What I've Been Reading, July 2017

Squirrel hanging upside down
while picking and eating mulberries in our backyard.

Links

These links appear in the order I read them, rather than any more refined sort of organization. You may find some of the best ones are near the bottom—it varies from month to month.

• "From Horrific To Catastrophic": Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss, by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
  
• Museletter #296: The Peak Oil President?, by Richard Heinberg, Museletter
  
• 2016 Tight Oil Reality Check, by David Hughes, Post Carbon Institute
  
• Here's How NASA Thinks Society Will Collapse, by Alex Brown, The Atlantic
  Too much inequality and too few natural resources could leave the West vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall.
• Trump’s Coal Delusions, by Richard Heinberg, Resilience/Post Carbon Institute
  In all likelihood, our real future lies elsewhere—with distributed renewable energy and a planned substantial reduction in overall energy usage through efficiency measures and a redesign of the economy. The inevitable transition away from fossil fuels will constitute a big job, and it only gets bigger, harder, and more costly the longer we delay it. Claiming that it makes sense to return to coal at this late date is delusional for economic as well as environmental reasons.
• Scientists Sharply Rebut Influential Renewable-Energy Plan , by James Temple, MIT Technolgoy Review
  Nearly two dozen researchers critique a proposal for wind, solar, and water power gaining traction in policy circles.
  And of course we will eventually switch over to entirely renewable energy. But it will entail a significant decline in energy use, population and the level of technology we can support. Some of us call it collapse.
• How Renewable Energy Advocates are Hurting the Climate Cause , by Paul McDivitt, Resilience.
  Read the comments, too--some good material there.
• Yes Virginia, We Really Did Land On The Moon, by C. Stuart harwick.
  Debunking anti-science nonsense--love it!
• In praise of cash, by Brett Scott, Aeon.
  "Cash might be grungy, unfashionable and corruptible, but it is still a great public good, important for rich and poor alike." Especially for the poor, I'd say.
• Fear of radiation is more dangerous than radiation itself, by David Ropeik, Aeon.
  
• The Truth About Glyphosate and Wheat, by Sarah Shultz, Nurse Loves Farmer
  
• Good news: There is no honeybee crisis, by Margaret Wente, The Globe and mail.
• In defence of hierarchy,, by along list of authros, Aeon
  
• Minds, Machines and Evolution, Daniel Dennet, interviewed on Living on Earth.
  Only a brief mention, but apparently Daniel things there is a good chance of a technological crash.
• ‘The Planet Could Become Ungovernable’, James Hansen interviewed by David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine.
  Climate Scientist James Hansen on Obama’s Environmental Record, Scientific Reticence, and His Climate Lawsuit Against the Federal Government
• "Canada Is In Serious Trouble" Again, And This Time It's For Real, by Tuler Durden, Zero Hedge
• The economics of enough, by Dan O'Neill at TEDxOxbridge.
  There aren't many TED talks that impress me. This one comes close. I suspect though, that the speaker's idea of "enough" would have his suggested steady state economy settle out at a considerable higher level that is actually possible.
• Brace for the Oil, Food and Financial Crash of 2018, by Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, Insurge Intelligence
• Global Oil Fields in Decline (HSBC), by Kim Fustier and Gordon Gray, HSBC
  
• An Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America , by Forsetti's Justice, Alternet
  In deep-red white America, the white Christian God is king.
• Lark or night owl? Blame your ancestors, by Helen Briggs, BBC News
• Why Capitalism is Just Shitbag Science, by Holly Wood PhD, Medium
• What not to do in a disaster, by Zaria Gorvett, BBC
  This speaks to the first few seconds or minutes of a disaster. I am a little afraid it may perpetuate some of the standard disaster myths. For debunking of those, see the link below.
• Disaster Mythology and Fact: Hurricane Katrina and Social Attachment, by Binu Jacob, MPH, Anthony R. Mawson, MA, DrPH, Marinelle Payton, MD, PhD, MS, MPH, and John C. Guignard, MB, ChB [Edin], FErgSd, National Library of Medicine.
  Distaster myths debunked, note especially myths 4 and 5.
• Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar , by Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World
• Do More! What Amazon Teaches Us About AI and the “Jobless Future”, by Tim O'Reilly, WTF on Medium
  Some good points, but still misses the idea of dwindling surplus energy and economic contraction.
• Canada’s Secret to Resisting the West’s Populist Wave, by Amanda Taub, Thew Interpreter, The New York Times
• Why Canada Is Able to Do Things Better, by Jonathan Kay, The Atlantic.
  Most of the country understands that when it comes to government, you pay for what you get.
• How could we cope if capitalism failed? Ask 26 Greek factory workers, by Adita Chakrbortty.
• The Great Recovery of America’s Infrastructure: Cancelled , by Tom Lewis, The Daily Impact
• What Can India Teach Us About Abolishing High-Value Currency?, by Julie McCarthy, NPR Parallels
  
• Moral Foundations
  Moral Foundations Theory was created by a group of social and cultural psychologists to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too.

Books

Fiction

• A Meeting in Corvallis, by S.M.Stirling
  
• Planetfall, by Emma Newman
  I was a little disappointed by the ending.
• Bowl of Heaven, by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven
  The start of a two book series.
• Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer, Harper Collins
  Overall rating of 4 stars on Amazon.com and lucky to get it.
• Shipstar, by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven.
  The second and concluding book in this series.

Non-Fiction

• The Scoop on Poop, by Dan Chiras, New Society Publishers
  
• Sustainable Materials, without the hot air, by J. M. Allwood & J. M. Cullen
  Making buildings, vehicles and products efficiently and with less new material.
  Excellent book. And a few years ago I read the one below:
• Sustainable Energy without the hot air, by David J. C. MacKay
  The only complaint I have about this book is that, while the author is very solid technically, he seems to be unaware of the connection between surplus energy and the economy. As a result he makes some suggestions that appear to be technically feasible, but which would be disasters for the economy. Involving low EROEI energy sources, of course.

What I've Been Reading, May 2017

Links

These links appear in the order I read them, rather than any more refined sort of organization. You may find some of the best ones are near the bottom—it varies from month to month.

• America's Disgusting, Boundless Hatred for Poor People, by Brittney Cooper, Alternet
  We're now legislating away poor people's right to be happy.
• People think juice is good for them. They’re wrong, by Heather Ferris, Elvira Isganaitis and Florence Brown, Washington Post
  Step away from the juice bar.
• More Rigs Don't Mean More U.S. Gas, by Christine Buurma and Naureen Malik, Bloomberg
  Gas rigs have doubled since August; output falls 1.2%
  Average Marcellus well produces 51% of what it did a year ago
• You're not going to believe what I am about to tell you, by The Oatmeal.
  "It's OK to stop, to listen, to change."
• Climate Change: The Forgotten People and the Displacement of Nations , by Aine Clarke, Warwick Globalist
  The multifarious struggles that nations, rich and poor, face against the impacts of a changing climate.
• What Will Kill Neoliberalism? A roundtable on its fate.
  By Joelle Gamble, Paul Mason, Bryce Covert, William Darity Jr. and Peter Barnes.
  A good read, but these leftists need to face up to the realities of biophysical economics, surplus energy and resource depletion. In other words, scarcity.
  And by the way, don't work too hard.
• Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry, by Scott Locklin, Locklin on science
• Book Review | When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, by Allan Stromfeldt Christensen, at Filmers to Farmers
  A good review of Alice J. Friedman's When The Trucks Stop Running
• Think Resilience: Chapter 5 - Pollution, by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
• Life-and-death thought experiments are correctly unsolvable, by Julian Baggini, Aeon
• When will Chernobyl be habitable again? From Quora.
  There are particularly good answers from Marcelo Pacheco and Virgil Fenn. Only one answer that misses the point and is largely motivated by fear of radiation, by "Anonymus".
• How to disagree with people online, by Johanna Drott, of Remix IT to the Streets.
  A handy guide that will keep you arguing for hours.But at least with some degree of civility.
• What know-it-alls don’t know, or the illusion of competence, by Kate Fehlhaber, Aeon, on the Dunning Kruger Effect.
• Decoupling wealth creation, energy consumption and CO2 emissions, by Roger Andrews, Energy Matter
  As we usually find when we look into it, we find that decoupling isn't happening.
• Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian.
  No seeds were lost but the ability of the rock vault to provide failsafe protection against all disasters is now threatened by climate change
• Say a Prayer for the Homeless: Trump’s People Will Not, by John Stanton, Dissident Voice
• What if People Owned the Banks, Instead of Wall Street? By Jimmy Tobias, The Nation.
  From Seattle to Santa Fe, cities are at the center of a movement to create publicly owned banks.
• Worrywarts Rejoice: Psychologists have great news for people who worry a lot
  by Jordan Rosenfeld, Quartz
• Peak Shale? Monstrous Declines May Kill US Energy Independence, by Dr. Heinrich Leopold, MarketSlant
  Shale Oil & Gas Production Costs Spiral Higher As Monstrous Decline Rates Eat Into Cash Flows
• My Family’s Slave, by Alex Tizon, The Atlantic
  She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was.
• Over The Last 10 Years The U.S. Economy Has Grown At EXACTLY The Same Rate As It Did During The 1930s, by Michael Snyder, the Economic Collapse Blog
  The numbers are interesting, but I certainly don't agree with this guy's conclusions—the US needs higher taxes and a government that isn't starved for funds. Their military budget certainly could do with some reduction though.
• How to culture jam a populist in four easy steps, by Andrés Miguel Rondón, Open Democracy
  All very well, but the real, underlying problem in Venezuela is the low price of oil and no amount of politics will fix that.
• Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy, by Matt Ridley, The Spectator.
  We urgently need to stop the ecological posturing and invest in gas and nuclear.
  He's right about wind turbines, but I can't agree with the author's conclusion about gas and nuclear—what we need to invest in is conservation and a controlled, deliberate energy decline.
• Think Resilience: Chapter 6 - Political & Economic Management, by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
• The Coming Seneca Cliff of the Automotive Industry: the Converging Effect of Disruptive Technologies and Social Factors, by Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's Legacy

Books

Fiction

• Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
  Great read, saturated with original ideas. But totally oblivious to the role of surplus energy in enabling civilization.
• Cold Welcome, by Elizabeth Moon
  Another pirate/privateer/military story with a strong female protagonist. I wonder what Freud would say....
• Forty Words for Sorrow, by Giles Blunt
  A murder mystery, for a change. This one sited here in Ontario. I have a weakness for mysteries in unique locales: Walt Longmire in Wyoming, Jommy Perez in the Shetland Islands, Sonchai Jitpleecheep in Bangkok.
• Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow
  Another book full of ideas, some of which I had thought I'd originated, but here Doctorow is doing innovative things with them while I'm still in the starting blocks.

Non-Fiction

• Communism for Kids, by Bini Adamczak
  A strange little book which caused a bit of a stir when MIT Press published a translation from the original German.
• A Field Guide To Lies : Critical Thinking in the Information Age , by Daniel Levitin
  I can highly recommend this one.

And a few from my bookshelf that I have read over the last few years:

• The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload , by Daniel Levitin
  Another book by Levitin, also highly recommended.
• The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow
• Food Security for the Faint of Heart, by Robin Wheeler
  Keeping your larder full in lean times.
• Willow Basketry: A How-To Guide, by Jonathan Ridgeon
  There are quite a few willows growing along the lakeshore and river here in Kincardine. This spring and last spring I harvested a large armful and started teaching myself to make wicker baskets. This book was a big help.