Mastodawn

CelloMom On Cars Jun 22, 2023

Finally, the discussion turns to WHO stands to gain or lose by a clean #EnergyTransition.

The owners of #FossilFuel company shares (that is, the affluent and the powerful) stand to lose.

Everyone stands to gain from the stable #climate, the clean air and water.

And the people who are now the most "disadvantaged" (read: whose needs are ignored) have the *most* to gain from cleaning up our energy sources.

THIS is the roadblock to the energy transition.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/22/fossil-fuel-assets-loss-study

Loss of fossil fuel assets would not impoverish general public, study finds

Research allays fears that rapid scaling back of production would hit people’s savings and pensions hard

The Guardian

CelloMom On Cars Jun 22, 2023

The study ^^ found that in high-income countries two-thirds of the financial losses from #StrandedAssets would be borne by the most affluent 10%.

This is simply because the most affluent 10% have two thirds of the wealth.

Data below from USAFacts
https://usafacts.org/topics/wealth-savings/

US Wealth & Savings Statistics and Data Trends: household wealth, wealth distribution, and more

Find statistics and data trends about wealth and savings in the US. This includes median household net worth, the distribution of overall wealth in the US, homeownership rates, and savings rates.

USAFacts

Joe Lodge Jul 28, 2023

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/04/electrify-everything-scope-data/

CelloMom On Cars

We need to emphasize this at every turn: We live in a fossil fueled #austerity now, and can have a clean-energy powered #abundance (borrowing from Rebecca Solnit here).

An abundance of clean air.
An abundance of jobs.
An abundance of community.
Vast savings on health care costs and other averted climate damages.

Let's go!

What "electrify everything" actually looks like

Get ready for a US building spree not seen in generations.

Mother Jones

CelloMom On Cars Jun 23, 2023

The richest 10% stand to lose less than 1% of their (vast) wealth if #FossilFuel assets were stranded. No matter what they may say, it won't kill them.

The bottom 50% stand to lose 3.5% with #StrandedAssets. It's a larger *percentage* of their wealth but that's because they have so little. This is why the article's authors suggest they be compensated by government. A tiny one-time tax on the wealthiest would do it.

Thanks to @tfardet for the link to the article

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00220-9

CelloMom On Cars Jun 26, 2023

This ^^ article says it's mostly the most wealthy who stand to lose if fossil fuel became #StrandedAssets.

But here is an interesting speculation, that Big #FossilFuel is promoting the idea that they are "too big to fail", in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"The more people see fossil fuels as a great investment, the more will support fossil fuel stocks, and the more fossil fuel companies will invest in real assets. Then it will be harder for governments to push back."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-21/high-fossil-fuel-valuations-stop-governments-from-tackling-climate-change

High Fossil Fuel Valuations Are a Political Weapon

Despite some talk of “stranded assets,” oil, coal and gas investors have helped create a sense of futility about tackling climate change.

Bloomberg

@CelloMomOnCars Maybe we shouldn't electrify everything -- as in, why not make better non-motorized products? Like push-mowers, line drying, etc. I had a friend in Vermont who lived off the grid. If you wanted to watch TV, you had to peddle a stationary bike hooked up to a generator. We should be doing more of this type of thing, imho.

@DoomsdaysCW

As much as I agree with you (we use a push mower and sun-drying, have no tv, and locally mostly ride a bike -- and love all this), effecting these changes on a massive scale requires a culture change.

Getting everyone to ditch their car and take the bus or the bike takes culture change.

Culture change takes a long time. Can we pull that off in the time required?

My town's bike committee has been there for six decades and all we got is a bunch of sharrows.

@CelloMomOnCars If the grid goes down, the culture will change very quickly.

@DoomsdaysCW

Would it?
The grid went down in Texas and in the fossil fuel corner they're shouting for more fossil gas power plants.

In Europe they lost the Russian gas supply last year and they unwrapped their old coal plants.

The UK government is still refusing to subsidize home insulation.

@CelloMomOnCars You wrote: "The UK government is still refusing to subsidize home insulation." What the heck?!! That's criminal!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/13/insulate-britain-activists-found-guilty-blockade

@DoomsdaysCW

They are.
A group named Insulate Britain mounted a campaign. When no-one listened, they went direct action, gluing themselves onto motorways and such.
They were arrested.
They were not allowed to mention climate change in their defense. (Meaning, they were banned from using the necessity defense). The UK is a strange place these days.

Insulate Britain activists found guilty over London roadblock

Jury found Helen Redfern, Simon Reding and Catherine Rennie-Nash guilty of public nuisance over 2021 Bishopsgate protest

The Guardian

@CelloMomOnCars Wow!

Syulang Jun 25, 2023

@CelloMomOnCars @DoomsdaysCW - I've got family in the UK, and it's genuinely scary how batsh*t insane that place has become. They are literally arresting academics and scientists who speak out against the regime. On pretty much every metric, the place is a dumpster fire of denialism, authoritarianism and magical thinking. Local government councillors staring directly at sewage washing up on their beaches and saying with a straight face to the local press that the brown sewage mixed in with tampons and condoms is "seaweed and blooming photoplankton"

It's easy to laugh at our coal fondling Lib-nats, but the situation in the UK is ten times more creepy, because there's a degree of stockholm syndrome among much of the population that just doesn't really exist here - and the UK govt knows it and plays on it. It's creepy and disturbing, and I genuinely worry for my family there.

CelloMom On Cars Jun 25, 2023

@Syulang @DoomsdaysCW

It is indeed extremely worrisome. Under Liz Truss the UK Tories' policies were deemed on the right of the already rabid US GOP.

The brutal repression of protest.
The brutal immigration policy.
The handling of the covid pandemic.
The Frack & Drill policies.
The neglect of the NHS until it can be sold to the highest bidder.
Brexit was only the last straw, if you ask me.

CelloMom On Cars Jun 25, 2023

@Syulang @DoomsdaysCW

I am so sorry you have to worry about your family in the UK.
If it helps any, Sunak must call a general election for no later than 28 January 2025.

In the recent local elections the Tories already suffered defeat, voters are connecting the dots.

Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧Jun 24, 2023

@CelloMomOnCars @DoomsdaysCW

Exactly correct.

But culture change starts with education, and our educational system wants (by will of the hard nutjob right and imbecile middle of the electorate) nothing to do with it.

Here in Ontario, the plan is to return to teaching 'cursive' handwriting instead of starting to educate the next generation on how they will need to think and to live in order to simply survive.

@f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars @DoomsdaysCW

I feel like we're all making too big a deal on the cursive deal. I don't know that it'll massively impact other things that they teach, and frankly, knowing DoFo and his ilk, I'm more concerned about whatever else he's doing right now that this cursive note is meant to distract us from.

Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧Jun 24, 2023

@adammiller @CelloMomOnCars @DoomsdaysCW

It's distracting us from disappearing farmland and the absence of incentives to capitalize on urban brown & grey lands for high density housing instead of pursuing the wasteful mafioso-enrichment program he's currently focused on. It's distracting us from the massive energy waste of our lifestyle and what it's going to cost our offspring. It's distracting us from the unsustainability of what we've come to feel entitled to, damn the consequences.

I disagree. If we lose the ability to read and write in cursive, we won't be able to read handwritten historical records. Also, cursive engages the right side of the brain. @adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

@DoomsdaysCW @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars I actually like the cursive addition, more an issue of now everyone seems to be arguing about it when there are many more things we should be fighting Ford on.

This is his classic MO, do something small but that will get an argument going about the small thing, and people (and more importantly the media) will lean into that.

Well, Ford's intent is a whole other can of worms. But just to say that critical thinking skills and brain development are our best weapons against propaganda and divisiveness. @adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧Jun 24, 2023

@DoomsdaysCW @adammiller @CelloMomOnCars

IMHO, enhanced music programming and objectives would have all these benefits and more. But that's just me.

@f800gecko @DoomsdaysCW @CelloMomOnCars

They would, and they're also more expensive to set up in pretty much every resource category I can think of.

Again, all of this, to me, points at it being even more of a thing that Ford is doing as a distraction. This is relatively easy/cheap to implement, plays to his base who wants the "good ol' days" to return, does have some benefit for kids, and will absolutely cause a ton of arguing.

@DoomsdaysCW @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

That alone makes me think this is meant to be a distraction.

https://naturalsociety.com/how-cursive-writing-affects-brain-development/

I'm all for more brain development -- especially in this age of disinformation and ignorance.

How Cursive Writing Uniquely Helps Brain Development

@adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full

A more scientific piece about cursive.

The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults

@adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults

To write by hand, to type, or to draw – which of these strategies is the most efficient for optimal learning in the classroom? As digital devices are increasingly replacing traditional writing by hand, it is crucial to examine the long-term implications of this practice. High-density electroencephalogram (HD EEG) was used in 12 young adults and 12, 12-year-old children to study brain electrical activity as they were writing in cursive by hand, typewriting, or drawing visually presented words that were varying in difficulty. Analyses of temporal spectral evolution (TSE, i.e., time-dependent amplitude changes) were performed on EEG data recorded with a 256-channel sensor array. For young adults, we found that when writing by hand using a digital pen on a touchscreen, brain areas in the parietal and central regions showed event-related synchronized activity in the theta range. Existing literature suggests that such oscillatory neuronal activity in these particular brain areas is important for memory and for the encoding of new information and, therefore, provides the brain with optimal conditions for learning. When drawing, we found similar activation patterns in the parietal areas, in addition to event-related desynchronization in the alpha/beta range, suggesting both similarities but also slight differences in activation patterns when drawing and writing by hand. When typewriting on a keyboard, we found event-related desynchronized activity in the theta range and, to a less...

Frontiers

"We suggest that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting and drawing activities in school to establish the neuronal oscillation patterns that are beneficial for learning. We conclude that because of the benefits of sensory-motor integration due to the larger involvement of the senses as well as fine and precisely controlled hand movements when writing by hand and when drawing, it is vital to maintain both activities in a learning environment to facilitate and optimize learning."
@adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

And while we're at it, let's bring back the #Humanities in higher education!
@adammiller @f800gecko @CelloMomOnCars

Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️📷 🗺️Jun 24, 2023

@CelloMomOnCars @DoomsdaysCW
Perhaps better to focus on incremental changes like getting people to stop using the car for the 50% of trips that are under 5k. Huge potential there.

@the5thColumnist @DoomsdaysCW

Of course!
But if you want most people to do that, it has to be safe.

Turns out that 60% of Americans would love to bike more, to their local destinations, but are afraid to do so.

Anyone who has ever tried to get safe walk and bike infrastructure in the US runs up against the #CarBrain culture. Car Brain (aka autonormativity) puts the car at the highest priority; Car Brain doesn't know it's doing that, so you can't argue it using facts. It's totally culture.

oldfartjmb says FREE PALESTINE Jun 25, 2023

@CelloMomOnCars

But, by and large, a bus is not an option, presuming there even is a bus, if one can't walk the mile/km to the bus stop. And bikes aren't even an option for some/many of us. I'm just saying that bikes and buses are only part of the solution.

@DoomsdaysCW @largess

CelloMom On Cars Jun 25, 2023

@johnb48 @DoomsdaysCW @largess

That's what I mean though:
Putting in a real bus network, including last-mile provisions, takes culture change. "What, we have to spend money on poor people?"

No, once there is a real viable network, everyone will take the bus, not only poor people.

And that will make the streets more pleasant to those who must drive.

It's interesting to me how bringing up bus and bike gets interpreted as proposing a ban on cars. It's unfounded fear (and some projection).

Marc Jun 24, 2023

@CelloMomOnCars
A telling reminisce in this article: "For my entire lifetime, we’ve been coasting off infrastructure investments made between the New Deal and the 1970s, be it the rural electrification and hydropower dams of the 1930s, or the Eisenhower interstate highway system, or the nation’s aging fleet of nuclear power plants and transportation hubs."
So we can look forward to more highways & more nuclear waste if this boondoggle "green infrastructure" plan is ever realized. Not to mention, as this article doesn't, more devastation from lithium & cobalt mining.
#degrowth anyone?