Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Albert Bates Our Achilles Heel as a species may have come at a fork along our evolutionary biology pathway many millions of years ago. Relatively few others of our fellow creatures decided to follow our lead, and for good reason. We decided to sweat.
The idea of runaway ocean acidification has now joined the idea of runaway global warming as a threat so large that it stands almost co-equal in its danger. Part of the problem with ocean acidification is that geoengineering schemes for lowering Earth’s temperature by reducing the sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface won’t affect ocean acidification.
I hate so many things about climate change: the waste, the injustice that those who have contributed least suffer the most, the lost opportunities for prevention. But, there is something that inspires me in the notion that climate change could teach us to soften.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill last week that would form a government-industry working group to “examine ways to replace automated systems with low-tech redundancies, like manual procedures controlled by human operators.” … If we truly want long-term solutions to the problems that vex us in our increasingly high-tech society, then we will have to look elsewhere than the technologists.
In a nursing home in St. Paul, Minnesota last year, a 91-year-old Quaker named Rhoda Gilman died, and her death was barely noted — which is a shame, because she led a fascinating life. She wrote several excellent books on American history, raised a family, ran for lieutenant governor of that state in 2002, and was one of the early leaders of the Green movement in America … and lived through one of the great and unappreciated lost chances of world history
There were a few of us who said something much less popular. We predicted that the grand technological breakthroughs were not going to happen, and the grand social awakenings were not going to happen, and the grand apocalyptic catastrophes were not going to happen. .. We predicted instead that demand destruction and an assortment of temporary gimmicks would keep things rolling on ….
“The sooner we realize that humanity won’t have a Hollywood ending to climate change, the more chance we have to avoid ours becoming a true horror story.”
On that, I think we can agree.
The former CEO of America’s largest shale gas producer has just admitted publicly that the shale oil and gas industry has done nothing but destroy the capital of investors. Will his words make any difference?
If you ever wanted to see what the world might look like after the Tribulation, you could do worse than visit the Burren land on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. … the Burren has only rock, with thin soil in the cracks –a rippling moonscape of pale hills that stretches to the sea, with few trees to slow the screaming Atlantic winds. It’s lovely to visit, but living here would seem to us like being marooned on an alien planet, and raising children unthinkable.
Until last Thursday, the oil markets largely ignored the increasing tensions between the US and Iran, including the attacks on six oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Then Iran downed an unmanned US surveillance drone, and oil prices soared on the possibility that a war which could potentially halt the 18 million b/d of oil exports was imminent. After a day of vacillation, Washington backed off a retaliatory attack on Iran, allowing the situation to cool.
More and more of our daily routine is being turned over to software. Is that wise in every case? Is there a limit to how much power we should give to software over us?
There was a time when a nuclear-powered future seemed inevitable. Now, it is the decline of nuclear power that seems inevitable.
