“If ‘some humans survive’ is the only thing we care about, then climate change is a non-issue. I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.”
“Future humans, as they live in a climate dystopia: ‘I thought he cared about the environment’.”
“I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.”
Professor Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M is the alarmist’s alarmist. At a lunch some years ago, he remarked to me (and his more moderate colleague Gerald North) that humankind would have to live underground because of anthropogenic warming. And he stated that fossil fuels had made us slaves, a deep-ecology argument that has been ably turned around by Matt Ridley).…
Continue ReadingThis is the final installment of the course syllabus of Pierre Desrochers’ Energy and Society class.
Part I explored the course description as well as the videos and readings from the first two weeks of the class; Part II covered carbon-based energy. Part III yesterday was on electricity generated from non-carbon sources (Hydro, Nuclear, Renewables, Biomass).
| • Population Growth, Resources and the Environment Deffeyes, Kenneth, Peter Huber. 2005. “It’s the End of Oil / Oil Is Here to Stay.” Time, October 23. Ellis, Erle C. 2012. “Overpopulation is not the problem.” The New York Times (September 13). Pearce, Fred. 2010. “The overpopulation myth.” Prospect Magazine, March 8. Ridley, Matt. 2014. “Why Most Resources don’t Run Out.” Rational Optimist (April 30). Mann, Charles. |
This continues a series on the syllabus of Pierre Desrochers’ course at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Energy and Society, which gets my vote as the single best course on its subject in North America if not the world.
Part I explored the course description as well as the videos and readings from the first two weeks of the class; Part II covered carbon-based energy.
General
“Electrification.” Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. National Academy of Engineering. 2000.
Bradley, Robert L and Richard W. Fulmer. Energy: The Master Resource, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2004, Chapter 2: Using Energy, pp. 19-20, 25-29, 30-31, 45-48.
Environmental Literacy Council Website.
“Electricity.”
“Electric Current and Power Transmission.”
“Electric Power Grids and Blackouts.”
Lomborg, Bjørn.…