Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb The International Energy Agency (IEA), the Paris-based consortium of 30 countries, has told us in its flagship World Energy Outlook 2020 that solar-produced electricity is now the “cheapest electricity in history.” That seems like very good news, that is, until the actual expected impact of that fact is examined more closely.
I was exchanging economist jokes over the holiday and heard this one that seemed apropos both to our resource predicament and the seeming abundance of the holiday season.
Even if the pandemic is brought under control soon, mass transit will be crippled for years to come and may remain in a doom loop even as the rest of society recovers.
Three days without electricity would be a disaster. Three weeks worldwide would be a catastrophe. Three months would probably spell the end of modern civilization.
Low prices which seem felicitous now could foreshadow instability and trouble ahead. The world still depends on oil for about one-third of its energy needs.
What we may not realize is that nature is always on the ballot everywhere. But our awareness of that fact is only now bubbling to the surface of political consciousness.
Adaptation will require leadership and social cohesion. Instead, America may be lurching toward further political division and violence.
Unfortunately for the minks and the mink industry, the Danish government has now pledged to kill every mink in Denmark is order to eradicate a mutant strain of COVID-19 carried by mink that is transmissible to humans.
Every student of biology—which naturally includes doctors and health care workers—ought to be aware of the advantages of biodiversity in natural systems.
This weekend, Keir Starmer (the leader of UK’s Labour Party) made a decision that million of other British people make every day. He probably didn’t even think twice about it. But that decision had consequences — for his neighbourhood, for the air, for the climate and for one stranger who, because of this decision, would end their weekend in the hospital.
If we don’t own our own faces, then others can use them for whatever purposes they choose, not just governments or businesses, but also private individuals. The destiny of so-called surveillance capitalism is to put everyone’s face and thus identity up for sale in ways that subject people to increasing manipulation and even physical danger.
The world seems to be coming apart at the seams. It’s critical to understand why, so that we can avoid the worst and find the best responses so as to move toward the environmentally and socially healthy future we want. It turns out that there’s a relatively simple frame for gaining such understanding.
