Category Archives: Environment

All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change

Posted on September 12, 2020 by

Those tree-hugging liberals over at the Pentagon just don’t get it. They don’t understand that climate change is a hoax and the Trump White House doesn’t want to hear about it. They keep working away, defying Presidential directives, studying and … Continue reading →

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Solar power is becoming insanely cheap

Posted on May 17, 2020 by

The cost of solar power has fallen by a factor of 5 since 2010, and it will keep falling for decades to come.  That’s the gist of a May 14, 2020 blog post titled Solar’s Future Is Insanely Cheap (2020) … Continue reading →

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The Optimist’s Telescope

Posted on March 21, 2020 by

The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age By Bina Venkataraman Riverhead Books, New York, 2019 As I write this in late March 2020 in Seattle, the world is gripped by the coronavirus epidemic.  It feels like everything everywhere … Continue reading →

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Dematerialization in The Cloud

Posted on February 28, 2020 by

Whenever you log on to Facebook or YouTube or your bank or your favorite online game, you’re connecting to computers in some data center somewhere on the planet. All those servers and all those data centers consume a huge amount … Continue reading →

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Doughnut Economics

Posted on February 23, 2020 by

How do we shift our economy from a focus on never-ending GDP growth to living within the “Doughnut?” Continue reading →

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No growth, slow growth or green growth?

Posted on February 7, 2020 by

In the February 10, 2020 issue of The New Yorker magazine, journalist John Cassidy has a very interesting article called Can we have prosperity without growth?  (In the print version, the article is titled “Steady State.”) Cassidy surveys a wide spectrum of … Continue reading →

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The Case for Growth: An Interview with Marc Andreessen

Posted on January 31, 2020 by

In my last few posts I’ve been looking into the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Can we find a healthy balance between them?  Or are they fundamentally at odds? Well a couple of weeks ago I was listening … Continue reading →

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A Safe and Just Doughnut

Posted on January 20, 2020 by

Today’s post is about the doughnut.  I’m not talking about an ordinary sugar-glazed, jam-filled, deep-fried doughnut.  No, this is a safe and just doughnut we can all live in together. If safe and just aren’t the flavors you normally look … Continue reading →

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Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?

Posted on January 12, 2020 by

Can we have economic growth while reducing our impact on the environment? Some people believe growth is incompatible with sustainability and that we need to move to a “no growth” or even a “de-growth” economy. Others think we can still … Continue reading →

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Peak Stuff

Posted on December 22, 2019 by

I’m going to try something different in this post.  Instead of reviewing a book, I’m going to look at a research paper called “Peak Stuff — did the UK reach a peak in material consumption in about 2001-3?” Sounds pretty … Continue reading →

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