ComradeKayAdams

Large Feline Division: Bengals, Jags, Lions, Panthers Other Large Mammal Division: Colts, Broncos, Bears, Rams Avian Division: Ravens, Eagles, Falcons, Cardinals Seafaring Division: Dolphins, Vikings, Bucs, Seahawks Industrial Division: Jets, Steelers, Chargers, Packers Wild West Division: Texans, Raiders, Cowboys, 49ers Executive Division: Titans, Chiefs, Commanders, Giants Important Individuals Division: Bills, Patriots, Browns, Saints

Maybe, but I also really like Benford's long-term potential at safety. If White, Elam, and Taron Johnson are all healthy by November, then I'd look into moving Benford to FS opposite Poyer if Hamlin struggles at all and if Benford looks ready to handle the mental demands of Hyde's position. Xavier Rhodes at FS could be another option.

Nursery rhyme gore. Readers’ jaws drop to the floor. “Carnage they adore?!” Irv gets Buffalo. The urban decay, the snow… Fuels all we know: Murderous delight. We CRAVE a good football fight. A show of our might. Pro football we love. More fitting than O.J.’s glove. We’re all hawk. No dove. Fly south to the sea. The heat, the humidity. Sunday killing spree. Fate, grant us one wish: Whether mammals, whether fish, Their corpses go “SQUISH.” A seventh haiku?! Irv, it’s what I give to you: A poetry slew. Haiku number eight?! Buckle under my word weight. The Dolphins I hate. “Haiku number nine?!” Oh Irv…more cheese with your whine? I see no “STOP” sign. On to number ten?! Poetry violence zen. Quit now? Just say when. Head to eleven?? I’m up in haiku heaven! EL FIN…eleven.

You say toe-MAY-toe. And I might say toe-MAH-toe. Produce, just the same. Why don’t they say “TAG” When they begin with his name?? I don’t get the “TUNG.” Well…sometimes I do… But if it wasn’t wanted, A kick to the balls! NOT a haiku, Dan. Off the reservation now?? Stay within the lines! Wait…why so rigid? Variety is life’s spice! So indulge I will: There once was a quarterback named Ed. A Polish prince who wore royal blue with red. A roster Swiss Army knife You’ll recall from your early life On that ’68 Bills team filled with dread. It began in preseason when Jack went down, Raising fear in our beloved Lake Erie town. They called on you to save the day, Plus Tom, plus a guy who was named “Kay?!”, And ultimately Ed to win the AFL crown. You know how this limerick is going to end: To the eastern division basement we did descend. With Ed we posed no threats, Though at least we beat the Jets! If only Ralph had been more willing to spend…

Way to go, Dan D! A poor AFL QB… But a star poet! 1968 Was not a good year for you. Just being honest. But a new life now! Redemption through poetry On “Squish the Fish” week. Duly noted, Dan. But where’s your own haiku form? Above the law now?? Respect poetry. Syllable integrity. Exactly three lines. Step up your game, please. Less downloading porn at work. More online haikus. Filing a report… No creativity there. What the f*ck was that?! He made some good points. Though a bit too long-winded. Plus, his grammar sucks. Poetry and laws. Hand in hand the two must go. SUSPEND HIS ACCOUNT. I hate Tua T! Not just because of his team. It is his surname. Too many letters. Ugh. The pronunciation… Also the spelling… And throws worse than me! And not as cute as our Josh! Crappy and ugly…

Twenty straight losses. Do not forget history. Serve our revenge cold.

Yep, pretty much. Mitch McConnell understands the political calculus of the national abortion debate way better than Lindsey Graham. Mitch knows that the GOP’s position is completely indefensible**, so the less they bother to talk about it the better. Their winning gambit is to obfuscate on the issue of inflation (see: all of my previous posts on inflation) and combine it with a cultural “crisis” du jour such as drag queen story hour. It may very well work this Roevember, but the least dullardly of the MAGA simpletons quietly understand deep down that their political movement is trending toward a trainwreck by the end of this decade…with Dobbs as the train conductor. Commie Kay’s proof: a multitude of public opinion polls surveying Millenials and Gen Z’ers. “Demographics is destiny,” said someone. CHOO MOTHER BLEEPING CHOO. ** - A summary of why I think the GOP stance on abortion is indefensible: 1. The post-Dobbs abortion trigger laws in the red states are already enormously unpopular (to the tune of 67+%, judging by opinion polls). Moreover, they continue growing in unpopularity as more citizens become better informed on all the disgusting case studies in which these laws are shown to be negatively impacting women’s lives. 2. Even though I outlined a reasonable 7-point Roe v. Wade codification bill compromise on page 4 of this thread to which the GOP would still never agree, the best public policy (a.k.a. the one most hermetically sealed from political realities) is completely unrestricted abortion for all three trimesters. The main justifications for this are the enormous difficulties (logistically, legally, and psychologically) that come with verifying abortion exceptions for rape and i n c e s t. Essentially, it’s a matter of prioritizing the approximately 2% of rape/i n c e s t abortion cases over the approximately 2-3% of abortions beyond 15 weeks due to the collection of contentiously “frivolous” reasons (financial, career, education, relationship dissolution, YOLO jezebel lifestyle, etc). Or to perhaps put it more bluntly and more generally, it’s still just a matter of prioritizing living women over unborn embryos/fetuses. 3. American conservatives can’t point to Western Europe as equivalently restrictive on abortion. Those countries allow for “abortion on request,” despite whatever comparable limits during the gestation period they may legally specify. What this means is that no outside parties (doctors, government officials, etc.) in Western European countries are necessary to verify the qualifying exceptions given for the abortion request. The decision to abort is still ultimately in the control of the pregnant woman. 4. The Bible itself is fairly vague on the subject of abortion. You can find just as many passages that are nebulously pro-choice as you can find that are nebulously pro-life. Not that this should ever matter in the United States, however. I only bring it up for the non-secular humanists and non-existential nihilists among us. EDIT: Forgot about the silly "i n c e s t" filter.

The devil is in the details. It depends on how abortion exceptions are articulated in the bill and how difficult the exception confirmation process is for the woman, with the most sensitive exceptions being rape cases. While I haven’t read any details on the bill yet, I tend not to trust the Christian theocratic GOP when it comes to drafting any bill pertaining to women’s rights. But let’s also bear in mind a few basic facts here: 1. 15 weeks is much less than 24-28 weeks a.k.a. the point of fetal viability a.k.a. the delineation of Roe v. Wade. 2. Fewer than 10% of all performed abortions occur beyond 15 weeks, with most of these abortions related to the medical handling of miscarriages. 3. If you support this bill, then you are automatically conceding the “states’ rights” argument.

Kinda looks like Christina Ricci.

Yeah, but we also have the 31st ranked defense. I blame Tremaine Edmunds.

I guess I’m more sanguine than most other leftists regarding the Democrats’ chances of holding the House. I think the polls may be significantly undersampling Gen Z voters in a midterm election. Since this midterm is markedly different from others due to the Dobbs ruling, performance expectation benchmarks of a 220-215 Democratic House and a 52-48 Democratic Senate seem perfectly reasonable to me. An equally important focus, of course, must be on maintaining political pressure on the Democrats beyond the election. I hope my fellow Gen Z’ers understand this?! We need a federal codification of Roe v. Wade that protects the following: 1. All abortions during the non-viable embryonic/fetal development stage. 2. Medical waivers (general physical health of mother, miscarriage dilation/curettage or dilation/evacuation services, ectopic pregnancies, fetal abnormalities, any cryptic pregnancies and irregular pregnancies related to irregular periods and amenorrhea, etc.). 3. Psychological waivers (rape, i n c e s t, mental health of mother, etc.). 4. Logistics waivers for those stuck on abortion waitlists. 5. Full contraceptive access services. 6. Decriminalization of abortion for all fifty states (i.e. no murder charges allowed for mother or doctor). 7. No legal restrictions on interstate travel to seek abortions. AND IF the Supreme Court shoots down a Women’s Health Protection Act like this one (which would essentially be a violation of the Ninth Amendment and the due process clause in each of the Fifth and Fourteenth), then Gen Z needs to be ready to take to the streets and pressure our politicians for court packing. EDIT: Silly censored "i n c e st" word.

APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE for briefly hijacking the gun thread! I’m replying to posts that I forgot to address weeks ago: 1. Progressives love this country because it’s their home. It’s no more complicated than that. Calling people “America haters” if they disagree with your political opinions is childish and unproductive. Having said that, I can answer your question on a personal level: I like our popular culture, the melting pot nature of our demographics, our spirit of innovation and creativity, the geography, our Bill of Rights, and our federal system of checks and balances. 2. Progressives are ignorant on how the rest of the world works?? Progressive policies aren’t already implemented elsewhere?? Universal health care? Federally mandated living wages? Universal pre-k? Progressive tax codes? Community-owned grocery stores? Swiss non-interventionism? German labor movement? French energy infrastructure? Housing for the homeless in Finland? Drug war strategies in Portugal? Legal prostitution in the Netherlands? Social democracies and mixed economies in practically every major industrialized country in the Western Hemisphere??!! 3. While you seem quite confident in your own grasp of political issues, I vaguely recall a conversation of ours in the global warming thread last summer. I backed you into a debate corner where you admitted that you believe in a vast global conspiracy, involving everyone from climate scientists to the U.S. Navy, in which all the climate data is fabricated. Is my recollection correct? How did you think that conversation went for you?? How about replying to my post on the inflation topic (thread: “How much did you pay for gas and groceries today?,” top of page 15, June 10)? Share with the forum what you know on perhaps the most pressing political topic in the news these days. 4. Good for you for acknowledging the distinction between liberals and progressives! Most Americans don’t. This is a lot of material here…I’ll tackle as much as I can before my bedtime! 1. Definitions: I’ve been careful to use “classical liberalism” as a synonym for modern libertarianism and for advocacy of strict Constitutional constructionism. I don’t think I’ve been conflating classical liberalism with crony capitalism? The over-the-top extreme wealth disparities and wealth suppression naturally generated by economic libertarianism, however, do tend to corrode democracies so that they devolve into corporate oligarchies like the one in which we’re currently living. Classical liberalism always seems to lead to great social instability. Never mind modern (i.e. post-Age of Enlightenment/Industrial Revolution era) European history; the most prominent demonstration of this in American history was the economic volatility and strife of the Gilded Age that fueled Debs and the original American progressive movement of the early 1900’s. 2. Trust in Government: Classical liberals tend to play this game where they insist that government is hopelessly inefficient and incompetent, and then they proceed to elect politicians who do everything in their power to undermine said government services, thereby reinforcing their original point. Government is a necessity for a few vital goods and services: things like national defense, law and order, and firefighting. Progressives would add aspects of health care, education, and housing along with various market failure safeguards for labor exploitation and pollution and monopoly/oligopoly effects. Socialists would add at least a few more services, if not many more. I would hope everyone wants to work to keep government as streamlined and efficacious as possible with the minimum necessary safeguards, but I also don’t want to throw babies out with their bathwaters. As you probably figured, I’m not a fan of debates on negative rights vs. positive rights because it’s a totally meaningless distinction to me. 3. Perceived Failures of Progressivism: I’ve noticed how many Americans tend to blame progressives for government failures that are actually neoliberal in nature, not progressive...namely the economic ones. Remember how I argued that progressives don’t have much political power in the United States? We couldn’t even get a completely watered-down Build Back Better Act passed! The Biden administration has been neoliberal to the core since day one. But while I think our ideas are super awesome for the most part, some admittedly need to go back to the drawing board and/or need work on the messaging. I’ve already conceded some of the law-and-order issues to you. I won’t concede border control and economic protectionism to you because true progressivism isn’t about open borders and globalism; it’s about humane treatment of illegal immigrants and pro-worker policies. I can partly concede the “Cancel Student Debt” movement that you raised because that solution is WAY too simplistic. It ends up being unfair to many Americans who already paid off their college debt or who didn’t go to college, and it doesn’t address the root problems behind exploding college costs. From the perspective of macroeconomic growth, however, Millenial/Gen Z post-secondary educational debt is a gigantic drag on our economy. 4. Contemporary Failures of Classical Liberalism: I could go on and on about its flaws when it comes to solving modern macroeconomic problems, everything from fiscal policy to monetary policy. But in the interest of my waning time before bed, I’ll limit my complaining to the big one that is government spending (or rather, lack thereof) in the face of recessions. Let’s take the looming post-COVID recession as a case example. We know during the pandemic that the professional/managerial class (PMC) got wealthier and the working class got poorer. These are objective economic facts, colloquially known as the “Kay-shaped” recovery. Nevertheless, those who identify as classical liberals still argue that the rich are paying too much in taxes right now and the American social safety net is way too generous. The silliest ones even advocate for a flat tax. All of them would rather cool off inflation by having the Fed raise interest rates before ever entertaining the notion of raising taxes on the PMC. But raising interest rates will hit the working class disproportionately hard in the form of unemployment. The U.S. has a 70% consumer spending-based economy, but the very sizable working class won’t have the money to jumpstart it. And we know from recent history (going back to Reagan) that these prospective post-COVID tax cuts for the rich will just be redirected right into company stock buybacks and dividends, not investments in DOMESTIC jobs. 5. Future of Progressivism: There’s an ongoing civil war within the progressive movement between the social justice warrior coterie and the economic populist one. I think American progressivism has a bright future as long as the economic populists lead the conversations. The movement is doing extremely well with the under-40 crowd (demography is destiny, as they say!), but admittedly has stalled with Latinos and the male working class since 2016. My people (social democrats and greenies, plus any socialists and commies) need to collaborate and consolidate power like the lefties did in France recently under Jean-Luc Melenchon. I can see a nice path being paved forward for progressives to take over the Democratic Party and the country by the end of this decade. The path pavers here would be the rank incompetency of the Biden administration, the Manchin/Sinema legislative blockade, the Roberts court’s illegitimacy in the public’s eyes (from Citizens United v. FEC back in 2010 all the way to the upcoming Moore v. Harper case), and the massive social catalyst that is the Dobbs reversal of Roe and Casey. EDIT: Corrected a few obvious spelling/grammar errors.

I don’t disagree with anything you said here, ALF. It’s unfortunate that Republican voters think opening the floodgates on domestic fossil fuel supply will have a major effect on inflation and gas prices. A cursory look at U.S. fossil fuel import/export data from the past 5 years would shatter those hopes, as would a cursory look at international inflation and gas price data from the past 5 years. The lesson, in other words: our energy industry isn’t nationalized, and fossil fuel prices are subject to international supply/demand forces. Yet another GOP inflation talking point that should be dispelled by election season (but won’t) is the notion that excess government spending and increased spending agency among the labor market are major contributing factors. We can look at 5-year national/international data on federal budgets, consumer spending, wage growth, and inflation to figure out that these aren’t good explanations, either. And the observed spending spikes in 2020 were necessary to prevent a dangerous deflationary cycle. At the moment, natural gas is about 30% of our total domestic energy consumption. You don’t think we could get that number down to 20% by ~2035 and 5% by 2050 if we relied on nuclear? That would be three decades worth of preparation! Almost all of the effort would come in the simple form of preventing new public land sales for fracking. Every employee who recently joined the natural gas industry would still have the opportunity to finish their careers in it if they so choose. “Libs” are slowly changing their minds on nuclear. I’m seeing it! It’s true, though, that “cons” are historically more favorable to it. Yet another reason why I’m so pro-nuclear is because it lends itself better to political compromise than any of our other energy options.

Certainly not me. What’s our current debt-to-GDP ratio? ~130%? $30.5 trillion debt divided by $23 trillion annual GDP? I’d like to see us work that number down to sub-60% by mid-century, in anticipation of the eventual petrodollar collapse and a possible end to our world reserve currency supremacy. Trust me, I’m far from a mindless MMT disciple! I only brought it up to make the point that halting progress with something as critical as renewable energy infrastructure because of uber-rigid fiscal austerity measures is irrational. I would first cut into the ridiculously bloated military budget before anything else, in the range of a 25-33% reduction. Next, I would raise the highest marginal tax rate to 45-50% (most demand-siders say it should be 65-70% for optimal macroeconomic growth…) while closing certain tax loopholes and raising Wall Street speculation taxes. If we still need to find more energy infrastructure revenue somewhere, then we can have an exhaustive bipartisan evaluation committee on wasteful government programs. And if we still need more, then as our next resort we can turn to MMT economic guidance and relax our debt reduction benchmarks. Yeah, I kinda noticed the condescension. I’m an engineer as well (biomedical background, a bit of research experience in nanotech and materials physics and E+M waveguides, math training at level of a standard ABD experimental physicist), so I’d rather you not treat me like some ditzy far-left Pollyana-ish renewables fangirl. Oh and that’s another thing: I’m a female, so please don’t call me a “dude.” I’m also not your “pal” because I don’t know you personally. Finally, I did not appreciate the “Star Wars movies” comment. If you were to re-read my post, I openly acknowledged that practical superconductors were “pie-in-the-sky” for the next few decades. I wouldn’t say never, however, as you have suggested. Until the mechanism that explains high-temperature/non-BCS superconductivity is well-understood, there’s no definitive physics-based reason why room-temperature superconductors are impossible. With all those unpleasantries now out of the way, let’s talk electrical power. You may have laughed at my guess in costs, but we also failed to outline some basic assumptions and specifications to make any cost estimates meaningful. Using your expertise in this subject matter, maybe we can put together a sensible back-of-envelope determination of a TOTAL price tag that taxpayers could expect for a FULL 21st century electrical grid upgrade?? Assumptions: construction timeframe of 25 years (2025-2049), full eventual transmission/distribution line replacements, no new line networking (or is that too rough of an assumption?), using only current technology, nuclear fission power generation (but we’ll keep this cost separate because I’m only interested in the power grid’s network upgrades), ~350 million EV’s in circulation to be serviced by 2050 (FYI we’re currently at about 280 million total cars in the U.S.), 80% of all vehicles on road to be EV’s by 2050, expected 50% of all new car sales to be EV’s by 2035 and 75% by 2040 and 100% by 2045. Now with those general assumptions in mind, here’s where I’m hoping you can fill me in: 1. Transmission lines (material costs, factory processing, special supply chain finagling): $??? billion 2. Distribution lines (material costs, factory processing, special supply chain finagling): $? trillion 3. Public charging stations, power substations, step-up/step-down transformers: $?? billion 4. Government-funded labor training and utility installation work payroll: $??? billion 5. Government funding for research and design: $??? million If we add these 5 numbers up, what might that total be? Say, ~$3 trillion?? That would average out to be $120 billion per year from 2025-2049, or perhaps we front-load it to be $300 billion per year from 2025-2034. No biggie! I would take that out of our defense budget without hesitation. You could then raise Wall Street speculation taxes to pay for the nuclear fission power component of the electrical power grid renovations.

To address your first two questions: I would guess about $150 billion total over the next 10 years. Is that correct? And do you know what the ANNUAL military budget is? Something around $750-800 billion and rising, I believe. And don’t forget that the highest of the seven income brackets is at only 37%. And don’t forget MMT options, either, for those non-libertarians who properly understand that federal debt is not the same as personal household debt. Like I’ve said all along…the main problem is a lack of political willpower, not technology or cost. Your third question: No, I don’t know anything about the status of U.S. transmission/distribution line workers. If there is a labor shortage, then that sounds like the impetus for a good old-fashioned public works project! Yay! Keynesian economic solutions FTW! Your last question: No, I don’t know the supply chain status for transmission line materials. Are you referring to steel? Copper? Aluminum? There are actions the private market and/or government can take over the next 10+ years to smooth out material supply chain networks. I seriously doubt the situation is hopeless. I would also be remiss to not mention here that transmission/distribution line materials are an active area of research in nanotech and strongly correlated electron system physics. Inexpensive ceramic superconductors that operate in the 250-300 Kelvin range would be considered their holy grail, I suppose, albeit way too pie-in-the-sky for a timeline of three decades. In the meantime, materials scientists and engineers still have a fair amount of unexplored geometrical leeway for making practical power loss reductions in ohmic and dielectric heating. Your last paragraph: you said that 70% of our electrical power grid is 25+ years old. So if the infrastructure is long overdue for an upgrade, might as well do it now and do it right this time (i.e. build it so that it is ready to accommodate a 21st century future replete with renewables).

I don’t think it needs to take us several decades to get to a satisfactory state of renewables. With the proper political willpower, we could get it done within one decade. If you recall earlier, I provided an example of a national energy percentage breakdown that could get us to net zero emissions by 2050: 45% nuclear 20% EV 15% solar 10% petroleum 5% natural gas 5% all other renewables 0% coal Using CURRENT technology only (so stuff like Generation 2+ fission reactors, lithium-ion batteries, and silicon-based photovoltaics), we could get to something like the following by the end of this decade, simply by enacting sufficiently large government expenditures on energy infrastructure: 35% nuclear 10% EV 10% solar 20% petroleum 20% natural gas 5% all other renewables 0% coal As you can see, I’m accounting for the fact that any practical energy solution will take longer than a decade to wean ourselves off petroleum and natural gas. This sample breakdown would put us well on our way to meeting net zero emissions, and that’s assuming only incremental technology improvements made henceforth. I didn’t even factor in any major nanotech/materials breakthroughs in EV batteries, solar panels, or generation 3/4 fission reactor plants. Those would surely come about at a rapid pace if our country actually tried. The technological difficulties for carbon-free energy aren’t quite as daunting as those faced at the very beginning of the Manhattan Project (which took us ~4 years) or of NASA’s race to the moon (which took us ~8 years). Moreover, we have an international STEM community collaborating on carbon-free energy R&D, unlike the Manhattan Project and NASA moon landing which were carried out under strict national secrecy. So basically, what I’m saying is that I’m much less worried about the technology issues than I am the political ones. What we need by 2024 is the next great U.S. energy president to emerge who takes this subject seriously and who demands an all-hands-on-deck approach involving both the government and private industries. What we don’t need are more MMGW deniers, EPA haters, fossil fuel crony capitalists, and free market fundamentalists.

Yes, I watched the video. Please re-read my original response to you. I spotted you one key example of how the video was misleading the viewer. You really need to be consulting a multitude of different sources on renewable energy technologies. A 5-minute Prager University clip, lacking any sort of nuanced discussion whatsoever or any presentation of opposing viewpoints, is simply not enough. All of your electrical power grid concerns can easily be addressed with a greater commitment to nuclear fission energy. I’m not going to defend Biden’s energy policy because it’s nowhere close to my preferred one. Mine is most closely aligned with that of former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Jay Inslee. I didn’t vote for Biden, either. I voted for Howie Hawkins in 2020 and for Bernie during the primaries. Biden is proving to be as incompetent and ineffectual as I had feared. And no, that is NOT an endorsement for Trump or any other GOP’er on this topic. It’s a call for quality challengers in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. If it seems to you like everyone is blaming the United States, that’s partly because you live here and probably consume American-centric news media. But as I mentioned before, we also happen to be the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter. We’ve also had the world’s largest economy and military since the end of WW2, making us the de facto leaders of the free world whom everyone looks up to, for better or for worse. Uh…it was a completely tongue-in-cheek post. I was never actually angry at you. It’s okay, though. I will quietly give you a sad face emoji reaction and then proceed to slowly back out of this conversation. Are you also against subsidies for the petroleum industry?

Oh wow…you just don’t know when to quit, do you, dear Leh-nerd?! I mainly logged in to PPP tonight to catch up on all the patriarchal Roe v. Wade hot takes. But thanks for “manspreading” your opinion on climate science, too. Is there any leftover bandwidth in this thread for Lil’ Miss Commie Kay? Do I have your male permission to share my rebuttal now? Would that be okay with you? After my response, then I suppose you can “mansplain” middle school Earth science back to me while I bake desserts, read Kendall Jenner gossip*, menstruate, and do other stereotypical female activities in the background that denote my gender-based inferiority to you. Per usual Commie Kay readership experience, I shall summarize my points in numerical form: 1. Climate Change: I nearly threw my laptop across the room when I read this comment: “Don’t trust him, trust me. I am The One.” Is this honestly how you would summarize my environmental (or any) opinions?! The Commie Kay modus operandi has always been to simply provide informational guidance, with the expectation that my dear readers will do additional research on their own and not just take me on my word. My advice here is to seek the wisdom of those whose livelihoods depend on having real, accurate, verifiable, and falsifiable climate change data. That is partly why I trust NASA-funded Columbia U. scientist types over Prager U. “scientist” types (the other part being that they…you know…just happen to make more logical arguments backed by a more sound understanding of the scientific method). But you, my ever so obstinate PPP friend, have stated that you have no interest in further inquiry…hence why you remain stuck on your ridiculous ~60% MMGW confidence level and not at a more reasonable 95+%. UGH. 2. Hypocrisies: Yes, there are charlatans and dishonest actors among the broad left-wing environmentalism movement. Please feel free to call them out! But their unfortunate existence isn’t a justification for climate justice inaction (or reverse action). 3. Solution Difficulties: Yeah, I get it. Addressing climate change is extremely hard. Why do you want to give up when you face adversity? When the going gets tough, the tough get going. You appear to not be tough, Leh-nerd. You appear to be weak. You are a weak GIRLY man, Leh-nerd. A giant, weak, pathetic, pu$$y of a warrior for Mother Earth. Put on a cute dress and tuck your tool of oppression (i.e. your pen!s) between your legs and restock your Playtex tampon supply and go legally change your TBD username to something phonetically similar like “Eleanor,” Leh-nerd, because you are a weak little B!TCH getting Chris Rock face-slapped by the Will Smith pimp that is anthropogenic global warming. Disgusting. 4. Redistributive Models: As a social democrat, I am technically an ideological descendant of Karl Marx (hence my clever username, “COMRADE Kay Adams”). I am therefore not averse to the concept of wealth redistribution. Capitalists must necessarily exploit labor in order to turn a profit, so the naked laws of labor supply and labor demand are inherently unable to allocate monetary worth fairly. Simple extreme example: Jeff Bezos’ efforts have earned him the sum worth equivalent to the GDP of a small country, while his diligent warehouse workers subsist around the poverty line. Generally speaking, I can be okay with any redistributive model that has consensus favorability among data-driven macroeconomists. I was fine with certain aspects of the bailouts from the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Pandemic, but I would have also bailed out the working class in places and not predominantly bailed out the CEO’s and the professional/managerial investor class. I am okay with government choosing winners and losers in the energy industry if it can be shown that the winners are improving society and if negative externalities are taxed. 5. Plants’ Pain: No, I do not wonder if plants experience pain because they do not have central nervous systems to process their sensory information. I learned about this back in high school freshman biology class while I studiously took notes in the front of the class. Did you? Apparently not. Apparently the only biology you were learning freshman year were the birds and the bees from any random FLOOZY in a skirt. Or perhaps you skipped to chemistry, i.e. getting high off of DOOBIES? Or perhaps you skipped to physics, i.e. studying the fluid mechanics of BEER funnels? Certainly not Earth science, based on your current performance in this THREAD…LEH-NERD. 6. BONUS DISCUSSION WITH COMMIE KAY: West Virginia v. EPA: Today, the Supreme Court severely limited the EPA’s power to regulate state-by-state environmental pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions (the ruling affects the powers of every other federal agency, too). In practice, this will render consistent and sufficient regulation of emissions standards nearly impossible. So much for meeting the moment and taking climate change seriously, eh Leh-ny? I know the industrial oligarchs are loving this judicial decision, but what say you and your originalist/states’ rights/Civil War cosplay buddies?? Surely you’re skeptical enough to realize that this had little to do with “properly” delineating legislative and executive powers and everything to do with delivering for GOP corporate donors, aren’t you?? P.S. Note that I’m only giving your post 1 eyeroll emoji reaction because Two Bills Drive isn’t letting me give you more, nor do they offer a more fitting clown face emoji or steaming pile of sh!t emoji. Keep digging the response hole for your TBD posting grave, Leh-nerd, as I bury you under the entire offered array of TBD negative emoji reactions. On deck: sad face emoji and angry face emoji. P.S.P.S. Yes, I will accept your Vizzy at the next Bills tailgate! Thank you so much! *- Commie Kay Fun Fact: My abs are almost as rock solid as Kendall’s now. My secret? Oh you guessed it, Leh-nerd! VEGAN DIET. 100% whole-foods, plant-based**. I also jog ~15 miles a week and do Bikram yoga once a week, but vegan diet FTW! **-Commie Kay Bonus Dietary Tip: Avoid cooking with vegetable oils! You appear to be all over the place in your angry rant. My far-left progressive environmentalist comrades are 100% with you on deforestation, urban/suburban sprawl, and meat/dairy industry complaints. We want to hold the rest of the world accountable with their fossil fuel consumption, too, but we acknowledge that the United States is the country over which we have the most control (FYI: we are the second biggest greenhouse gas emitters by a wide margin). And what’s the alternative?? Two moral wrongs don’t make a moral right! If we want to curb China’s fossil fuel usage, the key is multilateral trade deal leverage. Also, what ever happened to the United States wanting to be #1 in things?? I’d love to see our country take the lead on the world stage in the rapidly emerging renewable energy market. It is to our great economic advantage to do so. At the very least, let’s not fall too far behind Europe.

Wow…no one here is talking about Joe Rogan’s endorsement of Ron DeSantis? It’s a big deal! Sad to say, but Joe Rogan has a lot of influence over Americans. Maybe enough to play a kingmaker role in the GOP primaries. LOL…Ron gets nothing….especially international politics. Gustavo Petro is a run-of-the-mill social democrat who admires Lula and Bernie. He wants to turn Colombia into a Latin American version of a Western European country. He regularly criticizes Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, and Venezuelan totalitarianism. I’d say that Petro’s victory was a visceral reaction to many decades of failed right-wing Colombian politics and is probably a harbinger of a strong leftward shift throughout Latin America as a whole (if we were to ignore the other harbingers, that is: big leftist victories recently in Mexico, Honduras, Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia). See my paragraph above. This specific pendulum swing is only extreme if you think, say, German politics are extreme (er…present-day German politics, that is). Colombian government is so historically entrenched in corruption, however, that I have doubts as to how much Petro can change. Some of his energy infrastructure ideas come across as a bit too idealistic for a country that only allows for a single 4-year presidential term, anyway. Bear in mind that American corporate media will be coming out strongly against Petro because our mainstream media is the mouthpiece for the neoliberal establishment oligarchy. Petro will likely challenge trade ties with the United States that are undoubtedly exploitative in nature toward the Colombian populace.

Okay, so I think we’re on the same wavelength for much of this topic! Where we continue to differ is on our optimism levels for renewable materials. FWIW: my educational and professional background is in biomedical engineering, I have numerous friends in the materials science/engineering field, and my dad’s own educational and professional background is in solid-state physics. A lot of my optimism is based on the reality that, as a civilization, we have barely scratched the surface (pardon the pun, I guess…?) in our understanding of photovoltaic cells beyond the silicon-based semiconductors or of rechargeable battery materials beyond the lithium-ion cells with polymer electrolytes. Furthermore, scientists working in the nanotech subfield are at the early stages of learning how to construct “designer materials,” i.e. materials not normally found in nature. When you build materials atom-by-atom and layer-by-layer, you can manipulate atom/molecule types and lattice spacings so that you meet and surpass various engineering specs. This gives us many more material options beyond what Mother Earth may give us in her mine deposits! I mentioned the need for a “Materials Manhattan Project” in the 21st century. This research infrastructure already exists all over the country, mostly in academia but also at select DOE+DOD government labs and a few private industry labs. However, the research activity is not happening at nearly the extent commensurate with the climate urgency. It would be useful to have a centralized, top-down, umbrella organizational structure that would oversee all of the disparate materials research, set overarching goals, establish benchmarks for monitoring progress and for quality control, allocate funding, and handle all of the communication to the public as well as to the politicians.

Maybe I could have phrased that sentence differently. It was meant to be an inference from a prediction for the near future, not a statement of the present backed by any sort of rigorous peer-reviewed economics research paper. My near-term prediction assumes the following conditions: 1. Supply chain networks tending toward normalization as COVID shutdowns and the Russia-Ukraine war’s initial economic perturbations continue to recede in the rearview mirror. 2. Likewise, worldwide consumer habits stabilize. 3. Likewise, global energy corporations stabilize supply releases as they match stabilizing demand. 4. Consumer prices remain sky high. 5. Fossil fuel companies continue to operate at profit margins higher than they were pre-COVID. 6. A persistent lack of connection between consumer prices and the labor market (based on international data comparisons for wage growth and different BLS-equivalent unemployment metrics). Commie Kay’s Conditional Conclusion: I mean, seriously…if these 6 conditions hold, then what other conclusion should I reach other than corporate pricing power is being overexercised to take advantage of the perceived remnants of a dual global crisis (COVID + Ukraine invasion)? Oil and gas employers set their prices and have practically full control over their supply. We have numbers that can check energy supply and labor market health, so we have ways to call out the typical nonsensical talking points from the green energy-hating conservatives and monetarist libertarian freaks. Direct corporate collusion doesn’t necessarily have to be in play; it could be an incidental market oligopoly effect, given the relatively small number of fossil fuel companies. Where do you generally stand on this inflation topic, Doc Brown? Would you prefer to address it with high interest rates and fiscal austerity?

If you are a naturally skeptical person and not a right-wing partisan, then you should have as much skepticism for this video clip as you do for any of the left’s arguments. Note that Prager University is a non-academic conservative organization. Mark Mills is a fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Both are funded by the fossil fuel industry. While I’m not doubting the numbers presented in the video, he is obviously framing a narrative by highlighting only flaws with renewables and not mentioning any benefits, any of the latest research progress made with renewable materials, or any flaws from other energy sources. His remark about a 1000+% mining demand increase, for example, is blatantly misleading because no one is arguing that our global energy infrastructure needs to be fully converted into wind and solar. I won’t speak to global renewable energy-based solutions not buttressed by nuclear, but I have seen a series of energy studies for the nuclear-based ones. Conclusion: both the net Joules (available supply minus energy demand) and the net carbon emissions can add to zero! If my memory is correct, they used renewable material technology specs from ~2010, inflation-adjusted cost expectations into the future, a service demand of 10 billion people (a commonly used global population estimate by 2050), simple carbon sequestration efforts (reforestation, namely), and assumptions that all major countries were cooperative (including China, India, U.S., and the South American lithium triangle…yes, these were technical papers and not political ones…but it’s okay because international trade coercion will be a powerful motivating tool in the years ahead!). Some fossil fuel usage was expected to remain, of course, which is the only realistic expectation for the future. Interestingly enough, carbon sequestration was shown to be a very significant variable in all of this. Seriously, Leh-nerd?! One well-earned thumbs down emoji reaction for you. I feel like a broken record around this forum…please reply with a published/peer-reviewed post-July 1988 scientific research paper that either challenges the observed warming of the planet altogether or explains it with any mechanism other than atmospheric carbon dioxide ppm. If climate science is the “religion” that you intimate, then you should have little trouble providing me with this simple request. Furthermore, I want to know more about these “redistribution models” you have in your mind. Do you not think that wealth is already being redistributed from workers to capitalists? Capitalists that include fossil fuel industry magnates (incidentally, many of which will eventually comprise the same magnates benefiting from the renewable energy transition as their own respective business models evolve)? Your thoughts on the various Federal Reserve/Congress bailouts during the Great Recession (circa late 2008-early 2009) and COVID Era (circa March-April 2020)? Was this wealth redistribution righteous? No, you know what? I’m instead going with a vomiting emoji reaction. You brought this on yourself.

Anticipation of future profits, sure…but more on the temporal order of weeks and months, not years and decades. Biden’s long-term statements on a renewable energy transition, compared to the COVID-initiated supply shock phenomena dating back to early 2020, have very little to do with the currently observed inflation in the global energy sector. If anything, oil and gas employers are looking into the past and not the future when setting their prices. They’re trying to recover for their shareholders the expected gains that were lost during the pandemic. And incidentally, the supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war are slowly morphing into a convenient cover for continued price gouging. Yes and relative to our global counterparts, we also have a terrible public transportation system and serious issues with suburban sprawl that limit our options. I’m definitely not seeing how a gas tax holiday is going to help us much. Aren’t most gas taxes state and local, anyway? And the Federal Reserve seems dead set on raising interest rates to treat inflation like chemotherapy treats cancer. This is becoming a crisis of Biden’s own volition because he’d rather kowtow to corporate oligarchs rather than help ordinary Americans. I’d just go with windfall profit taxes at this point and play supply chain hardball with oil and gas, similarly to how JFK handled the steel industry or how Nixon enforced price/wage freezes for several months.

Perhaps that Friday melancholy is your conscience crying out to you? You can’t just dabble in Meatless Mondays and then go back to being an awful human being to animals for the rest of the week. Your omnivore diet is exhausting you, Leh-nerd. Physically. Nutritionally. Mentally. SPIRITUALLY. I’ll address your points as you sequentially made them. Your first paragraph: I suppose the key difference between us is that I don’t subscribe to your over-the-top negativity regarding battery/solar technology. I personally know many people in the materials science/engineering field and follow this subject closely. Progress within the past twenty years has been substantial and would be much greater with additional research funding and larger research efforts…a “Materials Manhattan Project,” if you will. You may also be overestimating how much we would need to rely on renewables in the future. I’m speaking solely in terms of technology here and ignoring political willpower factors, but I would center our mid-century national energy infrastructure around nuclear, solar, and EV’s. Currently, we are at about 80% fossil fuel usage and 20% renewables/nuclear. 30% of our energy goes to transportation needs, while the remaining 70% goes to electric power for industrial/residential/commercial needs. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to achieve the following energy breakdown in order to reach our 2050 net zero emissions goal: 45% nuclear, 20% EV, 15% solar, 10% legacy petroleum, 5% legacy natural gas, 5% other renewables wherever optimal (wind, geothermal, etc.), 0% coal…with carbon sequestration techniques to counter legacy oil/gas usage (including reforestation efforts and indirectly through meat/dairy consumption reductions…hopefully Leh-nerd Skin-erd is still reading this post?). And yes, this would imply a forced collapse of the U.S. natural gas revolution within the next three decades because they can’t control their methane leaks (not to mention the water/air pollution and artificial earthquakes). Addressing your last two paragraphs: An acknowledgment of the well-established science of anthropogenic climate change is automatically an acknowledgment of mankind’s ability to effect meaningful change to the climate, even if it’s too late to stave off some of the effects. The “there’s nothing we can do” crowd are as scientifically illiterate as they are nihilistic. “Saving the planet” obviously means preserving the planet for human habitability, not preserving the physical planet. Preserving ecosystems like old-growth forests and biodiversity like with megafauna are fundamental components to keeping civilization alive and thriving. Overpopulation is an enormous problem that should be talked about more openly. I have no idea what the optimal global population size might be: somewhere within the wide range of 10^8 and 10^10 humans, I assume. What I do know is that fertility and GDP per capita are inversely correlated (same with fertility and education levels) for countries. It may seem counterintuitive to some of my greenie Luddite friends, but I believe that broader industrialization and increased technological dependencies will end up improving the planet’s habitability conditions. I wasn’t trying to set up an ideological discussion of free markets versus central planning. The free market is a powerful engine for innovation, but it is also amoral and mostly driven by short-term profit interests. Public research funding and subsidies are essential components to a national energy plan. There are renewable energy jobs to create and international renewable energy markets to access, but free markets won’t necessarily lead to these solutions if we continue subsidizing fossil fuels like we do with the current transportation infrastructure set up as it is.