Michael Snyder writes: What in the world are we going to do with billions of human workers around the globe that are no longer needed when technology takes virtually all of our jobs? Some have suggested that society will evolve into a socialist utopia; others see a dystopian future with greater inequality than ever before….
Read More about Here come the robots – And they’re going to take our jobs
From Open Democracy: Open cooperativism is an effort to infuse cooperatives with the basic principles of commons based peer production. Here are six interrelated strategies for post-corporate entrepreneurial coalitions. The aim is to go beyond the classical corporate paradigm, and its extractive profit-maximizing practices, toward the establishment of open cooperatives that cultivate a commons-oriented economy….
Read More about How to form a global counter-economy
Amit Dave/Reuters
From The Wire: The planned ten-fold increase in solar energy will add on an average only 20% of the total capacity, making little difference to India’s emissions. The government has not reduced its coal output targets and plans to raise coal output from the current 550 million tonnes to nearly a billion tonnes by 2022….
Read More about Why increasing India’s solar energy capacity won’t work
Gopal Aggarwal/Wikimedia Commons
Andrew Russell writes: The most undervalued forms of technological labour are also the most ordinary: those who repair and maintain technologies that already exist. This shift in emphasis involves focusing on the constant processes of entropy and un-doing– and the work we do to slow or halt them, rather than on introduction of novel things….
Read More about Innovation is overrated; it’s maintenance that matters more
Now, we may disagree about the extent to which success deserves to be rewarded–but virtually all agree that wealth is created primarily at the top. In reality, it is precisely the other way around. This is one of the biggest taboos of our times– the truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state….
Read More about Rutger Bregman: Wealth isn’t created at the top; it’s only devoured there
Charles Eisenstein writes: We need a parallel system of technology development that can guide society as conventional systems unravel and conventional technologies fail to adequately address our problems. Imagine a worldwide archipelago of land-based institutions of learning, sanctuaries of alternative technologies of earth, mind, matter, and body that are marginal or absent within conventional universities….
Read More about Why we need ‘technologies of reunion’
Jeremy Lent writes: We’re going to be hearing a lot about grand solutions to our climate emergency in the coming years. There’s no shortage of proposals for how to do this. We need a way to distinguish authentic pathways to a sustainable civilization from false solutions. I suggest three ways to consider any such proposal….
Read More about False solutions? 3 ways to evaluate grand climate proposals
CBC News reports: A new report has calculated the total mass of all manmade things-from buildings to cars and computers- to be an astounding 30 trillion tons, seven times more than the total amount of living matter on Earth. It shows the sheer magnitude of the human impact on our planet, which is still growing….
Read More about Earth’s ‘technosphere’ now weighs 30 trillion tons, research finds
Paul McDivitt writes: Making wind and solar seem like they’re doing better than they really are could come back to bite proponents —and the climate. If people think we are about to replace fossil fuels with renewables, they will be less likely to demand new policies and take actions to lower their own carbon footprints….
Read More about How renewable energy advocates are hurting the climate causeThis day six years ago, tsunami waves crashed into Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, leading to a meltdown, which by one estimate continues to leak an astounding 300 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific daily. A selection of reports and a lead article by M.V. Ramana, on what some have called history’s worst environmental disaster….
Read More about Six years later: A closer look at Fukushima
Somehow, most people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion people can get along with a very short list of energy supplies. Given climate change, this short list cannot include fossil fuels, but we believe Wind and Solar can save us. Unfortunately, a transition to such alternative fuels can’t really work. Here’s why….
Read More about Gail Tverberg: The “wind and solar will save us” delusion
Ashish Kothari writes: Convenience is trashing the earth. Unlimited motorised transport, electrical and electronic gadgets, chemicals and packaging for increased shelf-life mean carbon emissions, pollution, chemical contamination, mining. Other species and other people (whose homes happen to be above the mining deposits) are just collateral damage for a society drunk on the technologies of convenience….
Read More about We are addicted to convenience, and it’s fatal both for us and the planetThe New Yorker reports: Survivalism, the practice of preparing for the collapse of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: eg. the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort….
Read More about Some of the world’s wealthiest are preparing for the crackup of civilisationT. Hanumantha Rao, irrigation engineering expert and the brain behind a participative method of water management based on his ‘Four Waters’ concept, passed away on Sunday. The Four Waters concept, explained in this video, brought rich benefits to Rajasthan, where even drought-affected areas improved over the years. Several other states are actively pursuing his recommendations….
Read More about Tribute: T. Hanumantha Rao, champion of water management alternatives
The Alternative
Noted water conservationist Anupam Mishra passed away at the age of 68 on Monday. Here’s a tribute and a video where he talks with wisdom and wit about the amazing feats of engineering from centuries ago by the people of India’s desert regions to harvest water. These ancient aqueducts and stepwells are still used today….
Read More about Tribute: Anupam Mishra, the chronicler of India’s indigenous water wisdom
Phys.org reports: The climate friendly electricity generated by solar panels in the past 40 years has all but cancelled out the polluting energy used to produce them, a study said Tuesday. Indeed, by some calculations, the so-called “break-even point” between dirty energy input and clean output may already have arrived, researchers in the Netherlands reported….
Read More about New study says solar panels have repaid their fossil fuel debt
In scientific discovery, the first three paradigms were experimental, theoretical and (more recently) computational science. This new book of essays inspired by the Microsoft researcher Jim Gray argues that a fourth paradigm of scientific discovery is at hand: the analysis of massive data sets. Read John Markoff’s review of the book in The New York Times….
Read More about Is data the ‘fourth paradigm’ of science?
Hydropower is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions: a new study shows that the world’s hydroelectric dams are responsible for as much methane emissions as Canada. The study finds that methane, which is at least 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide, makes up 80% of the emissions from water reservoirs created by dams….
Read More about The hydropower paradox: is this energy as clean as it seems?
“Producing qualities that may give excellent results in the laboratory may be advantageous for some, but have ruinous effects for others. And the principle of caution is not enough, as very often it is limited to not allowing something to be done, whereas there is a need to act in a balanced and honest way.”…
Read More about Pope Francis slams biotech industry and GMOs on World Food DayAmita Bhaduri writes: Nuclear plants require enormous amounts of water for cooling and other purposes. The Fatehabad plant will be the first project in the world to be located away from water sources. “The water will not be enough even for normal operations; what if an accident takes place?”, asks Dhanraj Jat, a local farmer….
Read More about Fatehabad nuclear plant: A Fukushima in the making?
