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Recent Posts
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- 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?
Category Archives: Books
Republicans Brains are wired to deny science & reality
Preface. This is my book review of Chris Mooney’s 2012 “The Republican Brain. The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality”. This has grown from a review of this book (far below) to more recent science and writing on the … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Human Nature
Tagged bias, brain, conservative, curiosity, open to experience, Republican
7 Comments
Book review of 2024 Scheyder “The War Below”
Preface. This post has excerpts from Scheyder’s 2024 “The War Below” about the metals and minerals renewables will need – over 6 times more than fossil fueled internal combustion vehicles, natural gas and coal plants, and nuclear power (IEA 2021). … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Limits To Growth, Mining, Peak Copper, Peak Critical Elements, Peak Rare Earth Elements
Tagged antimony, cobalt, copper, lithium, mining, rare earth, tailings dams
1 Comment
Summary of Greenpeace “Nuclear Reactor Hazards”
Source: Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. Say no to new nukes. Preface. This is a summary of: Hirsch H (2005) Nuclear Reactor Hazards Ongoing Dangers of Operating Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century. Greenpeace International. The revival of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear spent fuel fire
Tagged accident, aging, hazard, nuclear
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Geography, Resources, & the Destiny of Nations
Preface. Jared Diamond’s famous book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” discussed why some nations were so much more successful than others. Much success came from nearby nations who bootstrapped each other up with new ideas, crops, and ideas. Especially Eurasia due … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Resources
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DOGE could have been great. Instead it blew everything up
Preface. You may remember that a movement called “Code for America” founded in 2009, used technology to improve government services and make them more efficient and accessible. This post is a book review of Pahlka’s 2023 “Recoding America” about how … Continue reading
Posted in Corruption, Corruption & Finance
Tagged book review, Code for America, corruption, DOGE, Recoding America
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The Nuclear Bomb is Back!
Preface. If you are not worried about nuclear war anymore, you should be. We have accidentally come close so many times.
Nuclear power is not the solution
Preface. This is a book review of Ramana’s “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change.” A great overview that covers many topics, one of the best out there, and most recent. … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear War
Tagged nuclear, power, storage, war, waste, weapons
2 Comments
Chemical industrial farming does not work: Pests evolve immunity quickly
Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil and ecosystems. Yet a third of crops are lost to pests just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals Preface. This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, and … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity Loss, Chemical Pollution, Chemicals, Overshoot, Peak Food, Pesticides, Soil
Tagged agriculture, chemical, ecosystem, herbicide, insecticide, peak food, pesticide, soil, unsustainable
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The Mayflower from the book The Barbarous Years
Preface. It was recently Thanksgiving so I thought I’d post something from Mann’s 1491 about the pilgrims that I later found out was grievously wrong from an expert who gives lectures on the Mayflower history. Here is a more subtle, … Continue reading