The century of limits
We have to assume that we have reached the century of limits, and the current model is no good for us. We have to plan and try to redistribute while reducing our impact.
limits to growth
Maximum Power and Scarcity, or… the Story of the Birdbrained Backhoe on the Beach (Episode 46 of Crazy Town)
The “maximum power principle” may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow.
If It’s Profitable, Is It Really Sustainable?
That an economic activity has to be profitable is considered a truism, something taken for granted and not reflected upon. But what if the opposite is the case?
Overproduction of Elites and Political Upheaval, or… the Story of Rich People Doing Stupid Things (Episode 43 of Crazy Town)
Society is producing too many elite people, and their decisions are causing extreme inequality, which is one of the key components of today’s sustainability crisis.
Red poppies, colour blindness and the climate emergency
If we are serious about guaranteeing a decent future to our families and those who will come after us, we must change our societies at large.
Review: The Economic Superorganism by Carey W. King
In this aptly titled book, University of Texas research scientist Carey W. King argues that the modern-day global economy is a superorganism.
Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet: Review
The message in this book is simple: There are hard physical limits to the growth of available energy to power our civilization and these will probably be seriously in effect by the end of the 21st century.
Review: Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care
The wager of the book then, is that environmentalist movements need an alternative vision of limits that begins not from a premise of nature as scarce but rather as abundant, and of limitation not as enforced by outside conditions but rather adopted intentionally as an exercise of political autonomy.
Textbook Tour: Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet
In this post, I take a bit more time to introduce new elements in the book that Do the Math readers have not seen represented in some form in earlier posts. In other words: what new insights or calculations lurk within the book?
The case for abandoning GDP – an intersectional perspective Pt. 1
In order to overcome social and environmental injustices, we have no choice but to abandon the naturalized and structuralized notions that equate GDP growth with social progress and sincerely aim to conceive of alternatives.
Can big science be sustained?
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…
“A Simple Boy from the Prairie”
Let’s start with what’s fairly clear: There is no hope that a population of eight billion people with the current level of aggregate consumption today can continue indefinitely.
