Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Some Good News About the Environment, plus a little bit about China

There’s been massive advances and cost reductions in solar energy systems and this video below was a delight to watch. In a world that’s driven by evil it seems that there is some good news about the world’s future  that the planet may survive after all (if the US doesn’t start WW3) and global warming may be a thing of the past. China is leading with the technology but a lot of German investment went into it too, and now Warren Buffett is investing heavily as well. 

For half the countries in the world in sunnier climates solar energy is less half the price of other forms of energy, but wind energy costs are rapidly falling too. Even in cooler climates solar is still the cheapest energy and a scientist in the Netherlands has solved the problem of the fluctuating weather and energy storage difficulties by using electric car batteries when the cars are parked up unused. Each house equipped with solar energy will be able to supply itself, the car, and have enough power to spare to feed back into the national grid for other people and industry to use. 

Imagine that, no fuel costs for your car ever again. Well, it’s coming.

It’s also a good documentary about China which shows how its different political system operates. Without elections to worry about the Chinese government was able to impose higher costs on its civilians in the past to reap much lower power costs later on for the benefit of everybody and the environment.  

The second documentary is about the rise of China which describes how the Chinese in the past were used to emperors benevolently ruling over them and they accept the communist party in much the same way. In fact, they rather like their government. In China the emperor always had to rule benignly and fairly bringing culture, law and order, and civilization and the communist government is expected to do the same.

The Chinese say they have the system that the third world could emulate to end its poverty. They believe that they should set a good example in the same way the emperors in the past were expected to give a good example to their citizens and parents to their children. The Washington way of force and coerce is rejected.  Confucianism forbids revenge and children are taught that it is bad, and it is considered to be a useless emotion, whereas Western culture is all about revenge, they say. This seems to be true from our films and novels. 


In Christianity people are considered tainted by sin and no amount of goodness can change this, but the Chinese believe that if children are brought up properly they will turn into good people. Chinese society is more about cooperation and unity whereas Ayn Rand pure selfishness and cynicism seems to have influenced too many people in the West.  

I found both documentaries to be uplifting. 

Documentary: The breakthrough in renewable energy (vpro Backlight)



The Chinese World Order (VPRO Backlight)

4 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

In Christianity people are considered tainted by sin and no amount of goodness can change this,

Not according to the Bible:

By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, And by the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil. Proverbs 16:6

Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
Psalm 37:3-6

etc. etc.

Schofield said...

Why in the Devil's (extra-terrestial spirit) name or God's name would you use the word "fear" (as in fear of the Lord) to make your point when animals and particular the ultra-social human animal's homeostasis depends so heavily on good dyadic and multivalent relationships? You are part of the problem not the solution by pretending there are two Gods, God out there somewhere and Nature. When the Jesuits first went to China the Chinese listened patiently to the Christian stories and then made the telling but simple response "There are not two Gods!"

See the psychologist Stephen Kosslyn's "On the Evolution of Human Motivation: The Role of Social Prosthetic Systems"

As the philosopher Sir Karl Popper said in 1994 "all life is problem solving." Accordingly to do so emotionally sympathetic and practical help is required not "do as I say or you'll be punished by some supra-natural spirit!"

Andrew Anderson said...

Why in the Devil's (extra-terrestial spirit) name or God's name would you use the word "fear" (as in fear of the Lord) Schofield

God wants us to do good and not evil so it's not an arbitrary or capricious or otherwise unworthy fear but a very necessary and good one.

As for the Chinese, the last I heard put the number of Chinese Christians at around 400 million.

Kaivey said...

Yes, I was thinking that recently, that all life is problem solving. My greatest pleasure is doing a little bit of simple DIY which really makes a difference. I have a nice PC with a midi controller keyboard just below the PC keyboard, and knocking coffee over it was always a real concern. So I built a platform for my coffee cup attached to the PC cabinet, but away from doing any harm and I was in my element.

Before that I had to build a frame to house my midi controller so I could play it while looking and see the PC screen. I program electronic music on my PC.

I'm also making my beautiful French doors more secure too.

So I wonder what I would do in heaven if there wasn't any problems to solve? The human ego is entirely adapted to life on Earth.



I practice mindfulness and I've anyways been attracted to Buddhism. But I used to spend some time with Buddhists learning yoga and I didn't entirely get on with the religion. You see, I'm not a fundamentalist and Buddhism can be very tough. Where I went for yoga the men and women Buddhists were kept separate. And there was a strong hierarchy there too. That lifestyle wasn't for me, because i found it to be too authoritarian.