Trees Are the Right End of the Stick for CO2 Reduction in Vermont

Each acre of farmland which is turned into a woodlot removes 5.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the next 20 years (numbers adapted from the UN IPCC Report).  This is atmospheric carbon reductio More...

Why Republicans Should Vote in Democratic Presidential Primaries This Year

I usually (although not always) vote Republican. Unhappily, I voted for Donald Trump after working against him in the primary. Don’t want to vote for him again; but might have to. My vote in the general election won’t More...

piddle and Buttbook

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Plants to the Rescue

Plants made our current atmosphere and plants can keep it balanced.

When plants first showed up on earth about 3.5 billion years ago, carbon dioxide made up more than 20% of the atmosphere. There was no significant oxygen in the air so More...

Preparing for Electric Vehicles

Before electric vehicles are in widespread use, we need to solve the problems of how to get electricity to them and how to pay for the roads they run on. So far these problems haven’t mattered because there are so few e-vehicles. In Vermont we are very well-positioned to deal with both problems.< More...

Appeasement Doesn’t Work

Somehow those who agree with me that it was a good idea to kill both Osama bin Laden and ISIS leader Abu al-Baghdadi are now saying it was wrong to kill Qassem Soleimani:

• Iran may retaliate. Al-Qaeda and ISIS also vowed revenge after their leaders were killed. Bad More...

The Ideal Green Solution

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies has a simple solution for reducing atmospheric levels of  CO₂ without undoing civilization as we know it or denying people in developing countries the right to live as we do. Although Salk believes that More...

“We’ve got your back” beats “Thank you for your service”

We should never send troops – or diplomats - into harm’s way unless we are willing to defend them. Defending them means both firing back when fired on and preventing attacks in the first place. Defending our troops and diplomats requires disproportionate – not tit-for-tat – response. They are not More...

Undeserved (and Useless) Rebates I Got

I just qualified for over $6000 of rebates which didn’t change my behavior in any way. You are paying me to do what I would’ve done anyway.

My old car had over 100,000 miles and was beginning to require frequent expensive repairs. Time for new wheels.

I decided to look at plug-in More...