Technology

Energy limits to growth: integrating energy sources – part III

by

This content is no longer available. It was a pre-publication draft of a section of “Energy Limits to Growth,” a report that will be published in expanded form by Post Carbon Institute and International Forum on globalization in May.

Apollo 13: a guilty pleasure in the age of scarcity

by

I was watching the movie Apollo 13 recently for what was probably the fifth time, consuming it in the manner of a guilty pleasure. I say guilty pleasure because this movie is the paradigmatic technofix movie. And, I have little faith that the mounting challenges of resource depletion and climate change can be addressed by technology alone

Of swans and turkeys

by

When asked about the future of, say, nanotubes, or nuclear fusion, or genetic engineering, all technologists and scientists will predict that it’s bright, and continue to say so until the day their grants are canceled, their salaried positions eliminated, and their labs shut down for political and macroeconomic reasons they are ill-equipped to try to comprehend.

The unnoticed technologies

by

Discussions on the role of technology in the future usually focus on those new and flashy enough to attract attention. History shows, however, that it’s the technologies that have become an unnoticed part of the texture of everyday life that determine, by their survival or disappearance, the fate of societies.