Going to extremes
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
It only took us a century to use up the best of the planet’s finite reserves of fossil fuels. The dawning century will be a lot different.
The fat-takers cross the oceans
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
From its beginnings more than five centuries ago, European colonization has been based on an unsustainable exploitation of resources.
The marginal uselessness of muscle-cars
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
Mainstream environmentalism, while advocating a swift and thorough transition to zero-carbon technologies, clings to the belief that we can, will, indeed, we absolutely must retain our high-speed cars and trains...
Beyond the green frog-skin world
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
How can a civilization last, when its governing force is something so fleeting and artificial as money?
Can big science be sustained?
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
We can’t know for sure, of course, whether the climate cataclysm will destroy scientific knowledge. But what we can see is that we are on a so-far unwavering path to climate catastrophe...
Will the sun soon set on concrete?
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
At the mention of our “fossil economy” or “fossil civilization”, most of us probably think immediately of “fossil fuels”. But as Mary Soderstrom’s recent book points out, not only our energy supply but also our most important building material has origins in fossilized ancient life.
Celebrating the cargo bike revolution: A review of Motherload
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
The film closes with an image that will tug at the heart-strings of all parents, but particularly those in bicycling families: her twins, who first explored their world from the open-air box of a cargo bike, now pedal away on their own bikes, under their own power, down their own road.
How we went from “makers” to “trash-makers” – and how to get back
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
Why do we have so much stuff? Why is it so hard to find good stuff? And when our cheap stuff breaks, why is it so hard to fix it?