Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It’s worrying about the electric bill with all those lights on. It’s having a light strand die and not wanting to spend money to replace it. A lot of money… It’s maybe even a bit of disengagement with this holiday season. Why bother making a fuss over it…
In this week’s Frankly, Nate explores how the prices we encounter in our daily lives are influenced by not only how much money is in the system, but also by resource depletion, technology, affordability by ‘the masses,’ and trust within a complex global system.
So, what have we got? A global economy staggering amongst geopolitical tension, a bubble to beat all bubbles, and the twin shocks of a (potentially permanent) oil price crash and the EV subsidies ending — and all with the backdrop of worsening climate change driving up inflation and inflicting constant disasters.
Electricity is our energy future, but the details of that future are still sketchy. Right now, the picture is being drawn by billionaire investors, but it looks dark and dystopian. Surely more imaginative artists could do better.
Solar panels will continue to work for decades. But soon enough societies will have to reproduce its energy resources, if you can’t do that, they are hardly renewable in the first place.
Can China face the challenges awaiting humankind in the near future?
Whatever the obstacles, the waste and pollution we have collectively spewed into the global environment in the pursuit of convenience and profit isn’t going anywhere without some form of decisive and assertive action; perhaps the mentality of into eternity is the solution which may match this challenge.
In this episode, Nate interviews Professor Ted Parson about solar geoengineering (specifically stratospheric aerosol injection) as a potential response to severe climate risks.
The stunning Democratic victories in the 2025 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and elsewhere, are only going to motivate Trump to become more aggressive in his unilateral actions in favor of fossil and nuclear fuels and in his continued condemnation of anything environmental or clean energy-related.
Fressoz’s book deals primarily with the creation of myths about energy futures; Becker’s with the creation of myths about futures in space. They overlap in their consideration of why such myths are created. Who pays for them to be created; who benefits from their creation?
If successful, this work will lead to improved accessibility of home renewable energy systems for people all over the United States. This would help counteract some Trump administration efforts to remove renewable energy incentives, while laying the groundwork for rapid growth of renewables when the national political environment shifts again.
During the past five years, all seven of the fully operational LNG export terminals in the U.S. violated the Clean Air Act, America’s cornerstone law on air pollution, a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) finds.
