Category Archives: climate change
G7 American Allies Battle
There was discord during the buildup to the G7 meetings of rich nations in Quebec. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau was insulted because he thinks Trump considers Canada to be a security threat.
But President Trump did say he had to hit American allies with high tariffs for national security reasons.
G7 American Allies
Then on Thursday, which happened to be the D-Day anniversary, French President Macron took a shot at Trump saying, “No leader is forever.” He also said, “the six G7 countries without the U.S. are bigger than the American market.”
The next day Trump waded into the meetings insisting that Russia be included.
War on Coal
Trump ended Obama’s war on coal, as promised. Come to think of it, I don’t know why Obama declared the war in the first place. Or why Hillary signed on for it. The natural gas industry went to war against coal for them. Gas is cheap, clean, and – despite President Obama’s efforts – plentiful.
So, looks like a rout.
Tesla Autopilot Crashes
I got to drive a Tesla once. It was cool. Like driving one of the HO slot cars I had as a kid.
But I think I’d be queasy about letting the car drive itself. There are those who say it’s a great innovation. Like speed control on steroids. But the car can kill.
Tesla Autopilot Crashes
The WSJ reports Tesla is being investigated by the SEC for not informing shareholders of a fatal crash involving its autopilot system.
Update:
Daily Beast says Tesla is misleading about autopilot safety. If you don’t brake it’s your fault because your weren’t paying attention. If you do brake it’s your fault because you were driving.
Holman Jenkins says the autopilot feature has been around since 1995. It’s basically cruise control and the driver still has to pay attention.
Coal Country Candidate
Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary 51.4% to 35.8%.
Before the primary an unemployed coal miner confronted Hillary for acknowledging that her policies would put a lot of coal miners out of work. She claimed that her remarks were taken out of context. Here are her remarks in context from Politifact:
So for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
Aside from EPA mandates, coal is being displaced by a cheaper and cleaner fuel – natural gas produced by fracking.
Pope Prop
In the heat of the New York Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders hopped on a charter Boing 767-300 and burned a carbon footprint to the Vatican.
The Week has a good account of Sanders’ “awkward” campaign detour.
He claimed he was invited by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to give a speech on morality in the world economy. The president of that group, Margaret Archer, says, “Sanders invited himself.”
A Vatican spokesman said Sanders would not meet the pope. But meet he did.
Bernie managed to bump into the Holy Father’s as he was leaving for Greece. He gushed:
“It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him. I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history.”
Here’s the pope’s description of the encounter:
“This morning when I was leaving, Sen. Sanders was there, he had come to the convention,” the pope said. “He knew I was leaving at that time and he had the courtesy to greet me. I greeted him, his wife, and another couple who were there and were sleeping in Santa Martha,” the hostel where Francis also lives. “When I came down, I greeted him, I shook his hand, and nothing more. This is called good manners and it is not getting involved in politics…. If anyone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that he look for a psychiatrist.”
