recent debate in twitter's climate community illuminated a schism between those arguing that mitigating climate change is impossible and those exhorting others to continue to "fight" climate change. While the debate yielded no definitive answers, it brought up important questions for those who've focused their life on addressing this issue. What does it mean to “fight” … [Read more...]
A Jobless Economy
If we want liberty, we need to divorce wages from survival
any Americans are toiling in precarious, meaningless, degrading labor, and wealth distribution is vastly unequal and unfair. These two problems could be addressed by one simple policy, and it’s not a jobs guarantee. Several prominent Democrats have unveiled policies guaranteeing federal jobs to unemployed Americans, sparking a debate on the merits of government intervention … [Read more...]
The World’s Most Important Policy
How energy transition can help everything
here is one action that can make major strides in many of the world’s greatest challenges. It is generally overlooked, undersold, and ignored. It’s this: transitioning the economy to a distributed, non-carbon energy system. Building an infrastructure of interconnected micro-grids powered by solar, wind, and onsite storage powering electric transport is the single most … [Read more...]
The Big Story
Can We Change Civilization by Changing Its Origin Story?
ow did humans go from savanna-dwelling primates to moon-bouncing Tide Pod™ eaters? This is the big question that Big History has been trying to answer for millennia. Sure, other ages may have framed the question differently. Pre-Internet historian Herodotus may have asked, How did humans get from Promethean clay to Babylon? Mass death enthusiast Christopher Columbus may have … [Read more...]
Collapse Despair
Why We Should Talk About Climate Apocalypse
[All degrees in Celsius] I’m a downer. Due to frequently writing and sharing doom articles, I am not very popular on social media (15 twitter followers as of publication). Or in real life, probably. Most conversations I have about anything with anybody eventually alight on humanity’s imminent violent demise. Many things could wipe all people off the planet: meteorites, … [Read more...]