Categories
-
Recent Posts
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Over and under-cooked oil — tar sands, “fracked” tight oil & gas
This article discusses why it’s so hard and expensive to extract difficult oils like fracked shale oil, Venezuelan and Canadian oil sands. These are at the bottom of the resource pyramid, so there may be a lot of it, but … Continue reading
Posted in Oil & Gas Fracked, Oil Shale, Tar Sands (Oil Sands)
Tagged Canada, fracking, oil sands, oil shale, tar sands, tight oil, Venezuela
2 Comments
Net metering and the death of US rooftop solar
April 22, 2016 by Roger Andrews at euanmearns.com “Net metering” allows anyone with a solar installation to sell surplus solar power to the grid when the sun is shining and to purchase power back from the grid when it isn’t. … Continue reading
Limited Cognition
Gifford, R. May 2011. The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. PubMed. Limited cognition. Humans are far less rational than once believed. 1: Ancient brain Our physical brain hasn’t evolved much in 30,000 years. … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Critical Thinking, Critical Thinking and Scientific Literacy
Comments Off on Limited Cognition
Missing monsoon crashes Indus Valley Civilization
19 March 2014 Withering monsoon may have doomed past Asian society. NewScientist. The Indian summer monsoon abruptly weakened 4200 years ago. The ensuing drought may have led to the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished around the Indus … Continue reading
Posted in Extreme Weather, Planetary Boundaries
Tagged climate change, fall of civilization, monsoon
Comments Off on Missing monsoon crashes Indus Valley Civilization
Climate change impacts on energy, water, and land use in the U.S.
Hibbard, K., et al. 2014: Ch. 10: Energy, Water, and Land Use. Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, U.S. Global Change Research Program, 257-281. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/energy-water-and-land [ Excerpts from this 25 page document, charts/tables: best … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Climate Change
Comments Off on Climate change impacts on energy, water, and land use in the U.S.
Clouds may not curb global warming as much as hoped for
The following article, Clouds Play Lesser Role in Curbing Warming, Study Finds, is from climatecentral.org Analysis of the first seven years of data from a NASA cloud-monitoring mission suggests clouds are doing less to slow the warming of the planet than … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming
Tagged climate change, clouds, global warming
Comments Off on Clouds may not curb global warming as much as hoped for
Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014
Preface. At last, many years after I first published “Peak soil: Why biofuels destroy ecosystems and civilizations” in 2007, Congress had a hearing to educate House members on why preserving topsoil is so essential for food production for future generations. … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Peak Topsoil, Pesticides, Soil, U.S. Congress Infrastructure, Water Pollution
Tagged agriculture, cover crop, erosion, no-till, peak soil, soil health, U.S. House of representatives
Comments Off on Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014
Twice as many El Niños in 21st century
Expect more drought, flooding, and other crazy weather In Nature Climate Change, doi.org/q4c, researchers predict that El Niños will become twice as common, about once a decade in the future versus every 20 years the past century. Another recent study … Continue reading
Posted in Extreme Weather
Comments Off on Twice as many El Niños in 21st century
Global warming spreads disease in the arctic
[ A summary of the spread of disease in the Arctic in the August 2014 issue of Scientific American follows ] Pathogens moving northward: Aleutian Islands, Alaska. A distemper virus that infects seals in the North Atlantic ocean now attacks … Continue reading
Plants are sucking streams dry thanks to more CO2
Slezak, M. October 24, 2015. Carbon emissions make Earth greener but are also drying it out. NewScientist. Source: Ukkola, A. M., et al. October 19, 2015 Reduced streamflow in water-stressed climates consistent with CO2 effects on vegetation. Nature Climate Change 6, … Continue reading
Posted in CO2 and Methane, Peak Water, Water
Tagged carbon dioxide, climate change, streams, water
Comments Off on Plants are sucking streams dry thanks to more CO2