The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    SPITE & THE ENVIRONMENT

    By Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 4:59pm |

    When Ronald Reagan first arrived at the White House, he removed the solar cells from the roof of his new home that had just been installed by Jimmy Carter.

    WHY?

    Out of spite or was it due to the lobbyists who were afraid of this new technology OR was it due to energy lobbyists?

     

    When Steven King first arrived at his new Congressional office, he promptly removed all 
    of the newly added electronic wiring that allowed for the new light bulbs that shall onetime change our lighting engineering needs forever AND  add to his single office's energy bill (besides costing thousands of tax dollars)

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/2/12/1063342/-Rep-Steve-King-and-the-scary-lightbulbs-of-scary-doom


    Trump took on the entire Scottish people when they denied the donald his demand that all windpower mechanisms be removed because he felt that the wind mechanisms wrecked his fantasy of golfdom.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/8/1429240/-Trump-Takes-Fight-Against-Wind-Farm-to-UK-Supreme-Court

    There are many examples of this type of environmental vandalism taking place every day in AMERICA.

    If Reagan had decided otherwise, the American Taxpayer would have saved money. Maybe ten thousand or A HUNDRED thousand dollars since the situation was finally corrected by President Obama.

    If King had decided otherwise, his office would have saved taxpayers' money.

    If the Scotts had decided otherwise, the Scotts would have lost monies.

    Here is one hard-to-read essay on this matter:

    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Renewable_energy_statistics

    Here is another set of graphs:http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Renewable_energy_statistics

    Even the Saudis are looking for non oil energy sources:

    http://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/05/saudi-arabia-may-become-the-saudi-arabia-of-solar/

    Forget all the politics for one minute (as if everything at issue is not politics) even the Saudis are looking for alternative ENERGY SOURCES, so they do not have to dig into their own oil resources.
    hahahahahaha

    The good US OF A has investors who see the value of alternative energy sources:
    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/14/3701210/third-american-city-...

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/14/3701210/third-american-city-renewable-energy/

    The world has changed.

    And the conservatives are pissed off because they see that if they do not change; they will lose sure money and sure tax credits and....

    THE TIMES ARE A CHANGIN (I HOPE)

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    Out of spite or was it due to the lobbyists who were afraid of this new technology OR was it due to energy lobbyists?

    It wasn't because Carter kept climbing up there to fix them?


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 5:41pm

    Well Mike, it was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it!

    I mean pigeon droppings alone?

    hahahahahahahahahah


    by Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 5:45pm

    One minor correction, those panels on the WH were solar water heaters not PV cells.

    An interesting factoid is that one of those panels is in the museum owned by the largest solar PV producer in China, he claims they inspired him to get into the solar business.


    by Peter (not verified) on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 7:32pm

    This is ALL RIGHT!

    Thank you for this!

    I mean it.

    It is just: why in the hell would Ronnie refuse to see the future?

    I will research more!

    INTERESTING!


    by Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 7:40pm

    What always puzzles/amazes/discourages/enrages me is that a majority of Americans found Reagan's destructive stunts endearing.  Trump, Cruz, Carson, and Fiorina are all campaigning to see who can be most mean-spirited, dishonest, and ignorant.  The winner will likely be the winner.  Anybody got any solutions?

    Thanks Richard.  Good post as usual.


    by HSG on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 7:43pm

    HAL, you make my day!

    Thank you.

    Lately the 'holidays' are bringing me down.

    The winner will likely be the winner?

    I hereby render unto HAL, the Day Line of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of HAL, from all of me. Ha!


    by Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 7:56pm

    Richard - among the many here who criticize me, your support (and Wattree's) brings to mind two distinct recollections:

    1) A few months after I first began broadcasting in 2006, I told a veteran radio host of my surprise and delight at already having listeners and callers.  He responded that no matter what market you're in and how miniscule your ratings, somebody somewhere will listen to you. 

    2) Even longer ago, I was listening to Howard Stern's broadcast of a beauty contest between the guys - Howard, Jackie, Fred, and Gary "Ba Ba Booie" Dellabotte.  The judges were gay men who were instructed to select as winner the one to whom they were most attracted.  After Howard came in last, he asked one of the judges why he lost.  The judge responded that everybody is sexy to somebody.  Howard's reply: "So you're saying if I got a thousand gay guys in here, one of them would think I was good looking."


    by HSG on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 12:23pm

    The Carter story is interesting with all it's twists and turns and how the future played out. Carter's main worry was our reliance on foreign oil from nations that hated us or at least had different priorities. His focus was three pronged, renewables, nuclear, and coal. If successful we could have avoided some destructive wars. I supported his initiative at the time but even as an environmentalist I had to admit that renewables just couldn't replace fossil fuels though I did hope Carter's plans for increased investment in research could produce better renewable alternatives.

    Had we gone down the path he proposed and massively increased coal power generation we'd be worse off today. CO2 pollution wasn't seen as the problem it has come to be. Yet solar and wind has improved to the point  that it's nearly at grid parity with fossil fuels. And perhaps good funding of research could have produced  beakthroughs in geothermal or other alternatives. Hard to say what would have happened if we had followed Carter's plan.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 9:09pm

    Hindsight is 20/20 for a reason ... and that's the hardest thing those who want to change the status quo face: you can't prove the future. You can't promise perfection or guarantee success without the possibility of failure. Things can be made horribly worse ... or miraculously better. It's simply heroic to reach into the ether and hope.


    by barefooted on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 9:33pm

    Missy, the more I look, the more I think Ocean has a point here.

    I recall when 'the hope' was that coal would save us all.

    And yet I recall the horrors of smog, the type of smog that we experienced in California as well as iin Minneapolis!

    Let us now reach heroically into the ether or the hope.

    We know what we know now.

    And the repubs are seriously wrong NOW!


    by Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 9:53pm

    Ocean does indeed have a good point, an important one, with which I agree. As he says, Carter's opinions about coal weren't shown to be good ones when more information was available, but his pushes otherwise were certainly prescient at the time. That's the challenge leaders face: you work with what you know.


    by barefooted on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 10:18pm

    Silly Jimmy - he didn't realize that pitting 2 oil producers against each other in a blood 10-year war, along with occupying one of them afterwards, was a much more sustainable future than digging coal out of the ground and breathing it.

    What was he smoking, damn peanut farmer. Real men don't dig - they drill and shoot.

    Sending all our pollution to China was another stroke of genius - guess he was too caught up in post-Vietname syndrome to realize they could all be working for us.

    [to be fair, he & Zbiggy were a bit more focused on defeating the huge $600 billion a year Soviet army, rather than pissing their pants over a few Mujaheddin. Real men put their junk in nuke silos and stare down tank turrets, not toss about roadside IUDs hoping someone will run over them]


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:12am

    I missed this, but not by much....

    hahahahahahahaha

    Jimmy never smoked much, not like me anyway; I mean 90 is not an age that many reach--without good health care anyway.

    Thank the Good Lord, China found its own smog all on its own. hahahahahah

    Some of our citizens can breath easy in LA; as long as we keep our hands up and anger down!


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:18am

    I used to drive to South LA, and the sky would turn yellow around Irvine. China fixed that not God. Okay, maybe Cheech and Chong helped.

    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:38pm

    down!

     

     

     


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:20am

    This comment is also interesting.

    I have attempted to find sources for this claim.

    But Ocean, You may be more than right,

    Of course Reagan had nothing to do with a new 'model'.

    Ronnie just paid back his lobbyist/payors,.

    No sweaters; no problem! hahhhahahah

    At any rate we are in a new era,

    Thank the Good Lord.

    Here is my old plea anyway, with dem or repub colors:


    by Richard Day on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 9:35pm

     

    Look at it this way, DD, if it wasn't for America falling in love with Coal, we'd be up to our asses in harpoon chucking whale-killers.   America would be on the Whale Standard.  Whales would have been brought to the mid-West in huge tanks and raised on Whale farms in order to keep America supplied with blubber.   The Great lakes would have been salted and turned into whale hatcheries.   But it wouldn't have been enough.  America's ever increasing dependency on whale oil to run the factories and power the railroads would have wiped out the humpbacks long before Star Trek IV could get around to saving them.   So ... Coal saved the whales.  Just as solar panels will now save us from running out of coal for the Christmas stockings of bad little children.  Time marches on.  Progress skips ahead.  ;)


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 12:49am

    hahahahahahahahahahhaha

    WONDERFUL!

    But Carter screwed up and I forgot.

    BUT THE MAN TRIED.

    HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

    Whale oil in your stocking (assuming the stocking was properly prepared) would have been useful.;

    WHAT WAS THE QUESTION AGAIN?

    Oh Mr. Smith I keep running into this old song; I was going to use it for the repubs but it is a bit passe. hahahahahahah

     


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:06am

    More passe than one might imagine, DD.  When I first heard it, I had no idea how old a song it was.   I thought it was written by Eric Burden and the Animals.   There are some memorable versions down through the years ... This one is the earliest I could find:

     

    Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers did a woman's version of the song, which I like a lot, but this one, sung by torch singer. Libby Holman is probably my favorite.



    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:58pm

    Thank you Mr, Smith.

    I knew there was a history to this paen.

    I recall an old Black (or in those days 'Negro') rendition.

    These are just fine.

    Again, thank you for these two renditions!


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:18pm

    The story i recall was that Ronnie or more probably Nancy  didn't like the appearance, too Hippie, of the panels on the WH roof and it had little to do with rejecting the technology.

    Carter on the other hand had them installed to impress and fool  the environmentalists while he was  really a Nuke man with a coal fixation.

    Neither of these men's policies had much if any actual effect on the development of solar power. Solar power is viable now because its components aren't made in the US but mostly in China with very cheap labor and the economy of scale and lots of coal to power the process, some of which is imported from the US.

    If you have seen the recent pictures of Beijing, where you can cut the air pollution with a knife, you see what is required to build our Clean Green future. Along with exporting our industrial jobs we have exported the pollution so we can over-consume without guilt


    by Peter (not verified) on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 12:48pm

    Your cynical answer may be satisfying and even accurate (although I disagree with your claim that solar is only viable due to ultra-cheap Chinese labor) but it lacks a proposed solution.  What course do you recommend?


    by HSG on Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:13pm

    There is no technological solution to a crisis created by the use of industrial technology and the real cynics are those who sell this Big Green snake oil knowing that fact but expecting to benefit from the new industrial scale profit bonanza.

    There is no way to stop GW with our present and ever growing  gluttony of energy and materials along with almost universal rejection of the one idea that might slow GW, massive reduction of consumption of energy, mostly by the West. All the alternatives already built and what is to be built in the next few decades may only supply enough power to cover the growth in demand for new power above what we already use. Solar and wind power are certainly cleaner and greener than conventional sources of power in the long run but will require huge co2 emissions to build along with massive ecological disruption to mine and manufacture.

    If we could dramatically reduce our consumption (wishful thinking) then solar and wind could be a practical, but not environmentally cost free, replacement for coal, Nuke and gas power generation and eventually electric powered transportation, also not environmentally cost free.


    by Peter (not verified) on Wed, 12/16/2015 - 7:15pm