Category Archives: Climate Change

The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more

Preface. This is a book review of: “Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West” by Judith Nies.  This book is about how stealing the resources of native Americans lands was made legal, despite enormous Native … Continue reading

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity Loss, Coal, Energy Books, Energy Infrastructure, Global Warming, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Mass migrations, Peak Resources, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS), U.S. Congress Energy Policy, Water Pollution | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more

Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef

Preface.  Meat production from animals uses a great deal of energy to produce, distribute, and refrigerate. Crops must be grown that erode soil and drain aquifers. Unfortunately, lab grown meat uses even more energy and also requires crops to extract … Continue reading

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Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans

A map showing modelling by Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security showing the worst-case scenario effects of a strike on America’s nuclear missile silos. Researchers found as many as 300 million people would be at risk of a … Continue reading

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EV charging not possible when restricted or grid down

Preface.  I have many posts at energyskeptic on the myriad reasons the grid will fail or disrupted in the future. Climate change is causing droughts and reservoirs too low to generate much hydropower, and nuclear plants must shut down if … Continue reading

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The Impact of Climate Change on California: 8th Largest Economy, 40% of U.S. Shipping

Preface. California’s economy and population relies on one of the most extensive and costly infrastructure systems in the world. This includes thousands of miles of roads, highways and railroads, nearly 200 large water reservoirs of varying capacity, miles of canals, … Continue reading

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Collapse of Mayan civilization: drought, mercury poisoning, toxic algae

Preface. Drought is probably reason #1, but collapse is complex, I’ve seen lists of over 200 reasons for the Fall of the Roman Empire, and our own fall will have even more causes, though triggered by energy decline, since for … Continue reading

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The nine boundaries we must not cross or we may go extinct

Preface. This post has excerpts from the famous paper by Rockström et al (2009) as well as a more recent proposal by Running (2012) on an easier measure of how close we’re coming to rendering the planet uninhabitable. We have … Continue reading

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Hydrogen hopium: Storage

Source: Russel Rhodes (2011) Explosive Lessons in Hydrogen Safety. https://appel.nasa.gov/2011/02/02/explosive-lessons-in-hydrogen-safety/ Preface.  What is hopium? Irrational or unwarranted optimism. An addiction to false hopes. A metaphorical substance that causes people to believe in a false hope (H + opium). And Hopium … Continue reading

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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

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Why mining to make renewables will destroy the planet

Figure 1 Landscape of earth after 37% is mined to build renewables Preface. As I wrote in Life After fossil fuels: “Mining spews out acid rain, wastewater, and heavy metals onto land, water, and air (PEBI 2016). One-fifth of China’s arable … Continue reading

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