This artist’s rendering at left suggests a device that its proponents say will, one day, capture CO2 from the Earth’s atmosphere, and mitigate the growing threat of climate change. But let’s think about this for a moment.
The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is fairly consistent from the planet’s surface up to about 60 miles in elevation.
Given that the radius of the Earth is ~4000 miles, and that the volume of a sphere is 4/3 πr3, this means the volume of this section of our atmosphere is 4060 4/3 πr3 – 4000 4/3 πr3, = 2.9 trillion cubic miles.
How many of these devices will be required to make a significant dent in the overall CO2 concentration, given that they need to process almost 3 trillion cubic miles of our atmosphere? What’s the cost per each one? How will they be powered, given that our grid-mix is largely fossil fuels? Won’t this only make matters worse?
This is a sad joke, but even sadder, it’s not the only one out there.
Eventually, many Trump supporters will come to realize that the meme at left is a hoax, that their leader fell for it, and spread it to countless people. But it would be interesting to know how many care.
We live in a post-truth society, where the fact that something is simply invented out of thin air means little if anything. In fact, if you’ve ever listened to Trump give a speech, you’ve seen that most of what see says is clearly false.
Until recently, we assumed that most Americans had the aspirations that were prevalent when we were young: get a good education and continue to learn until the day you die. Live a life of honesty, fairness, intelligence, and compassion. Perhaps, pick role model who exemplifies what you think of good human being, and emulate their thinking and behavior.
As we watch and listen to Trump supporters, we’re learning something tragic: a huge swath of the American population has no interest in any of this; in fact, they could call it “woke crap.”
Some say that the reason we have Trump in the White House has little to do with characteristics of Trump himself, but rather with those of the 77 million people who voted for him.
In case you’re wondering about it, it won’t be Trump or JD Vance, or any of the congressional Republicans who carts you away. As suggested at left, it will be some rando who used to pump your gas or your weigh your broccoli at the grocery store.
As we have seen in all fascist regimes, it’s not the schoolteachers or veterinarians or philosophers or cardiologists who round up “undesirables” and send them away to their deaths.
Not a bad reason to support public education.
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Trump and Our Post-Truth Nation
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