Fossil Fuel based growth has ended: This is the best place to learn about the future
First published in the RADIX THINK TANK For some time, I thought our shrinking economy would eventually save the world. But I have been reluctant to say so for fear of being seen as more eccentric than usual. A recent comment by Tim Morgan in his Surplus Energy blog has encouraged me to have my …
Tim Morgan has just published the first of two pieces about the future. Well worth reading.
A theory to explain everything Copied from NE – nakedemperor.substack.com May 24, 2023 I’m constantly looking for new theories to explain why the things that are happening in this world are happening. Why are governments pushing for ever greater control? Why did they unnecessarily destroy their economies during Covid? Why do they push a self-destructive …
Human activity—mostly the burning of fossil fuels—has raised Earth’s atmospheric carbon content by 50 percent, from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 420 ppm. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve released approximately 950 billion metric tons of carbon into the air. Every year, humans emit more than 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, as of …
The President of the EU Commission has announced that “a growth model based on fossil fuels is obsolete.” Nate Hagens discusses this in his Great Simplification project. https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/31-reflections-on-beyond-growth Von der Leyen was speaking at a European Parliament-hosted event in Brussels entitled “Beyond Growth” whose main theme was how to reconcile economic development with environmental goals. …
I have been uneasy for some time about current long-term green thinking. In Herefordshire and elsewhere A recent article by Megan Selbert and William Rees “Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition” has provided insight into my unease. I have been following Prof Bill Rees for some years. …
A recent piece on the BBC website entitled “What is climate change? A really simple guide” is good until you reach the end: The piece says: What can individuals do? Significant changes need to come from governments and businesses, but scientists say some minor changes in our lives can limit our impact on the climate: …
Increasing energy bills have created the perfect conditions for mould Blistering energy prices have created the perfect conditions for the rise of a particular blight across the country. Surveyors have reported a tenfold increase in calls from worried landlords and homeowners who have discovered damp and mould hiding in their properties – and threatening to …
This is the most enlightening piece I have ever come across. It is so good.
Diesel Underpins Global Economy – ‘EROEI’ Explained – Great Depression II in view – System Failure – Letter from Great Britain [05-28-22]
In a recent piece, I wrote about “Global Transition: From growth to degrowth and top-down to bottom-up” I explained the process in which top-down organisations are shrinking and will eventually disappear as a result of de-layering. At the same time, individual and cooperative activities are emerging from the grassroots. In a recent post in “The consciousness …
The two explanations of degrowth (1) that it is an energy-related process and (2) that it is an ideology, are misleading fruitful discussions. It is neither one nor t’other. It is both. I believe in the ideology of degrowth and I also believe in the fact that the economy is an energy-based system. [If you …
From the New York Times: The German word Dunkelflaute means “dark doldrums.” It chills the hearts of renewable-energy engineers, who use it to refer to the lulls when solar panels and wind turbines are thwarted by clouds, night, or still air. On a bright, cloudless day, a solar farm can generate prodigious amounts of electricity; when …
We have a problem. There are currently two fundamentally different understandings of the word “degrowth”. Jason Hickel’s view is that “Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being.” A planned reduction …