Categories
-
Recent Posts
- 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”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
Category Archives: What to do
Peak lithium makes transportation & electricity storage pointless
Preface. The lithium batteries in cars need electricity to recharge, but the electric grid can’t stay up with just wind and solar, that’s why natural gas is the energy storage today. Nor do pumped hydro or compressed air energy storage … Continue reading
Highlights of the Denver Peak Oil 2005 conference
Preface. I just added the category “Peak Oil History” because I believe the coming oil crisis will be a complete surprise to the vast majority of the public who are unaware of the role fossil fuels play in our civilization, … Continue reading
Dozens of reasons why solar power can’t replace fossil fuels
Preface. Last update 2024-6-3. All solar (and wind) do is add to the giant bonfire of burning fossil fuels — which still provide two-thirds of the power for the electric grid. Electricity is just a fraction of how we use … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, CSP with thermal energy storage, Photovoltaic Solar, Recycle, Recycling, Solar, Solar EROI, Subsidies
Tagged china, EROI, fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, orbiting solar, PV, solar, subsidy, toxic chemicals
Comments Off on Dozens of reasons why solar power can’t replace fossil fuels
An Amazonian community in balance with nature
Preface. Now that limits to growth and energy have arrived, it’s past time to invent a sustainable society living in balance with nature without fossil fuels and electricity. The Dawn of Everything showed us such civilizations from the past. Today … Continue reading
Posted in Dawn of Everything
Tagged Amazon, Ashaninka, dawn of everything, new community, steady state
Comments Off on An Amazonian community in balance with nature
Dawn of Everything Miscellaneous
Preface. I’ve put interesting bits that don’t belong in a single category here as well as summaries and links to new archeological discoveries, societies today living in balance sustainably, etc. Starting with the review from Science which summarizes the book … Continue reading
Posted in Dawn of Everything
Tagged dawn of everything, dreams, yanomani
Comments Off on Dawn of Everything Miscellaneous
States do not evolve from Bands to Tribes to Chiefdoms to States
Preface. The bulk of this book is dedicated to showing why the idea of the evolution from tribes to states is false. If the authors are correct, then the flexibility of societies to invent ways of living with more freedom … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Dawn of Everything, Farming & Ranching, Slavery
Tagged dawn of everything, state evolution
Comments Off on States do not evolve from Bands to Tribes to Chiefdoms to States
The freedom to travel enabled people to flee to better tribes
Preface. One of my favorite books was Bruce Chatwin’s “Songlines” about how aborigines were included by the Australian government in the building of a new railroad so that sacred sites could be avoided and they could add the rail line … Continue reading
Posted in Dawn of Everything
Tagged Australia, clans, dawn of everything, sign language, travel
Comments Off on The freedom to travel enabled people to flee to better tribes
How past societies avoided the Agricultural trap
Preface. There’s a great deal of evidence that past tribes did grow food but deliberately chose not to make that the entirety of the way they lived, preferring a more seasonal styles of life with hunting and gathering, and governance … Continue reading
Posted in Dawn of Everything, Farming & Ranching
Tagged agriculture, dawn of everything
Comments Off on How past societies avoided the Agricultural trap
Why were California & Pacific NW Native tribes so different from each other?
Preface. Why do many societies near each other have such different values, beliefs, mythology, and governance? In “Dawn of Everything”, the authors suggest that it’s because:
Posted in Dawn of Everything
Tagged agriculture, dawn of everything, slavery
Comments Off on Why were California & Pacific NW Native tribes so different from each other?
Dawn of Everything: self-governance not Kings & Slavery
Preface. After the Great Simplification new societies will arise, and I hope copy past civilizations that deliberately avoided slavery, war and autocratic kings. I’ve extracted a few examples of this from The Dawn of Everything below.