What is Behind the Denial of Climate Change?

Fear, grief, and greed appear to all be behind denial of climate change.  Are people who deny climate change in the denial stage of the grief process?  Are they motivated by fear of climate change, a global problem that can certainly feel overwhelming to an individual?  Either or both are possible, depending on the person.  I can sympathize with those who have reached the understanding that humanity has become so numerous, and is having such a big impact on the global ecology as a result, that we are facing enormous and serious challenges to our existence (and intelligence) as a species.  I can also understand the grief of anyone realizing that the good economic times of the past are probably gone, and our days of carefree consumption and travel appear to be over.  These are significant losses, and truly worthy of our concern.  The problem is, the motivation for many denials of climate change comes from another source: corporate funding.  First, though, I want to address the emotional side of the issue.

What Keeps the Failed “War on Drugs” Going?

Argentina’s federal court has bucked the U.S.-mandated war on drugs by decriminalizing personal drug use (link).  Judges said that punishing drug users only “creates an avalanche of cases targeting consumers without climbing up in the ladder of [drug] trafficking.”  It is interesting that, while a number of South American governments have moved to decriminalize drug use, the mainstream press in North America has been completely silent. 

Technological Development Isn’t the Only Thing Accelerating

Can improvements in technology keep up with increasing global demand? As I look around at various discussions of the current world situation I read lots of interesting thoughts and ideas around our rapidly advancing technology. Some see the rate of technological advancement as being on a continuous exponential upswing that will result in fabulous new classes of products, free or nearly free energy, and answers to practically all of our currently-anticipated global troubles within a decade or two. Others see a rocky road of regional energy and food shortages, promising technologies taking too long too implement, and much worse. I tend to be somewhere in the middle of it all, and working to raise consciousness so that the rocky road will be less so, and the technologies will have time to arrive. The problem is that, while technological development is accelerating, world problems are, too, and population seems to be the perennial behind-the-scenes story. The real race I see is between conservation (to buy time), scientific developments, the will to implement new technologies, and increasing human numbers and per capita demand. The unfortunate fact is that demand is accelerating faster than population as the world “globalizes” and modernizes.

Is Overpopulation at the Root of More “Popular” Problems?

This is a response to those who believe that problems such as “corrupt politicians” or “global warming” are the most important problems we face today.  I’m not contending that these aren’t problems, but that we have a bigger problem.  I believe the problem of overpopulation is far more important than the problems currently getting the most attention in the western media, such as immigration, pollution, and global climate change. In fact, I believe overpopulation can be seen as the root cause of many of the problems that do get the attention of the main stream media. It is unfortunate they are apparently unwilling to say anything that might lead people to make the connection.  The logic, however, seems simple.

Preserving (Spoiled) North American Attitudes about Personal Transportation

An esteemed colleague and friend, John Herbst, suggested to me the application of electromagnets for saving fuel on the freeway.  John and I both commute about 35 miles to work each day, each driving a car that gets over 30 mpg, but feeling a longing to be much less wasteful.  We have discussed the impracticality of taking a train, especially with regard to how we would get from the train station to where we work.  I was describing a favorite part of one of my all-time favorite science fiction novels, Snow Crash, in which the pizza delivery guy travels on a future-tech skateboard using a magnetic lariat to get pulled down the street by passing cars.  John immediately said that he’s always wanted to have a big magnet on the front of his car so that, once he was on the highway, he could stick his car to the back of a passing truck, shut off the engine, and be pulled to near work, at which point he could disconnect from the truck and drive his car the rest of the way. 

The Future of Toilet Paper

Aren’t You Glad Toilet Paper is Derived from a Renewable Resource? Toilet paper shortages are a difficult thing to think about … so I won’t think about it … no, I can’t help it.

Who Would Have Thought Richard Nixon a Visionary?

In 1960, Richard Nixon gave a speech on the country’s agricultural problems to a group in South Dakota (link) in which he noted that “population here and elsewhere is growing at a remarkable rate.”  He also noted that beef consumption per capita had increased by more than 40% in less than 20 years, from 56 to over 80 pounds per person per year, or about a quarter pound per day, a pattern very similar to what is seen in rapidly developing countries now (for meat, not necessarily beef).  This certainly sounds prophetic as, 48 years later, we watch improving standards of living in the developing countries combining with burgeoning overpopulation to produce a global consumption binge such as the planet has never seen before.

It is Encouraging to See Corporations Moving Towards Sustainability

Xerox is making the pursuit of sustainability a priority, and other companies are following.  A few weeks ago I saw an article reporting that Xerox had created a staff position to track the green footprint or “green value chain” (similar to ”lean value chain”*) for all their products.  A quick news-search revealed that Xerox is working with other corporations such as EDS to track and reduce carbon emissions related to Xerox products (link), and has been named to Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (press release).   Read further for more on what is behind the change and how we can encourage it.

Shell Scenarios Attempt to Bracket the Energy Future

This morning NPR revealed to me (as I crawled down the freeway trying to get 30+ mpg with SUVs blasting by in the fast lane), that energy giant Royal Dutch Shell had released a document titled “Energy Scenarios to 2050″ at a conference in Brussels on April 7th, and I found more details on line at a site called Euractiv(link).   Euractiv interviewed Shell’s vice president for global business environment, Jeremy Bentham, who proposed that public money be put into play to encourage development of carbon sequestration technologies (link).  Bentham suggests that, while there is no “silver bullet” solution, there is probably a “silver buckshot” approach that works.  This is all well and good, but we, the public, need to consider the source and understand that there is more here than meets the eye. 

News of U.N. Food Aid Initiatives for Haiti Ignore the Overpopulation Problem

Both political and news organizations ignore overpopulation as a root-cause problem.  This morning the news blared how U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is calling for immediate emergency food aid to Haiti, where food riots have been occurring with increasing frequency, yet neither the radio news people nor Ki-moon himself have said anything about the problems in Haiti, which include overpopulation.  Are Haiti and the other undeveloped countries the “canaries in the coal mine” for serious overpopulation problems?

Be Wary of the Quality of On-line Information Sources

The range of information sources on the web is broad, and I run across some interesting variations when I research things I’m interested in. Recently I ran across a site that purports to provide answers to almost any question, a laudable ambition, and suddenly I understood where some of those spam “work at home and earn big money” ads are coming from.

Material Questions About Nanotechnology

Can a nanobot break a molecule and change the material’s characteristics? If a nanobot deconstructs a molecule, could the pieces, being atoms or smaller molecules, have different characteristics that were not characteristics of the previous form? Could a nanobot destroy a physical object by degrading its substance, converting it into a weaker substance, possibly even a liquid or gas?  I have many more questions.

The Blogger’s Problem – the “Keyhole Effect”

The “keyhole problem” is a common issue for bloggers.  A blog is influenced heavily by not only the world-view of the writer, but by the phenomenon of “looking at the world through a keyhole”. There is almost always a lot more information, from a broader range of sources and viewpoints, than one can cover and still write productively, so one must accept that you can only “look through a keyhole” at the world.  Here is how I attempt to handle this problem.

Why Doesn’t Overpopulation Get Mentioned by the Press?

This week NPR did a story about food shortages in the developing world, but the word “population” was never said.  Other stories they have recently done about similar evidence of global environmental issues have similarly avoided mentioning overpopulation.  I have noted this phenomenon so many times that it is making me a bit crazy.  Why does the overpopulation problem, clearly behind our problems of pollution, ecological degradation, climate change, immigration, and various other economic woes, never get mentioned by the press or political candidates?  Is it THAT awful, that huge a problem? Does it have such terrifying implications that nobody can face the fact that, as a species, we humans are rapidly overpopulating the planet, and already suffering the inevitable fallout from doing so?

How Long Can Technological Advancement Keep Speeding Up?

Attempting to predict where technology may take us in future decades, and how quickly, is a fun and challenging undertaking. A lot of the science fiction-y sounding ideas I and others have come up with are exciting, but I doubt we can expect to see progress much more rapid than was seen with the advent of radio, for example. Much as we’d like to think that technological progress is increasing exponentially and new inventions will appear more and more quickly to save our ecological “bacon”, Ray Kurzweil’s ideas notwithstanding (link), I believe it is unlikely to happen like that. While scientific progress will continue, the human limitations around how quickly we can learn, and how quickly we are willing to adopt new ideas and tools, will ensure that our advancement will not be truly exponential.