Chinese imagine genetically engineered radioactivity-resistant soldiers
Radioactivity-resistant soldiers? Life tries to imitate art.
Kurt Cobb
What the dramatic drop in European demand for natural gas showed us
Energy-thrifty Europeans cut energy use dramatically in the wake of the loss of Russian natural gas imports. Will they go further?
Despoiling the final frontier: Satellite mega-constellations threaten ozone layer
Satellite mega-constellations are coming to a sky near you and the results could over time be catastrophic for the ozone layer unless something is done.
Is AI a job killer? What does history say?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now the focus of the most recent automation-is-a-job-killer stories. History suggests an alternate narrative.
Efficient and fragile: Low prices, modern railroading and the toxic Ohio derailment
The toxic Ohio derailment is demonstrating that the drive for efficiency can be extremely dangerous.
Who knew? There are limits to growth in the American West
Limits to growth in the American West were always there. Now residents are having to face them.
How the modern fantasy of an eternal civilization warps our view of technology
Everything comes to an end except our modern technical civilization. Or so a lot of people believe. It’s a dangerous thought for those who arrive after our civilization is gone.
California shows why ‘climate chaos’ describes the climate problem better
California faces extreme rainfall and serious drought at the same time. That’s chaos.
The uncertain future of industrial process heat: A mirror for our energy challenges
Almost everything we use is at some point processed using heat. Where that heat will come from in the future poses problems in a world depleting its fossil fuels and focusing on addressing climate change.
Can our current global system coexist with pandemics?
The COVID pandemic hasn’t ended. We’ve become tired of it and moved on. But nature doesn’t move on just because we do and I’ve been wondering about whether we are in denial because the global system we’ve built simply isn’t compatible with pandemics.
I have seen the future and it is ‘Ramp Hollow’
Harrison Brown wrote in 1954 that the most likely outcome of industrial civilization is a return to agrarian civilization. Historian Steven Stoll gives us a glimpse of an agrarian world that existed before the industrial revolution, one that might provide a possible pattern for an agrarian existence in the future.
With U.S. shale oil boom over, can world production climb?
World growth in oil supplies will have to come from someplace other than the United States. Will there be a new oil production savior?
