engineering the future

Revising older chapters of a draft throws up a few discernible shifts in ongoing discussion. One is the detail and – as far as is possible with largely absent data – rigour of examinations of geoengineering (AKA hacking the planet) as a response to climate change.
Two recent reports – from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers [...]

peak oil (supply… or demand?)

A good, clear presentation on peak oil at Bristol’s Science Café this week from Ian Page of the International Futures Forum.
He spent too long telling us what a great guy Hubbert was (is there a biography, I wonder? – there should be). But he also brought out clearly that the civilisation- ending interpretation of peak [...]

Greenery at the top, up to a point

Good to find Peter Mandelson highlighting climate change in a speech at the LSE yesterday. As minister for the Business and enterprise, his take is, perhaps inevitably geared to economic growth. Thus:
“The core challenge of climate change politics is getting people to connect their choices now with outcomes in the relatively distant future and in [...]

Biking back to happiness

Thomas Friedman is way ahead of me (no surprise) on charting a constructive way forward without talk of saving the planet – at least not in the title of his excellent-sounding new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded.
Excellent sounding? Well, haven’t read it yet, so I’m going mainly on the interview with fellow scribe Elizabeth Kolbert [...]

Climate confusion

A longer post to try out something I want to include in the climate/energy chapter of the book.
It is not a new point, but from my pondering over these last weeks there’s a good case that the current state of the energy supply problem takes the demands of thinking about the future to a new [...]

Numbers are good

One strong prejudice which has been reinforced by wading through a tiny fraction of the material around on decarbonising energy is that numbers are good. Not ultra-precise ones, just reasonable estimates, with all the right reasons included.
David J Mackay at Cambridge shares that view, as a rather excitable post at The Register describes at length. [...]

Decarbonizing – fast or slow?

I am trying to get a clearer fix on the issues of energy and atmosphere – which loom as a crucial chapter for the Rough Guide, and one which will be hard to get to grips with.
This will, as elsewhere, aim at broad brush summary, and one could argue that, amid the near-inexhaustible flow of commentary [...]