NOTE: In recent years, thousands of cities, colleges, and companies have joined with states and nations in pledging to achieve deep (net zero) reductions in GHG emissions. Global GHG emissions exceed 45 billion tons (or Gigatons) annually — the equivalent of a large volcanic eruption occurring every 10 hours throughout the course of a year — and has been called a super-wicked problem. The social cost of atmospheric emissions (referred to as SCARs) is estimated to exceed $5 trillion per year. Many institutions have yet to make the pledge, and even among those making the pledge many are falling short of their targets. There are two key items essential for successfully achieving the pledges: timely, high-quality information for wise decision-making and sufficient capital resources to finance the necessary changes. The following 4C initiative highlights a win-win-win partnership opportunity for campuses, cities, companies and citizens to realize these two key items. …
NOTE: The following win-win-win initiative focuses on one of the top priorities that should be immediately pursued by the President and Congress: strengthening homeland energy security against a surfeit of 21st century vulnerabilities, threats and risks to our nation’s economy and social stability. It is presented here as an urgent action to be taken, in the form of an issuance of a Presidential Executive Order, followed by additional Congressional actions essential for the timely success of this national security infrastructure transformation.
ISSUANCE OF EXECUTIVE ORDER
New Security Perils
America’s economic and national security faces a looming tsunami of risks and threats of attacks that will cripple our markets, spawn social conflict, and make us vulnerable to recurring attacks on the nation’s multi-hundred trillion-dollar assets, and pernicious efforts to collapse American society. …
What it got right, and mostly got wrong
Michael Moore’s recent film, Planet of the Humans, is, sad to say, unnecessarily bleak in tone, content, and conclusions. One fully expects a Moore movie to be in-your-face contentious, provocative, and highly controversial. Exposing some bad actors doing bad things, whether politicians or corporate executives. That it certainly is, but this time unexpectedly turning up the heat and focusing the spotlight on the actions and advocacy positions of climate and environmental organizations, renewable energy companies, and political leaders on climate and environmental actions.
This has left these advocates and leaders, typically fans who have relished for years Moore’s hard-charging investigative documentaries, dumbfounded. Not because of claiming any special privilege; these groups, organizations, and leaders routinely debate and heatedly argue among themselves as to what constitutes the best and better solutions to the “wicked” problems confronting humanity. …
Military Strength Civilian Energy Systems for Real Homeland Security in this Century of Risky Uncertainties
Climate of Fear
For nearly two decades since the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda extremists (15 of the 19 were Saudi Arabian citizens), the U.S. has been mired in a “war on terrorism”. Appropriations for national security are now $1.1 trillion per year. These wars have been overwhelmingly financed on credit by increasing the annual federal deficits; a tax liability now estimated at $6 trillion, or ~30 percent of the national debt.
Yet, as the citadel conservative think tank, The Cato Institute, found in a recent survey, the fear of terrorism has shown little sign of waning in the United States. While $1 trillion has been cumulatively spent just on domestic security, this has focused on airport and seaport checkpoints, border patrol and control, upgrading police departments, and maintaining nationwide communications surveillance by the National Security Agency. …
Abraham Lincoln famously said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Truer words have never been spoken.
Take the case of the United States’ 95 large nuclear reactors operating in 29 states. According to the 2011 detailed review by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “subsidies to the nuclear fuel cycle have often exceeded the value of the power produced. This means that buying power on the open market and giving it away for free would have been less costly than subsidizing the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. …
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