Iron-rich dust fuelled 4 million years of ice ages
3 Aug, 2011
Iron-rich dust fuelled 4 million years of ice ages – environment – 03 August 2011 – New Scientist. DUST is all that’s needed to plunge the world into an ice age. When blown into the sea, the iron it…
R e a d M o r eMy WFS2011 Talk: The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth
9 Jul, 2011
I gave at talk this morning at the World Future Society 2011 Conference in Vancouver. The talk was entitled The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth, and it looks at what the ultimate limits of growth and prosperity on this planet…
R e a d M o r eCan We Capture All the World’s Carbon?
16 May, 2011
I originally posted this at Scientific American. Reposting here with permission. In 2011, the world will emit more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Every day of the year, almost a hundred million tons will be released into the atmosphere. Every second more than…
R e a d M o r eMore Efficient Aircraft Designs
30 Mar, 2011
The Economist has an article on aircraft designs that could cut fuel use by 50-70%, while still working with today’s airports (a challenge for flying wing designs). From the article: Two groups working on the future of aircraft have come up with designs that could…
R e a d M o r ePersuading Climate Skeptics – Why We Need Republican Experts
18 Mar, 2011
New Scientist has an interesting article on research into what persuades people on scientific issues. The key finding is that there’s a major impact of hearing the evidence from someone who has similar political and social outlooks. Experts who are similar to listeners are inherently…
R e a d M o r eIs Moore’s Law Really a Fair Comparison for Solar?
17 Mar, 2011
[This is an update of a post I first wrote in March of 2011, responding to criticism of the analogy of Moore’s Law for solar power. Updating in April 2015, on the 50th Anniversary of Moore’s Law, in light of renewed conversation on this topic.…
R e a d M o r eThe Exponential Gains in Solar Power per Dollar
17 Mar, 2011
My post on the Moore’s Law-like exponential gains in solar power per dollar went up at Scientific American yesterday. Reprinting here with permission. The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed…
R e a d M o r eOrganic Crops have Lower Yields than Conventional Crops
14 Mar, 2011
Plant pathologist Steve Savage has analyzed the data from the USDA’s Organic Production Survey (the largest ever survey of organic farming in the United States) and finds that organic yields per acre are substantially lower than the yields of conventional crops. By far the biggest…
R e a d M o r eSingularity Summit Talk: The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century
17 Aug, 2010
This weekend I was at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco. On Sunday I gave a talk called The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century. (Follow the link to see the slides on SlideShare.) The…
R e a d M o r eGlobal Warming: Risk of Methane Release from Frozen Tundra
5 Dec, 2008
Now this is scary. The linear rate of global warming, in and of itself, is scary only in the somewhat long term (100+ years or so). The real risk with global warming is runaway feed-forward loops. E.g., one that you hear about often is that…
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