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.

The Nuclear Bomb is Back!

Preface. If you are not worried about nuclear war anymore, you should be. We have accidentally come close so many times.

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Nuclear power is not the solution

Preface. This is a book review of Ramana’s Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change. It is definitely the best book on nuclear power I have read, and I’ve read quite … Continue reading

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Refrigeration uses up to 30% of world electricity

Preface. This is a book review of Twilley’s 2024 book Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. It is a really great book, highly recommended. Refrigeration plays a much larger role in our lives than people realize. … Continue reading

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Peak food production, 2-3 billion babies by 2050

Preface. Also see related article Limits to Growth? 2016 United Nations report provides best evidence yet. Nichols (2015) below shows that climate change is already affecting harvests of the world’s top 10 crops that comprise 83% of our calories: barley, … Continue reading

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Chemical industrial farming does not work: Pests evolve immunity quickly

Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil and ecosystems. Yet a third of crops are lost to pests just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals Preface. This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, and … Continue reading

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Trump & Project 2025 want to destroy energy efficiency & raise your utility bills

Source: (NYT 2017, LBL 2025) The Department of energy (DOE) under Chris Wright is proposing to get rid of energy efficiency standards that have saved consumers over 1.5 trillion dollars (CFA 2017). The average American home saves $321 a year … Continue reading

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The only congressional hearing on Peak Oil was in 2005

Preface. This U.S. House hearing happened 20 years ago, but it is still a good introduction to why oil is so important to society. At this hearing scientific experts spoke, warning that we will reach peak oil within decades (which … Continue reading

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Tom Murphy Stubborn Expectations (on population)

U.N.Total fertility rate projections Preface. Tom Murphy has one of the best blogs on limits to growth, peak everything and more from the point of view of math and physics called Do The Math. Tom Murphy is a professor emeritus … Continue reading

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Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth

Preface. Obviously the planet is finite.  World crude oil production peaked in 2018, and been on a plateau since 2008.  Other resources, such as food, are peaking while the polycrisis depletes fisheries, forests, groundwater and more. Yet this reality is … Continue reading

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Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?

Preface. The idea that we can go to Mars is touted by NASA, Elon Musk, and so many others that this dream seems just around the corner.  If we destroy our planet with climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Far Out, Hopium, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Where to Be or Not to Be | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments