Categories
-
Recent Posts
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
- “More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
- The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
- The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
- The insect apocalypse will kill billions more people than climate change
- The war on drugs. A book review of “Chasing the scream”
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Joseph Romm: we’re stealing from the next 100 billion people to walk the earth
Source: Lu (2021) Visualized: The Biggest Ponzi Schemes in Modern History. Visual Capitalist Preface. Joseph Romm writes that the exponential growth Ponzi Scheme is consuming the resources of the next 100 billion people. Our children and grandchildren. Romm’s post was … Continue reading
Prime movers of human evolution
Preface. The human brain and culture evolved at an astonishing rate, making scientists wonder what conditions and ecological pressures drove it, why we became homo sapiens so quickly. This is a post that will grow over time as I find … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Evolution, Human Nature
Tagged agriculture, ashkenazi jews, bipedal, brain size, evolution, homo sapiens, human, neanderthal, prime mover
Comments Off on Prime movers of human evolution
Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims
This is a post about disaster insurance, and our own nightmare experience in dealing with the insurance company after our house burned down in the 1991 Oakland California firestorm. Plus a book review of Feinman’s 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Insurance What to do
Tagged arkstorm, earthquake, hurricane, ina delong, insurance, united policyholders
1 Comment
California Governor Newsom goes furthest to soften collapse of any U.S. state
Preface. In September 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom passed 12 bills making abortion easier to obtain, and invites women from states where abortion is forbidden to come here.
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Overpopulation, Population
Tagged abortion, feminism, overpopulation, overshoot, women, women's rights
Comments Off on California Governor Newsom goes furthest to soften collapse of any U.S. state
Deforestation in the news
Preface. I wrote in “Life after fossil fuels” that as energy declined, it would be hard to cut down distant forests with limited oil supplies. I thought this because even in Britain, so denuded of trees people turned to filthy … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation, Pollution, Wood
Tagged climate change, collapse, deforestion, global warming, mercury, wildfire, wood
Comments Off on Deforestation in the news
Review of “Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads”
Preface. This is a book review of Rundell’s “Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads”. If this book is right, things have gotten a lot better in Saudi Arabia than when my other review on Saudi Arabia was written … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, Peak Oil, Peak Resources, Threats to oil supply
Tagged Export Land Model, oil, saudi arabia, stability
1 Comment
Human sprawl and wildlife destruction: a book review of “Nature Wars”
Preface. This is a book review of Sterba’s “Nature Wars” and our interaction with wildlife as our insanely huge population growth wipes out nature.
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Natural History, Overpopulation
Tagged nature, overpopulation, sprawl, wildlife
Comments Off on Human sprawl and wildlife destruction: a book review of “Nature Wars”
Can we grow enough food postcarbon? Irrigation needs water & electricity
Preface. Irrigated agriculture over 58 million acres consumes the largest share of U.S. water. And it’s shrinking as aquifers are drained, reservoirs evaporate, and drought reduces snowpack and rainfall at the same time population and the economy are growing. My … Continue reading
Posted in Interdependencies, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged agriculture, aquifer, electricity, irrigation
1 Comment