News & Articles

Pissing away billions

One more example of profits driving policy; Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin all fund the Center For Strategic & International Studies which support a military response in Ukraine. What a surprise! The heads of military contractors have been boasting that worsening conflict in the Ukraine will be boosting their profits. The Brown University study puts the cost of the Afghan War at 2.3 trillion dollars which has ended as a humanitarian disaster for the Afghan people. Now again, the American corporate news media is performing as a unified front in a  propaganda campaign with panicked stories of Russian aggression. What does this reveal about this country’s priorities and foreign policy? Seemingly this country can’t go more than six months before it has to piss away billions on another militaristic misadventure.

Rick Kurki
Ashland Township, Wisconsin

Responding to response

Bryce Makela of Duluth is not correct when assuming that the Charity “Water For Life,” is primarily a green energy organization. Here is what the  website says: “Water For Life’s mission is to help communities in need to develop safe and sustainable water sources. By combining formal instruction with hands-on training, we teach people how to construct and maintain their own local water resources.”

So, this charity is not specifically designed to promote green energy, but rather, to help communities around the world gain access to clean water.

From word one Makela mischaracterizes the “Water for Life” Concert as being designed to satisfy the magical thinking of starry eyed optimists.

In reality it’s Makela who engages in unrealistic thinking by expecting a crowd of supposed pie eyed hippies to arrive only on their bicycles. First of all, I doubt that all the people attending that concert were young or gullible. Water for Life is undoubtedly supported by many age groups and composed of many people representing  many different life styles and income levels – not just delusional hypocrites that do not use bicycles to attend a concert that he mistakenly  believes was organized to promote green energy sources?

But why should all in attendance need to forsake their cars for bicycles or electric vehicles? This belief is especially absurd considering that electric vehicles can only be feasible if there is first a nationwide infrastructure of charging bases at many locations around the country and the world.

Before Edison made the electric light economically feasible by discovering that tungsten would glow, he was just an inventor who would not give up on his dream. Likewise, climate scientists and those in the Earth sciences are busy developing technologies that could provide sustainable fuels to power airplanes and eighteen wheel trucks, which can transport very heavy loads. And not just climate scientists are taking on this task!

 “Future Planet” points out that our transportation industries themselves are engaged in creating sustainable fuels and hydrogen power to move heavy vehicles and large passenger jets. And if the engineers who work for such companies believe such fuels are probable, doesn’t that mean those companies believe such energy sources are not just examples of magical thinking? “Future planet,” says: “In 2010,  a venture founded by Dutch airline KLM and several other partners began one of the first efforts to develop more climate-friendly alternatives.

Little was known at the time about how to do this, says Maarten van Dijk, one of the three and managing directors of SkyNRG. “But we knew that whatever happened, someone needed to get the fuel, get it into an aircraft, and sell it. So that’s what we started focusing on.” It seems to me that if SkyNRG thought such fuels were merely pipe dreams, they wouldn’t have bothered to invest in them.

Mr. Makela also assumes that to successfully minimize global warming we must immediately reduce (ALL) CO2 emissions. But we would get off to a great start simply by building electric cars with easily accessible recharging stations, as well as by reducing the C02 emissions from companies dependent on carbon based fuels.

My parents grew up in a world with very little electric lights or electric appliances, but once FDR invested in providing rural areas with electric power, their world was quickly and safely transformed.

So, what point is Makela making, when large companies themselves understand that research can provide such alternative fuels? What is Makela’s alternative? That we should just sit on our hands without even trying to minimize AGW?

His argument is as old as human history – that those trying to change the future are doomed to failure! But thank God that scientists and innovators throughout time, chose not to listen to naysayers like him!

Peter W. Johnson
Superior, Wisconsin