In this Frankly, Nate describes the Carbon Pulse – a one time massive consumption of fossil hydrocarbons at a pace millions of times faster than they were created. He outlines the many shapes that this pulse could take, as well as some shapes it will never take. Compared to previous carbon pulses that led to mass and minor extinctions, how does the modern pulse compare? What can what we know about ecology and human behavior tell us about the most likely paths into descent? Can thinking about these graphs on such grand geologic time scales help guide us away from the Precipice and towards a more Sapient Future?Â
Teaser photo credit: Assorted diatoms as seen through a microscope. By Prof. Gordon T. Taylor, Stony Brook University – corp2365, NOAA Corps Collection, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=246319
Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF) an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles.
Nate holds a Masters Degree in Finance with Honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. He teaches an Honors course, Reality 101, at the University of Minnesota.
Tags: carbon pulse, fossil fuel consumption
Related Articles
'SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID
FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id)
WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.ID NOT IN (3498291) AND (
wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (1,3,8995)
) AND wp_posts.post_type = \'post\' AND ((wp_posts.post_status = \'publish\'))
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID
ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC
LIMIT 0, 3'
A major ocean conference has ended in Mombasa, Kenya, with just a handful of countries committing to high-level political declarations on banning deep-sea mining, protecting climate-resilient coral reefs and combatting illegal fishing.
“Nature” is often cast as a word that separates humans from non-humans. But it can also mean something much larger: the universe, the course of things, the great event we live within. It’s a word worth defending.
Environmental activist and poet Esther Phillips reflects on grief and anti-natalism in this poem, which explores the choice not to have children as an act of love in an age of collapse.
