Captain Obvious

I fully understand why we are all now concerned about the future of our civilization and the planet.  That is refreshing, even if it is insincere in my opinion.  But, the more important and immediate question is when does business do more harm than good by being in business?  How do we solve international business existential problems: businesses that are profitable but not in the best interest of the planet?

It is pretty easy to criticize extractive businesses like mining that are unsustainable and are simply raping the planet.  Many of these put local poor people, especially children, in harms way as their desperate plight exposes them to unsafe and hazardous conditions.  You have heard me talk about EVs being the blood diamonds of this decade for this reason.

But there seems to be a more subtle and insidious practice of cultivating land for cash crops, and in doing so, opens up a whole new raft of corruption and abuse, no less environmental impacts.  Little did I know that avocados are creating the same situation in Mexico that the world decries with the destruction of the Amazon due to raising beef.  Take a closer look at the damage in Mexico here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/us/mexico-avocado-deforestation.html?searchResultPosition=2

We see countless rallies about carbon dioxide emissions, but the simple fact that China rapes the oceans to feed their masses and drives food stocks into extinction is well known but I never hear about it in our news press coverage of our relationship to China.  Why is AI, Taiwan, and industrial espionage take the spotlight, while the exploitation of the world’s food supply goes unnoticed?

Yes, of course there are lots of issues that need more consideration, but destroying the food stock of the planet seems to me to certainly deserve being in the list.  You do remember when China had a one child policy because they themselves realized that policy was not working.

This situation in Mexico is a litmus test for whether we can work together to solve these problems.  The article in the NY Times brings it into the light of day, but can we bring this to a logical conclusion?

Hopefully, we will learn more and act rather than just turn a blind eye to one more area of neglect.

Yep, we now have a new word to describe the damage companies and governments have on the environment. The European Union just passed a law that criminalizes some of the most serious forms of environmental damage. Although the text of the law does not use the word “ecocide,” its preamble says that it intends to criminalize “cases comparable to ecocide.” The law is part of a growing global movement to formally ban polluting companies from harming our planet.

Now, before you go into a tizzy celebrating what could have been a major shift in environmental thinking, let’s consider the reality of any “cide” label. Let’s start with genocide. Has the world stopped any form of this abuse just because it declares it illegal? Do I need to rattle off all the recent cases of countries who are killing people en masse just because they deem them undesirable?

And let’s think about how the Chinese are destroying the fish populations all around the globe in their attempt to feed a nation. Tell me that you believe this new law will matter?

I do expect this term will gain traction because it is a good description of our situations, but unfortunately, I also believe it is simply one more label we can use to shorten our conversations. It is a great soundbite.

We need dialogue and sobering considerations about where we all are going on this journey. Perhaps that is the true key to it all: realizing we are all in this together whether we like it or not. We really do have only one planet earth, and we are extracting the elements of sustainable life here at a rate that is already unsustainable and will be even more difficult as the population of the planet increases.

Labels do little to promote this kind of thinking. They just seem to polarize us further.

This dates me, but one of my favorite TV shows growing up was the Lone Ranger.  After resolving an episode’s plot, he would leave behind his trademark silver bullet.

Wikipedia defines the silver bullet in folklore as one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. The term “silver bullet” is also a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem: for example, penicillin circa 1930 was a “silver bullet” allowing doctors to treat and successfully cure many bacterial infections.

My reason for this blog is to highlight that all too many of the ideas being talked about today to achieve a sustainable energy future are metaphorically silver bullets.  They won’t work.  Most of them will fail because they don’t work in the first place, are not economical, and/or will not scale to address the problem at hand.  They may be nice hobby-like activities such as composting, or work when labor and/or raw materials are low cost, but they are not candidates for serious consideration at the scale required to make a difference.

It amuses me to see the trade press pick up on these ideas and proclaim them excitedly when the engineering under the hood is missing or frankly refutes the claimed benefits.  The media is so uninformed about energy technology that they proclaim benefits and impacts without checking them.

Worse yet, once one media outlet proclaims something, they all seem to pounce on the idea as if it were the answer to the world’s problems.  Headlines suggest this or that will be the death of the internal combustion engine or produce essentially unlimited energy with no adverse side effects.

Do you remember the phrase “trust but verify.” It is a Russian proverb. It was used often in the text of nuclear disarmament during the Cold War era by Ronald Reagan meaning the United States can trust the Soviet Union, but they need to do more than trust to make sure they won’t betray the United States.

Betrayal.  Yep, that’s what the media are really doing these days: they are betraying us.

All this stands in stark contrast to the time when I was a young professional and all ideas were peer reviewed.  Experiments done by one researcher had to be replicable by others.  Conferences on topics were more about verification and rigor than fundraising pitch decks.

So, when you read the headlines about how all our energy problems are solved with green hydrogen, fuel cells, EVs, photovoltaics, and wind, think critically about the source and realities of that happening.

I seem to remember our nation’s sad history here when black slaves were not equal to whites. The United States Constitution’s infamous “Three-Fifths Clause” dictated that for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives African-American slaves were to be counted as less than full persons.

The recent hostage trades in the Middle East have made me wonder why nobody … and I mean nobody other than my wife … has pointed out the obvious disparity between the value of a prisoner of one side to the other. It kind of makes the racial value bias in our country seem trivial.

Go ahead and try to find out why one Hamas prisoner is worth about three of Israel’s in the news or in our national conversations even at universities?  Nada. Nothing. Worse yet, those in the Israeli jails are terrorists … not everyday citizens including children and the elderly. So, we are seeing trades at 3 to 1 of terrorists for innocent non-combatant civilians?

Yet look at the protests in the streets almost everywhere and you see the size of the protests are almost in the same proportion. Gee. It seems to me that the record shows Hamas attacked Israel and killed civilians en masse.

Yes, I know the situation is complex and there are so many underlying reasons for this mutual hatred and distrust. Yes, I know that radicals on both sides fail to appreciate the attempts of the larger centrist thinkers as they attempted to find a peaceful answer.

But, to me at least, the world is speaking with an even louder voice with their failure to see this hostage imbalance. It reeks of antisemitism in my opinion. There is no other way to explain it. Simply said, Jews are worth a lot less than others, especially their Arab neighbors.

Why the silence? Is this secretly some form of reparations? Why are college campuses aflame with rage when a Jewish professor tries to explain what is happening over there?  Yet this obvious imbalance is ignored.

Just askin … and I would like your opinion as well … if you even care.

I seem to remember our nation’s sad history here when black slaves were not equal to whites. The United States Constitution’s infamous “Three-Fifths Clause” dictated that for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives African-American slaves were to be counted as less than full persons.

The recent hostage trades in the Middle East have made me wonder why nobody … and I mean nobody other than my wife … has pointed out the obvious disparity between the value of a prisoner of one side to the other. It kind of makes the racial value bias in our country seem trivial.

Go ahead and try to find out why one Hamas prisoner is worth about three of Israel’s in the news or in our national conversations even at universities?  Nada. Nothing. Worse yet, those in the Israeli jails are terrorists … not everyday citizens including children and the elderly. So, we are seeing trades at 3 to 1 of terrorists for innocent non-combatant civilians?

Yet look at the protests in the streets almost everywhere and you see the size of the protests are almost in the same proportion. Gee. It seems to me that the record shows Hamas attacked Israel and killed civilians en masse.

Yes, I know the situation is complex and there are so many underlying reasons for this mutual hatred and distrust. Yes, I know that radicals on both sides fail to appreciate the attempts of the larger centrist thinkers as they attempted to find a peaceful answer.

But, to me at least, the world is speaking with an even louder voice with their failure to see this hostage imbalance. It reeks of antisemitism in my opinion. There is no other way to explain it. Simply said, Jews are worth a lot less than others, especially their Arab neighbors.

Why the silence? Is this secretly some form of reparations? Why are college campuses aflame with rage when a Jewish professor tries to explain what is happening over there?  Yet this obvious imbalance is ignored.

Just askin … and I would like your opinion as well … if you even care.