I am often asked by people, “what can and should I be doing to help curb climate catastrophe?” Many people feel guilty about their lifestyle and/or simply want to do what they can to be a part of the solution to prevent the worst consequences of a warming planet. My answer is not always what people want to hear. I…
Almost 40 years ago, 1982, a book was published called “Megatrends”. The author had been an intelligence officer in WWII and was using a technique that had been developed during the war to intuit what was happening to society, primarily in Germany, at that time. The general concept was to count the number of lines in the local papers that various…
In my last few messages I’ve been writing about some encouraging developments that have been occurring recently that give hope that despite the current administration in DC right now (I can’t get myself to say it’s name) there is reason to think our society is waking up to the urgent need to act with expediency to blunt the worst impacts…
Staying on the technology theme for one more article, this one is about nuclear power. As a teenager my best friend’s father was very engaged in the topic and indoctrinated me early. Therefore, I have opposed nuclear power from fission since the 60’s. (Yea, I’m old enough for that to have happened.) While power from nuclear fission does not emit global warming…
No matter what we do now, we’ve already baked in increasingly severe consequences from a warming climate. That said, if we do nothing and stay on the trajectory upon which we are currently headed, the future of our civilization is in extreme jeopardy. As it stands right now, we will unquestionably have to adopt to some changes but by being proactive…
In the past I have written about potential pivotal technology advances that will change the paradigm for electric vehicles (including planes and ships). We have all read many announcements with hope, only to never see these come into commercial fruition. (Although in an upcoming post I am going to be following up on one that I wrote about not too long ago that actually IS going into full…
The planet is already experiencing huge impacts from the increasing heat caused by our emitting heat trapping gasses, primarily CO2 and methane. The consequences are going to get much worse due to the amount of these compounds we’ve already emitted but also what we will inevitably put into the atmosphere in the next 10 years and beyond. And while we have and opportunity to mitigate the worse…
Last April I told you for a second time not to worry about the proposed fuel economy standards (CAFE) rollbacks because even if the Trump Administration did issue lower regulations that most likely they wouldn’t be implemented and if they were, the auto manufacturers would not adhere to them. 10 Months Later the Story’s Still the Same: Trump is Irrelevant You’ve seen that…
Undoubtedly you read or heard about the power shutoff that occurred in California recently by PG & E due to wildfires. Most likely, though, you may not have thought about some of the implications of this beyond the immediate concern of the people effected by this event. The ongoing issues are very disconcerting and cannot be resolved overnight. In fact, they may…
The following article is long and primarily focused on the risk of investments in fossil fuels. While I have been cautioning you about this for years the chickens are now coming home to roost. The financial markets are finally seeing the signs of a fundamental shift in where energy production is going. And the markets are reacting. While this is…