A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on June 24th, with data for April 2020. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the year 2020 to date.
The Table immediately above shows the absolute amounts of electricity generated in gigawatt-hours by the main sources for the last two months and the year to date. In April the absolute amount of electricity generated decreased sharply as the effects of the lock downs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the US. Coal and Natural Gas between them, fueled 54.10% of US electricity generation in April, the lowest amount the combined sources have contributed since.the very early days of electricity generation. The contribution of zero carbon and carbon neutral sources increased from 41.99% in March to 44.88% in April, the highest the contribution from zero carbon and carbon neutral sources has been since coal took over from wood as a fuel for generating electricity some time around 1885. The percentage contribution from Natural Gas in March dipped back below 40% at 39.34%, decreasing from 40.41% in March.
COVID-19 Impacts
In April the full impact of the restrictions on US economic activity brought about in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was observed as a steep decline in production occurred with commercial, institutional and some industrial consumers cutting their consumption sharply in April.
It remains to be seen what the effects of the pandemic will be when the data for May is released in a little over two weeks from the publication of this report after July 10
.
Coal generates less than Non-hydro Renewables
Last month it was observed that Coal had generated less electricity than Nuclear for the fourth month in a row. This run has now extended for another month making it five months in a row and six months in total when April of 2019 is included
In addition the month of April saw Coal contributing 14.71%, less than the 15.8% contributed by non-hydro renewables, most of which came from solar and wind which together contributed 15.04% of US electricity generation. The last time coal generated less electricity than a renewable source was more than 130 years ago when coal replaced wood as the primary fuel for electricity generation. If the decline of coal continues at anything close to it’s recent pace, when wind generation peaks next year, in April of 2021, wind alone may well generate more electricity than coal for that month. In light of the situation with the current COVID-19 lock downs and ongoing coal plant closures, it remains to be seen when next coal will generate more electricity than nuclear over the course of a month.
The graph below shows the absolute monthly production from the various sources since January 2013, as well as the total amount generated (right axis).
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In April 2020 the estimated total output from solar at 11,811 GWh, was 2.58 times what it was four years before in April 2016.
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for combined wind and solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the combined output of solar and wind as a means of assessing the potential of the combination to make a meaningful contribution to the year round total.
The chart below shows the monthly percentage contributions of the various sources to the capacity additions in 2020 up to April. In April Natural Gas contributed 57.40% of new capacity, and 28.24% of new capacity came from Solar, with Wind making up another 13.87% and Batteries contributing 0.49%. Natural gas and renewables at 99.5%, continue to make up more than 95% of capacity added each month, as they have since at least January 2017.
In April 2020 the total added capacity reported was 2019.4 MW, compared to the 578.5 MW added in April 2019.
The chart below shows the monthly percentage contributions of the various sources to the capacity retirements in 2020 up to February.
In April there was only one plant retirement reported. Entergy Nuclear reported the retirement of their 1016.1 MW, Indian Point 2 plant in the state of New York.
The 1016.1 MW total retirements reported compared to the 1561.3 MW reported in April 2019.
Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements in 2020 showing the data up to April, followed by a chart showing the net additions/retirements year to date.
Below is a table of the top ten states in order of coal consumption for electricity production for March 2019 and the year before for comparison followed by a similar table for Natural Gas and one for renewable energy.
Hallelujah-
Solar and Wind beat coal in April!
“In addition the month of April saw Coal contributing 14.71%, less than the 15.8% contributed by non-hydro renewables, most of which came from solar and wind which together contributed 15.04% of US electricity generation. The last time coal generated less electricity than a renewable source was more than 130 years ago when coal replaced wood”
I am happy to report being wrong on this, I thought it would be 3 or 4 more years (can’t remember the specific prediction). A small sliver of brightness in this world of man.
Thanks for the good work IslandBoy.
Renewables will beat coal this year. So coal will be placed 4th after NG, nuclear and renewables for the first time in the history and is expected to stay there for ever. Only the top 3 position is going to change from here on.
However, there is a very real possibility that coal will fall below non hydro renewables for the whole year of 2021. It may or may not happen but the race will be close. If not 2021, it’s definitely going to happen in 2022. After 2025, coal will be in single digits and that’s when NG will start to face the heat of renewable expansion.
Do we have any idea when NG will peak?
The last quote I remember was from a BP official back in 2009 and he was saying that we had about 60(?) years left if consumption stayed the same. Consumption of NG has gone up and solar cells, glass, and a lot of other items are made with and from NG.
While we think installation of solar is important, the installation of solar can be more effective if we can raise the percent efficiency of the cells and look for ways to create them with minimal use of NG.
If we assume the cells have a current efficiency of 15% and we raise them to 45% (triple conjunction cells are in this realm), the amount of current monthly solar generation would be around 18 to 36 TWh. This would be a fortieth to a tenth of current utility generation.
PeterEV,
An old post on natural gas is at link below
http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-natural-gas-shock-model/
Of the three scenarios(low, medium, and high), the high scenario matches the data best through 2019. The high scenario peaks in the 2045 to 2050 time frame, the medium scenario 2038-2042, the low scenario looks to be incorrect as it has a peak in 2019 wich has been exceeded (152 TCF/year actual vs 140 TCF per year for low scenario). High scenario in chart below and note these are gross gas minus reinjected gas, dry gas (as in BP data) is about 91% of gross minus reinjected natural gas.
I am sorry but it seems that AIE forecasts the production pic of gas during the 2030s and ratherly at the beginning of it. Then, the correct scenario is probably your medium one. As for oil, les carottes sont cuites, as we say with us.
Mr. Fleury,
Link to forecast you cite? Note that 5 years ago, my forecast was based in part on the PhD thesis of Steve Mohr.
http://theoildrum.com/node/6782
Update to estimate
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236114010254?via%3Dihub
In the updated estimate by Mohr et al 2015 (I had not seen this when I did my July 2015 natural gas estimate) the low natural gas URR estimate was 14,000 TCF, best guess was 28,000 TCF, and high estimate was 48,000 TCF.
In short my “high” estimate was slightly less than the updated best guess (medium) estimate by Mohr et al 2015.
Note that the “high” Mohr estimate includes some unlikely resources such as methan hydrates. I would revise my low, medium, and high estimates to 18,000 TCF, 25,000 TCF, and 35,000 TCF for the URR of natural gas (using the gross minus reinjected figure favored by Jean Laherrere).
The link is as follow. It is a ”webinard” during which different people are discussing a common subject, which is in that case the future of oil supply of Europe. A representative of IEA was among the people in discussion. To a question of the people following the webinard ”could the gas and coal replace oil?”, the representative of IEA explained that ”Constraints on gas reserves do not arise today, globally, in the same way as for oil” and Matthieu Auzanneau explained that the forecasts for gas production and reserves are more uncertain than for oil. But that there is a 10-15 years lag from oil on different geologic formations and that, for example, the peak of Rystadt is placed at the end of the 2030s. And that, usually, the gas is coming from the same geological formations. And the representative of IEA didn’t contradict this. See at 1h42min : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlJ14aOfS3s
It will peak this decade. That much is baked in but making more accurate predictions about NG will be pretentious at this point. Electrification of transport will be a big upside potential to the total electricity demand (may reach 5000 TWh by 2030) and that along with the terrible economics of coal will keep NG afloat for the foreseeable future. My guess is that NG will stay on an undulating plateau in the 40-45% range for a large part of this decade.
Electrification of transport…may reach 5000 TWh by 2030
Is that just for the US? How did you calculate that?
Lof of articles and studies available online have looked at this question. The estimates are that 2000 TWh would be required if all fossil fuel vehicles is converted to electricity in the US. Of that, electrification of light vehicles will lead to a demand of annual electricity roughly 1000 TWh from those vehicles. We can also arrive at this figure in a ball park manner.
For example, total VMT of light vehicles was roughly 3 Trillion miles. So that’s 1000 TWh at the rate of 3 miles per KWh. Ofcourse this is a ballpark to understand the order of the magnitude. Cars like Ioniq and Model 3 are far more efficient (>4 miles/KWh) and large trucks will be less efficient than that.
This study estimates a value of 570 to 1140 for light vehicles:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518304737
Forbes says 1100 TWh:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ftodddavidson/2018/11/05/electric-vehicles-are-coming-and-new-england-and-california-better-watch-out/#236d27c02c41
Considering that light vehicles consume roughly half the total petroleum consumed, 2000 TWh is a acceptable ballpark. 1000 TWh may be required by 2030. Add it to the 4000 TWh demand currently, we get 5000 TWh.
Ofcourse all light vehicles are not going to be running on electricity, all heavy vehicles wont be fossil fueled, air and sea travel may start to atleast experiment with electricity, we dont know how autonomous travel and ride sharing will evolve, and there another n number of known and unknown unknowns.
total VMT of light vehicles was roughly 3 Trillion miles. So that’s 1000 TWh at the rate of 3 miles per KWh.
That’s what I would figure, too. The 5,000TWH figure was for total demand, and that was a bit confusing.
Considering that light vehicles consume roughly half the total petroleum consumed, 2000 TWh is a acceptable ballpark.
Well, light vehicles consume about 70% of transportation petroleum consumption. Given that includes aviation and water travel, I’d say another 500TWh for heavier vehicles is reasonable. Of course, as with all projections these will be wrong. But…you’ve got to plan on some basis, and this is reasonable.
Oh 70% huh? Ok.. I just remember these numbers from the top of my head. Anyway there is space heating too which currently is addressed predominantly by Nat gas. There is an upside potential for electricity consumption there too.
T Shyam,
If the optimistic estimates by Tony Seba prove correct, perhaps natural gas peaks by 2030, I think the best we might do is 2035, and perhaps 2040 is more realistic.
I hope that you are correct and that I am wrong, but we need to more than hope, we need to build out alternatives to fossil fuel while increasing energy efficiency and reducing energy use as fast as is feasible.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Joe-Biden-Promises-Historic-Investments-In-Clean-Energy.html
If Joe gets his way, natgas for power production will be zero by 2035. To be fair, I am not sure if that target is impossible. The plan is to invest $2 Trillion in 4 years. That’s huge. But this is extraordinary times and as mentioned in the article, the winner will have a recovery mandate and I think GND is the best recovery option.
Sweet. Didn’t think I’d live this long.
Islandboy,
I’m curious why you’ve decided to focus on the US as opposed to Jamaica or what really matters, to my mind, the world. Respecting Jamaica, which I understand is your home country, a quick scan on the net tells me your energy system is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels with petroleum imports currently account for over 80% of electricity production. Perhaps this is incorrect?
Looking at C2ES data (successor to the PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE), it appears that 11% of the energy consumed across all sectors in the US was from renewable sources (in 2018): 11.5 quadrillion Btu out of a total of 101.1 quadrillion Btu. This number seems to conform with other sources.
In my opinion, energy wise, what matters is the GLOBAL RENEWABLE ENERGY SHARE OF TOTAL FINAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION. After all, we should all be calling Earth home and even if we don’t, CO2 doesn’t respect borders. From this perspective, “modern renewables” (that is, wind/solar/geothermal/biomass/ocean), effective 2017, accounted for roughly 2% of total final energy consumption. The bulk, about 80%, still comes from fossil fuels. It remains to be seen how fast meaningful (global) increases in modern renewables arrive and if they bring about a positive influence on climate change. It’s not as if we have a lot to time to play with!
https://www.c2es.org/content/renewable-energy/#:~:text=Solar photovoltaics are the fastest,percent of the world’s electricity.
Doug,
The Electric power monthly presents data for US electricity consumption.
So that is what Islandboy reports on.
In addition to what Dennis said, I invite you to take a look at the corresponding source of data for energy consumption and electricity in Jamaica:
Statistics – Ministry of Science, Energy & Technology
More specifically:
JPS Electricity Statistics (Electricity Utility)
Petroleum Consumption By Activity
Total Alternative Energy Consumption
It appears that last year they rolled all of the available statistics into one document at:
Jamaica Energy Statistics
These documents don’t have much in the way of detail and are only updated once per year! The most recent set of documents have data up to the end of 2018 and are dated May 2019. I assume the excuse for the 2019 data not being available yet will be COVID-19. In short, a summary of the data available for Jamaica would fit in a comment or two once a year.
I am looking forward to the data for 2019 for two reasons. The first is the commissioning of a new 190 MW natural gas fired combined cycle plant (Google Maps Satellite View) that, should form the backbone of the generating fleet from now on because of it’s less volatile fuel costs and high efficiency. The second is the commissioning of a new 37 MW solar farm (Google Maps Satellite View) that was touted as supplying electricity to the grid at the lowest cost. Even though both projects were connected to the grid in June of 2019, I expect petroleum consumption for electricity generation to be much less than previous years.
Another reason I focus on the US is that it is probably the largest free market for energy in the world. China may be larger but, is it as much of a free market. Having said that there are several factors that distort the market such as subsidies for both new and entrenched energy sources. There is also fierce lobbying by certain entrenched interests (coal) that, have done very well out of their businesses and would like to continue to enjoy unfettered domination of the electricity generation markets despite the fact that less costly competition is becoming increasingly available.
In short, if wind and solar can displace fossil fuels in the US market, that should be a sign that they are competitive globally. Surely you would not argue that the cost of electricity from coal, relative to renewable energy would be lower in places that have to import coal? The same goes for all fuels.
Take Jamaica for example. The island converted a 120 MW combined cycle gas turbine to run on natural gas in the second half of 2016. In the middle of 2019, three years later, the new 194 MW combined cycle gas turbine plant, also fired by natural gas, commenced operations. This brings the total utility owned capacity to 314 MW. In addition the local campus of the regional University of the West Indies has started using a natural gas fired cogen plant, as has the local (Red Stripe Beer) brewery and a large beverage manufacturer/distributor. One of the three operating bauxite to alumina processing plants started using a 94 MW CHP plant fired by natural gas in March of this year. When it gets to the point where renewables are reducing the market share of natural gas in the US, what will that mean for Jamaica? The natural gas has to be bought in the US, liquefied, shipped and regasified for Jamaican customers. Will it be possible for the economics of gas vs renewables to be better in Jamaica than in the US?
As a side note, on a recent work trip to Montego Bay, I observed a couple of semis hauling 40 ft. containerized tanks of LNG (branded “New Fortress Energy”) towards Kingston. Apparently the floating storage and regasification unit (FGSU) ship “Golar Freeze” only supplies the 190 MW electricity plant and the 94 MW CHP plant a the alumina refinery by pipeline. All other LNG users are getting their supplies by containerized tanks hauled from a New Fortress facility in Montego Bay (Google Maps Satellite View) that also supplies NG to a 120 MW electricity plant in Montego Bay. Can the economics of trucking LNG 115 miles across the island be better than on site solar?
The image below shows a section of Montego Bay just south west of where I was working last weekend. Vistaprint Jamaica, at the middle of the right side of the image has what I estimate to be 500 kW of PV on their premises, the premises labeled “Seafood Market” on the image has 330 kW of PV and in the extreme upper left is a 450 kW PV system. The 450 kW system is actually less than 100 yards, one block away from the LNG import/distribution facility. So, that’s 1,280 kW of PV all within a mile or so of the LNG facility and the nearby 120 MW CCGT utility power plant (bottom right corner of image). There is more PV in and around Montego Bay but, those three are the three largest facilities. What are the economics going to look like for NG vs PV plus storage in five years time? Ten years?
Islandboy,
Is there decent data for either the OECD or European Union? Maybe a once per year report from those sources or something based on BP Statistical Review of World energy once per year might be worthwhile?
Doug, I agree [In my opinion, energy wise, what matters is the GLOBAL RENEWABLE ENERGY SHARE OF TOTAL FINAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION.]
It would be great to keep track of the global trend, Were you volunteering? It would be most welcome.
But the regional stories are really important too. Electricity tends to get produced and consumed with 1-2000 miles. Some places will electrify (ex-coal) and replace oil much more successfully than others.
I’m glad Islandboy does these USA reports, since it is the ‘gorilla in the room’ for this hemisphere.
These questions for Islandboy may have already been covered in previous posts and, if so, I apologize.
1. Are the capacity additions and retirements adjusted for capacity factor, or are they gross capacity?
2. Why are batteries included in generating capacity? I can see how they might affect the capacity factor of intermittent renewables, but I fail to see how a storage device is considered generation capacity. Is pumped hydro also considered to be capacity?
3. I see that considerations of solar output are restricted to utility scale plants. Any idea how the contribution from distributed (rooftop) solar compares with utility solar? I imagine there is negligible contribution from non-utility-scale wind.
1) It’s gross, or nameplate capacity. That’s the way the EIA (and pretty much everyone else) reports it. It would be hard to adjust for capacity factor – for one thing, it varies with time and location (e.g., coal capacity factor is crashing).
2) Utility planners are kept awake at night by the questions: “How will I cover peak demand?”, and “How will I cover demand when something goes wrong, like a nuke going down, or a major transmission line failing?”. Battery power is extremely valuable for both problems. Batteries increase available power (IOW, generation capacity), even if they don’t increase available energy.
3) IIRC, distributed solar tends to be very roughly 25% of utility scale, but of course that varies widely.
Nick covered question 1
2) Batteries are extremely useful for responding to short term fluctuations in output, such as those caused by generator or transmission line incidents. For incidents that stretch out into longer term incidents, batteries can buy system operators time to bring other capacity on line. There are articles on-line outlining how useful the Tesla battery in South Australia has been in this regard. Some of these articles suggest that batteries are actually turning out to be far more capable of handling emergencies than was imagined because they can respond very quickly and sustain their rated output for an hour or more.
Pumped Hydro is also considered capacity. Both batteries and pumped hydro can help to smooth out system energy flows by acing as loads during times of low demand.
3)I mix the estimated distributed generation in with utility scale solar for the purposes of this report. It is typically close to a third of utility scale or a quarter of the total when the estimated distributed generation is included. The capacity additions for solar are strictly utility scale. For the total solar installations we have to rely on the quarterly Wood McKenzie/SEIA Solar Industry reports . I will include the link to the latest in another comment.
For a system with electric energy to replace fossil fuels, new infrastructure will need to be built.
This includes transmission lines from regions of source to regions of demand.
Here is an example of what it takes-
The Grain Belt Express- is an approximately 800-mile, 600-kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line project. When built, it will deliver up to 4,000 megawatts (MW) of low-cost sustainable power from western Kansas near Dodge City to the east through IL to IN. Wind and Solar.
https://grainbeltexpress.com/overview.html
US installed more solar in Q1 2020 than ever before
From the SEIA web site:
U.S. Solar Market Sets Q1 Record As Pandemic Mutes Q2 Outlook
This news is actually a month old but, I don’t recall seeing it mentioned before and it was just posted at the PV Magazine USA web site on July 9.
This link has some additional info about the Grain Belt Express .
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/12/whoosh-wind-power-wins-pipelines-implode-in-fossil-fuel-week-from-hell/
It apparently took some serious maneuvering including a change of ownership to navigate Missouri political opposition.
From one of the links about the Grain Belt Express
“Grain Belt Express is a public utility in Missouri. The Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) voted unanimously to grant Grain Belt Express a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) in March 2019, after a five-year public review process. Under the CCN the final route in Missouri is approved and the project is found to be in the public interest of the state of Missouri and its residents.”
It takes hardball to get anything done these days. Without researching this one, I can’t say whether the original intent was to screw Missouri, not providing the locals with any of the juice, or whether locals just felt like people in Kansas and Indiana ought to just keep their business to themselves.
Nimby blows me away these days. Nobody wants a pipeline, but every body wants gas, gasoline, and diesel fuel, lol.
At any rate, the new line will be supplying a good bit of juice to local people in Missouri, after five years of nothing much happening.
“Grain Belt Express will deliver at least 500-megawatts (MW) of power to the electric grid in Missouri, with the option to deliver more — enough low-cost energy to power nearly 200,000 Missouri homes. The Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC) has agreed to purchase long-term transmission service from Grain Belt Express, providing affordable clean energy to 39 Missouri cities.”
In spite of lock-down, atmospheric CO2 continues its relentless increase: April 2020, 416.18 ppm, April 2019; 413.52 ppm. Meanwhile,
CO2 IN EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE NEARING LEVELS OF 15M YEARS AGO
“The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is approaching a level not seen in 15m years and perhaps never previously experienced by a hominoid. At pre-lockdown rates of increase, within five years atmospheric CO2 will pass 427 parts per million, which was the probable peak of the mid-Pliocene warming period 3.3m years ago, when temperatures were 3C to 4C hotter and sea levels were 20 metres higher than today.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/09/co2-in-earths-atmosphere-nearing-levels-of-15m-years-ago
Is it any wonder?
WE LOST A FOOTBALL PITCH OF PRIMARY RAINFOREST EVERY 6 SECONDS IN 2019
“The tropics lost 11.9 million hectares of tree cover in 2019. Nearly a third of that loss, 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests, areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage…
At least 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are associated with 2019 primary forest loss, equivalent to the annual emissions of 400 million cars.”
https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/06/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2019
BTW An estimated 59 megatonnes of carbon dioxide were released across Siberia in June by wildfires raging across the vast Russian region, according to scientists at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. And, although estimates vary, some experts say wildfires account for up to 20% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. They are estimated to increase by a few percent to roughly 30% by the end of this century depending on how the climate changes.
I’m thinking flow batteries will probably be a commercially successful technology at some point in time, possibly within ten years or so, and that they might eventually turn out to be the key to consistent around the clock wind and solar power, on the grand scale.
https://scitechdaily.com/solar-flow-battery-single-device-generates-stores-and-redelivers-renewable-electricity-from-the-sun/
”
“That’s 20 percent efficiency any time you like,” says Jin. “You can use the solar electricity right away during the day and get 20 percent, or you can use it in the evening from storage and get 20 percent.”
I can read this quote two ways. I suppose it means you can draw from the battery anytime, day or night, but reading it another way, it seems to say the battery is one hundred percent efficient…… which is not possible.
I suppose it means that while ( hat numbers) the solar panel delivers say 200 watts, the battery can be discharged at a much higher rate, such as a thousand watts, if that’s what’s needed.
Farmlad,
I’m curious where you are getting your information that leads you to conclude that the Coronavirus is not serious, and the worst is over.
On Sunday July 12th, Florida clocked a single day US record of 15,300 new confirmed cases. Based on the case fatality rate to date in the US, about 500-600 of those folks will likely die. Again, that’s a single day, and for Florida alone.
Currently Florida’s infection rate is high at 1.22, and their ICU utilization is maxed out at 100%, they have no reserve ICU capacity. Florida’s positive test rate is high, and their contact tracing, at 3% is dismal.
Data source: https://covidactnow.org/us/fl?s=665110 This is a great resource for state data.
Another great source for data is worldometers.info
World data: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
U.S. data: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
I don’t see anything to be sanguine about, particularly since so many people are not willing to act responsibly in order to get this virus under control.
We are nearing 140,000 deaths in the U.S. so far, even with the extraordinary measures of the last few months.
These cities have a population of about 140,000 more or less, so it’s equivalent to their entire population being killed by the virus:
Pasadena California
Dayton Ohio
Topeka Kansas
Gainesville Florida
The number of deaths will be well north of 200,000 by November, so that will be equivalent to places like:
Birmingham Alabama
Salt Lake City Utah
Grand Rapids Michigan
Amarillo Texas
Rochester New York
Is wearing a mask and washing hands such a hardship? I just don’t get it.
I wear glasses so they fog up as soon as I put on a mask. Then my eyes start watering and my nose runs and I get to feeling claustrophobic. So that’s why I don’t fuss around with masks. Maybe I can wear one for a minute or two like at a checkout but that’s all I’m willing to do.
Do you have a mask with a nose-wire/strip?
Properly adjusted, it seals the warm/moist exhalation that causes glasses fogging.
Most of these have nose-wires/strips:
https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-face-masks/
These are good for a disposable mask, has nose clip. Very lightweight.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086KMYNSS
If you’re sewing your own, there is lots of stuff on the web now about adding a nose wire/clip/strip/pipe-cleaner…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-make-face-mask-nose-wire_l_5eaa3fb9c5b6edf4130e0e8b
and some more hints on foggy glasses
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-wear-face-masks-without-fogging-glasses-coronavirus_l_5e8bd866c5b6e1d10a68988f
Reply to a Declaration of Selfishness-
Zorrogirl- “but that’s all I’m willing to do.”
Wear a mask, or watch the economy go to hell as shutdowns come back and get enforced.
Its not complicated.
Good thing you didn’t chose a profession that requires regular use of RPE. Also a good thing that it wasn’t folks like yourself that America had to depend upon to put the Nazis back in the box, back in the day. You seem kinda weak, and perhaps you lack tolerance and perseverance, like a snowflake.
Dr. Dad Rat, a surgeon, managed to wear glasses, wear a mask, and perform surgery, all at the same time, for about 35 years. Rat, a respiratory therapist, managed to wear glasses, wear a mask, and run a ventilator for 35 years. If you can’t summon up the will and/or the patriotism to wear a mask when you leave your home, you are a menace to society, and you should be fined a few times, before being locked up.
‘Stop making stuff up’ — Watch these doctors debunk common myths about wearing a mask
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1284847459110236160?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1284847459110236160|twgr^&ref_url=https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=32841570
Dr Dad Rat wore a mask to prevent the transmission of diseases to his patient under sterile conditions. Rat wore a mask to protect himself from the patient’s disease, even when s/he was attached to ventilators which had filters on both the inspiratory and expiratory limbs of the circuit.
Whether Covid is serious or not is relative to what you compare it with. I am comparing it with the predictions that many of the ensuing policies were based on. such as the assumptions that none of us are immune and we will see a 2% to 3% death rate with adequate care and that hospitals and ICUs would be totally overrun and so the death rates would soar even more.
So what are my sources of info. I followed Chris Martenson from the very first and still do even though I now think he errs somewhat on the side of caution. I also follow Dr Mercola with many of the experts he interviews. Since I raise and eat plenty of Grass fed animals I appreciate the input from the carnivore promoters and researchers like Paul Saladino. And last but not least is Dr David Brownstein and the other staff at the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield MI. Many of the staff are customers of my farm products . They treated hundreds of Covid patients in the early days of the outbreak with nutritional therapies with impressive results and were putting out youtube videos to help people treat themselves. Eventually they were forced to take down all their videos and blog posts. I also have family working in hospitals including the ER and one is a paramedic so I have some insight into some of the nuances involved.
There is far to much politics, and poorly structured incentives involved for the case numbers to be objective information. Covid death counts are a slightly better metric. Total deaths for all causes compared to prior years is the metric I have the most confidence in.
The Swedish approach to managing this virus is the model that makes a lot of sense to me. Encourage and support the most vulnerable to isolate while the rest go on with very day life and as herd immunity is achieved then the most vulnerable can resume enjoying life as before. The Swedes never closed their schools stores restaurants churches doctors offices dentists. They had more deaths then some of their neighbors. Looking at the 7 day moving average they peaked out at 100 deaths per day on April 16 and are now down to 3 deaths per day. And their covid reported deaths are in line with the excess deaths due to all causes.
Sure; The Japanese might be holding it at bay (that is if their numbers are to be trusted now that we saw how they lied again and again with the nuclear reactor explosion) But at what price? Will they keep suppressing their travel, economy, social interactions. and mental sanity for a year? Five years? Ten? Forever?
But at the core of it all a major contention that I hold against the status quo is this. they do not give a —- about the real health and well being of the people. If they actually cared we would long ago have banned or taxed to death the use of thousands of deadly chemicals being used in our food production and processing. Highly refined vegetable oils (actually grain oils)would be eliminated from the shelves. Our primary care physicians would also be required to have spent more than a single day learning proper nutrition. Nothing more than lip service to the epidemics of insulin resistance, obesity, autism, cancer, heart disease, and many more chronic inflammatory conditions that continue to increase and show up in ever younger and younger populations.
So all of a sudden we are to believe that they have our best interest at heart???? Are you kidding?
And not a word on how we can best support out immune system to handle this as well as any other virus or bacteria. No word on supplementing with zinc selenium iodine copper silver magnesium vit C D E B and A. No encouragement to spend time outdoors in natural environments to take in some sunshine, fresh air, and soil microbes to boost our own microbiome and the benefits of exercising and saunas.
You’re full of shit. “Herd immunity” doesn’t happen until about 70% of the population is infected. Stockholm’s case fatality ratio is over 10%, and they’re still nowhere near herd immunity. Spread world wide you’re talking tens of millions of deaths, fool.
But what should we expect from someone who follows Mercola?
mikeb If it were only you I would put you on ignore but since you are a fringe lamb in a sea of sheeple …. Before exposing all your ignorance and indoctrination by the MSM You could have looked the numbers up for yourself at the worldometer page.
The first half of their daily deaths chart is so similar to most other western nations. The peak in deaths occurred around April 15 and has been trending down ever since. This indicates that all the locking down and other unsustainable measures enacted in most western nations only helped to prolong the crisis and did little to nothing to avoid any deaths in the long run. In fact all the families being crushed into poverty should be expected to cause a lot more premature deaths from here on out
I did look it up, dumbass:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Guess what: “Herd immunity” may be a false hope:
https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity
Someone needs to take your ass out behind the woodshed.
The data on the worldometer site is more readily accessible. this site is not allowing me to post the link so go look for yourself.
New York State total deaths from the disease stands at 1,669/1m pop Sweden stands at 549/1m pop.
When someone disagrees, you suggest using violence and shaming ???
The data on the worldometer site is more readily accessible. this site is not allowing me to post the link so go look for yourself.
Bullshit. The worldometer link has been posted dozens of times on this site. Neither Worldometer nor this site is preventing you from posting
the link. It’s like I said, right-wing nutcases just make shit up. From your earlier post above:
The peak in deaths occurred around April 15 and has been trending down ever since.
More bullshit. Yes, the deaths did peak earlier then declined. But lately, the 7-day moving average has been trending up.
https://tinyurl.com/ycejra7n this indicates to me that in the end it does not really matter all that much what a country does, the virus just does its thing and its over. You can only delay. but at what costs?. Even Brazil that did basically nothing is already past the worst fatalities per day.
Farmlad,
Here is the chart for Brazil. Doesn’t look like a lot of improvement to me.
Farmlad,
Your lack of response speaks volumes.
Covid case and deaths counts are very subject to mistakes at best and manipulation and fraud at worst. So I suggest those numbers should be balanced with the amount of deaths compared to prior years. The financial times put out this chart. This is the basis for my thinking that the worst of the virus is behind us.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ec0cbfRWkAE1GRK?format=png&name=4096×4096
Farmlad,
Generally the reported numbers come from the national governments, I agree they might not be accurate, but if anything they would tend to under report.
Note that the financial times might also not be accurate, generally the data by Worldometers is scrutinized by many and they are transparent in where they get their data.
Farmboy- “this indicates to me that in the end it does not really matter all that much what a country does, the virus just does its thing and its over”
Get real man. Check out how many cases China, or Taiwan, or South Korea had.
They reacted decisively and extremely well.
Got back to work quick.
But the people there will wear masks when you ask or demand cooperation.
But here, we have a mentally impaired leader, who is followed around by a pile of fools.
After 6 months of failing miserably as a leader, the best he could say today on the Pandemic was-
“President Donald Trump insisted again Tuesday that the U.S. would have fewer coronavirus cases if it conducted less testing — even as outbreaks continue to surge across the nation and deaths begin to pick up pace.
“Think of this, if we didn’t do testing, instead of testing over 40 million people, if we did half the testing we would have half the cases,” Trump said at a press conference at the White House. “If we did another, you cut that in half, we would have, yet again, half of that.”
People only get sick if they are tested, apparently.
Idiot.
I agree with Ron’s post, further down. The data for cases and deaths for many countries is next to useless. This would include China no doubt. As to South Korea I will continue to expect the virus to win in the end. They will not be able to keep it out for ever.
Like trump, just disregard information that does not support your unfounded contention.
This whole discussion is akin to a comedy show like dumb and dumber, where Covid deniers try to be a stupid as they can. Like the president.
Except it is not funny, at all.
I didn’t know who Dr. Mercola was, and looked him up.
Highlights included:
“In 2016, Mercola agreed to pay up to $5.3 million restitution after federal regulators complained that he made false claims about tanning beds that he sold.”
“n 2020, Mercola claimed that inhaling 0.5-3% hydrogen peroxide solution using a nebulizer could prevent or cure COVID-19”
Gerry If you don’t agree with Mercola that’s ok but twisting what he has explained well is not ethical; shame on you. Nebulizing hydrogen peroxide at these concentrations for viral illnesses has been done with good results by many people over many years. This is not some new conjured up cure for Covid.
In fact I was just discussing this with an old timer that used to buy sick cows and nurture them back to health. One of the treatments he used for downer cows and cows with mastitis was to administer significant dose of hydrogen peroxide IV.
Mercola has a long list of recommendations on what I would describe as nutritional therapies that support the body in dealing with whatever disease vectors that it comes into contact with. Nutrients like Iodine selenium magnesium copper silver zinc vitamins and a host of nutraceuticals.
This is in stark contrast to most medical doctors whose degree requires less than a day devoted to nutrition. Even conventional farmers, with all the scorn they receive, focus a lot more on nutrition then on drugs to affect the health of their livestock. So if a doctor does a 180 and promotes nutrition as the foundation of health , any decent person should at least listen.
On my post above, I quoted the Wikipedia entry on Dr. Mercola. I apologize for not indicating that.
Nebulizing hydrogen peroxide is a fringe theory and you can see that Dr Mercola and others have been forced to retract their claims. There is no evidence it has any effect on Covid-19, and it would be big news if it did.
It seems to me that the medical community does put value on nutrition, but there isn’t a lot of value to a therapy that “lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective”
This pandemic could be an opportunity for some of these therapies to be tested in a proper study, but that doesn’t seem to be happening – instead it seems to be small numbers of patients in poorly designed studies.
From the FTC:
“It is unlawful under the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 41 et seq., to advertise that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made. For COVID-19, no such study is currently known to exist for the products or services identified above. Thus, any Coronavirus-related prevention or treatment claims regarding such products or services are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. You must immediately
cease making all such claims.”
Reply to an Opinion Piece-
Farmlad.
Go work in a hospital for 6 months.
Then come back and report how you see the virus.
Then you’ll have a little expertise to base your thoughts on.
Good advice; too many armchair experts here on every topic (and everywhere).
I have family working in hospitals directly treating covid 19 patients in Michigan Boston and LA during this Covid situation and we are all coming to very similar conclusions. And one of these conclusions is that the response actions that were taken did more harm than good in overall health outcomes, and the Swedish model is the one we should have followed.
In terms of death rate, Sweden is currently #7 in the world.
Swden’s death rate is:
5.5 x that of Denmark
10 x that of Finland
10 x that of Norway.
At the end of June, polls showed that a majority of Swedes themselves think the Swedish approach was wrong.
Where the hope had been that avoiding a lockdown would prevent damage to the economy, the economic damage was similar to Denmark, apparently because people stayed away from restaurants etc. The drop in consumer confidence in Sweden was greater than in Denmark.
I don’t think Sweden is the poster boy for how to manage a pandemic.
Their original thinking that the virus will get everywhere, so lets play the long game, and get it over with is still to be determined. So far though, the antibody data says only about 7% of Swedes have been infected so far. Some researchers think that the data is showing that herd immunity is increasingly unlikely.
It’s a mess.
And Florida will be worse. And the whole US.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.21.108308v1.full
and here is the breakdown by Dr Mercola
SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies are only found in the most severe cases — about 1 in 5. That suggests COVID-19 may in fact be five times more prevalent than suspected. It also means it may be five times less deadly than predicted
Even though people who had been exposed to infected individuals had SARS-CoV-2-specific immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies in their mucosa, there were no virus-specific antibodies in their blood
The strength of antiviral immune responses, including T cell activation and proliferation, slows with age. This can help explain why older people are vastly more susceptible to severe COVID-19 illness and death
Your humoral immune system can kick in if there’s cross-reactivity with another very similar pathogen. In the case of COVID-19, there’s evidence to suggest exposure to other coronaviruses that cause the common cold can confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2
Between 40% and 60% of people who have not been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 still have resistance to the virus on the T-cell level
You have no idea what a jackass you look like when you open your pie hole and “Mercola” drops out.
https://quackwatch.org/11ind/mercola/
Farmlad,
I know many physicians, all that I know would disagree strongly with your position. In fact, many in Sweden also disagree. Compare the deaths per million in various Scandinavian nations. If a higher number of fatalities is preferred, then yes, the Swedish option is best. Many think differently.
“I have family working in hospitals directly treating covid 19 patients …’
the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Yes; They are taking care of some cov patients while wearing totally inadequate PPE, they are even required to use masks log after they are saturated and basically ineffective. Some of their coworkers test positive but none are really getting sick enough to even be close to needing hospitalization themselves. So far not a single one has tested positive even after doing several tests and all are showing no symptoms. So looks like they are for all practical purposes entirely immune.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Your talents are wasted here. You should be CIA, Department of Complicated Analysis
Of those I see every day wearing masks (far from the majority that are without, including myself) the majority can also be seen periodically fidgeting with them with their hands and, in the process, touching them, their noses, mouths and faces and then touching other things and maybe people.
Some can also be seen sliding them off their faces to talk and eat, etc. (while the masks sort of dangle and bob up and down under their chins and air themselves out) and, in one case so far, one has been twirled around an index finger like a small pom-pom necklace or something.
Maybe that’s a good thing if people with masks manage to spread the virus more effectively and get more people infected, such as for more robust immune systems, and death, both that can happen because of pathogens and both that may need to happen.
If one doesn’t want to get COVID-19, assuming they don’t already have it, and assuming they don’t want to run after and ‘brow-beat’ or ‘control-freak’ everyone else who’s being, in their opinion, ‘covid-cavalier’, it might be prudent to self-isolate and if they have to go out, maybe get a fashionable hazmat suit that could make any burqa-wearer eat their heart out.
Maybe that’s a good thing if people with masks manage to spread the virus more effectively and get more people infected,…
Wearing masks spread the virus more effectively and cause more infections?? I have never heard such a line of pure bullshit in all my life. Where is your evidence for such a very stupid conclusion? Why do these right-wingnuts make up such damn lies? And why is it only from this right-wing nutcase crowd that we hear such unadulterated bullshit?
I wrote ‘if’, Ron.
It seems there is little medical consensus about masks, or if there is, I’m not seeing it being practiced in my neck of the woods, nor, where it is, in ways I might consider, properly.
Also, not all masks are ‘created equal’. N95(?) versus a woman’s nice silk scarf (I do have a thing for some chokers) versus a construction-grade mask versus some sort of makeshift/adaptive-re-use mask using assorted materials, like for example, a woman’s menstrual sanitary napkin (Yes, I saw that on You Tube. Maybe it’s quite effective. Maybe as a form of performance art/social critique or protest if it becomes ‘mandatory’ here, some of us could also wear a pair of women’s panties as a mask.)…
Since, or if, the virus can also get in through the eyes, shall we wear eyewear, too, like swimming goggles, construction goggles, ski-goggles, motorcycle helmet, scuba-gear and whatnot? Or a medical visor such that I’ve seen worn here by some business staff/wage-slaves.
In any case, you’ve commented often in the past on here about human overpopulation, yes?, and, vis-a-vis it, a concern for the rest of the natural world?
So if COVID-19 is doing some extra culling, maybe that’s a good thing in your opinion in that light?
BTW, I have yet to see any other animals wearing masks for the assorted pathogens that they can get, nor have I heard of any aside from ourselves that have modded viruses in the lab to make them their own fucking problem as if they don’t already have enough.
I think this is a phony argument. Meant to ‘promote discussion’ maybe.
There is a consensus on the value of wearing masks, and it came quickly once asymptomatic spread was determined to be common. The prevalent opinion was that you couldn’t be infectious unless you were also symptomatic, like in many other viral diseases.
Yes, people use masks imperfectly. Yes, masks aren’t invulnerable.
But, countries and cultures that promoted widespread mask use saw a better response to the virus. Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, etc.
We could all learn lessons from these countries.
That doesn’t necessarily stand to reason that the masks, at least, alone, were/are/will be responsible for better outcomes.
Given that the virus appears very contagious and relatively unsymptomatic, and that many more may have already been infected, it is possible that the masks didn’t/don’t/won’t really do much and/or were/are/will be too little too late.
Lastly, and as I’ve previously mentioned here or elsewhere, and while I’m no epidemiologist, there’s a concern that masks, lockdowns, and various other ‘curve-flattening’ measures, etc.– maybe sort of like giving too much antibiotics too often– may have the effect of extending the time the virus is active within the human population and increasing the likelihood of mutation and reinfection. (Maybe that’s part of the idea.)
Hopefully those concerns are unfounded.
Caelan, you’re just putting up speculations without anything to back it up. There have been numerous studies on the efficacy of masks.
You say you’re not an epidemiologist, and i can see that, ha! ha!.
But you’re not listening to the epidemiologists either.
You’re just making stuff up – phony arguments and bogus concerns. Are you just looking for a response?
I’m sure you recognize you’re not likely to provide any convincing arguments without learning more.
In Memory of Dr. Mask
Don’t let anyone stop you from presenting whatever your feel might put any concerns to rest.
If you could…
I wonder if he noticed Dr. Mask’s simultaneous crazy whistling. Once and awhile it would whip his dog into a frenzy and get it barking too. Nicely surreal.
Farmlad,
Canada population 38 million.
Total cases from #1 reported = 108 thousand
Total deaths = 8,800
Most cases occurred in Ontario and Quebec
Cases today between 250-350/day across the country (mostly Ontario)
We locked down and opened slowly in my Province…no politicians speaking or involved in decisions….population 5 million, approx 10 cases per day. Schools opened in May, hybrid model. Opening in Sept. Most businesses never closed except bars and tourism. We wear masks by choice.
80%+ want the CDN US border to remain closed until after 2021 and vaccine.
“The Swedish approach to managing this virus is the model that makes a lot of sense to me.”
Math challenged?
Hint: It does not really matter for the next winter whether you have 5% population with immunity or 15%.
If big government can get us to wear a mask, we’re afraid of how many other personal liberties they will force us to give up next. Now do you get it?
No, George, I do not get it. What I do get is your absurd paranoia. Big government says wear your seat belts, and you do. Sometimes big government must look out for people who are just not capable of looking out for themselves. That is the case with people with twisted ideologies like Libertarianism.
Mask not only protect you but other people’s mask protects me as well. Your right to expel spittle into the atmosphere ends where my nose begins. Now do you get it?
My WAG is that once P.O. kicks in it’ll be ‘Government by Ox Cart’, so to speak. The Big Brother thing is role playing out their favorite paranoid fantasy. As collapse proceeds we’ll likely witness all kinds of stupidity.
Ron’s Daddy?
That sounds like a rationalization for ‘Daddy’ gov (and/in an infantilistic society) and to somewhat fly in the face of your own apparent ideas relating to survival of the fittest, yes, Darwinian?
George —
Yeah, losing personal liberties is a bummer. Personally I hate speed limits on roads and most of all crosswalks near schools. Takes forever to get to our local bar, especially when the kids are getting out of class.
“It’s MY car” ~ Drunk Driver for Trump
Not to mention mandatory water and sewer connections,lol.
It’s a real bummer not being allowed to get a nasty disease such as typhoid or parasites, from drinking contaminated water, not to mention losing the freedom to spread such diseases around, or throw the contents of your chamber pot out the window into the street.
The classic rule of thumb for simpletons is that “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”.
Welcome to the ostensible ‘paradox’ of technology where, for example, The Cogs/Sheeple/Dupes/Indoctrinates seem to like to think (and on collapse/decline/peak-energy-/relocalization-issue sites like these no less) that more, bigger, larger, and/or more larger-scaled centralized technology (like for example what goes into what they like to call ‘government’, including all their fundings, like the military industrial complexes and roadway, sewer, oil-production, industrial-whatever, etc. infrastructures) somehow leads to a better planet, decisions and lifestyle in general.
George Harmon clearly spells out, ‘big government’.
Big government doesn’t appear to be working too well.
The possibly-implicit contention that healthy local/smaller-scaled populations/regions with real communities have less of a handle on their own lives and well being than the overscaled distanced ‘crony-capitalistic plutarchic’ jokes we have for them, would be amusing if it weren’t so sad and tragic.
Yeah, and just think how much money we could all make selling fentanyl or shoulder launched missiles. That damn Govt.
Cogs R Us
The more complex something is apparently, the less control you have over it, like ‘that damn gov’t’.
Hey George, not wearing a mask is like fucking without a condom.
Now do you get it?
Masks may not save as many as we think.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=239726
“Market ticker?” Is this a fucking joke?
How masks can bring coronavirus under control, by Dr. Robert R. Redfield, MD. Starts at 2:18.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzHIhSZ_fiA&feature=youtu.be
Oh noes!
I’m curious to know what percentage of people who share George’s view that mask mandates constitute government over-reach, and is a signal flare of totalitarianism, fully support and advocate government enforced mandatory gestation.
I was wearing a mask way back in February when the government was recommending against them. I happened to have a good supply on hand, because I already wear one when I have cold or flu symptoms, and for construction dust control. I find it a bit bizarre that it’s considered acceptable (in the U.S.) to engage normally with others, while leaking and spewing pathogens, with no attempt to prevent or minimize spread. The fact of pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic spread of coronavirus requires extra measures and vigilance.
The reason the government needs to step in sometimes to ensure public safety and well being is because some people don’t choose to educate themselves and make socially beneficial choices on their own. It brings to mind the time I had a design meeting with a contractor and he came in the door bitching and moaning full force about government regulation. During the course of the meeting, I pointed out that since we would be doing flash and blow insulation on the ceilings (spray foam and fiberglass b.i.b.s, two inch EPS insulation under the stucco (E.I.F.S.) and four inch insulation under the exterior thin stone for aesthetic reasons (about 30% of the facade), that by spray foaming the rim board to foundation connection, adding a energy recovery ventilator, and doing a blower door test to tighten up remaining infiltration points, that the efficiency of the home would be exceptional.
His reply? “Why the hell would I do a test that I’m not required to do?”
Well, that’s one of the reasons why we have government.
I wonder what George thinks of The Pentagon Budget lol
In Canada, with extremely low cases, 80% of the population asked for mandatory masks in public. The Govt did not do it because they did not have to. We also closed the bars
Imagine, looking out for your neighbour or for those with pre existing conditions.
Open bars or open schools? What a concept. Can’t fix stupid.
“Can’t fix stupid.”
True. Or selfish.
The ‘wisdom of the tribe’ around here ‘says’ that if you get sick, try to stay at home and, if you can’t, limit your exposure to others in various ways.
(This is to say nothing at the moment about our immune systems, evolution, disease responses in general, related population dynamics, government-funded virus lab research and related artificial manipulation whose results risk the general population upon release, and so forth.)
I’m unsure threats of fines or imprisonment is going to make things any better and may even make matters worse, such as in the case of someone in the news apparently getting killed by a cop for an altercation over their not wearing a mask.
A word about being cautious about the cure potentially being worse than the disease is appropriate here, as is common sense in that and other regards, such as the conditions of lockdown and who may not be being treated because of it and of its related fear, uncertainty and doubt over COVID-19, as per the freakshow (government/corporate-funded) legacy-mainstream media can put on.
Reminds me, over here in Halifax, in the thick of this so-called pandemic, they actually closed a walk-in clinic.
They also limited the access to the front of the city-buses so that people were more cramped toward the back of it, thus in a few personal cases, collapsing the capacity to social distance.
Yes, I know they claimed that the front portion was for the older folks, but it may have been a better option to have had entirely separate buses for them and the rest of the population, respectively.
Also, I commented a few months ago about, if recalled, some ‘Dr. Lockdown’ (or whatever some called him) who advocated as much (and to government) and who apparently ignored his own advice for himself (and at least another) and went outside and on some kind of affair with a woman. (Ditto for some transgressions of ‘our own’ government members, too, apparently).
If we cannot ‘trust’ people we ‘don’t know’– like, for example, those of government and related medical professions, and those who aren’t in our immediate neighborhoods and surrounds and who are essentially telling us, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’– who can we ‘trust’?
Incidentally, WRT some forms of industrially-manufactured insulation, BTW, there’s some concern about its toxicity, such as by degassing, as well where their fires, general house [air/humidity] breathability, and ultimate disposal are concerned.
In any case, life/reality/COVID-19 isn’t so simple as some people seem to like to portray or approach it and we would all do well to keep that in mind, otherwise, maybe stick a ball gag under your mask?
The Libertarian view is that masks should be a completely personal choice, similar to smoking, for instance. A person might not make the right choice, but letting them make a choice in the first place is infinitely better than unconstitutionally rescinding freedoms.
Libertarianism is the dumbest ideology ever professed by human beings. If you have the virus, and you do not know whether you do or not, then you have no right to spew spittal into the atmosphere when you talk when a mask would simply prevent it. That is just common sense. So why do Libertarians not use common sense?
That is my main problem with right-wing nut cases, they simply refuse to use common sense. And when right-wing nut cases call themselves Libertarians, that doesn’t give them an excuse for not using common sense.
Ron, some people’s implicit assumptions in some of this discourse seem to be that governments (and via their blathering media mouthpieces) have a better handle on ‘common sense’, ethical considerations and how to live our own lives for ourselves.
Can you can see the results? (Never mind COVID-19.)
Never mind COVID-19??? Are you fucking kidding me? When we have a pandemic, only the government can control it. Otherwise, it will spread like wildfire, just as it is doing in the USA.
Anyway, the opposite of government is no government, or anarchy. If you are an anarchist, then just say so. Otherwise what’s your point?
I meant ‘to say nothing of COVID-19’.
Unsure about that, since I would imagine that an anarchist group could all mutually agree to create a non-coercive working subset group, or government if you will, that faithfully represented them in some contexts.
Mind you, I’m a little tired right now after a long bike-ride, lack of adequate sleep from the night before, and too full of Riesen chocolate-covered caramels and BBQ kettle cooked potato chips, so my thought process feels less than optimal at the moment.
But if it still looks ok and makes sense to you, then that’s great.
😀
(Off for a shower and a nap…)
Unsure about that, since I would imagine that an anarchist group could all mutually agree to create a non-coercive working subset group, or government if you will, that faithfully represented them in some contexts.
No, that is impossible. Anarchy and government are contradictions in terms. If they formed a government, then it would no longer be anarchy.
Anarchy
1a: absence of government
b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority
the city’s descent into anarchy
c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
I had in mind definition C. Many people believe society could function better if there were no government at all.
I have a friend who is very bright, and a self-identified anarchist. She meets once a month with other anarchists and they talk and eat etc.
I asked if the group was politically active, and she laughed and said “No, we’re all anarchists. We don’t believe in doing anything.”
Do they make a schedule of when to meet?
That would be kind of orderly, don’t you think.
I think that some people would sing a different tune about anarchy if they pondered– fleetingly– the idea of if the women in their lives were forced into something like sex, rather than had it by mutual consent.
Indiegogogovernment
Ron, there are all kinds of different governments of course, even between States (and within States if you consider autonomous zones and the like).
I’m talking about one that is by mutual consent.
It’s possible that your particular dictionary is missing that idea/definition of government.
Imagine if the USA State government decided to ‘let go’ and become truly crowd-/sourced/funded and went onto online places like Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Gofundme to pitch plans and generate income.
John:
I only know a couple of Libertarians and they are vocal about other people’s choices bumping up against theirs, but seem to be vague about their personal choices bumping up against the personal choices of others?
If you want to smoke that’s your choice. If you want to smoke sitting next to me, that’s not.
If you don’t want to wear a mask, that’s okay. If you get ill or die, and went into it informed of the risks, that’s okay too. But if your choice makes others sick, then that seems less Libertarian and more a jerky thing to do..
The news is filled with reports of people not wanting to wear a mask in stores because of their ‘freedoms’.
When rights bump against each other, it’s only fair that our governments establish policies to reduce the bumping, and hopefully relying on the opinions of people knowledgeable about the issues.
/end of rant
See here.
islandboy – thanks for these monthly updates.
all – Here’s an online resource for recent electricity generation in some places worldwide, at least those that have an online data source for their real-time generation. (some places are hourly updates).
https://www.electricitymap.org/map
If one clicks on a reporting region, then scrolls down in the left-hand region, one can find the previous 24 hours of generation data.
Like:
California ISO – solar provided up to 42% of the power earlier today.
For Great Britain, solar was only 14% max during the day, but wind is 20% now.
Germany peaked at 43% solar today, wind was only 4% during the solar peak, is now 13%; hydro storage provided 8.1% electricity as solar was ramping down.
Clicking on an ocean area will bring up a list sorted by CO2 emissions.
Uruguay is fairly reliably 100% renewable, with almost all hydro and wind with a tiny bit of solar and biomass.
Iceland is 100% renewable between geothermal and hydro.
Great map tool sunnnv, thank you.
Hopefully more and more regions will get the data available.
They indicate carbon intensity of electrical generation for each region on a daily basis- as gmCO2eq/kWh.
Example PA- 405gms, MN- 533gms, CA- 171gms
This data allows you to compare the CO2 emission from an EV (teslaY 3.6miles/kwh) to a ICE car getting 30 miles/gallon, knowing that each gallon of petrol burned in a modern car emits about 8,887 gms/mile.
Drum roll…
An ICE car emits about 296 gms CO2/mile.
As of today, an EV plugged into the local grid emits-
MN 148 gms CO2/mile
PA 112 gms CO2/mile
CA 48 gms/mile
Opinion Piece-
I suspect that in 10-20 years global warming will be obvious to all to are watching with a brain, even those who were previously skeptical.
Then some companies or countries will start experimenting with geoengineering to ‘cloud’ the sunlight, or chemically absorb CO2.
There is no permit or permission necessary.
No need to make any announcement.
No need to have an operating license.
No need for a public relations campaign.
No need to buy off the politicians.
No need for a treaty.
No need to hire along policies of non-discrimination, or adhere to OSHA rules.
No need for an environmental impact study.
No need to seek approval from the Global Council of Earth Indigenous Species.
Just another industrial experiment that treats the earths ecosystem like Venus.
Like exploding nuclear bombs, or building oil refineries, or clearcutting forests, or paving with concrete……
I could go on for a couple hundred pages.
A new OPEC post is up with OPEC production data for June 2020.
I have come to believe that the Covid-19 data available at Coronavirus Cases: Reported Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance is largely useless. Well, half of it is useless anyway. It does give us some pretty good data by a few nations.
They show Bangladesh with 15 deaths per 1 million population. They have India with 17 deaths per 1 million population. Belgium, on the other hand, has 844 deaths per 1 million people. In India and Bangladesh, people are packed together like sardines. Belgium is crowded but nothing like those countries. Yet Belgium’s death rate is 56 times that of Bangladesh. There is just something wrong with this picture.
Yeah, seems impossible.
The same numbers are reported at Johns Hopkins, so i assume the problem is with the data source in India.
Yes, of course. Every country reports their own internal data. There are two problems with that. First they likely have no idea what the numbers are because few people go to the hospital in very poor countries. And second, the government could just lie about their numbers.
Think government officials would never lie. Let me tell you about Donald Trump. 😉
Articles like this one show just how dangerous this virus is. Autopsies that show blood clots throughout the body, not just the lungs.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12347287
Oh, and you think that if you don’t die, everything will be hunky-dory…think again.
https://elemental.medium.com/official-covid-19-statistics-are-missing-something-critical-155e1e153a2f
What Is Known About COVID-19 and Abnormal Blood Clotting
https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2020/07/what-is-known-about-covid-19-and-abnormal-blood-clotting
On Excess Deaths
“These deaths could represent misclassified COVID-19 deaths, or potentially could be indirectly related to the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., deaths from other causes occurring in the context of health care shortages or overburdened health care systems).”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Texas will likely have a few excess deaths associated with peeps needing, but not getting, an ICU bed, secondary to bump to the head sustained after falling from a high horse. Alas, no room at the Inn.
Study links attraction to ‘tyrannical’ leaders to dysfunctional family dynamics
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/sfsu-sla071020.php
(You mentioned Texas, so I added it.)
Dr Dariush Mozaffarian on Real Time with Bill Maher (YouTube)
Bill Maher tried his best to get the doctor to proclaim on his mantra that the health industry needs to start encouraging people to make more healthy lifestyle choices but the doctor did not really do what Bill wanted. Didn’t disagree with him but, wouldn’t blast the establishment. I found it interesting to watch Bill Maher try to get the doctor to agree that big pharma and the Medical Industrial Complex are behind the reluctance to do anything about what the doctor called a slow epidemic, obesity, diabetes and related conditions like heart disease. The doctor made the observation that obesity has been exploding over the past forty years or so.
The doctor did say that if obesity rates were like they were forty years ago, the US population as a whole would not nearly be as vulnerable to pandemics like COVID-19..
There IS such a thing as BIG PHARMA, and there is such a thing as the insurance industry, and the legal industry, the advertising industry, the corporate for profit hospital industry, the processed and fast food industries, all of which are fattening like hogs on the misery of the people of this country.
But as I see it, personally, there just isn’t QUITE such a thing as a MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, because most doctors, all the ones I know of personally, or by word of mouth, ARE counseling their patients to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit eating tons of junk food, get some exercise, etc etc.
Unfortunately, the great mass of the American people, even including the ones with college degrees, are abysmally ignorant, and all too susceptible to the siren song advertisements, all too fond of the sofa and tv, etc.
Doctors and nurses have gotten to be cynical indeed, when it comes to their opinions as to what percentage of their patients will actually LISTEN to and FOLLOW good advice. I know half a dozen or so doctors and nurses quite well, four of them being relatives, and if I press them on the point, they just shrug and ask me how many of my high school students took what I told THEM seriously….. and the answer to that question is not more than maybe ten percent of them. I felt lucky to REALLY get thru to THAT many, considering the students that wound up in MY classroom. Hint, NONE of them were headed to an Ivy League school, to put it mildly, lol.
Nevertheless, the medical establishment, or more accurately, actual health care professionals who work with patients, do try as a rule to tell them that most of the illnesses and disabilities afflicting us these days are brought about by LIFE STYLE decisions….. piss poor decisions made by the patient himself.
We are witnessing a giant impromptu Darwin Award competition, which is racking up countless millions of shortened lives annually in this country.
But Mother Nature doesn’t give a shit, because these bad habits don’t kill very many people before they are at or past child bearing age anyway.
And while it leaves a great deal to be desired, we DO have a safety net in the USA that allows nearly all the kids born in this country to grow up, after some fashion…… the percent that makes it to adult hood is in the high nineties unless I’m mistaken.
Putting it more accurately, Mother Nature isn’t sentient, and the only way she keeps score, really is via the fossil record. She couldn’t care less if humanity, or any particular species, survives, even if she were CAPABLE of caring, lol.
And most of them are thoroughly burned out on trying to explain these things to their patients, who are about as likely to LISTEN as back woods Baptists are to believe in evolution, or trump supporters are to believe in the fact that he’s an obvious fraud in every respect.
GLOBAL METHANE EMISSIONS SOAR TO RECORD HIGH
“In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth’s atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the atmosphere were relatively stable…
In terms of warming potential, adding this much extra methane to the atmosphere since 2000 is akin to putting 350 million more cars on the world’s roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France. “We still haven’t turned the corner on methane,” said Jackson, a professor of Earth system science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth)…
Throughout the study period, agriculture accounted for roughly two-thirds of all methane emissions related to human activities; fossil fuels contributed most of the remaining third. However, those two sources have contributed in roughly equal measure to the increases seen since the early 2000s.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-global-methane-emissions-soar-high.html
Where is it coming from?
EMISSIONS AROUND THE GLOBE
“Methane emissions rose most sharply in Africa and the Middle East; China; and South Asia and Oceania, which includes Australia and many Pacific islands. Each of these three regions increased emissions by an estimated 10 to 15 million tons per year during the study period. The United States followed close behind, increasing methane emissions by 4.5 million tons, mostly due to more natural gas drilling, distribution and consumption…
Natural gas use is rising quickly here in the U.S. and globally. It’s offsetting coal in the electricity sector and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but increasing methane emissions in that sector. The U.S. and Canada are also producing more natural gas. As a result, we’re emitting more methane from oil and gas wells and leaky pipelines.”
More on methane (and meat)
Earth’s climate crisis is starting to look even worse than scientists had feared — in part because of just how much meat we eat and how we get around.
“This completely overshoots our budget to stay below 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming,” said Benjamin Poulter, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Poulter is an author on both studies published Tuesday, one in the journal Earth System Science Data and the other in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
While the coronavirus pandemic is expected to result in significant decreases in carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 — primarily from economic slowdowns and lockdowns that sharply reduced air travel and other transportation — similar declines are not anticipated with methane.
“Our farmers are still producing food, oil and gas production hasn’t fallen much yet, and methane plays only a tiny part in the transportation sector. So while we may see a small decrease this year because of the coronavirus, methane emissions over the last decade are marching upward. And at this rate, we won’t see peak methane emissions any time soon.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/soaring-methane-emissions-threaten-put-climate-change-goals-out-reach-n1233831
“In addition to the four all-time national heat records, 61 other national monthly heat records have been set thus far in 2020, for a total of 65 national monthly heat records. One [1] monthly national cold record has been beaten or tied in 2020.
To summarize- That’s a heat to cold ratio of temp records of 61:1 for the 1st half of the year.
from- June 2020: Earth’s third-warmest June on Record
Yale Climate Connections
Thanks Hickory. I can’t see Doug’s posts. Agreed, 61:1 is scary…
Just stop eating Mexican food = methane “problem” solved.
Bottom line on Covid spread-
Its very contagious.
Spread within a region or country depends primarily on policy. Simple. Contain. Isolate. Inhibit local spread.
Nothing new here.
Failed policy (federal state corporate city town family personal) equals rapid spread, and inevitably to economic tragedy.
If you care about other people, or the economy, wear a fucking mask when you are anywhere near other people. And keep as much distance from others as you can reasonably achieve. Fight for each extra foot as if the economy, or your relatives, health depends on it.
My rule of thumb is to keep a distance between myself and others that is equivalent to the height of my tallest dead relative. Just pretend they’re lying there on the floor, head to toe, between you and the nearest person.
You could wear a mask and then take it off and kindly offer it to someone without one.
(And maybe as you do, put on a pirate eye-mask™ and, like a real pirate, say, ‘Aarrr… aarrr… go on, take it! I have me own!’.)
good one Survivalist.
I also like to picture the dead relative with their arms extended fully above their head, and stilts on their legs.
See here.
On Decoupling Debunked
30 years of scientific data: no evidence of decoupling
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence-5e63c4c0bb5e
“Given the historical correlation of market activity and environmental pressures, relying on decoupling alone to solve environmental problems is an extremely risky and irresponsible bet.”
http://unevenearth.org/2020/06/decoupling/
You know, if instead of washing my own socks, I instead paid someone $5 to do it, and then in return they paid me $5 to wash their socks, we could get $10 worth of GDP going. Maybe that’ll help decouple? Or maybe if we all flip more houses?
“instead of washing my own socks, I instead paid someone $5 to do it, and then in return they paid me $5 to wash their socks, we could get $10 worth of GDP going. ”
Its the American way of finance. Although instead of socks it generally has to due with shuffling paper.
2016- “Modern economies depend on a thriving financial sector, and the U.S. finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector now accounts for 20 percent of GDP — compared with only 10 percent in 1947.”
Just think how much GDP is due to ‘high frequency automatic computer trading’. Means nothing in the real world.
On the other hand, real GDP and jobs and resource consumption (for better or worse) do occur when ‘green’ energy production and infrastructure gets deployed. Its a massive project to replace some of the energy that is currently produced by coal and oil burning, and to replace all the internal combustion engines. That is regardless of whether your goal is related to the environment, energy independence (solar), or an attempt to avoid utter economic collapse with the impending depletion of fossil fuels.
finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector now accounts for 20 percent of GDP
Well, FIRE is mostly real estate, and real estate is mostly construction. Construction isn’t paper shuffling, it’s actual, literal brick and mortar stuff.
You get the point Nick. People sitting around doing paperwork is just that.
Paperwork.
A culture such as ours likely needs a little paperwork to keep track of things, but we have created a legal/financial monster that is just spinning of wheels and bogging things down.
And it is not real economic activity. It is marshmallow flush.
High on the list to undergo massive downsizing in this overpopulated world.
[Sorry if any of you are included in this sector. Is your job essential]
And no, construction is a different sector (not included in “financial”).
Hmm. FIRE stands for Finance, Insurance and “Real Estate”, no?
And Real Estate includes construction, no?
No.
These are distinct sector categories, as of course they should be.
One is paperwork.
One is real.
Well, in 2020, finance and insurance represented 7.6 percent (or about $1.6 trillion) of U.S. gross domestic product.
Real Estate was 13.6%, and most of that was leasing property.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?rid=331&eid=211#snid=875
https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/gdpind120.pdf
I think you’re thinking of Finance and Insurance, not Real Estate. RE is very large – much larger than the cost of processing transactions. You were right – it was interesting to see that the big component of RE isn’t construction, it’s leasing. Very roughly half of residential, commercial and industrial property is leased, rather than owned. And…that’s a real thing. Those buildings are bricks and mortar and the value that lease payments represent is a real thing.
NickG,
Is every home that is purchased a new home? Quite a bit (87% of home sales in May 2019) of real estate transactions are sales of existing homes, only a small percentage of transactions require construction.
Yes indeed, see my comment just above.
Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born
By James Gallagher
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
The fertility rate – the average number of children a woman gives birth to – is falling.
If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population starts to fall.
In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime.
Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed the global fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017 – and their study, published in the Lancet, projects it will fall below 1.7 by 2100.
As a result, the researchers expect the number of people on the planet to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.
“That’s a pretty big thing; most of the world is transitioning into natural population decline,” researcher Prof Christopher Murray told the BBC.
“I think it’s incredibly hard to think this through and recognise how big a thing this is; it’s extraordinary, we’ll have to reorganise societies.”
You might think this is great for the environment. A smaller population would reduce carbon emissions as well as deforestation for farmland.
“That would be true except for the inverted age structure (more old people than young people) and all the uniformly negative consequences of an inverted age structure,” says Prof Murray.
Some countries have tried policies such as enhanced maternity and paternity leave, free childcare, financial incentives and extra employment rights, but there is no clear answer.
Sweden has dragged its fertility rate up from 1.7 to 1.9, but other countries that have put significant effort into tackling the “baby bust” have struggled. Singapore still has a fertility rate of around 1.3.
Prof Murray says: “I find people laugh it off; they can’t imagine it could be true, they think women will just decide to have more kids.
“If you can’t [find a solution] then eventually the species disappears, but that’s a few centuries away.”
uniformly negative consequences of an inverted age structure
Step #1: rethink retirement, and greatly reduce early retirement.
Step #2: dramatically increase medical R&D, especially for aging and disability.
How America’s hottest city will survive climate change
by Sarah Kaplan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/climate-solutions/phoenix-climate-change-heat/
This month, Phoenix is a hotspot in every sense of the word. The coronavirus is raging out of control. Protesters have flooded the streets after police officers fatally shot a man in a parked car on July 4. It’s been more than a month since the daily maximum temperature dropped below 100 degrees.
Yet the city is working to fight the literal heat. The goal is for Phoenix to become the country’s first heat-ready city — equipped to survive a rapidly warming world.
Each year, more Americans die from extreme heat than are killed by storms, floods and wildfires combined. In few places is the problem more pronounced than in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and its suburbs. In 2019, the region saw 103 days of triple-digit temperatures and 197 fatalities from heat-related causes. It was the highest number of heat-associated deaths on record for the county, and the fourth year in a row of record-setting heat deaths there. Those numbers are only expected to increase as the climate changes.
But Phoenix may also serve as a role model for cities seeking ways to cool down. Martha Ortiz and other community activists are helping residents develop heat action plans and fight for shade structures in their neighborhoods. Local scientists are working with the city’s sustainability office to establish a framework for “heat ready” certification, which would evaluate a community’s preparedness for extreme temperatures in the way the National Weather Service’s “storm ready” program sets the standard for responding to bad weather. Mayor Kate Gallego (D), who holds an environmental science degree, wants Phoenix to be a model for the nation.
Heat is inevitable in the desert, Gallego said. But dangerous heat — “that’s not something we have to accept passively.”
“We understand that necessity breeds invention,” said Gallego, who was elected in 2018. “And we hope … that we will produce the innovations that make it possible for people to adapt.”
This January, less than 10 months after she was sworn in, Gallego led Phoenix to join C40, the group of municipalities working to combat climate change.
Her goal, she says, is to make Phoenix “the most sustainable desert city on the planet.”
It would make sense to develop large underground areas.
If I lived around there, I would sure want a big basement refuge.
We have close to two thousand square feet underground on three sides, masonry, exposed only on the remaining side, which is shaded with a porch roof, which we formerly used for storing our apples, etc, until sold.
It seldom gets above about seventy five in there, even when we have a spell of hundred degree weather. And it’s never dropped below freezing, even when we’ve had a rare spell of a week with zero lows, Fahrenheit.
There’s no insulation. The ceiling is the floor of the above ground portion of this building. If I were to insulate the exposed wall and ceiling, the temperature would never get above the mid sixties or so.
If I ever have to do without air conditioning, I’ll be spending as much time there as I can, during hot weather.
Perfect.
Public Transport, by which I mean transport, in the context of COVID et al and the filthy masses is something to get our heads around I suppose.
https://www.avpress.com/news/byd-is-working-to-keep-its-buses-safe/article_c5aea718-c709-11ea-a521-834d67c23025.html
BYD / Warren Buffet manufactured/sources pallets of masks for Costco
https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/byd-general-purpose-face-mask,-single-use,-one-size,-50-ct.product.100378349.html
TBH I’ve been quite impressed with BYD’s tactical responses to the COVID crisis. While Musk and his fanbois where busy telling us all that $500 ResMed home CPAP & biPAP machines are just as good as a $50K multimodal ventilator, BYD was getting busy with PPE.
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/04/01/1585782924000/Elon-Musk-promised-ventilators–These-are-BPAP-machines-/
For the record, if Musk ever needs critical care life support and endotracheal intubation, I’m okay with hooking him up to a $500 ResMed biPAP machine and seeing how it goes; who knows, maybe he’ll rally?
Are hospitals using the bipap machines for the less severe cases, with good result?
CPAP is not really a form of ventilation. It’s just positive airway pressure, like jacking up your Auto-PEEP. It’s good for sleep apnea though.
biPAP is non invasive ventilation i.e. getting ventilated but not getting your trachea intubated. It’s kinda like someone using a bag-valve-mask on you, but it’s a machine.
In patients with acute respiratory failure, there is strong evidence for the use of Non Invasive Ventilation for treatment of acute hypercapneic respiratory failure due to acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD), and for acute hypoxic respiratory failure in congestive heart failure. There is no literature/evidence supporting efficacy for NIV treatment of those diagnosed with viral pneumonia.
Non-invasive ventilation/biPAP is an aerosol generating medical procedure (open circuit exhaling gasses into the room vs closed circuit as per multi-modal vents that scrub exhaled gasses) and requires expanded personal protection equipment and prob some negative pressure isolation rooms, if done right. If I had neighbor using CPAP for sleep apnea, and then they get COVID and continue to use CPAP at home, I’d get the fuck out of the building lol.
This is the best I could find:
“there is emerging evidence that there is a place for NIV in the care of patients post extubation. Review of early data suggests more than 50% of patients have required re-intubation and it is now thought that NIV support may bridge support for this group of patients where fatigue remains a significant symptom, and help in breathing is needed to aid recovery.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7261654/
So yeah, not getting re-intubated AFTER you’ve had COVID is a big plus. That’s a rather high re-intubation rate! It’s perhaps also worth noting that many of the people who got quite ill with COVID, and have lived to tell, have suffered permanent lung damage, and may now find that they get a much better nights sleep with less fatigue from work of breathing when using NIV at home. So I’m sure those ResMed’s (the Res stands for Residential lol) that were donated will find a HOME, excuse the pun lol.
PS- one more o CPAP and COVID
https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/cpap-covid/
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Makes sense that air within the room where Bipap is being used for Covid support used be filled with aerosolized virus.
“profound hypoxemia but normal lung compliance.”
Hmmm.. I suppose that depends on stage/severity of the illness.
Do you have a favored brand or type of mask?
In a related story, I saw that there has been positive results treating severe Covid related ARDS with low dose XRT-
https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/16/an-old-idea-ignites-new-debate-with-clinical-trials-testing-radiation-for-pneumonia-in-covid-19-experts-remain-divided-on-its-merits/
No prob. I’m quite concerned about that reintubation rate on covid survivors. To be clear, those reintibated are likely no longer covid positive in may cases. They have recovered from covid and have been extubated, but due to respiratory decompensation need to be reintubated. Those patients may find biPAP quite effective in avoiding reintubation; and if covid negative then PPE concerns vis vis the aerosolization are not overly worrying. NIV was a factor in this study that measured reintubation rates on a particular ICU.
Factors Associated with Reintubation in an Intensive Care Unit: A Prospective Observational Study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5363101/
I like 3M brand. 8210 is the N95 I get for most jobs but thats just my size and fit. I also like the N95’s with the cool flow exhalation valve, like the 3M 8511, but that doesn’t filter your exhaled air, so won’t protect others if the wearer has covid or TB or whatever. In the hospital we’d give N95s to TB POS patients to wear when around the place, but never one with a valve. That wouldn’t help much.
North is also a good brand of N95 mask and respirators. My preferred respirator (plastic 1/2 mask) is the 3M 6500QL series with P100 filters (pink pancakes). I was well stocked up on RPE due to several seasons of very bad forest fire smoke around my way. Lucky me. I pretty much kitted out the entire extended family with RPE for COVID.
This dude wore his N95 for quite sometime to protect against pollution while he cycled in China. He tested it later with a portacount and found it still quite good for filtration. Needs to maintain a good fit (seal) too though.
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/how-long-masks-last/
My wife, an artist, had a good supply of N95’s before the outbreak.
They seem durable, but that just may be my position.
It’s my understanding from talking to my physician and a sister who is an ICU nurse that N95 masks are pretty much the gold standard of anything reasonably cheap and more or less readily available.
Plus they are well made, and if you put one of them in a nice warm sunny window or especially in a car in the sun, where it gets pretty hot, they are supposed to be free of live virus within four days.
So I’m using four of them in a rotation, and expect that each one of them will work quite well, in terms of fit and filtration for at least a couple of dozen uses.
Yep, I use a car and sun, with rotation.
2020 has the earliest Arctic sea ice extent falling below 7 million km² in summer [using the JAXA data set]
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop.ver1/data/graph/plot_extent_n_v2.csv
Dennis,
Please check your email.
Thanks.
Is net metering really a “matter of national energy policy”?
Can the Gubbermint tax or steal the veggies from your Garden? The answer may now be yes.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3592113-ferc-nixes-challenge-to-state-control-over-net-metering
https://runonsun.solar/~runons5/blogs/blog1.php/solpol/netmet/ferc-ruling-win-for-net-metering-for-now
A centralized grid is corrupted mega Poison even when powered partly by low carbon renewables. Grid Tie renewables are but slaves bonded to fossil powered rotating megaton stranded assets.
Banning Natural Gas connections on the Ring of Fire?
This will play out on a national scale much sooner than a lot of us have expected,” said Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, who in September proposed banning gas from new construction. “I think it’s the right time for us to be having this debate.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/natural-gas-industrys-1-million-pr-campaign-sets-up-fight-over-northwests-energy-future/?fbclid=IwAR3no5pRbj8yK-Ps493OogWGIigV_pC3AXyG3JHuWFnktyqa5hjkcrVP8kY
Yet another example of what could be done and what is actually happening.
CLIMATE-FRIENDLY COOLING COULD CUT YEARS OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND SAVE US$ TRILLIONS
“Nations must deliver massive cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions to get on track to limit global temperature rise this century. This is critical to minimizing the disastrous impacts of climate change. As nations invest in COVID-19 recovery, they have an opportunity to use their resources wisely to reduce climate change, protect nature and reduce risks of further pandemics. Efficient, climate-friendly cooling can help to achieve all of these goals…
However, increasing demand for cooling is contributing significantly to climate change. This is the result of the emissions of HFCs, CO2, and black carbon from the mostly fossil fuel-based energy that powers air conditioners and other cooling equipment.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-climate-friendly-cooling-years-greenhouse-gas.html
Offering a 600 hp hybrid powertrain for just $45,000, the BYD Tang seems like the holy grail of price and performance, but is this really a case of having your cake and eating it too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Rgp_O6Pxo
looks great. maybe someday in the usa.
Personal vehicles seem hard for folks to to let go of. I can relate. I’m not entirely confident that future scenarios will involve such an abundance of operable personal vehicles. Especially in the city. I notice millennials and younger folks are far less interested in cars than earlier generations. I started saving up for a car when I was 15 and got one when I was 17. It was the thing to do. The bus was called “the loser cruiser” lol. (see popular 80’s poster below- ‘justification for higher education’) I feel that EV public transport/mass transit is going to boom as folks try to adapt, and it, mass transit, might indeed be the best foot forward in order to provide wide transpo services with a minimal enviro footprint. This is an interesting take on buses from Ryan Popple of Proterra.
https://youtu.be/bMMAD3oSH6o?t=63
I’ve given the personal auto versus bikes versus buses versus subways versus cabs etc issue a huge amount of thought over the last few years, and I’m personally convinced that so long as cars, new or used, remain within reach of a typical Yankee household, we will continue to use the hell out of them.
It’s true that owning a car costs quite a bit. Even a cheap car, after adding on maintenance, repairs, gasoline, insurance and taxes typically costs at least, bare minimum, two to three hundred a month, and that’s for an old clunker that you don’t drive very many miles on a regular basis.
It’s damned near impossible to get any cheaper than that. I know, it costs me two hundred a month to own an old clunker and I do all my own maintenance and repair work, and I can get ten years out of a car sold ” as is” not running, for a few hundred bucks. Waste not, want not, and what I’ve saved on cars has mostly been well invested, in either real estate that continues to appreciate, or in days off from the rat race.
Four hundred bucks and up a month is typical for a cheap car owned for years and driven maybe a couple of hundred miles a week or less.
BUT while this IS a lot of money, over time, it’s still a HUGE bargain in terms of what it gets you, if you disregard driver’s seat time.
Almost every where I’ve ever been in this country, spending five hundred or more a month on a car, or even a thousand a month on a car, means you can get a FAR nicer place to live for the same total expenditure.
There’s just not much, if anything at all, available in densely populated areas that’s even remotely comparable to a suburban mc mansion, or an older farmhouse, or an older rancher in an older subdivision ten miles out, for less than double or triple the money.
My old farmhouse and grounds, with it’s spectacular views, would be worth ten million bucks close in to Washington DC, or NYC, or LA, and a couple of million under the doorstep in places like Charlotte NC.
So what if it takes me an hour to get to and from a supermarket or drug store?
Modern America was and is built around the ownership of a personal automobile.
I have a better HOME than anybody I know who lives IN a city who has less than five to ten times my annual income, lol.
I think we will gladly drive micro mini electric cars sooner than we will give up our suburban way of life.
But self driving electric cars may well get to be cheap enough to bust up our romance with our personal automobiles.
FUV? Just needs tractor tyres and a 3 point hitch. and don’t forget the shotgun rack.
https://www.arcimoto.com/
Read this link if you want to know why the orangutan is in the WH, and HRC isn’t.
https://www.salon.com/2020/07/18/no-rallies-no-death-star-trumps-campaign-is-disintegrating-before-our-eyes/
“Now that was a presidential campaign! Not dozens of rallies, hundreds of rallies! Trump held 187 rallies during the Republican primaries, between June 15, 2015, and June 3, 2016. He held rallies in Costa Mesa, California; Warwick, Rhode Island; Vienna, Ohio; Evansville, Indiana; Warren, Michigan; Bethpage, New York; and dozens and dozens of other cities and towns.”
“As it happened, I had been on the Hillary Clinton for President website recently for the same reason, looking for an event I could attend so I could get a look at the candidate in action. On the left of the main page, there was a list of upcoming campaign events — fundraisers, rallies, town meetings and so forth, covering several weeks, as I recall. Hillary wasn’t appearing at a single one of them. Instead, “surrogates” stood in for her – Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, various senators and sometimes a governor. But no Hillary. On the right side of the page were links to about 35 campaign “white papers” giving Hillary’s positions on everything from immigration to crime to health care to gun control. But at least for the few weeks covered by the campaign’s main webpage at that moment, Hillary Clinton was not to be found.”
The common people of the USA perceived her as wooden, arrogant, entitled, and contemptuous of them.
You don’t have to be very smart to know when somebody is looking down on you.
Trump was and is the fraud, but HRC couldn’t actually bring herself to actually get the fuck out of secret meetings with Wall Streeters long enough to hit the campaign trail in the supposed fire wall states that put the orangutan over the top.
NOW it’s the REPUBLICANS who are running a presidential candidate with the worst approval ratings of any nationally prominent party member, lol.
It sure as hell OUGHT to be a blue blow out, barring cosmic scale accidents favoring the orangutan.
I thought about putting this in the oil thread, but here is probably better.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/19/gm-says-12-new-evs-coming-including-a-full-size-pickup-truck-with-400-mile-range/
Who is willing to venture his opinion that a huge part of the push to electrify the model line at companies such as GM is based on an expectation that oil WILL be scarce and expensive within the next decade or so, two decades at the most?
Top management probably believes that it will take a decade or at least most of a decade to get out a full line of desirable electric cars and trucks and build up enough electric vehicle and battery production capacity to keep their dealers well stocked in case oil prices do shoot up fast, and stay up.
A hot but small war clearly brought about due to oil supply problems might be the best thing that could ever happen, except for the people actually involved in it of course.
Such a war could provide the political impetus to speed up the transition to renewable energy and electrified transportation by several years.
The world has grown and changed since you last looked.
The city of Delhi is bigger than Texas.
Tokyo is as big as California
Shanghai is much bigger than Florida, and Cairo is just as big.
Dhaka is bigger than NY state. Do you even know where that is?
Istanbul is bigger than PA.
If you list the top 50 cities, I bet most people would struggle to find more than 10 or 20 on the map.
Baring a catastrophe of epic proportion, the world will ‘achieve’ 9.7 billion people by 30 years.
Thats like adding a copy of the 3rd through 12th largest countries to the current mix in 30 years
[USA,Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, and Ethiopia- listed in order]
You might think there is no way that growth will happen.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
Its a much slower rate of growth than the last 30 years.
Even a big event such as WWII, with its nuclear bombs, firestorms, genocide, starvation doesn’t show up on the global population growth curve.
https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth-past-future
Homo Sapien….what have you done.
Not to worry, with current population increase down to only 81 million people per year, roughly 10 New York cities, we might actually reach peak by end of this century. How much rain forest will be sacrificed to feed these folks?
Hi Doug, Hickory,
I’m not a numbers cruncher, but I have a good grasp of the basic facts when it comes to understanding just how bad things are, and how bad they can get, over the remainder of this century.
Nobody can really hope to successfully predict how fast particular technologies will change, but considering how fast the population is growing, the amount of remaining land that can be newly put to the plow, the continuous degradation of current farmlands, outright loss of farmland due to development, climate troubles, fossil fuel depletion issues down the road, etc, etc……….
My estimate as a professional farmer is that the only way we will be able to reliably feed so many people is if we get lucky and there are some near miraculous breakthroughs in the life sciences that can be commercialized and scaled up and applied to producing food on the grand scale. We’re already close enough to fundamental limits of current technologies that without such breakthroughs we won’t see any more really impressive increases in per acre yields except by piling on more money for fertilizer, etc, which may not be available anyway.
Regional famines that will wipe out people by the tens of millions seem at least as likely, knocking the total population back somewhat from one year to the next, as continuous growth.
Whether we will even be ABLE to ship enough food from countries with SOME to spare to prevent such famines is again in my opinion highly questionable.
And whether we will share on the grand scale, even if food enough is available, is another question altogether.
It’s not hard at all to visualize scenarios in which most countries start stockpiling strategic reserves of staple foods such as grains, soybeans, live fish in territorial waters, etc.
The climate issue is likely the biggest question mark, but shortages of money to buy such inputs as fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery will play a big role too.
Water shortages alone may well result in famines famine in some places that are already highly dependent on irrigation, especially if it’s ground water irrigation.
Our best hope might be some sort of cultural revolution that convinces women to have even fewer children than anticipated by the most optimistic demographers.
Doug–clearly didn’t read this.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-june-2020-edition-with-data-for-april/#comment-705827
For a different take on population, a new study out of the Univ of WA sees the current trend undergoing a big shift (lower reproduction rates).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715150444.htm
with the source article here-
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext
Bottomline for the economy of many countries such as the USA- if you want to have adequate workforce numbers for the rest of the century to keep functioning at a competitive and sustaining level, you better treat young immigrants well. You are going to need them.
A key question is the ratio of retirees to workers. If the population becomes healthier and less disabled, retirement can be delayed and the demographic effects of lower fertility can become unimportant.
“ As the remarkable increases in life expectancy of the last century combined with the U.S. baby boom to cause an unprecedented demographic transformation, a fundamental question became the functional status of the future population and the pattern that would emerge in the relationship between survival and functional capacity or disability.
The functional status of the working-age and elderly populations has very significant societal and economic consequences. For while it is certainly clear that the use of health care resources increases dramatically and progressively with advancing age after age 65, these increases are seen predominantly in those with disabilities. Changes in the age-specific prevalence and severity of functional impairment might therefore be expected to have major implications for health care costs, one of the principal macroeconomic issues related to the aging of the U.S. population….
Recent research, reviewed in some detail in this chapter, indicates that rates of significant functional impairment for older (aged 65+) persons have been generally constant over the past decade after a two-decade period of progressive decline. Results for the “near elderly” are conflicting, probably for methodologic reasons, but there is clear evidence of the deleterious effects of increasing obesity on physical function as well as the well-documented beneficial effects of education and stopping smoking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK148834/
Of course, you’re right – we should treat immigrants well. If for no other reason that it’s good for “native” workers: oppressive treatment of immigrants only makes it easier to under-pay other workers.
It makes sense that women around the world will continue to throw off their shackles as baby factories – it’s happening pretty fast almost everywhere. Let’s hope African and M.E. women can get there faster. It’s not a matter of Islam: Iran has gotten it’s fertility rate right down to replacement.
I’m probably the only regular here who ever reads such publications as the National Review, except maybe to keep an eye on the enemy.
But sometimes you find some damned good stuff in the NR.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/about-that-george-floyd-judge-judy-video/
From the link. I would post more but this is enough to get it across. Hopefully it’s not TOO much and NR won’t ask for it to be taken down.
“That the video is a misrepresentation would be obvious to anybody with any knowledge of the basic facts of the case. The kid in the video is 17, and the episode was filmed ten years ago, meaning he would be around 27 today. George Floyd was 46 at the time of his death. The youngster’s name was George Floyd, but he is a different George Floyd.
Here is an interesting social phenomenon: When I take the time to point out to my correspondents that they have been lied to, and that they are, in turn, circulating lies, they become angry — at me, not at the person who lied to them.
If you tell somebody a lie they want to hear, then you do not have to worry about explaining yourself or defending yourself — the people you lie to will defend the lie for you. They will hold tight to the lie. It is an amazing phenomenon. It’s small wonder we see so much dishonesty in our politics.
People will go down fighting for a lie even if they know, in their hearts, that it is a lie. There are some obvious contributors to that strange situation — lack of self-respect, lack of religious and moral education, an attenuated sense of civic duty and patriotism, etc.
But I think that the most important factor may be the simplification provided by lies. If George Floyd had somehow deserved what happened to him, then the moral situation would be relatively simple. The reality — that he was murdered by the people we entrust with public safety, that the notional forces of order often are forces of disorder — is more complex, and it is disturbing.
Put another way: The perverse thing is that we cling to lies in order to defend our moral purity.”
To me this last line goes one hell of a long way to explain why so many decent people known to me personally continue to believe in trump type politics.
we cling to lies in order to defend our moral purity.
Or…to defend the moral purity of our parents, who taught us our outlook on “other people”.
I highly recommend the book ‘Being Wrong’ by Kathryn Schulz. It impressed me with its insights on human nature.
Thanks I will add that one to my reading wish list.
Another superb book about human nature is Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer.
Most of the semiliterate trump type people I know are true believers, but the smarter ones are simply hypocrites.
A lot of the semiliterate ones are reasoning correctly about trump versus the Democrats, GIVEN that they LITERALLY know almost nothing about politics.
The few things they do know that are true about Democrats tend to be things they detest, and most of what they THINK they know about trump and company is incorrect or a flat out lie, excepting the racism. Two thirds of what they THINK is bad for them, in terms of Democrat politics, would be GOOD for them, if once implemented.
But when a self respecting hillbilly works two jobs and wears his Goodwill shoes until the bottoms fall off, and sees ( to him) worthless bums getting free treatment at the hospital or health department clinic, and he has to pay a couple of hundred bucks he doesn’t have to get one of his kids into a doctor’s office and out of the drug store…… well, he doesn’t understand that “socialism” means HE will be able to go to the doctor too without going without his cigarettes.
I know plenty of truly decent people who won’t vote D because of SOCIALISM, without understanding that their MEDICARE, SOCIAL SECURITY, and public schools for their own kids are SOCIALISM, lol.
PERSONAL experience has taught them that any welfare net program is for people who don’t work hard like they do, and that because they DO work, they’re not eligible for the handouts. Hence, the D’s are the ENEMY.
This reasoning is as full of holes as a sifter bottom, but it rings true to them…….. because people, even Ivy Leaguer’s, tend to believe what they WANT to believe.
I’m an old man now, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that while the South in particular is still a racist society, things are a hundred times better than when I was a kid, and getting better yet……. at least up until trump got into office three years ago.
“Joseph Schumpeter rejected the association of socialism and social ownership with state ownership over the means of production because the state as it exists in its current form is a product of capitalist society and cannot be transplanted to a different institutional framework. Schumpeter argued that there would be different institutions within socialism than those that exist within modern capitalism, just as feudalism had its own distinct and unique institutional forms. The state, along with concepts like property and taxation, were concepts exclusive to commercial society (capitalism) and attempting to place them within the context of a future socialist society would amount to a distortion of these concepts by using them out of context.” ~ Wikipedia
“State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement advocating state ownership of the means of production, either as a temporary measure or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or communist society.” ~ Wikipedia
Authorities Are Still Looking for Any Clear Motives for the Attack
There are a few nutcases in every political movement, and this includes some people as deluded as our own Caelan, lol, who would actually DO AWAY with police.
The people, other than these few fringe nutcases, when they are talking about defunding police, are talking about getting rid of corrupt cops by shutting down their local corrupt police department, thereby being able to FIRE OR LAY OFF EVERYBODY, legally, without spending years dealing with coverups and civil service regulations designed to protect HONEST civil servants, which in this case of corrupt cops have been subverted to protect the bad apple cops.
When you get rid of crooked corrupt cops this way, you turn over a town police department’s work to a county or state police department, etc, until you reestablish your LOCAL department. In some cases this can be done all in one day. You rehire the cops you want back, if you so desire.
Anybody who thinks otherwise is drinking trump koolaid.
Defunding in some cases can also mean taking some money away from the police to have more money available for treating drug addicts or setting up training programs so that otherwise unemployable people getting out of jail have a shot at finding jobs, etc.
That’s a straw-man, OFM, since I’ve never suggested doing away with policing outside of a structurally non-mutual/non-ethical context such that some of us currently face.
It’s a contradiction to steal money/labor from people in order to fund/provide what you think/say provides them with proper policing.
See also here.
Here’s a little something about the Zapatistas. It may not be perfect from an anarchist standpoint, but it’s closer:
As the energy-intensive, large-scale centralized States view their EROEI suns falling ever closer toward their horizons, more and more elements that bear an increasing resemblance to anarchy will inevitably return.
A great piece that helps explain why people believe in conspiracies, etc, where none exist.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/bad-thinkers?utm_source=pocket-newtab
So is the US waging 7 endless wars and trillions gone dark to wage them a conspiracy theory? https://missingmoney.solari.com/
Sometimes, if not all too often these days, ‘conspiracy theorist’ accusations just seem like convenient ways to grind down fair and legitimate inquiry and control narratives, and that kind of thing.
The issue (among others related) surrounding defunding or abolishing the police (at least in the USA context) could be interpreted as a warning shot across government’s bow.
And depending on how it plays its diminishing energy return on investment cards, the next step could be civil war and/or cession.
Renewable energy you say? Apparently not!
AFRICA’S BIGGEST INVESTMENT, A $20 BILLION GAS PROJECT
The 2019 Production Gap report found governments are collectively planning to extract 47% more gas by 2040 than can be burned within a 2C global warming limit.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/07/20/seven-countries-back-africas-biggest-investment-20-billion-gas-project/
There are a lot of coal mines and generation plants being built now that are already unneeded – white elephant stranded assets.
With luck, the same thing will happen with NG.
Briggs & Stratton Corp., founded in Milwaukee in 1908 by an inventor and an investor, on Monday filed for bankruptcy protection.
Things are getting interesting——
I don’t know anything about Briggs and Stratton, as far as company finances are concerned, but this company has been the biggest manufacturer of small engines in this country, to the best of my knowledge, just about forever.
And up until maybe twenty years ago, these engines were the Chevrolet of the biz, reliable, durable, cheap, easy to fix, parts available instantly except for antique models, which took a day or two to come from a warehouse.
Then the company started turning out crappy products supported more by advertising than by engineering standards, and people in the trades, who were getting to know the Japanese makes, started referring to them as Briggs and Scrap Iron.
Kohler has gone down a long way down this same road, and all the other AMERICAN brands of small utility engines are pretty much history.
I personally believe this has come about MOSTLY due to the failure of top level management focusing on short term results.
It’s really easy to make a lot of money running on a solid century old reputation for a few years or even a decade or longer by cutting quality ……… until long term customers abandon the brand in disgust, never to return.
But a huge part of the problem MIGHT that it’s damned easy for management on any given day, or any given year, to give in to employee demands for benefits to be delivered at some distant time…… by which time management will long gone into retirement.
Some cities in this country have fallen into this trap, having promised benefits to retirees that simply can’t be paid out of local tax revenues.
Eternal growth in a finite environment just doesn’t happen.
I believe that corporate accounting standards require management to reflect the future cost of pension increases. That’s a large part of the reason that very few employees of private companies now have pensions.
The primary problem with public pensions has been excessively early retirement. This, in turn, was largely caused by excessively early retirements for police and fire depts, which in turn was encouraged by excessively early retirements for the military.
Early retirements should be mostly eliminated. Unfortunately, we’ve tossed out the baby with the bathwater by eliminating guaranteed benefit pensions entirely, which has been a tragedy for employees.
Fortunately the wealthy and their Republican minions have been unable to undermine Social Security and Medicare.
I marvel at the complicity of well meaning individuals and organizations that seem to be unable to state the reality of our predicament. From the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/climate/polar-bear-extinction.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Title and opening paragraph.
“Polar bears could become nearly extinct by the end of the century as a result of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic if global warming continues unabated, scientists said Monday.”
My take.
Polar bears WILL become extinct by the end of the century as a result of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic AS global warming continues unabated.
In my opinion polar bears ain’t goin nowhere soon.
How cute, a polar bear taken a Zooks
New posts up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/march-non-opec-production-slides/
and
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-21-2020/