So I think this is how it works. After eons of trying to get his smarter creations to convince his dumber ones that fossil fuels would destroy the planet they live on, God finally gave up and created a microorganism that would kill enough of them to get their attention. It was sort of an Egypt/locust kind of thing. I don’t know if it actually convinced any of the dumber ones of anything because they still believed most of what the greedy ones told them, but it did kill most transportation around the world, shut down a significant percentage of manufacturing and seriously pointed out what had already been happening due to an intelligent minority that had seen the light and was inventing enough new, functional, cost effective technology to allow clean, renewable energy to pass fossil fuel energy in the cost per kilowatt race that had been going on for some time before the pandemic.
Once God’s new bug bit the world on the ass, it was a whole new ballgame. Oil prices went over the cliff. They even turned negative in the U.S. The international Energy Agency revised its forecasts downward for International oil consumption while OPEC slashed its expectations for demand. Trafigura, one of the major oil trading companies, warned that a major oil glut was on the table and BP with its new carbon neutral commitments warned that the world will never use as much oil again. OPEC has declared that the current condition will not change and that we are now in the “Post Fossil Fuel Era.”
But even with these changes, oil consumption will only drop 20% in 2020. The change will not come fast enough or large enough to satisfy what is needed to affect climate change. BP and Shell, among other European oil and gas giants have pledged to change their businesses to focus on zero-carbon sources like renewables. Total, the French energy giant, now acknowledges that certain of their assets will completely lose their value in the transition to renewables while BP has declared that in two of their three possible outlines for the future, the world will take meaningful action on climate change dropping usage of fossil fuels to below a sustainable level.
And yet the barons of American oil refuse to recognize the future and currently spend millions to fight off the renewable industry, which has caught and passed them on cost and will need hundreds of thousands of those workers who have lost their jobs in the pandemic to fill the new jobs that are being created by the infrastructure necessary to run the renewable industry.
This is all inevitable, the only question being; will the greedy lords of oil waste time and money while they endanger the life of the planet simply because they are too greedy, too stupid and too shortsighted to accept the reality with which they are faced?
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People keep asking why Donald Trump did 18 interviews with Bob Woodward when they led to the book that might kill Trump’s chances at a second term. The answer is simple, Trump’s ego. He actually thought he was clever enough to scam Woodward. He just doesn’t understand that he is a low-grade moron and general screw-up that can’t get out of his own way.
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And of course, in keeping with how he is trying to “control” a pandemic for the American people, Donald Trump had a super spreader last week in Nevada. When you put a couple of thousand unmasked idiots into a cramped indoor space where they cheer for the national dunce, thereby spreading germs to all within shouting distance, you have created the basis for a new emergency in each of the locations that are home to these clowns.
I find it fascinating that in our Trump led country; stupid, dangerous behavior has become a political statement. How did that happen? Was it because we have a stupid dangerous president who cares nothing for the nation’s health or even the health of those who blindly follow him? Why? Why do they follow him? I have not found a single Trump follower among my old friends and classmates who support him, that can logically explain why? I have thought of some of these people as intelligent, but when confronted about their Trumpian support they seem unable to give a logical reason why.
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Donald Trump was placed in a very odd position today when he disagreed with the head of the CDC over the timing of available vaccines and wearing masks. Yeah, I know. Trump calling someone else a liar is really bizarre. I mean a man who has lied over 20,000 times since Jan 21, 2016 is really in no position to be pointing his elongated nose at anyone else. But he did it. He has absolutely no shame.
Because masks had already been mentioned in the same discussion, Trump felt obligated, who knows what insanity drives him, to start attacking Joe Biden for always wearing one.
“Why does he wear one when he’s not in a crowd? ” whines Trump. The answer of course, is because Biden understands that he is setting an example. Trump has never set an example for anything but greed, mainly because he doesn’t understand the concept.
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I despise Ted Cruz. I believe him to be a liar, an underhanded cheat and a coward who now supports a president who attacked his father. But Sunday on This Week he had what is possibly the best argument ever in support of the governing party getting their Supreme Court judge in place no matter what time of year it is. No I’m not going to repeat it. You want it? Go look it up!
But then in a recognizable Cruz world he went on to state, more than once, that it is Joe Biden who is going to declare the election rigged if he isn’t elected. This is, at this point, factually challenged, but maybe Biden should. Everyone who has ears has heard Donald Trump babbling about how the election will be rigged. This, of course is in preparation for his losing. But make no mistake, it’s Trump stating that the election will be rigged and that he may not accept the outcome, not Biden. It’s so Cruzian for Ted to be unable to make two true statements in a row. This is probably a brilliant guy who is just so morally corrupt he can’t see the forest for the lies in front of it.
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The Democrats can talk themselves blue in the face but Ruth Bader Ginsberg died two months too soon. No matter what they say, no matter how cogent their arguments, the GOP holds the Senate and Trump will, in all probability, quickly nominate a new conservative justice. There is some chance that enough GOP Senators can be convinced to vote against Trump’s nominee, but it’s a very small, almost nonexistent chance. So get used to the idea that Trump will have his conservative justice on the court. If you can get your head around that fact it makes the election even more important. It means the Democrats must win the Senate back as well as the House and the Presidency. We are currently involved in a situation that is driven by a lust for power so great that it always ends every investigation into itself with the equation that “might makes right.” Those who still retain some small hint of intelligence know that this is just not true and the only possible salvation of our constitutional democracy lies in the refutation of this idea. But for now, at least until Trump is out of office and we have a Democratic Senate, there is only the ability to plan ahead. If the Democrats win they can, after they deal with the pandemic, climate change and healthcare, forge ahead to change our laws and institutions to reflect a need to eliminate the Electoral College, to increase the number of Supreme Court justices, to alter the terms and the means by which they are chosen and to create a new state where D.C. now exists, thereby adding two liberal Senators to the roll of that currently unbalanced institution.
Of course all of the above must be accomplished along with an ocean of other problems that must be solved. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of work and even more planning so maybe we should all embrace the optimists POV and get started yesterday.