Many people want to believe, without adequately reflecting on it, in technological solutions to the problem of climate change. I believe that these solutions will not be forthcoming, and pose risks. I discuss nine hurdles that any technological solution for climate change must address and overcome. I see the possibility of doing this as vanishingly small, and the possibility for severe negative, toxic side effects as non-trivial. I don’t think there is a technological fix to climate change in our future. . . . → Read More: Limits to the feasibility of technological solutions to climate change
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We expect Near Term Human Extinction due to global climate and habitat destruction at some point within a short period (20-40 years). This implies large scale human die-off – gigadeaths, billions of humans; potentially all 7-plus billions of us will die. The proximate causes of death I name the Four Horsemen. In this essay we look at the current climate NOT as an EFFECT of human activity but as a CAUSE of large scale deaths. . . . → Read More: The Four Horsemen of Near Term Extinction I have recently been reading a lot about the potential for rapid collapse of idustrial society. As an exercise in compare and contrast I decided to read the classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon. Gibbon is of course a man of his times. His prejudices, in favor of monarchy over republican forms of government, against people of color (Arabs, . . . → Read More: Arms in the decline and fall With so many slow motion disasters coming at us sometimes it is hard not to despair. And then someone will say the most absurd thing and I have to laugh, ruefully, sadly at the profound depths of human folly. TEPCO, that fount of acumen and honesty has come out with a press release in which they thank the fishing industr . . . → Read More: So long and thanks for all the fish It is well known (everywhere but in the Climate Denier’s Homeland) that burning fossil fuels causes atmospheric CO² to increase, causes man-made global climate change. It is also clear that the carbon industry has a interest in burning more fuel, each company seeks to maxmise it’s own return by increasing its revenue and reserves. They also fund lavishly the climate deniers and skeptics as well as corrupting the governments that might putatively seek to limit their earth destroying short term profits. . . . → Read More: Burning the midnight oil This has been a difficult post to write. I write mainly for my friends and my children, so I don’t have many pretensions. I try to make things clear, and get to the root of things. In that sense I am radical. My children cut me some slack, so if you, reader, are neither my friend or my child, please read this and . . . → Read More: Dealing with Near Term Extinction Stephen of the Japan Times Online published an interview with Lest Brown of the Gloom, doom — and Lester Brown’s ‘Plan B (hat tip nakedcapitalism). In it he quotes Brown: How can we assume that the growth of an economic system that is shrinking the Earth’s forests, eroding its soils, depleting its aquifers, collapsing its fisheries, elevating its temperature and melting its ice . . . → Read More: Gloom, doom — and Lester Brown’s ‘Plan B’ |
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