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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
Neighborhood councils to cope with energy decline
I’m reading “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” which is one of the best books I’ve read in years, and a very hopeful one – this 700 page book is full of evidence that agriculture, capitalism, slavery, … Continue reading
Posted in Government on what to do, Life Before Oil, Political Books
Tagged agriculture, bird flu, councils, dawn of everything, energy decline, monarchy, pandemic, peak oil
2 Comments
Limits to Growth: Natural gas fertilizer that feeds 4 billion of us
Preface. In chapter 4 of my book “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy“, I explain how it came to be that fertilizer is made out of natural gas, using the energy of natural gas, and why … Continue reading
Posted in Life After Fossil Fuels, Limits To Growth, Natural Gas, Peak Food, Starvation
Tagged agriculture, food, peak food, peak natural gas, starvation
1 Comment
Review of Wrangham’s The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue & Violence in Human Evolution
Preface. This is a fantastic, must read book if you’re at all interested in how we evolved to be who we are today, how we domesticated ourselves, gossip, conformity, violence and more. It reminds me of why I don’t read … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Human Nature, War Books
Tagged conformity, domestication, gossip, hunter-gatherer, morality, violence
1 Comment
Methods to preserve knowledge for Wood world (Life After Fossil Fuels)
Preface. My books “When Trucks Stop Running” and “Life after fossil fuels” explain why we are returning to wood as our major energy resource and for infrastructure, just like all civilizations before fossil fuels. I call it “Wood World”. The … Continue reading
Posted in Preservation of Knowledge
Tagged microsoft, preservation of knowledge, project silica
2 Comments
How corporations used evangelists to gain wealth, power, and undo the New Deal
Source: Republican Jesus Preface. This is a book review of One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse (2016), followed by excerpts from the book. Much of this introduction is my take on what this … Continue reading
Posted in Corruption, Corruption & Finance, Distribution of Wealth, Religion
Tagged corporations, corruption, evangelical, free enterprise, fundamentalist, Jesus, religion, Republican
1 Comment
The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive
Preface. There are two articles below that explain why natural gas fertilizers are keeping at least 4 billion of us alive today. If you’re interested in this topic, here are a few more to read: Erisman JW, Sutton MA, Galloway … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Life After Fossil Fuels, Natural Gas, Overpopulation, Peak Food
Tagged agriculture, fertilizer, nitrogen, overpopulation, peak food
4 Comments
Can democracy survive peak oil?
Preface. This is a book review of Howard Bucknell’s Energy and the National Defense. University of Kentucky Press. Bucknell was amazingly prescient as you’ll see in this review, especially about why democracy might not survive the energy crisis. Heck, it … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Energy Books, Military, Politics, Rationing
Tagged authoritarianism, Bucknell, defense, democracy, energy crises, energy transitions, rationing, synthetic fuel
1 Comment
Book review: The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century
Preface. Nate Hagens and DJ White’s book is the kind of book I’d like to write someday. Like them, I’d publish only in paper to preserve knowledge because the electric grid will come down some day since it can’t outlast … Continue reading
Jason Bradford on reforming the current food system
Preface. Jason Bradford is amazing: He taught ecology for a few years at Washington University in St. Louis, worked for the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and co-founded the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Farming & Ranching
Tagged agriculture, bradford, cattle, crazy town, farms, Jason Bradford, organic
1 Comment
Book review of Fruits of Eden: David Fairchild & Americas Plant Hunters
Preface. Botanist David Fairchild is one of the reasons the average grocery store has 39,500 items. Before he came along, most people ate just a few kinds of food day in day out (though that was partly due to a … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Farming & Ranching
Tagged agriculture, botany, fruit, garden, vegetables
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