Tag: Environment
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There’s (solar) gold in them thar hills!
If you own a gold mine, it’s a pretty good investment until of course the gold veins run dry. But there’s a kind of mine that never runs out: solar gold, you might say. I’ve already gotten a share of this solar gold. For three years, we’ve had 20 solar panels on our roof. According…
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Dialing it to 12 with a new asbestos use proposal
It’s not hard to feel daily outrage at the Trump Administration. Doubtless it will be remembered as the worst administration in US history. The only part I am looking forward to (aside from the day Trump leaves office) are the many memoirs that will document the inside story. I strongly suspect that however much I…
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Trump’s Paris Climate Agreement decision is unlikely to stand
Yep, President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement was reckless, stupid and deeply counterproductive, both to our country and to the planet. Bear in mind that until yesterday the only countries that hadn’t signed the accord were Syria and Nicaragua, and Nicaragua refused to sign because it didn’t…
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Solar absorption
Two months after starting our solar project, our solar panels are online and producing clean and free energy. Installation day (June 16) was a big deal for us. It certainly was for our cat Cinnamon who was freaked out by all the noise and strange people inside our house and quickly ran under our bed…
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Getting solar panels for your house is (usually) a no-brainer
I recently wrote about my father’s death in February and my thoughts on what to do with his inheritance. On the latter, I opined I might just give it away. It didn’t seem like something I needed to worry about, as we saw a copy of his will. It left everything to my stepmother, provided…
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Don’t be the roadkill on the global climate change super highway
Most Americans are comfortably in denial about global climate change. In some places, like in the Florida state government, saying the phrases global warming or global climate change may get you in trouble. Governor Tim Scott doesn’t believe it’s happening and doesn’t want to hear his minions utter these naughty words. His overwhelmingly Republican legislature…
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If you care about the environment, choose your realtor with care
The Koch Brothers have been much in the news lately, at least if you follow political news. The two brothers own Koch Industries, which itself is a holding company for a lot of other companies it owns. The brothers are Charles and David Koch, but Koch Industries was actually built up by their father Fred,…
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Cruising into denial
The good news is that our cruise was perfectly timed. We missed a second massive polar vortex by escaping to the Caribbean via a cruise ship. Moreover, we did not spend it vomiting by catching the Norovirus, unlike the unlucky passengers of the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas and the Caribbean Princess. Despite these…
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Bitcoin is libertarian bit nonsense
Are you intrigued by Bitcoin? It’s a digital currency much in the news these days. It even got a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. Surprisingly the foundation overseeing Bitcoin came out relatively unscathed. Some places are accepting Bitcoins as payment for actual goods and services. They do so on the assumption the currency has…
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Not quite the end of the world as we know it
Sigh. Today was another day when the world was supposed to end, but here I am still alive and frankly feeling rather disappointed. Granted that most end of the world scenarios are bleak. Fire, brimstone, wailing and gnashing of teeth are all usually assumed at the end of the world. In some scenarios the elect…