Thursday notes- pollution, Teslas, and oopsie
Little notes today.
You know all that funding we need to pay, the guilt we should suffer, in the cause of global warning? It’s all our damn fault here, ya bastards, and we need to CUT BACK to save the rest of the world. Etc, etc, etc (no similarity to Yul Brynner implied.) Well, a report by IQAir, a Swiss company that tracks pollution, shows the world’s most polluted cities. How many of ours made the list?
Uh, none. Not even close – there is not one in all of Europe or both Americas. What a shock.
The majority of these cities – 13 – are in the world’s most populous country, India, where booming economic growth is fired largely by coal and where hundreds of millions live in traffic-clogged and congested megacities.
Another four are in neighboring Pakistan, with one in China and Kazakhstan respectively.
The only city outside of Asia featured on the list is N’Djamena, the capital of Chad in central Africa – which was named the country with the worst air pollution.
The report by IQAir, a Swiss company that tracks global air quality, looked specifically at fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, one of the smallest but most dangerous pollutants.
PM2.5 comes from sources like the combustion of fossil fuels, dust storms and wildfires. It is so tiny – 1/20th of a width of a human hair – that it can travel past your body’s usual defenses into your lungs or bloodstream. CNN
So much for the US being the big bad wolf.
What do we have going for us? Here’s a shocker… in the world of renewable resources, we all know California leads the way (because they tell us so, right) and Texas is the evil oil-spewing monster, right? Get rid of the Lone Star State and the rest of the country can breathe easier. Except…
As the saying goes, everything’s bigger in Texas.
Among other things, this phrase applies to the state’s enthusiasm for renewable energy, as new data shows it has almost 80% more solar, wind, and battery capacity combined than the next-closest state, California.
According to the latest statistics, tabulated at the end of 2024, the Lone Star State claims 42,000 megawatts of wind power, 22,000 MW of solar farms, and 6,500 MW of battery capacity. Since there was no battery storage in the entire state as recently as 2014, this is incredibly rapid growth and an exciting development. The Cool Down
Yeah, suck THAT up, Newsom.
Me, I don’t care – I flip the light switch and light comes on, I’m happy.
Wind and solar farms are still only generating about 30% of the state’s electricity, but the second-largest state in the union’s using this much clean energy and increasing its electric car business by almost 4,000% in the last decade is a positive sign for sustainability.
Per their data, at least 75% of Texas counties are receiving revenue from renewables production and battery storage, and these projects will pay billions of dollars in state taxes over their lifespans. The Cool Down
And Lord, how they love to eat their young…environment-saving genius Tesla is catching the heat for MAGA CEO Musk – violently. Musk lost a boatload of money in the recent market down dip, but people are violently hitting the Tesla empire, too.
Tesla car dealerships across the US have been attacked with guns and Molotov cocktails over Elon Musk’s perceived overreach in government.
Police arrested several protesters on Saturday night who had gathered outside Tesla’s showroom in New York.
Video showed police dragging one demonstrator from the showroom.
In February, a man fired an AR-style semi-automatic at a Tesla store in Salem, Oregon. A few weeks earlier he attacked the same dealership with Molotov cocktails, according to investigators, causing an estimated $500,000 in damage.
Molotov cocktail attack and he is out on bail? Excuse me?
Last but not least – the chief spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management – the folks who actually do all the recent firing, the ones who want you employees to justify your jobs and prove that you’re not screwing off all day AND YOU KNOW WHO I MEAN YOU YA LAZY….yeah, the spokeswoman for them – has been filming INFLUENCER videos from offices in OPM.
In at least a dozen videos filmed in her OPM office, political appointee McLaurine Pinover modeled her outfit choices for the day, while directing followers from her Instagram account to a website that could earn her commissions on clothing sales.
The videos were filmed inside the office of the OPM communications director on the fifth floor of the agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters, according to three former OPM staffers. The office is across the hall from a secure annex that has become a hub for workers at the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting effort pushed by Trump ally Elon Musk. CNN
“See my pretty dress? And you can buy it for only a coupla hundred buckadingdongs* from XYZ website (which gives me a commission on the deal” – that’s the kind of videos. They do not need to be filmed by employees on the clock on government property.
Me, I am thinking if OPM wants an ounce of cred – she needs to be shown the door, right now. Today, by close of business.
- bonus points if anyone can identify the sci-fi novel that word comes from
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Global Warming, Government Incompetence, None
Arthur C Clark Superiority???
I can understand India, but I’m surprised that more cities in China aren’t on that uber-pollution list. “One in China”. Bet’cha it’s Beijing.
The enviro-communists have a long history of avoiding singling out China as a polluter.
Check out the Chinese fishing industry and plastics in the Pacific.
I laughed all the time at idiots buying Teslas and other cars: one, the footprint they monstrosities leave to manufacture the battery and B, east Asia is FAR WORSE than the US when it comes to pollution. Fixing the US isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to India.
Anybody that has heard me preach on the economics of shore based wind power knows why the US is second in the world and Texas, by itself, produces more electricity than practically every other country in the world. Drive through West Texas these days and and you will see more windmills than cows or people.
Ugly damned things but it can be amusing to try and count how many of them are not working.
On the bail and fire bombing we still have presumption of innocence and habeas corpus in the US so out the door he goes.
Only to dissappear like a fart in the wind.
When I was a kid most houses on my street were coal fired
baseboard HW heat with a coal bin in the basement and a
“delivery chute” on the outside wall.
I don’t care how you heat it but hot water baseboard heat is
rivaled only by electric baseboaard heat if you can get good
electric rates. But hey, electricity comes best from coal fired
boilers driving steam turbines because oil is bad and nuke
plants are worse and now we have Trump to blame.
Can’t burn wood because (fill in the blank) and NG is too
dangerous to the economy or the whales or (fill in the blank).
Different varieties of coal have different smells and generate different thermal capacity but they do make HEAT.
My father was in the oil biz and we lived in many different places to include a period in the late 50s near Pittsburgh, PA. J&L Steel was operating and area along the Ohio river, at least from Ambridge to Pittsburgh was a bit dirty. The amount of precipitate in the air became obvious when there was fresh snow… and there was a LOT of snow in that area.
As you well noted, seemingly every home had coal chute, in those days.
Used to be everyone rode a horse too. One of the things people were most thankful for when the auto took over?
Less pollution. Yep, people were really tired of stepping on horse shit everywhere and smelling it too.
Can’t say with certainty but I kind’a remember shooting a road sign with something, a long, long time ago.
What, cow farts are not the blame for all of the pollution? Damn, who knew?
Iffen all the Commiefonians moving to Texas have their way, Texas WILL become…Commiefornia.
Tesla dealers better hire themselves some “Roof Top Koreans”.
Damn, Ms Thang…you were hired to put a stop to all the dtupidity. Get with the program or get out the door.
At $475 a pop for purple skirts she only has to sell… Let’s see … divide by zero and carry the three…. 77 Billion skirts and we will be in the clear on this whole national debt thing, less cost of course.