Rainbows and Lollipops

By FRANK LINGO

I usually write about grim issues. I need a break from gloom and doom. So this column will be all about good news. Here, hold this stun gun. If I mention anything unhappy, zap me.

Here are four exciting innovations that appeared on Buzzworthy.com:

Dutchman Boyan Slat, age 24, has created a 62-mile-long barrier to trap plastic trash floating in ocean currents. Slat estimates the barrier could remove half of the Pacific garbage patch within 10 years.

Stopping plastic at the source is the goal of Bali native Kevin Kumala who has invented a biodegradable bag made of cassava roots and natural starches. These bags are desperately needed since micro-plastic particles pervade the planet and even our lungs and bloodstreams.

OUCH, OUCH! OK, OK. No more mentions of the bad news necessitating innovations.

Since water is a precious commodity in the 21st century, the Nebia Shower System could save 70% of the water in a typical shower by atomizing the droplets, while maintaining the same pressure and increasing covered surface area by up to 10 times.

Forests could be spared the saw with Epson’s PaperLab, a large office machine which can shred paper, strip off the ink and reassemble it into sheets, all in one unit that can produce thousands of recycled sheets per day.

No happy column can be complete without a unicorn. That would be clean coal, which is every bit as viable as the Confederate States of America. (By the way, if you’ve never seen C.S.A., look on Netflix for this brilliant low-budget satire from 2004 about the South having won the Civil War.)

So as coal continues its reign over America’s energy grid, the cost of wind power has dropped at least 50% in the last decade. The cost of solar power has dropped 90%.

If Germany, which is entirely north of America’s contiguous 48 states, can power its national grid on renewable fuels, so can we. All it would take is getting our politicians to stop being coal and petroleum’s puppets.

After decades of dragging, automobile manufacturers are making impressive progress. Tesla has led the way with electric cars, of course, but Korean sister companies Hyundai and Kia have all-electric versions of the Kona and Niro with well over 200 miles of range. I drove an all-electric Chevy Bolt and it’s a terrific little hatchback. Electric cars use about one-fourth the energy of gas cars and that figure will be even less as our grid goes green.

Getting car buyers on board is slower but it’s going to happen. Although the price is higher, it helps that the tax credit of up to $7,500 for electric cars has been renewed.

On the food front, vegan and vegetarian meals are plentiful and have a smorgasbord of flavors to please our palates. This takes the sting out of quitting our meat obsession, which is quite destructive of our land and water, not to mention stopping the cruelty we commit to sentient beings.

OW, OW, OW!!! OK, I’ll stop. Turn it off!

Frank Lingo is based in Lawrence, Kansas. Read a free excerpt of his novel at EarthVote.world. Email: lingofrank@gmail.com

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2020

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