to eventually fall to the bottom of the ocean and over thousands of years turn to rock. It is "baked in". So if we turned off every source of greenhouse gas in the world TODAY the greenhouse gases worldwide would keep rising inexorably for the next 50 years. We have no effective way to stop that process, so Greta Thunberg and so many others are waving their hands and shouting for urgent action. A dire situation.
Now add the habitat destruction ongoing, and the sixth mass extinction (Bolsonaro in Brazil encouraging deforestation within the Amazon, sometimes described as the "Lungs of the Earth" and each year the situation gets far worse. The fossil fuel industry has known all of this for 4 decades but continued to spread disinformation and denying the truth. And our politicians continue to subsidize that industry with billions of dollars annually. Sad. The Common Good is ignored.
Yes! We have an opportunity now to unite for our world and for freedom and democracy in Ukraine and in many other nations. By reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and using new and emerging clean energy technologies, we will be sacrificing but also providing a better more sustainable way forward for all. The facts of the matter are that the world will eventually run short of oil and gas and there will be no way of sustaining energy based on such fuels. Do we want to keep going and keep destroying our planet or do we want to use the new technologies and systems to provide the power we all need? The disastrous turn-of-events in Ukraine has been both catastrophic and heartening: catastrophic in terms of the unnecessary loss of life, the plight of people forced to flee their homes, and the destruction of entire cities and towns; heartening because of the willingness of the Ukrainians to mount such a valiant and courageous defense of their nation and the unity such an example has created in Europe and the United States. This is a golden opportunity to create a better world for many people in Ukraine and throughout Europe, maybe even in Russia, and we would do well to fill our plates to heaping and partner together for a better future.
We were listening to Greta Thunberg a couple of years ago say that the best thing any individual can do for the climate is to give up meat. So we did. We were vegan for about a year, and we reintroduced chicken and fish. But I think for the planet, that's gotta go again. We also set up our lives so that we could walk everywhere. work is a short walk from home. It's a little thing, took some planning, but it's been worthwhile and served us well in the pandemic. We can do more and we will.
I agree with you Robert, it's time the President asked the American people to grow up, stop listening to idiots and do what we can to save our environment. We should be showing the world how to do it right, not how to be poor stewards of our environment for our creature comforts. That means investment in non polluting energies, that means less buying of cheap goods made by slave labor in China and less reliance on resources of other countries that come at a cost to our planet and our souls.
Couldn't agree more, Robert. These times are not going to be easy, but Spirit and Dedication are more important. My work with young people convinces me that they are growing up with a sense of shared purpose that almost shames us of older generations.
Let's hope that your message is listened to by those in power and that a sense of love and energy dominates the hate and the narcissism.
We are repeating FDR's moment. Joe Biden has stepped up. We might get lucky if we all do our part. During World War II, we Americans saved string because it was a patriotic duty. Also bones and rags, paper bags, tin cans, pots and pans, silk stockings, nylon hose, used rubber, old clothes. The U.S. Government rationed war-effort necessities and urged people to grow Victory Gardens to supplement our diets. Posters urged the people to “Grow Vitamins at Your Kitchen Door.” Americans planted 20 million gardens and cultivated nearly half the nation’s vegetables in our backyards. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden at the White House.
In the 1942 scrap metal drive, people donated pots and pans, farm equipment, bumpers and fenders, Civil War cannons, iron fences, keys and metal toys. Communities held competitions to produce the most scrap, and threw town parties with oratory, bands, and Hitler metal tosses — you got to cast your kettle at a bust of Hitler set up in the town square. We need some damn' PR around this issue, eh?
Yes, I totally agree. And to supplant your argument, let me say that quickly switching to alternative power is extensional because stopping Putin is extensional. It may take a while to drain his #1 $ source feeding him, but it will eventually work. His blood thirst is expansive - if he wins here, he will continue to expand, i.e. Hitler.
Thank you for daily insights that help me maintain my sanity. Discussions of freedom along with “the common good” are critical. I wish your bully pulpit were large enough to make a dent in the psyches of those who have been so brainwashed that they cannot see beyond their own noses. At age 78, perhaps I will not be around to see the total destruction of this country. Living with a government fully controlled by the right is so horrifying, I feel a fate worst than death. Even with the threats to impeach Biden if the Republicans control the Legislature, I don’t think I could stand to watch this from anywhere on Earth.
I wish there is some way those of us appalled by these prospects could wage a publicity campaign to display Rick Scott’s points for government under Republicans or post billboards and commercials asking “did Representative ………… support the Constitution on January 6”. I feel many frustrated Democrats would happily support such a PR campaign. Another statement with impact would be using Rick Scott’s words and asking, “is this what you want for your country”.
good morning. thank you for this and everything else you do for part of my chosen family. before I respond to the substance, let me share with you a pet peeve. Calling people who live in the USA "Americans" seems to disregard the other Americans people who live in Canada, or Mexico or in "South America." The people, like myself, and yourself, who live in the USA are not more important then the other Americans. Of course, asking people to sacrifice is appropriate. If the people who are living now, do not consume less, The world, as we know it, will not exist in the future. One way to consume less, is to not have the option of consuming the same or more. I cannot, because of a physical disability. I also, do not drive because, I am poor, and cannot afford a car. Over the last two years, I have very rarely been more than walking distance from where I live. and never more than a few miles. Asking me to sacrifice by traveling less, seems silly. Joe Biden traveling to Europe to tell me to sacrifice by traveling less, seems hypocritical. Not telling me, and other people to travel less, and other wise consume less energy, because, it does not poll well seems cowardly. I do not know,what Joe Biden should do. I do know, what he has done so far, has not worked.
I do not mind sacrificing to save the planet. My situation limits the things I can do, though. I am on a fixed income. I can’t afford a new car, much less an electric car. I drive a 2005 Toyota Highlander which I purchased new in April of 2005. I plan to drive it until I am no longer able to drive. I am only able to drive in my small rural town in Virginia due to a sleep disorder. If I need to see one of my doctors 30 minutes away, I have a family member or friend drive me in my car. I also can’t afford to get solar panels. I live paycheck to paycheck. I do recycle everything that I can. I keep the house cooler than most people in winter, but I do keep my house cooler in summer than most. My senior dog and I can’t tolerate the summer heat. I would like to do more to help combat climate change, though.
Our Electrical utilities do not want us to install solar or wind power on our own property. Cities charge electrical permit fees on new solar panels each time you want to first install or add additional panels. The utilities limit how much you can install and connect to the grid and charge fees to make the connections each time you wish to add more. Many utilities want to charge monthly fees (tax on the Sun) of $5.00 to 8.00 per kilo watt hour of installed solar panels and only pay 3 cents for electricity that costs the homeowner 10 to 16 cents to produce.
All these fees stop if you install your solar panels off-grid. By not connecting to the grid and keeping the voltage below 50 volts, you can bypass permit fees, utility connection fees and monthly fees. But this does not allow you to share the electricity with your fellow human beings to fight fossil fuels collectively. When future prospective home rooftop solar prospective buyers were shown the fees and costs being proposed by the utilities, 95% said they would not install the solar on their homes.
I have solar because I saw the movie "An inconvenient Truth" and I wanted to do my part to take my home off fossil fuels. It is not easy and took me 15 years to build the system that replaces both utility electricity and natural gas with solar power. Today, many solar panel companies can build these systems for you, but the utilities do not want to allow you to connect, to the grid, a system that is large enough to do what I have done off-grid. With 15,000-watt maximums and no larger than 115% the Electrical usage you used the previous year, how can you replace the natural gas furnaces or hot water heater with electrical ones?
In a perfect world, where everyone is trying to curb fossil fuels, we could install solar on every roof, residential, commercial and industrial plus parking lot covers and keep the power production close to the customers. This is what Thomas Edison envisioned in DC electrical power. Utilities today, use fossil fuels to generate AC power hundreds of miles away at super high voltages for transmission then step the voltage down, through transformers, to the electrical voltage and power that consumers need. This system took 125 years to build out and now we want to change it all out in 25 to 30 years. A complete re-design of our distribution and transmission system that includes batteries for grid sized electrical storage is going to cost billions of dollars and that will be either done by the government through tax revenue or by utilities through higher electrical rates.
So as much as I want to see the transition, it will not happen over the next 3 month to compensate for the crisis in Ukraine. It will have to be done by individuals on their own homes and businesses to create the power they need and that could be done over the next 24 months if people are willing to put in their own solar panel systems with batteries now. If the demand is there, the solar industry can do the job, build the panels and battery systems and put Americans to work. This is our only choice, at this time, to make a difference to stop Wars for oil and natural Gas.
I sold my 14-year-old car last summer because I needed to pay off emergency dental surgery. I did it without a pause for I, too, live on a fixed income. Medicare, as all seniors know, does not cover dental. My supplemental insurance is linked to whatever Medicare does. My carbon footprint became smaller. I can't just jump in the car every day now to pick up extra items I forgot about, or just go for a drive, et cetera. I've saved money and I plan my need for rides carefully. I don't suggest this as a solution, but I walk more, spend less, and am healthier. There is much more we can do, though, then sell our cars or convert to electric if we cannot afford it. How much hot water do we use? How fully and freely does water run from our faucets? How many items in our home are left plugged in and/or charging all the time? And, how do we eat? How frequently do we consume beef and other meats? An awareness of our consumption patterns, where we can be mindful of overuse and waste in these simple matters can help our climate. Yes, we have to reduce consumption overall. However, we keep selling and eating those burgers for which rain forests that help sustain this planet have been leveled for cattle. Rachel Carson wrote about this in her 1950s book, "The Silent Spring." John Robbins (the Baskin Robbins heir who forfeited his inheritance) presented a few decades after Carson in his book, "Diet for a New America" startling facts about the negative effects on our planet, our climate, our bodies, that factory farming and animal consumption cause. More books followed. I believe there are many things each of us can "sacrifice" every day that will contribute to a better climate and less dependence on toxic things, destroying our climate, our Mother Earth.
Republicans don’t serve, or care, about the Common Good. Republicans care about Money and Power. Their leadership aspires to be a White Christian Nationalist authoritarian regime, with a few token people of color to suggest a veneer of diversity. Their donor base, including Big Dirty Hydrocarbons, demands fealty, not thoughtful planet-saving leadership. The Market, meaning our individual choice of green tech, such as electric vehicles, is the only thing that influences them……follow the money. Our votes, and our thoughtful choices, even if it means a form of personal sacrifice, are the only things that will advance the Common Good.
I agree with you, as I almost always do. I enjoy reading your viewpoint on things and hope that this Administration listens to you because you really understand the issues, including this one. I do understand that it's all about retaining the vote, but people need to understand that we are sinking fast and need to bite the bullet and make some sacrifices.
If the goal is to foster some sense of solidarity, then ok. However, to actually address the issue, I feel like the call for sacrifice should be on the handful of corporations who consume the most energy and produce the most emissions. Calling on individuals to sacrifice shields corporations from their responsibility, which a more cynical person might guess is part of corporations' marketing strategy.
It seems obvious that one solution is to lessen our depends on fossil fuels. Concentrating on clean energy solutions -- just like we did to find a vaccine for covid -- could make a significant difference both in the cost to the consumer and the health of our planet.
A couple of comments about why the sense of urgency regarding our continuing rise in greenhouse gases and political inability to take the very urgent steps which are necessary to avoid planetary catastrophe:
The CO2 we spew into our atmosphere today will largely be present for beyond 2000 years. It must be dissolved in our oceans and then incorporated into shells of tiny marine life...to eventually fall to the bottom of the ocean and over thousands of years turn to rock. It is "baked in". So if we turned off every source of greenhouse gas in the world TODAY the greenhouse gases worldwide would keep rising inexorably for the next 50 years. We have no effective way to stop that process, so Greta Thunberg and so many others are waving their hands and shouting for urgent action. A dire situation.
Now add the habitat destruction ongoing, and the sixth mass extinction (Bolsonaro in Brazil encouraging deforestation within the Amazon, sometimes described as the "Lungs of the Earth" and each year the situation gets far worse. The fossil fuel industry has known all of this for 4 decades but continued to spread disinformation and denying the truth. And our politicians continue to subsidize that industry with billions of dollars annually. Sad. The Common Good is ignored.
Ray Bellamy
Yes! We have an opportunity now to unite for our world and for freedom and democracy in Ukraine and in many other nations. By reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and using new and emerging clean energy technologies, we will be sacrificing but also providing a better more sustainable way forward for all. The facts of the matter are that the world will eventually run short of oil and gas and there will be no way of sustaining energy based on such fuels. Do we want to keep going and keep destroying our planet or do we want to use the new technologies and systems to provide the power we all need? The disastrous turn-of-events in Ukraine has been both catastrophic and heartening: catastrophic in terms of the unnecessary loss of life, the plight of people forced to flee their homes, and the destruction of entire cities and towns; heartening because of the willingness of the Ukrainians to mount such a valiant and courageous defense of their nation and the unity such an example has created in Europe and the United States. This is a golden opportunity to create a better world for many people in Ukraine and throughout Europe, maybe even in Russia, and we would do well to fill our plates to heaping and partner together for a better future.
We were listening to Greta Thunberg a couple of years ago say that the best thing any individual can do for the climate is to give up meat. So we did. We were vegan for about a year, and we reintroduced chicken and fish. But I think for the planet, that's gotta go again. We also set up our lives so that we could walk everywhere. work is a short walk from home. It's a little thing, took some planning, but it's been worthwhile and served us well in the pandemic. We can do more and we will.
I agree with you Robert, it's time the President asked the American people to grow up, stop listening to idiots and do what we can to save our environment. We should be showing the world how to do it right, not how to be poor stewards of our environment for our creature comforts. That means investment in non polluting energies, that means less buying of cheap goods made by slave labor in China and less reliance on resources of other countries that come at a cost to our planet and our souls.
Couldn't agree more, Robert. These times are not going to be easy, but Spirit and Dedication are more important. My work with young people convinces me that they are growing up with a sense of shared purpose that almost shames us of older generations.
Let's hope that your message is listened to by those in power and that a sense of love and energy dominates the hate and the narcissism.
We are repeating FDR's moment. Joe Biden has stepped up. We might get lucky if we all do our part. During World War II, we Americans saved string because it was a patriotic duty. Also bones and rags, paper bags, tin cans, pots and pans, silk stockings, nylon hose, used rubber, old clothes. The U.S. Government rationed war-effort necessities and urged people to grow Victory Gardens to supplement our diets. Posters urged the people to “Grow Vitamins at Your Kitchen Door.” Americans planted 20 million gardens and cultivated nearly half the nation’s vegetables in our backyards. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden at the White House.
In the 1942 scrap metal drive, people donated pots and pans, farm equipment, bumpers and fenders, Civil War cannons, iron fences, keys and metal toys. Communities held competitions to produce the most scrap, and threw town parties with oratory, bands, and Hitler metal tosses — you got to cast your kettle at a bust of Hitler set up in the town square. We need some damn' PR around this issue, eh?
Dan Morgan
Yes, I totally agree. And to supplant your argument, let me say that quickly switching to alternative power is extensional because stopping Putin is extensional. It may take a while to drain his #1 $ source feeding him, but it will eventually work. His blood thirst is expansive - if he wins here, he will continue to expand, i.e. Hitler.
Thank you for daily insights that help me maintain my sanity. Discussions of freedom along with “the common good” are critical. I wish your bully pulpit were large enough to make a dent in the psyches of those who have been so brainwashed that they cannot see beyond their own noses. At age 78, perhaps I will not be around to see the total destruction of this country. Living with a government fully controlled by the right is so horrifying, I feel a fate worst than death. Even with the threats to impeach Biden if the Republicans control the Legislature, I don’t think I could stand to watch this from anywhere on Earth.
I wish there is some way those of us appalled by these prospects could wage a publicity campaign to display Rick Scott’s points for government under Republicans or post billboards and commercials asking “did Representative ………… support the Constitution on January 6”. I feel many frustrated Democrats would happily support such a PR campaign. Another statement with impact would be using Rick Scott’s words and asking, “is this what you want for your country”.
good morning. thank you for this and everything else you do for part of my chosen family. before I respond to the substance, let me share with you a pet peeve. Calling people who live in the USA "Americans" seems to disregard the other Americans people who live in Canada, or Mexico or in "South America." The people, like myself, and yourself, who live in the USA are not more important then the other Americans. Of course, asking people to sacrifice is appropriate. If the people who are living now, do not consume less, The world, as we know it, will not exist in the future. One way to consume less, is to not have the option of consuming the same or more. I cannot, because of a physical disability. I also, do not drive because, I am poor, and cannot afford a car. Over the last two years, I have very rarely been more than walking distance from where I live. and never more than a few miles. Asking me to sacrifice by traveling less, seems silly. Joe Biden traveling to Europe to tell me to sacrifice by traveling less, seems hypocritical. Not telling me, and other people to travel less, and other wise consume less energy, because, it does not poll well seems cowardly. I do not know,what Joe Biden should do. I do know, what he has done so far, has not worked.
Ask not what you can do for you, but what you can do for your grand children.