Good analysis. Two things that come to mind, and as I’m a new subscriber, please forgive me if you’ve covered these sorts of things before.
Firstly, Degrowth needs to be considered, throw this GDP and growing economy shit out the window. Ok, ok, I know, it’s utopian and unlikely to happen by choice, but one can dream...
Secondly, I think it needs to be understood that the climate is driven not only by CO2 but also by LAND USE. Land use determines the water cycle, and if you clearcut a forest you destroy the evapotranspiration in that place and with it the cooling effect of the forest. The effect is fairly immediate. This was established by Millan Millan and was once well known but the IPCC, industry and governments latched onto the CO2-only narrative. It’s a bit pesky to consider that land use contributes to the climate when you want to put solar panels all over the place. This will affect the water cycle and climate.
A good place to read more about the LAND USE side of the climate is in this 3-part essay:
Thank you for those insights and for joining the community!
You’re absolutely right on both those points. I am holding off on Degrowth right now because currently I’m laying the groundwork and have a Degrowth 101 pending.
On the land use, I incorporated that when talking about lifecycle land use per source (so land use for mining, etc.) and when talking about the ecological impact of each resource, which as you rightly said no one talks about.
In this piece I establish more that RE is material intensive, and in the previous piece I talked about all the ecological challenges that come with materials.
Hope you get a chance to check out some of the previous pieces — would be eager to hear your thoughts!
Sorry I should have looked through your previous post titles! Yes I see you’re covering a lot, I’ll try to read back through some.
Good work, thank you for doing this, I think it’s so important people understand as much of this as they can and understand the implications of all these policies/choices
Thanks for your comment as always! I agree with most of what you said, although I’m more inclined to believe that through a lot of chaos and pain, we will adapt sooner.
As for the ecology point, I have that integrated with my views and mention them here and there in some pieces (eg newsletter #2 about energy). The reason I don’t explicitly talk about it as yet is because I’m trying to build the continent of this newsletter piece by piece, so my ecology 101 piece is still pending 😅
The grand plan is that by explaining everything 1 by 1 (energy, raw materials, ecology, money, etc) it will make more sense to people and be easier to see the interconnections.
But overall, point taken! (And yes, fan of William Rees!)
Good analysis. Two things that come to mind, and as I’m a new subscriber, please forgive me if you’ve covered these sorts of things before.
Firstly, Degrowth needs to be considered, throw this GDP and growing economy shit out the window. Ok, ok, I know, it’s utopian and unlikely to happen by choice, but one can dream...
Secondly, I think it needs to be understood that the climate is driven not only by CO2 but also by LAND USE. Land use determines the water cycle, and if you clearcut a forest you destroy the evapotranspiration in that place and with it the cooling effect of the forest. The effect is fairly immediate. This was established by Millan Millan and was once well known but the IPCC, industry and governments latched onto the CO2-only narrative. It’s a bit pesky to consider that land use contributes to the climate when you want to put solar panels all over the place. This will affect the water cycle and climate.
A good place to read more about the LAND USE side of the climate is in this 3-part essay:
https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimateaccordingtolife/p/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of?r=fhgru&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thank you for those insights and for joining the community!
You’re absolutely right on both those points. I am holding off on Degrowth right now because currently I’m laying the groundwork and have a Degrowth 101 pending.
On the land use, I incorporated that when talking about lifecycle land use per source (so land use for mining, etc.) and when talking about the ecological impact of each resource, which as you rightly said no one talks about.
In this piece I establish more that RE is material intensive, and in the previous piece I talked about all the ecological challenges that come with materials.
Hope you get a chance to check out some of the previous pieces — would be eager to hear your thoughts!
Sorry I should have looked through your previous post titles! Yes I see you’re covering a lot, I’ll try to read back through some.
Good work, thank you for doing this, I think it’s so important people understand as much of this as they can and understand the implications of all these policies/choices
Thanks for your comment as always! I agree with most of what you said, although I’m more inclined to believe that through a lot of chaos and pain, we will adapt sooner.
As for the ecology point, I have that integrated with my views and mention them here and there in some pieces (eg newsletter #2 about energy). The reason I don’t explicitly talk about it as yet is because I’m trying to build the continent of this newsletter piece by piece, so my ecology 101 piece is still pending 😅
The grand plan is that by explaining everything 1 by 1 (energy, raw materials, ecology, money, etc) it will make more sense to people and be easier to see the interconnections.
But overall, point taken! (And yes, fan of William Rees!)