Category Archives: What to do

How to make biomass last longer

Preface. Before fossil fuels, societies were able to make their forests last longer than today. Felling tall trees and killing them was rare except for special needs such as making bridges or ships. For firewood and other needs, trees were … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material & the Construction of Civilization

Preface. This is a book review, mainly with excerpts, of Ennos’s book “The Age of Wood. Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization”. If you know anything about woodworking, you will enjoy the detailed descriptions of how and … Continue reading

Posted in Energy Books, Jobs and Skills, Life After Fossil Fuels, Wood | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Tree planting is not a simple solution but sure beats Carbon Capture!

Preface.  The article from Science below lists both negative and positive outcomes depending on where trees are planted. The unintended negative effects could be a reduced water supply, the destruction of native grasslands and spread of invasive tree species, or … Continue reading

Posted in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), Plant Trees | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Even Pencils will be hard to make

Preface. Most of us are unaware of how complex our society is, how things are made, how food is grown, how stuff is delivered, and the people, energy, transportation, and kinds and sources of materials in every day objects.  This … Continue reading

Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Localization, Supply Chains | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Fragility of Microchips

Preface. This is an introduction to how microchips are made to give you an idea of how difficult and amazing they are.  This is a very high-level overview gathered mostly from the textbooks of Quirk (2001) and Van Zant (2004). … Continue reading

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Interdependencies, Localization, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Microchips and computers, Society, Supply Chains | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Book list: What to do about peak everything and limits to growth

If you search on prepping you’ll get 262 million results. That isn’t my focus, there are plenty of groups and websites devoted to that.  Where best to be is important but hard to decide since initially cities might be best … Continue reading

Posted in Advice, Book List, Where to Be or Not to Be | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Livestock threatened by toxic invasive species on rangeland

Preface.  Will cattle, sheep,goats, and horses have to be raised on feed lots in the future to prevent range land poisoning from invasive plants? Each year poisonous plants adversely affect 3-5% of the cattle, sheep, and horses that graze western … Continue reading

Posted in Biodiversity, BioInvasion, Farming & Ranching, Peak Food | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Escape collapse on a DIY floating island

Preface. Build your own sustainable floating compound. At Freedom Cove, food preparation takes up a large part of the day. Without a refrigerator or freezer, the couple catch fish and grow almost all the food they consume in a large … Continue reading

Posted in Where to Be or Not to Be | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Electrify ships with batteries?

Preface. You’d need 100,000 metric tons of batteries taking 40% of cargo space to go from Asia to Europe in 31 days on an 18,000 TEU container ship, and it is hard to imagine how or how long it would … Continue reading

Posted in Ships and Barges, Transportation What To Do | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Megan Siebert at REALgnd.org “What to do”

Preface. This is what I saw on December 12, 2020. To see a more up-to-date list go to the Real GND website: https://www.realgnd.org/recommendations If you’d like to know how to fund these measures, then go here. To take action, go … Continue reading

Posted in Advice, Birth Control, Population | Tagged | 11 Comments