Stephen Emmott is a chief techno-wizard at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England. His brilliant young scientists are doing research in complex natural systems. Their objective is to invent miracles. They want to program ordinary cells to perform photosynthesis, so we can produce food from sunlight, without plows and seeds. Agriculture can't feed ten billion. The goal is … [Read more...]
Books
The best books on peak oil, climate disruption, economic crisis, and the ways to deal with each as a society and on a personal, family, or community level.
Dollars are worthless without crude oil
In my previous post I drew some parallels between energy and money – and more specifically, energy and banking – and pointed out that when money is at stake, the presence of energy is likely lurking somewhere in the shadows. It was mostly hypotheses and observations I was throwing around about energy and banking, but when it comes to energy and money, one can hardly overstate … [Read more...]
A homegrown remedy to tame American empire
There's lots of talk of localization or re-localization in the Transition movement and among environmentalists and economic justice advocates generally. And for good reason. Today's global economy where big corporations, with security provided by the United States military, ship plastic crap from Chinese sweatshops thousands of miles to consumers around the world who don't need … [Read more...]
The population prophet we all love to hate
In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich achieved infamy by publishing The Population Bomb: Population Control or Race to Oblivion?, one of the most controversial eco-books ever printed. Ehrlich has been condemned to spend eternity with Thomas Malthus, in a dungeon reserved for doom perverts. To this day, professors still use the two lads as great reasons to never take seriously … [Read more...]
Star spangled collapse
Apparently, people who write titles for politico-military thrillers about nuclear brinksmanship find the language of The Star Spangled Banner just too good to resist. It must be the power of dark irony, to turn words of patriotic celebration into a warning for patriots. For example: Twilight's Last Gleaming is a 1977 drama starring Burt Lancaster as a renegade air force … [Read more...]