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Recent Posts
- Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
- Nuclear weapons must be reduced or we risk nuclear winter
- Fusion is already running out of fuel
- Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
- Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
- Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
- Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
- The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
- Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
- What percent of Americans are rational?
- Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
- Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
- Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
- Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
- Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
Category Archives: Climate Change
Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
Preface. In the half dozen science magazines and newspapers I get, almost the only environmental stories are about climate change. Yet there are 8 other ecological boundaries (Rockström 2009) we must not cross (shown in bold with an asterisk below) … Continue reading
What can California do about sea level rise?
Projected sea level rise from one meter (dark red) to six meters (light orange) in California’s Bay Area. (Weiss and Overpeck 2011) Preface. Nearly all, if not all, possible solutions to rising sea levels along all the coasts in the … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Infrastructure, Infrastructure & Collapse, Rail, Roads, Sea Level Rise, Transportation
Tagged dike, elevated, floating, infrastructure, levees, sea level rise, seawalls, sewage
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A Strong Case for the Anthropocene: no other species has ever consumed so much of earth’s resources so quickly
Figure 1. Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Utilization of these energy sources, together with the energy used by humans from net primary production, is now approaching the entire energy available to the global ecosystem … Continue reading
Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
The idea that we can go to Mars is touted by NASA, Elon Musk, and so many others that this dream seems just around the corner. If we destroy our planet with climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, aquifer … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Far Out, Hopium, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged biosphere, colonize, Earth, Mars, radiation, space, terraform
11 Comments
A billion new autos by 2030 will kill climate change
Preface. The article below argues that electric cars aren’t going to replace gas and diesel vehicles enough to lessen greenhouse emissions. The average electric vehicle requires 30 kilowatt-hours to travel 100 miles — the same amount of electricity an average … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Climate Change
13 Comments
Methane apocalypse? Not likely.
Preface. The four articles below explain why methane from permafrost or hydrates are not likely to erupt abruptly and send Earth into a hothouse hell. In addition, here are some posts debunking Guy McPherson who believes the world will end … Continue reading
Posted in CO2 and Methane, Methane Hydrates
Tagged clathrate gun, climate change, debunk, methane, methane burp, methane hydrate, permean extinction
4 Comments
Climate change impacts on agriculture
Preface. There are three articles below on this topic. Plus these articles in the news: Nakagawa T et al (2021) The spatio-temporal structure of the Lateglacial to early Holocene transition reconstructed from the pollen record of Lake Suigetsu and its … Continue reading
Posted in BioInvasion, Drought & Collapse, Extreme Weather, Food production, Heat, Peak Topsoil, Soil, Water, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged climage change, disease, erosion, food production, pests, soil, water, weeds
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15 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought: will we be the 16th?
Preface. Another repercussion of drought may be the Muslim religion as Fleitmann (2022) proposes below. This post began with 10 civilizations that collapsed due to drought (below), and I’ve added 5 more. Will the American South West be #16? Lynn … Continue reading
Posted in Collapsed & collapsing nations, Drought & Collapse
Tagged Akkadia, Anasazi, Arabia, civilization, collapse, drought, Harrapan, Himyar, Khmer Empire, Maya, Ming Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Tiwanaku Empire
1 Comment
World’s Oceans are losing Oxygen rapidly
Preface. Yikes, add deoxygenization to your list of worries. Oxygen levels in the world’s oceans declined by roughly 2% from 1960 and 2010. The decline was largely due to climate change, though other human activities such as nutrient runoff from … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Mass Extinction, Planetary Boundaries
Tagged climate change, deoxygenation, phytoplankton
7 Comments
Fall of Indus valley & Akkadian civilizations from climate change
Preface. Any civilization or region that survives energy decline must then survive climate change for many centuries. As far as the wind systems that collapsed the Akkadian empire, it’s already happening: “Greenhouse gases are increasingly disrupting the jet stream, a … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Collapsed & collapsing nations
Tagged climate change, collapse
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