It’s hard to imagine any self-respecting woman voting for someone who is proud of the work he’s done in removing the right to an abortion. Who doesn’t love Betty White?  “If men could get pregnant, abortions would be available at Jiffy Lube.”     ..read more

Here’s an NPR segment on the “sexiness” of climate science, in which the concepts of geoengineering and nuclear fusion are explored. The point is that, while things like covering large land masses with solar- and wind farms may be practical, they lack the sex appeal of things like fusion, which offers what is essentially an infinite supply of energy in perpetuity. The problem, of course, is that, where solar and wind are here now, fusion is likely at least a decade, probably several, in the future. Looking at geoengineering, I suppose there are people who find subject to be sexy.  Maybe t ..read more

At left is a meme supporting the mode of thinking employed by conspiracy theorists, i.e., that they, unlike the rest of us, “have the cognitive capacity to think critically for themselves.” In fact, the reason that reasonable people trust science is that we’re aware that we lack the time and resources to conduct this research ourselves: formulating hypotheses, experiment design and execution, analysis of results, drawing conclusions, publishing findings, and having them peer reviewed. Shortly after I entered the field of climate science and interviewed Dr. V. Ramanathan at the Scripps Institut ..read more

The author of the meme at left makes a point we’ve covered here numerous times.  There is no reason to think that God/Jesus favors, or should favor, the U.S. over the other countries on Earth. Calling this “theological heresy,” on the other hand, seems unnecessarily nasty.  Lots of Americans need this belief in their lives as if it’s oxygen.   Let’s simply get used to living around these folks with tolerance and acceptance. Yet, it’s interesting to think about what it would be like if there were less irrationality in the U.S. electorate.  For instance, what level of su ..read more

It’s the 77th birthday of actor and ardent Trump supporter James Woods (pictured here).  Woods’ status as a celebrity, coupled with his belief that Trump is right for America doesn’t make him unique, but it certainly makes him rare. Sure, he’s joined by personalities like Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, Jason Aldean, Kelsey Grammer, and Jon Voight.  But, for each one of these, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, who find Trump and the con he’s inflicted on our nation to be utterly repulsive. So let’s ask ourselves: Why are there so few celebrities at the “MAGA end” of the political spectrum ..read more

The only thing that’s “unnatural” about eating meat has occurred very recently in human history, and that’s factory farming.  When I drive past thousand-acre pastures dotted with happy cows, I don’t have a problem knowing that most of these animals are going to wind up under cellophane in grocery stores, or served up on plates in restaurants. The problem with the industry is that 97% of the beef we Americans consume comes from cows that had miserable lives, simply because it’s cheaper to raise and slaughter animals that have been, since birth, packed together like sardines.   ..read more

From the year I became an entrepreneur in 1984 until I moved into another line of work (environmental sustainability) in 2009, I’m guessing that my company (initially I myself) hired, say, 300 people. My policy was always: if two candidates for a position are roughly equally capable, and one is a white male and the other is a representative of a minority group, hire the latter over the former. I have always wanted to do my part, all other things equal, to make our world a better, more just and inclusive place to live. The notion that our civilization is falling apart because of anticapitalist ..read more

In a recent post, Does Life Have Meaning? I wrote about the plethora of recent social media posts on the supposed meaninglessness of our lives. In addition to the other points I made in the original post, this subject appears to be a “first world problem.”  Think for a moment of those living in areas that are war-torn, impoverished, disease-ridden, or ruled by cruel tyrants.  How many have the bandwidth to concern themselves with the meaning of life and to bemoan its monotony? Yes, as Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” but it’s possible that the over-examined l ..read more

Does getting hit in the head disqualify Aaron Rodgers as a source of medial information, or is it simply the fact that he has no scientific/medical training?   ..read more

There seems to be a great number of social media posts recently on the subject of the supposed meaninglessness of our lives.  Some people point to what they believe to be an absurd cycle of “eat, work, be entertained, sleep” that repeats itself endlessly until we become infirmed and ultimately die. Personally, I see nothing absurd about any of this.  Sure, our lives have no external meaning; it’s up to each of us to confer meaning to our existences by the choices we make. I used to say that I was “put on Earth” to solve corporate marketing challenges, the same way doctors consider th ..read more