Giant tortoises rewilded in Madagascar, OTEC in São Tomé and Príncipe, beef rice in South Korea, llamas after glaciers in Peru, geothermal, rare earths, and white hydrogen in America, and more!
You are providing an invaluable resource for your readership. The information, yes! But most importantly, I repeat- most importantly, you provide us hope. Hope that things are getting steadily better and that we'll get through these dark days of the Anthropocene. Shining light in this
gloom is no little thing. ☀️🔦
But avoid giving us a sense of complacency- a sense that the adults will fix things and we children need do nothing. Remind us that the initiatives you inform us of need our support and active participation! 🙂
One thing I should add Sam. These times are dark and there is a public health epidemic of depression. It is likely that a few depressed people have read your essays and received some of that hope that the curve is toward the light. Your medicine may have actually saved a few lives.
Thank you. I hope my writing has helped people. I think that current online media dynamics grossly fail their readers and worsen mental health on a societal scale by failing to contextualize problems and giving an impression of unremitting gloom.
I really appreciate your kind words and your support!
OTEC will transform the infrastructure and economies of developing islands by reducing or eliminating the use of oil as an energy supply. This is great news for those islands. Thanks for a great news newsletter, Sam!
I'm focussing on the microscale nowadays with an emphasis in minimally invasive tactics..hence I love the llamas! I also love the clean potential of geothermal but I dislike the industrialization of our western landscapes. If Fervo can find a way to put their entire installation underground save for a few exhaust vents, that would be great!
And pipes of all kinds across all landscapes, even outhouse pipes, need shielding so that animals don’t fly/climb in there, get trapped, and die.
I recently read that Hawaii is very dependent on gas for electricity generation, so it’s kinda a no-brainer that those volcanically active islands also convert to geothermal electricity
Industrialization of the arid region landscapes, even for virtuous clean energy purposes, is one of my bright line issues. You should see what those wind turbines did to our Eastern Columbia Gorge and what those INEL facilities do to the central Idaho Snake River plain. Hideous disfigurement. Empty space is at least as important as having higher standards of living.
I’m far more concerned about the salmon and the orcas downstream and that the dams along both rivers get destroyed and passage reopened for modern flow-through hydroelectricity. The fact that the existing dams are considered green and the need for excess capacity is why politicians stay inert and refuse to sign off on getting them gone yesterday (and today and tomorrow). Any infrastructure that renders this inertia beyond ridiculous is welcome. Plants last 50 years. We didn’t build proper decommissioning into development plans back then, but we sure can now. Landscapes are vitally important, but given such a trade off, they can be used for the duration and then restored. Endangered species (pitted against the inexorable tide of urbanism and expensive need to “raise awareness,” to little avail) cannot be restored when they cannot survive because of us
That is coming naturally and without pain and suffering except the Chicken Little “whatever will we do if we don’t keep growing!” variety
I think this world, if we don’t be stupid now, has a _chance_ of being just and verdant and still continuous and recognizable in another 100, 150 years, with a carrying capacity of maybe 6 billion. But there are plenty of warning signs that it might not be with the narratives and politics , and half the world under the still-gullible age of 31. It could be a bright green dystopia of tribal warfare
Thx so much for this conversation! For my own preferences I would choose for the population to be around a billion tops. But actually I wouldn't care if there were none of us. We've thoroughly trashed the place and are demonstrably too stupid and self-concerned to be an apex life form. We acquired grest power and look what we did with it. The planet wouldn't miss us if we were gone, though it would take centuries for it to recover from all the damage we left. And those tens of thousands of species we extincted- they're never coming back. No maybe it's time to reboot; in a few score million years another apex species will arise- I nominate the keas- and it couldn't possibly do worse than the murderous primates did!
You are providing an invaluable resource for your readership. The information, yes! But most importantly, I repeat- most importantly, you provide us hope. Hope that things are getting steadily better and that we'll get through these dark days of the Anthropocene. Shining light in this
gloom is no little thing. ☀️🔦
But avoid giving us a sense of complacency- a sense that the adults will fix things and we children need do nothing. Remind us that the initiatives you inform us of need our support and active participation! 🙂
Thank you so much! I absolutely agree-one thing I'm trying to do is share good ideas to inspire others to support and/or start similar projects!
One thing I should add Sam. These times are dark and there is a public health epidemic of depression. It is likely that a few depressed people have read your essays and received some of that hope that the curve is toward the light. Your medicine may have actually saved a few lives.
Thank you. I hope my writing has helped people. I think that current online media dynamics grossly fail their readers and worsen mental health on a societal scale by failing to contextualize problems and giving an impression of unremitting gloom.
I really appreciate your kind words and your support!
OTEC will transform the infrastructure and economies of developing islands by reducing or eliminating the use of oil as an energy supply. This is great news for those islands. Thanks for a great news newsletter, Sam!
I certainly hope it will! Thanks for your kind words!
Another great issue, Sam! Thank you so much for the shout out! 🙌🏾😊
My pleasure!
I'm focussing on the microscale nowadays with an emphasis in minimally invasive tactics..hence I love the llamas! I also love the clean potential of geothermal but I dislike the industrialization of our western landscapes. If Fervo can find a way to put their entire installation underground save for a few exhaust vents, that would be great!
And pipes of all kinds across all landscapes, even outhouse pipes, need shielding so that animals don’t fly/climb in there, get trapped, and die.
I recently read that Hawaii is very dependent on gas for electricity generation, so it’s kinda a no-brainer that those volcanically active islands also convert to geothermal electricity
Industrialization of the arid region landscapes, even for virtuous clean energy purposes, is one of my bright line issues. You should see what those wind turbines did to our Eastern Columbia Gorge and what those INEL facilities do to the central Idaho Snake River plain. Hideous disfigurement. Empty space is at least as important as having higher standards of living.
I’m far more concerned about the salmon and the orcas downstream and that the dams along both rivers get destroyed and passage reopened for modern flow-through hydroelectricity. The fact that the existing dams are considered green and the need for excess capacity is why politicians stay inert and refuse to sign off on getting them gone yesterday (and today and tomorrow). Any infrastructure that renders this inertia beyond ridiculous is welcome. Plants last 50 years. We didn’t build proper decommissioning into development plans back then, but we sure can now. Landscapes are vitally important, but given such a trade off, they can be used for the duration and then restored. Endangered species (pitted against the inexorable tide of urbanism and expensive need to “raise awareness,” to little avail) cannot be restored when they cannot survive because of us
Less humans is a good start.
That is coming naturally and without pain and suffering except the Chicken Little “whatever will we do if we don’t keep growing!” variety
I think this world, if we don’t be stupid now, has a _chance_ of being just and verdant and still continuous and recognizable in another 100, 150 years, with a carrying capacity of maybe 6 billion. But there are plenty of warning signs that it might not be with the narratives and politics , and half the world under the still-gullible age of 31. It could be a bright green dystopia of tribal warfare
Thx so much for this conversation! For my own preferences I would choose for the population to be around a billion tops. But actually I wouldn't care if there were none of us. We've thoroughly trashed the place and are demonstrably too stupid and self-concerned to be an apex life form. We acquired grest power and look what we did with it. The planet wouldn't miss us if we were gone, though it would take centuries for it to recover from all the damage we left. And those tens of thousands of species we extincted- they're never coming back. No maybe it's time to reboot; in a few score million years another apex species will arise- I nominate the keas- and it couldn't possibly do worse than the murderous primates did!