Today our Supreme Court decided that corporations have more free speech than the rest of us. That’s because they have a lot more money than us. By a 5 to 4 vote, the court lifted long-standing limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, opening the door for private entities to flood the political marketplace with corporate money. Corporations can now donate unlimited amounts of money to candidates for political office in creative ways; like attack ads, movies, TV infomercials and “documentaries”, for instance. Corporate money is now protected “free speech”, so our politicians will now be bought and paid for by fossil fuel companies, among others.
The Court’s decision has made it twice as hard to pass meaningful global warming legislation, unless politicians or think tanks can find a way to maximize profits from something that is basically just the right thing to do. They can’t even sell corporation-friendly “cap and trade”. Approaches (other than pleas to do what’s necessary to save life on earth) have been tried to drum up some enthusiasm for renewable energy — some in Washington have tried to push “green energy” as a job provider, for instance. But support among politicians to stop climate change is vague and it’s not a priority. Saving life on earth can wait. Unemployment is still over 10% in the U.S. while people are still talking about these elusive “green jobs”.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a ton of money to be made in wind and solar power, so there will probably never be big corporate support for it. Think of getting 20% or more of our energy from wind power and how many jobs it would create if our government could commit to something like that. If they did, it could stimulate jobs in building transmission lines as well as the actual wind turbines. But then, corporations would find a way to patent or own the wind so they could profit from it. And given what happened today, the Supreme Court would probably rule that the wind can indeed be patented by GE, or maybe Shell or Exxon. In America, corporations rule.
From e360: Wind energy could provide 20 percent of the electricity for the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but only if the nation makes a significant financial investment, according to new government report. About $90 billion would be required to install a network of land- and sea-based wind turbines and about 22,000 miles of new power lines, according to the study published by U.S. Energy Department.
Read the study overview
National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The report said that the government would have to provide a significant portion of that investment through programs such as loan guarantees. “We can bring more wind power online, but if we don’t have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it’s like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,” said David Corbus, project manager for the study. To reach [...]
Got Travel Everything you need to plan your trip is at Essentravel.com. If you don't know where you'd like to go look at our Destination Guides for countries and cities that catch your eye. Get a general overview of foods cultures and languages. Learn how to get around. Read practical information on entry requirements visas and safety...comments reviews complaints aurora hotels essentrav
Got Travel Everything you need to plan your trip is at Essentravel.com. If you don't know where you'd like to go look at our Destination Guides for countries and cities that catch your eye. Get a general overview of foods cultures and languages. Learn how to get around. Read practical information on entry requirements visas and safety...comments reviews complaints aurora hotels essentrav
Sabbatical director for week 1 John Murray had me at work on the Tues after arrival in Bangkok. Joined Serge a Maryknoll volunteer from Haiti teaching an English class to Buddhist monks who have come out of Myanmar. They had some v interesting stories as they are from the Shan hilltribe ethnic minority who have escaped into Thailand. Teaching them English is one of the ways forward for them. One
Well this is my first blog entry ever I hope that I will be willing and able to update it as much as possible during my upcoming trip through the Middle East to Central Europe. I also hope everyone enjoys living vicariously through my blog.CheersJoe
Well the time has finally come A nice half 5 start tomorrow morning and unlikely to sleep very well tonight. Excitement is at 'Rollercoaster' level and worryfear is at 'absolutely cacking my pants' level but we'll get through it Next stop Mexico City
We boarded the plain from Newark and luckily are flying business class. I empathized with all the suckers flying in coach but not enough to give up my seat. The flight was a little over 14 hours and to be honest I was dreading it a little bit. I was armed to the teeth with gadetry to occupy my boredom like magazines books HP movies Star Wars movies cards MP3 player work stuff etc. but wh
Well its been quite the busy week here in Santiago hence the fact that I havenrsquot had the chance to write to you all. In addition it seems now I only have one week left in Santiago and this makes me very sad. I have really enjoyed getting to know the city and I am very jealous of the other students who will stay here until June. But back to today.Last week was the final week of our inten
Saturday 16.1.210 day 94Spain Salou Cosra DauradaWe had a good sleep in and then headed to the Roman part of Tarragona. There was settlement in the region by the 5th century BC the Romans up a military base in 218 BC and over the next 200 years the entire Iberian Peninsula was conquered from this base. In the 2nd century BC a great wall was built around the city. The wall was original 3500 met
Sunday 17.1.210 day 95Salou beachWe slept in today and then we had to sort out some problems with our unit is had not been cleaned properly before we moved in and there was a few things that where broken that needed fixing like we could not lock the door to our balcony. After we got most of it sorted we then went out for a walk along the beach. The Mediterranean is very blue and Salou has fantasti
Monday 18.1.210 day 96CambrilsToday we decided to go to what we had been told by our resort was a little fishing village close to our hotel. We drove though the village but it seemed more like a tourist destination about 10 of the ships in the harbor where fishing boats the others where luxury sports boats and game fishing boats. The place was full of 4 and 3 star hotels and the beach front was
Tuesday 19.1.210 day 97TarragonaWe went back to Tarragona again and got a Tarragona pass that got us into a lot of the Roman sites for free it was 10euro each but was not worth it the main site I wanted to see was the Roman Circus it was fantastic and very well preserved it cost 3euro to see that and the other sites we got in was the wall but there was a lot of wall you could see without payin
ich bin heut extra nach der arbeit zur tower bridge gefahren damit ich mir anschauen kann wie sich die beiden teile heben und a schiff durchfhrt. die liftzeiten sind auf der homepage angegeben weils nur ca 1mal die woche oder so passiert.es is eh nur so ein kleines touristenbooterl unten durchgfahren aber es war cool zum anschauen. des ganze spektakel mit auf und wieder zumachen is in ca
Hello allI hope you are doing well and enjoying the snow..........We have spent the last few days in Paraty a colonial town a few hundred kilometres down the coast from Rio de Janeiro took about 5 hours to drive there. We are now with our tour group which consists of Joaquin our guide Alice our friend we met at the airport from near Leicester shes now sharing with Caryl I Ruud from
Finally we were thereI'm an avid wildlife viewer so i couldn't wait to arrive. I heard and read so much good things about Costa Rica.We stayed at Ciudad Quesada where a family of friends live there since a couple of months.Because we had to come back to home almost most of the times we limited the visits to Northwest of Costa Rica except the time we stayed on a beach in Nicoya.Here's a small
Our trip to Google was met with excitement from the group. Even the lobby was colorful and funWe visited with Daniel Helft Senior Manager for Product Communications and he played a brief presentation that explained the history of Google. In operation for a decade and a half Google has made startling progress as a company becoming the most used search engine in the world. Google Argentina has
Puerto Limon Costa Rica and the Panama CanalFrom Isla de Providencia we sailed to Puerto Limon Costa Rica. The day was sunny and quite warm but not unbearable. We took a tour of two banana plantations. The first was Del Monte. We were able to walk around among the trees or rather plants and see up close how bananas grow. Each plant produces only one bunch of fruit and then it dies but n
Sorry it's taken me so long to post again. I tried to do add an entry yesterday in the computer lab at school and I typed it out and saved it and everything or so I thought...because I came back and there was still only one entry. So take two. Today was the last day of my second week of class but I'll start from last Thursday to make the entry as long and boring as the other one You're welcome
