Fear of fallowing: The specter of a no-growth world
The question that comes to my mind whenever I catch a glimpse of aggregate consumption is always the same: How can it last?>Oil is not simply implicated in everything we call growth. There has never been growth without it.
>The limiting factor, in other words, is no longer tools but natural capital.
>“Leave it alone. Let it grow in order to slow or reduce the exploitation. This conforms perfectly to the economic definition of investment—a reduction in present consumption in order to increase a future capacity to consume.”
>As McKibben writes, “Growth is no longer making people wealthier, but instead generating inequality and insecurity.”
>China and India now demand an increasing share of the energy and resources that the United States and Europe once claimed for themselves, triggering unprecedented oil prices that reverberate throughout the global economy.
気象変化
All posts tagged 気象変化
The “CO2 is Plant Food” Crock
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) supports research on the interactions of natural and human-induced changes in the global environment and their implications for society.
That’s from an article last week in Der Spiegel online. None of this is a surprise to CP readers (see “Peak oil production coming sooner than expected“) or to those who follow the once staid International Energy Agency (see World’s top energy economist warns: “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us”).
http://www.physorg.com/news203174294.html
It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the “total collapse of the markets” and of serious political and economic crises.
While the leaked document was confirmed in its existence, German officials insist that it hadn’t been edited, and that it wasn’t meant to published. Even so, the existence of the report indicates that another government is concerned about the implications that peak oil, if we really are approaching such a point, could have on a worldwide scale.
Whether or not you believe that peak oil is a pressing problem, it is interesting to note that some governments are starting to take the issue seriously — and even look for ways to avoid disaster that could come.
More information: Terry Macalister and Lionel Badal, “Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks,” The Observer (August 22, 2010).
Stefan Schultz, “‘Peak Oil’ and the German Government,” SPIEGEL ONLINE (September 1, 2010).
The party is over, is it?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-much-is-left
The constraints on our resources and environment—compounded by the rise of the middle class in nations such as China and India—will shape the rest of this century and beyond. Here is a visual accounting of what we have left to work with, a map of our resources plotted against time.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/29/climate-progress-why-i-blog/#more-32249
Humanity has only two paths forward at this point. As President Obama said in April 2009, “The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.” Either we voluntarily switch to a low-carbon, low-oil, low-net water use, low-net-material use economy over the next two decades or the post-Ponzi-scheme-collapse forces us to do so circa 2030. The only difference between the two paths is that the first one spares our children and grandchildren and countless future generations untold misery.
Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause
The group that is skeptical of the evidence of man-made global warming “comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers in the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups … This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that [about] 97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of [man-made global warming].”
How has this tiny 2-3% sliver of fringe opinion been reinvented as a perpetually “growing” share of the scientific community? Most climate-change deniers (or “skeptics,” or whatever term one prefers) tend to inhabit militantly right-wing blogs and other Internet echo chambers populated entirely by other deniers.
jkay@nationalpost.com
Interviews with Bill McKibben who wrote Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
- Science Talk 4/21/10
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Bill McKibben’s Eaarth, Part 1
- Writer and activist Bill McKibben talks to Scientific American‘s Mark Fischetti about his new book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Part 1 of 2. Edited and produced by podcast host Steve Mirsky
- Science Talk 4/22/10
Bill McKibben’s Eaarth, Part 2
He has a good vision but is very weak in details as he admits it by himself. He is focusing in the trajectory. To make his vision possible, he needs support from many strong scientists. His idea in technology is a bit naive even to people who sympathize him like myself. - Some more similar podcasts:
What Would Failure to Combat Climate Change Quickly Mean?
…BOULDER, Colo. – Turns out climate policy has some tipping points….
January 12, 2010 – News – By Douglas Fischer, The Daily Climate
What Can Past Climate Change Reveal about Human Adaptation?
…Research on climate change today focuses mostly on the future, taking stock…
March 05, 2010 – Climatewire – By Lauren Morello, Climatewire
Linked Challenges: Climate Change and Energy Use
…about the twin challenges of climate change and energy consumption. His…
September 24, 2009 – 60-Second Earth -
John Rennie’s 7 Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
- On the eve of the United Nations Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen and in the wake of the hacked climate researchers’ e-mails, former Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie discusses his ScientificAmerican.com article “7 Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense,” available at http://bit.ly/8bg9Fx
Solving emerging problems by bio-synthetic engineering. Craig Venter tries to make synthetic organisms to make biofuel.
Craig Venter: On the verge of creating synthetic life
This will not likely solve the problem unfortunately. Something must be done fundamentally to shift the principle of economic growth. But blindly blaming and denying science and technology is equally stupid. We should try to shrive to be better and not to be illogical morons.
A Pillow Diary of an Expatriate Scientist 