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Recent Posts
- Electrifying freight trains in the U.S. is a bad idea
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- 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
- 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
Category Archives: Books
Book review of Turchin’s “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”
Preface. This is a book review of both “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”. I recommend reading “War & Peace & War” first, then the more difficult “Secular Cycles”. Turchin has found patterns in the rise and fall … Continue reading
Posted in Overpopulation, Peter Turchin, Predictions, Social Disorder, Society, Stages of, War Books
Tagged collapse, crisis phase, decline and fall, secular cycles, Turchin, violence, war
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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
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Review of Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to you
Preface. My books and energyskeptic.com explain why the electric grid can’t stay up. This is a book review of Makansi’s “Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to you”. He explains why the grid is … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid, Energy Books
Tagged blackouts, electric grid, electricity, how it works, stability
1 Comment
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
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, Natural History, Overpopulation
Tagged nature, overpopulation, sprawl, wildlife
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The myriad ways females play a role in evolution
Preface. This is a review of Cooke’s book “Bitch: On the female of the species”. I’ve been reading about evolution for a long time, but there was a great deal of new research on the role females play in evolution … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Feminism
Tagged anthropology, evolution, female, feminism, primatology
2 Comments
Will women be accused of witchcraft after energy descent?
Preface. This is a book review of “In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial.” The author Chollet writes that the book won’t spend much time on witchcraft today, but explore … Continue reading
The staggering level of corruption & kleptocracy in the world
Preface. This is a book review of Frank Vogl’s 2021 book “The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption – Endangering Our Democracy” (well, mostly kindle notes). They couldn’t get away with it if there weren’t so many places … Continue reading
Posted in Banking, Bond Market, Corporate Welfare, Corruption, Crime, Gangs, Corrupt police, Private security, Debt, No Jail for Bankers & Wall St execs, Politics, Scams
Tagged autocrat, corruption, democracy, kleptocracy, kleptocrat
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Will global warming drive us extinct? A review of Peter Ward’s “Under a Green Sky”
Canfield purple ocean, Green Sky Preface. Thank goodness for world peak oil production in 2018. We’re out of time to destroy the planet! We’re about to dramatically reduce fossil fuel consumption, unwillingly, as it declines at 8% or more and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Climate Change, Extinction Books, Runaway Greenhouse
Tagged anoxic ocean, book review, canfield ocean, climate change, global warming, mass extinction, peak oil, under a green sky
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