How the Greens gaslight us all . . . but especially the poor.

How the Greens gaslight us all . . . but especially the poor.

 
"According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2019, as emissions surged, the proportion of the world’s population in extreme poverty fell from 38 percent to 8.4 percent. Food production similarly soared from 2000 to 2020, with global primary-crop production rising by 52 percent, meat production by 45 percent, and vegetable oil production by 125 percent. Those figures well outstripped population growth and resulted in the daily caloric intake rising in every region of the globe. At the same time, the real global economy nearly doubled in value."

https://www.city-journal.org/article/climate-reactionaries?

"Solar and wind are incapable of delivering the power needed for industrialization, powering water pumps, tractors and machines — all the ingredients needed to lift people out of poverty. As rich countries are now also discovering, solar and wind energy remain fundamentally unreliable. No sun or wind means no power. Battery technology offers no answers: today there are only enough batteries to power global average electricity consumption for one minute and 15 seconds. Even by 2030, with a projected rapid battery scale-up, they would last less than 12 minutes. For context, every German winter, when solar is a

its minimum, there is near-zero wind energy available for at least five days — more than 7,000 minutes."

Opinion: The rich world became wealthy by exploiting fossil fuels | Financial Post

"It Is often reported that emerging industrial powers like China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh are getting more power from solar and wind. But these countries get much more additional power from coal. Last year, China got more additional power from coal than it did from solar and wind. India got three times more electricity from coal than from green energy sources, Bangladesh 13 times more and Indonesia an astonishing 90 times more. If solar and wind really were cheaper, why would these countries not use them? Because reliability matters.

The usual way of measuring the cost of solar simply ignores its unreliability and tells us the price when the sun is shining. The same is true for wind energy. That does indeed make them slightly cheaper than other electricity sources: 3.6 US¢ per kWh for solar, just ahead of natural gas at 3.8 US¢, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But if you account for reliability, their real costs explode: in 2022, one peer-reviewed study showed an increase of 11-42 times, making solar by far the most expensive electricity source, followed by wind."

Bjorn Lomborg: Why solar and wind power aren’t winning (yahoo.com)

"Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day."

'Cobalt Red' describes the 'horror show' of mining the element in the DRC : Goats and Soda : NPR

Scams via texting

Although my baby is in her 50s, today she warned me about a scam that might come up in a text. It will say it's from UPS and will include a link for me to click for delivery, but it will try to steal information or direct me to another website that is bad. Since I've been waiting for a few online orders, I'd be a good target. I'm new to this "smart" phone stuff. I'd never fall for that in my e-mail, but I'm a novice on the other scams.

I don’t have a smart phone, but 8 out of 10 do

If telemedicine/virtual care were so wonderful, and it didn't mean poorer care and limited access why weren't they using it before to solve all those health care gaps we'd heard about? Almost all poor and minority groups have smart phones. According to Pew (in 2019) black and Hispanic adults have mobile devices such as smartphones in shares similar to whites. About eight-in-ten whites, blacks and Hispanics own a smartphone.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/20/smartphones-help-blacks-hispanics-bridge-some-but-not-all-digital-gaps-with-whites/

What stresses millennials?

If you look up “millennials + stress” you'll see some charts and graphs and a few ideas on how to handle stress, but not much on what is causing the stress. Limbaugh read a list today, which I found so vacuous and funny, I had to check and see if it was a real survey. Well, you still don't know about things published as "a study," or "research,' but here's the list--I looked it up--supposedly, someone asked them. I surely would have guessed losing a smart phone would be #1. They don't breathe without them. Notice how much is digital--perhaps they need to go off the grid now to prepared for the New Green Deal, which will necessarily also have to eliminate the phones. Don't know why choosing what to wear would even be on the list--how hard is it to pick out a pair of jeans? And shouldn't school loan payments be higher, like maybe #2 or #3? https://www.studyfinds.org/survey-millennials-life-more-stressful-than-ever-before/.

Here are the top 20 stressful scenarios reported by millennials:

1. Losing wallet/credit card

2. Arguing with partner

3. Commute/traffic delays

4. Losing phone

5. Arriving late to work

6. Slow WiFi

7. Phone battery dying

8. Forgetting passwords

9. Credit card fraud

10. Forgetting phone charger

11. Losing/misplacing keys

12. Paying bills

13. Job interviews

14. Phone screen breaking

15. Credit card bills

16. Check engine light coming on

17. School loan payments

18. Job security

19. Choosing what to wear

20. Washing dishes

Google eyes and knows all

"Last month, the New York Times revealed how sensitive location data is harvested by third parties from our smartphones — often with weak or nonexistent consent provisions. A Motherboard investigation in early January further demonstrated how cell companies sell our locations to stalkers and bounty hunters willing to pay the price. For some, the Google sibling’s [Sidewalk Labs] plans to gather and commodify real-time location data from millions of cellphones adds to these concerns." https://theintercept.com/2019/01/28/google-alphabet-sidewalk-labs-replica-cellphone-data/

"We are a counted people. Our locations, words, memories, shopping habits, entertainment preferences and political beliefs are translated into numbers, then stored, sold, and traded by governments and the data giants of Silicon Valley who make our technological age tick.. . phones record location; emails, calls, and texts are scanned for keywords that allow Google to develop personalized ads; Facebook existence can be run through algorithms that generalize political psychology into a marketable identity. . . The general desire to know how to get to a coffee shop has uncovered the daily lives of the citizenry more quickly and effectively than a million wiretaps." (Marc Barnes, A counted people, First Things, Feb. 2019) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/02/a-counted-people

Phone etiquette

Sunday in the park--a polka band

The Chardon Polka Band, an accordion, 2 saxophones, a banjo and drummer, performed in the gazebo in Lakeside central park tonight. They played a wide variety of songs, including "Who stole the Kishka?" The woman next to me, probably in her 80s, leaned over and said, "What is a kishka?" "No idea," I said. So she pulled out her smart phone and asked it. "It's a sausage," she said. Here's video proof that Chardon has a polka band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il3ZhMt4NgY

 

Do restaurants need to post "No phone" signs?

We went out for dinner last night to celebrate an anniversary with our daughter and son-in-law at Houlihan's in the Kingsdale shopping center.  We had expected it to be crowded because it was a home game day, but were pleasantly surprised that at 5 p.m. there was no problem with service. I was wearing my new scarlet and gray outfit (OSU colors) which was a birthday gift.   I had a very lovely meal of petite filet mignon, grilled asparagus, garlic green beans, wine and a tasty salad. Near the end of our meal I noticed a beautiful young couple come in--they may have been dressed for Arlington's homecoming--the short swingy formal dresses are so popular. Within a minute of sitting, she whipped out her cell phone and began scrolling.  He reached over and gently tapped her hand and she put it down face up on the table, and in about 2 minutes picked it up again, all while chatting with him and occasionally showing him something she thought was funny. She could have stayed home in t-shirt and shorts and read her phone messages. It would have been a lot cheaper--and less rude.

And then the big shocker.  She apparently had a shoe problem or maybe a toenail was irritating her, so she brought her knee up above table height and was fixing whatever was wrong. I hope this was Dutch treat, because the young man deserved better.

Who believes Hillary?

I have two e-mail addresses (my faculty address at Ohio State, and my Road Runner).  I used to have three (Medscape) so I could access and send e-mail when not at my own computer. If you have a Medscape in your address book, just delete it.  I don’t use it. I don’t use my phone for e-mail, although do occasionally text.

I have never had a problem “carrying around 2 devices.” Does anyone believe anything a Clinton says? She doesn’t lie as well as Bill, but Democrats haven’t changed. They believe the lies. And I don’t think the Obama Administration is being her friend.  Remember, during the 2008 campaign it was not the Republicans who leaked all that dirty laundry about Obama—it was the Clinton campaign.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/10/3-reasons-why-hillary-clinton-convenience-argument-on-her-email-controversy-probably-wont-work/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/10/hillary-clinton-emails-blackberry/24725993/

Distracted driving, teens and cell phones

A well known TV personality in Columbus is promoting awareness about distracted driving. His beautiful teen daughter was killed last year. Statistics are already grim for teens and driving, but add in a smart phone and we're all at risk if we're sharing the road with them (as I was yesterday). "Currently, 77% of drivers talk on their phones while driving, 81% of young adults write text messages while driving, and 92% of young adults read text messages while driving. Drivers are 23-fold more likely to crash if texting while driving." But it's not just teens. I see a lot of moms chatting on the phone with kids in the car, watching her behavior. http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1745570#WhatParentsCanDo

Other distractions about which older people need to be reminded: eating and drinking, changing channels on the radio or disc player, hands free phones, passengers in the car talking, checking the GPS, adjusting seats, taking off jacket or other clothing, looking for sun glasses, adjusting the visor to keep out glare, finding a tissue . . . keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road and the other drivers.

Distracted kids grow up to be distracted parents

"On October 1 (1990) the Wall Street Journal reported on the drop in literacy among school age children (Distractions of modern life)--even those whose mothers had spent hours reading to them as pre-schoolers. Children are too busy to read because of all their outside activities, no one converses with them, and they have developed two minute attention spans through TV and videos, concluded the article.

So that was 23 years ago, and those mothers who were too busy to read as children, now have smart phones, i-pods, i-tablets, e-books and they are posting on Face Book and Twitter and blogging, or tacking digital thingies on their Etsy page or Pinterest. They have children that hang out in groups with each child talking on the phone, but not to each other.

This doesn’t seem to be getting better.

This sounds really scary!

Using a person's social network information instead of a resume? Based on the remarks, jokes, and opinions I've seen on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, some people ought to be more cautious about building a different profile! And that list of friends? And family? The future employer just might decide the person is too social, or not social enough and not even know she might be in a book club, or volunteer at a hospital, or belong to a bowling league, and therefore doesn't socialize on-line.

Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates' suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.

A résumé doesn't provide much depth about a candidate, says Christina Cacioppo, an associate at Union Square Ventures who blogs about the hiring process on the company's website and was herself hired after she compiled a profile comprising her personal blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, and links to social-media sites Delicious and Dopplr, which showed places where she had traveled.

The world of technology is just getting too strange and scary. I just learned today that even if your cell phone is "off" you are being tracked. Also, if you have any sensitive financial or political data, do not keep it on a computer that is hooked to the internet.

Insofar as tracking phones, if you believe yourself or the person you are with is a target worth tracking, and that the opponent has the ability, best is to not carry any phone. Smartphone or not. The phone is constantly tracked by the company. Your travel habits can be mapped retroactively or in realtime. Think of the cell phone as a strobe light that's always blinking. We can't see them blinking, but the phone company can.

Insofar as smartphones, iPhones for instance have a battery that cannot be removed. With a BlackBerry you can pop off the back and take out the battery. When I was with certain units on the Iraq/Iran border, everyone with a phone was to take out the battery. An officer said that if you leave the battery in, you can practically watch it drain as the Iranians ping the phone. If they see thirty phones travelling together in a remote area on their border, they likely would take notice. But imagine ten people have phones. If one guy doesn't take out the battery, that's enough to track the unit and even hit you across the border with rockets, artillery or an airstrike. Michael Yon, Iraq war reporter