Category Archives: 3) Fast Crash

The case for a fast, rather than a slow one. Most societies crashed in 20 years or less. There has never been or will be again a crash like ours, where the world of 7 billion people became utterly dependent on a non-renewable source of energy — fossil fuels.

Book review of “The Death of Expertise: the campaign against established knowledge and why it matters”

Posted on November 5, 2020 by

Preface.  Those who attack experts are exactly the people who will not read this book review (well, mainly some Kindle notes) of Nichols “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters”. They scare me, they … Continue reading →

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Why we need more women leaders

Posted on October 27, 2020 by

Preface. Hector Garcia makes the case that women make better leaders in an excerpt from his book below. His conclusion is that “scientific literature shows that when women are allowed greater political and economic power, which is inseparable from the … Continue reading →

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Donald Trump: Sexual Predator

Posted on October 21, 2020 by

Preface.  This is a book review of “All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the making of a Predator”.  Trump is clearly as much a sexual predator as Jeffrey Epstein (who he hung out with for a long time) and … Continue reading →

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Republicans way ahead of Democrats on voter data

Posted on October 15, 2020 by

Preface.  This is a book review and Kindle notes of Nelson’s “Shadow Network:  Media, money and the secret hub of the Radical Right”. It tells the sad history of how Republicans got Trump elected and took over the House, and … Continue reading →

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Kurt Andersen on Trump & Covid-19 in “Evil Geniuses”

Posted on September 27, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Disease, Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A Strong Case for the Anthropocene: no other species has ever consumed so much of earth’s resources so quickly

Posted on September 24, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in ! PEAK EVERYTHING, Climate Change, Human Nature | Tagged , | 10 Comments

EV cars and utility scale energy storage batteries are not likely to materialize

Posted on September 21, 2020 by

Preface.  Clearly there’s not enough minerals and metals to shift from fossil fuels to electric vehicles and utility scale battery storage, due to peak critical elements, peak platinum group elements, peak precious elements, peak rare earth elements, and peak everything … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Batteries, Battery - Utility Scale, Peak Lithium | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

How much oil left in America? Not much

Posted on September 18, 2020 by

Preface. If you think we have no worries because we can get arctic oil, think again. We can’t because icebergs mow drilling platforms down in the ocean. On land, massive amounts of expensive new drilling rigs, roads, rail lines, platforms, … Continue reading →

Posted in How Much Left, Peak Oil | Tagged , | 6 Comments

A book review of “Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America“ by David J. Silverman

Posted on September 12, 2020 by

Preface. This is a book review of “Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America“ by David J. Silverman 2016. I found this book hard to put down.  It should be read because it tells the role guns played … Continue reading →

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Think covid-19 is bad? The tuberculosis pandemic is still killing millions

Posted on August 30, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Health, Pandemic Fast Crash, Pandemics | Tagged , | 1 Comment