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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
- 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”
Category Archives: Polycrisis
Extreme flooding from slow hurricanes a danger to farms
Preface. Yet another danger from climate change for agriculture will be slow hurricanes and cyclones dumping a foot or more of rain over a few days such as the recent hurricanes Harvey (2017), Florence (2018), and Dorian (2019). Journal reference: … Continue reading
Posted in Floods, Food production, Hurricanes
Tagged agriculture, climate change, flood, hurricane
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800 scientists: Burning forests for electricity & heat releases more 1.5x more CO2 than coal, 3x more than natural gas
Preface. The 2015 Paris climate change agreement states that burning biomass is carbon neutral. Not true. Over 800 scientists have written the European Parliament to tell them that burning wood for heat or electricity emits 1.5 x more CO2 than … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Climate Change, CO2 and Methane, Deforestation
Tagged biodiversity, carbon dioxide, climate change, greenhouse gas, wood
1 Comment
Civilization will collapse in 20-40 years from deforestation
Preface. At current rates of deforestation, forests will be gone in 100-200 years. Long before that, in 20-40 years, the effects will be felt, with a 90% chance of civilization collapse likely. Below “deforestation in the news” are excerpts from an … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation, Limits To Growth
Tagged collapse, deforestation, limits to growth
14 Comments
Only a fifth of Earth’s land has little human influence
Preface. Humans have basically taken over the best land on the planet, the places where we aren’t ruining it are really cold, high or dry areas of land, such as arctic landscapes, mountainous areas or deserts. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Deforestation, Limits To Growth, Overpopulation
Tagged land use, limits to growth, overpopulation
2 Comments
Megadrought invades the West
Preface. Mother Nature has had enough and is biting us back. Climate change will increase the chance of a Southwest megadrought that lasts longer than those in the past. Keep up with the latest drought news at the U.S. Drought … Continue reading
Millions in danger of floods on Mississippi and Missouri
Preface. Here’s something for you young folks considering “where to be” after energy collapse. Flooding is a huge consideration. My great grandfather was a doctor in Oklahoma who saw many lose their homes and farms from floods and die from … Continue reading
What can California do about sea level rise?
Projected sea level rise from one meter (dark red) to six meters (light orange) in California’s Bay Area. (Weiss and Overpeck 2011) Preface. Nearly all, if not all, possible solutions to rising sea levels along all the coasts in the … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Infrastructure, Infrastructure & Collapse, Rail, Roads, Sea Level Rise, Transportation
Tagged dike, elevated, floating, infrastructure, levees, sea level rise, seawalls, sewage
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Kurt Andersen on Trump & Covid-19 in “Evil Geniuses”
Preface. If you want to know all the economic and political history that got us to the right-wing extremist Trump and Republican party, there’s no more entertaining way to do so than Kurt Anderson’s latest book “Evil Geniuses”. Better yet, … Continue reading
A Strong Case for the Anthropocene: no other species has ever consumed so much of earth’s resources so quickly
Figure 1. Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Utilization of these energy sources, together with the energy used by humans from net primary production, is now approaching the entire energy available to the global ecosystem … Continue reading
Think covid-19 is bad? The tuberculosis pandemic is still killing millions
Preface. These are my kindle notes from “The Plague and I” by Betty MacDonald. Her great sense of humor, beautiful writing, and finding out what it would have been like to be in a Tuberculosis (TB) sanitarium in 1937 are … Continue reading