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The Thermodynamics of Degrowth | Tim Garrett
The Thermodynamics of Degrowth | Tim Garrett Collapse and Recovery What’s the relationship between our energy consumption, our material footprint and our economies? Tim Garrett and I come to refer to these as “the holy trinity”. Tim is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, and over two years ago, he joined me […]
The Thermodynamics of Collapse
The Thermodynamics of Collapse
Dr Sid Smith Rocks the Boat on Nature Bats Last
Dr Sid Smith Rocks the Boat on Nature Bats Last The August 2020 episode of Nature Bats Last featured an excellent discussion with Dr Sid Smith, the episode is embedded here: Dr Smith is former co-chair and current secretary of the Green Party of Virginia. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he is a writer and […]
More on the thermodynamic black hole…
More on the thermodynamic black hole… I recently wrote about the thermodynamic black hole; articles about ERoEI keep popping up in my in tray that truly baffle me…… As Alice Friedemann told Chris Martenson in the podcast I discussed in the aforementioned blog post, “everyone disagrees on what to leave in or out of their ERoEI […]
Past world economic production constrains current energy demands: Persistent scaling with implications for economic growth and climate change mitigation
Past world economic production constrains current energy demands: Persistent scaling with implications for economic growth and climate change mitigation Abstract Climate change has become intertwined with the global economy. Here, we describe the contribution of inertia to future trends. Drawing from thermodynamic principles, and using 38 years of available statistics between 1980 to 2017, we […]
Energy and Institution Size
Energy and Institution Size This week was a first for me. I participated in an academic conference that was entirely online. The conference — called Thermodynamics 2.0 — was designed to connect the natural and social sciences. It was a fitting place to discuss my research, and there were many interesting (virtual) talks. I’ve posted here a […]
Renewables Are Dead
Renewables Are Dead If I’ve said once that those among us who tout renewable energy should pay more attention to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, I must have said it a hundred times. But I hardly ever get the impression that people understand why. And it seems so obvious. A quote I often use from […]
Green New Physics
Green New Physics You could probably say I’m sympathetic to the schoolchildren protesting against climate change, and I’m sympathetic to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her call for a Green New Deal. Young people are the future, and they deserve a voice about that future. At the same time, I’m also deeply skeptical about their understanding of […]
How the light gets in
How the light gets in The science behind growth scepticism The Entropy Law still matters. CUSP director Tim Jackson responds to Michael Liebreich’s essay on the ‘The secret of eternal growth’. CC.0 :: ipicgr / pixabay.com It’s probably fitting that Michael Liebreich’s The Secret of Eternal Growth was published so close to Halloween. It’s so […]
Split personalities: We like some science, but not all of it
Split personalities: We like some science, but not all of it We modern folk are in a bind. We embrace what the sciences and the technology that flows from them have to offer, but we refuse to believe that we live in the world described by those very sciences. Here I’m not merely talking about […]
