|
|
|
Colin Kaepernick is suing the National Football League. The Green Bay Packers need a starting quarterback, pronto, to replace Aaron Rodgers. Those two facts don’t immediately appear to match up in any kind of way that could make either party happy, other than that Kaepernick needs and deserves, on balance of his talents, a job in the NFL and the Packers need a starting quarterback, pronto, to replace Aaron Rodgers. Kaepernick’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, tweeted out a statement on Monday morning stating that a lawsuit had been filed on behalf of Kaepernick under the terms of the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) alleging “collusion” by NFL teams and owners in failing to sign the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback since he opted out of his contract with that franchise in March. Kaepernick began kneeling last autumn during the playing of the national anthem before 49ers games in protest at police brutality toward black people in the United States by police. The practice has since become widespread in and outside the NFL and has drawn the ire, notably, of President Donald Trump.
If Kaepernick were persona non grata with the NFL before the lawsuit was filed, then a declaration of battle, one might think, would be unlikely to ease the tension. And yet, in the vaguely chromophobic NFL world, winning is everything—especially when a franchise realizes it is no longer in a position to win. In the first quarter of the Packers’ visit to the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday evening, an entirely thinkable misfortune occurred. Rodgers shifted to his right, out of the pocket, as is his custom, to throw on the run. Rodgers released the ball but took a huge hit from Anthony Barr, and fell on his collarbone which broke, as collarbones are wont to do when stressed. Brett Hundley, Rodgers’s replacement, couldn’t get the offense moving again; the Packers lost and they will likely lose more unless Hundley transforms into something he has never been or… “My opinion: The Packers should call Colin Kaepernick on Monday morning. Not necessarily to sign him,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Peter King in the aftermath of the Packers’ defeat. King’s argument is entirely logical: The Packers are heavily, overly reliant on Rodgers like no other NFL franchise relies on its starting quarterback in 2017. With Hundley, the season is probably lost, but Kaepernick can hardly be expected to come in straight away and play anything like Rodgers in what is Rodgers’s system, after all. Kaepernick is a very particular kind of quarterback himself, an awkward fact that may have been turned into a chimera by the NFL in its alleged efforts not to sign him. What has worked for Rodgers will not work, immediately, for or with Kaepernick. But have him learn the offense for a few weeks, King opines, and there is still hope for the Packers’ season. Perhaps not entirely incidentally, Kaepernick is from Wisconsin and grew up idolizing Brett Favre. Sure, it feels more than a touch hypocritical—oh now you, an NFL franchise, turn to Kaepernick after all of the prevarication and discussions and debate, when you could have just as easily signed him in the offseason when it didn’t look this desperate. As if you are admitting through clenched teeth that although you don’t support his stance, you really do need to win a few more games this season. That bloodlessness, again, present in all professional sport and increasingly prevalent, too. More prosaically, an ongoing lawsuit may make it almost impossible for anyone to now do a deal with Kaepernick. But, hey—didn’t Aaron Rodgers say this in August of this year: "I think he [Kaepernick] should be on a roster right now. I think because of his protests, he's not." But the Packers’ situation has changed since then. Sans Rodgers, are they desperate enough to make what looks like a completely logical decision? |
|
|
|
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The amount of new coal power being built around the world fell by nearly two-thirds last year, prompting campaigners to claim the polluting fossil fuel was in freefall. The dramatic decline in new coal-fired units was overwhelmingly due to policy shifts in China and India and subsequent declining investment prospects, according to a report by Greenpeace, the US-based Sierra Club and research network CoalSwarm. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now The report said the amount of new capacity starting construction was down 62 percent in 2016 on the year before, and work was frozen at more than 100 sites in China and India. In January, China’s energy regulator halted work on a further 100 new coal-fired projects, suggesting the trend was not going away. Researchers for the groups said a record amount of coal power station capacity was also retired globally last year, mostly in the US and EU, including Scotland closing its last one. One of the reasons for the fall in new plants was that too much capacity had been built in recent years, particularly in China. Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the IEEFA, a pro-green energy thinktank, said the falling demand for coal power in China and India and plans to curtail new power stations shows that the world has overestimated the need for the fossil fuel. The report, which tracked power stations through publicly available information, company reports and satellite imagery, said 65GW of new coal-fired units had started construction from January 2016 to January 2017, down 62 percent on the 170GW the year before. Most coal power stations are around 1GW or greater in capacity. Lauri Myllyvirta, a Beijing-based energy analyst at Greenpeace and author of the report, said the fall in China was largely down to government policy to clean up air pollution and encourage clean energy. That policy shows no sign of stopping—at the weekend, Beijing ordered its last coal-fired power plant to close in a bid to improve the capital’s air quality. Myllyvirta said that in India the decline was down to slower-than-expected growth in energy demand, and renewable energy projects being installed rapidly. Paul Massara, the former chief executive of RWE Npower and now head of a green energy company, North Star Solar, said: “The decline in new coal plants in Asian countries is truly dramatic, and shows how a perfect storm of factors are simply making coal a bad investment.” In total, 64GW of coal capacity was retired last year, mainly in the U.S. and EU. Despite President Donald Trump saying on Monday that he is preparing a new executive order to help America’s ailing coal industry, campaigners echoed analysts who have said he is unlikely to be able to significantly stop its decline. “Markets are demanding clean energy, and no amount of rhetoric from Donald Trump will be able to stop the fall of coal in the U.S. and across the globe,” said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner at the Sierra Club, a U.S.-based NGO which has managed to force many U.S. coal plants to close over the last decade. However, the report showed there were still around 570 new coal-fired plants in pre-construction around the world, prompting the industry to reject the notion it was struggling. Benjamin Sporton, chief executive of the World Coal Association, said: “Yes, China, is reducing the number of coal-stations but not because it’s transitioning away from coal, instead the new dynamics is a signal of a more developed economy. Contrary to the picture being portrayed by certain quarters, China’s climate pledge suggests that coal will continue to be central to its energy solutions albeit through efficiencies including the use of new coal technologies.” For India and countries in south-east Asia, he argued, “excluding coal from the energy mix is not an option—it is essential for economic growth and critical in securing energy access.” Tags: LTE M2M Router, 4g vpn router, VPN wireless router, LTE router VPN, dual sim LTE router, UMTS router vpn |