(Part 2) Best environmental economics books according to redditors
We found 959 Reddit comments discussing the best environmental economics books. We ranked the 381 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
You're trying to apply modern concepts to these materials. Humans have been using bricks for over 9,000 years. A post-apocaplyptic civilization is going to be going back to basics.
> But it’s far easier to work with scrap wood and metal than it would be to find sources for all the materials you’d need for brick.
Dirt, water and either straw or sand. I can understand if you're looking for a quick, temporary solution. But any longterm settlement is going to move onto much better materials before long.
> and then searching for limestone or calcium aluminate for concrete
You don't need concrete. Concrete was invented in 1824. People were making buildings and walls out of bricks millenia before then. You can even use more mud as your mortar.
>Not to mention the fact that you also need to move all of that, plus large quantities of water
Settle near (for obvious reasons other than making bricks). Make the bricks at the point of use.
>You need a series of kilns for firing bricks
You can dry mud bricks in the sun.
>which probably means you’re reclaiming a good amount of discarded wood anyway.
Burn brahmin dung.
>It’s far easier to use materials that are just laying around your settlement already, like wall boards from existing buildings or sheet metal from crashed cars, trucks, busses and aircraft.
The materials for making bricks are literally everywhere.
I agree, and think it could happen.
I recently read a book by Stewart Brand, and one thing he talked about was urbanization. It's a huge worldwide trend, and in most societies urban populations have birth rates lower than replacement. World population is likely to head sharply downward starting around 2050.
Meanwhile we're getting better at making denser cities, with self-driving cars and personal rapid transit grids. And in China, they're starting to build huge skyscrapers that are practically cities in themselves.
Another factor is energy. We could coat vast areas with solar panels and windmills, but that's not exactly the vision you're seeing. But we could also go with more compact sources. There are advanced nuclear power designs that are a hundred times more fuel-efficient, produce a hundred times less nuclear waste for the same power, and are a lot safer than conventional designs. Nuclear fusion is surprisingly close to fruition, too. (That's five links not three, each a different approach.)
But the big land-eater is farming. People talk about farming in skyscrapers, but I ran some numbers on that...converting everything to indoor farming would take 125 terawatts and a million square indoor kilometers. Current world energy production is 17 terawatts.
However, if you can synthesize food calories directly with say, 25% efficiency, instead of growing plants, you can get by with 3 terawatts. A guy who presented at Google's Solve for X is working on that, and says he can make cheap, super-healthy food that tastes like it's as sugary and fatty as you want, and he can feed the world with an area the size of Rhode Island. It'd at least work for packaged and fast food, and the indoor farms are perfect for the organic produce market...no pesticides, no need for tasteless tomatoes that can survive long transport.
And of course, with cheap fusion or fission we won't need biofuels anymore. There are a lot of people working on making liquid hydrocarbons from CO2 in the air, assuming we haven't converted to electric. The energy cost of getting carbon from the air is only about tenth the energy content of the fuel. (See the "fuel from air" section here, and the references here.)
Another Solve for X presentation was about a cheap new way to desalinate. We could reforest the Sahara.
If we can avoid wrecking the biosphere too badly before all this happens, we could end up with a really nice planet.
These are my absolute favorite books about fashion history/the industry:
I really hope you're getting the help you need, and I know that some comments on the Internet are not going to snap you out of your depression, but I just want to let you know that the world has always faced challenges and we have always risen up to meet them. Although climate change is going to be pretty bad and we are not doing enough right now to stop it, no major scientific body considers "the end of civilization" as plausible scenarios for at least the next 100 years. And there are a lot of promising technologies that can stop and even reverse climate change in the not-too-distant future. I recommend these books, The Optimistic Leftist and Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. The future is not inevitable, and there is a lot we can do right now to change things and put us on a better path.
Overdressed:The shockingly high cost of fast fashion, is good, not the best written, but has a lot of good information.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GSZJ3Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
I suggest:
Country Living and Know How
Survival Wisdom and Know How
and
Garden Wisdom and Know How
No problem at all. A lot of people disagree with this and fight it, because the implication is that the only real solution to our problem is to force everyone to move towards the equator so they consume less energy for heating/cooling, have less kids, quit driving, basically accept a sort of 2nd-world lifestyle. Obviously this will never happen, I suspect humans will basically keep going down this path until their demise.
Here are a few things I'd recommend on the subject:
http://energy-reality.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/09_Energy-Return-on-Investment_R1_012913.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Environment-Power-Society-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0231128878/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XQGQEPWX5X3VJY0B5S63
This professor writes a lot of good stuff on the subject:
http://www.esf.edu/EFB/hall/#publications
I guess the key concept in what you are asking about, is energy return on energy invested (EROEI). This is imo one of the most important concepts all people need to understand about energy generation. Something is only a resource, if you get more energy out of it, than what you have to put in to extract it. So for example, if it takes a gallon of oil in energy to pump one gallon of oil out of the ground, then that oil in the ground is no longer a resource.
There is a lot of debate about the true EROEI of these different types of energy production. For example this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Spains-Photovoltaic-Revolution-Investment-SpringerBriefs/dp/144199436X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358872742&sr=1-2
In which the authors do a complex analysis on the true EROEI of solar and come up with a much lower return on energy invested than others often claim. They find that in amazingly sunny areas like Spain, the EROEI is only around 2, where in less sunny countries like Germany, it is between 1-1.5, which is absolutely abysmal.
You can see this is already becoming a problem with nuclear, in particular. There have been a few nuclear plants recently that were abandoned halfway through the project, because they blew so far over the budget, and the energy/money they were putting in to build the plant to modern standards, with all of the safety regulations, etc, made it a net loss to finish the plant. So it would never generate anywhere near the energy that it would take society to build it to spec. This will likely be a trend we see as technology gets more and more complex - things just require too much of societies resources to build, to the point that it is a net loss.
Another book on this subject is from Joseph Tainter:
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X
...who argues that the reason all societies eventually collapse, is because increasing complexity provides diminishing returns. Eventually things get so complex, that society doesn't have the energy and resources to maintain everything and to keep solving the harder and harder problems that complexity inevitably creates.
Yeah, OP is fabricating hard. For instance, the first one he mentioned is $1500 if you get the nearly 20-year-old first and, apparently, only edition. I doubt it's in use too many places right now.
Same with the chemical reactors book -- yeah, $600, but it's for a book from 1986, apparently. The environment one is from 2003. You get the idea. He's cherry picking like mad, and I don't think he's using current editions of anything.
PM me if you want to go over anything in particular.
Overview:
http://pandoraspromise.com/
Whole Earth Discipline
---
Price:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
---
Safety:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
Your opponents will likely have the following arguments against nuclear power: "Three Mile Island! Fukushima Daiichi! Chernobyl!!!!1". Smacking them down will be pretty straightforward:
Three Mile Island:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4#t=5113.5
Chernobyl:
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
Fukushima Daiichi:
There were zero direct deaths from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown.
The United Nations Science Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation project zero additional cancer deaths over time due to escaped radioactive materials:
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/fukushima.html
Summary available here:
http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf
Excerpts:
>No radiation-related deaths or acute diseases have been observed among the workers and general public exposed to radiation from the accident.
The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.
(emphasis mine)
Notably, The Fukushima Daini plant down the coast from Daiichi was hit by the same earthquake+tsunami, and it shut down as designed. You've probably never heard of it though, because it worked just fine. That's the problem with nuclear power. People remember the events that the news freaks out about. The media obviously doesn't talk about the fifty years of power plants quietly humming along providing inexpensive, reliable, safe, emissions-free energy to billions of people.
---
Give your audience a sense of the scale of nuclear power's energy density:
https://xkcd.com/1162/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leG8frtW5Wk
---
Climate Change:
http://talknuclear.ca/2014/09/nuclear-is-the-no-3-contributor-to-climate-change-mitigation-the-economist/
---
If your opponent is a coal or nat gas advocate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4#t=5230
So you read that book!
Sometimes I wonder about the collapse--will it be the opportunity for the world to return to localized living? Will everyone finally understand that our mother can't keep giving and giving without a point of exhaustion? I feel your pain, I know that settlers with the awareness are also hindered by what they see around them and it's very disheartening when it's your own people doing it. But do remember that indigeneity (or "realness") can be a mindset, not necessarily a point of descent--much like how the imperial mindset (or "the sickness") has effected some of our own as well.
So here's some suggested readings that might inspire you, if you haven't read them already:
Original Instructions
The Secret Teachings of Plants
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
A People's Ecology
We know you're out there. We're doin' our thang. Keep on doin yours! :)
So, first I'm going to respond a little bit oddly, and recommend reading Badass by Kathy Sierra. It's a book about really helping your users, and it gave me much to think about when I was writing my own site.
For a more immediate thing, if your target audience isn't for people who already have a programming background (I'm unclear who you're targeting) possibly think about providing an easier puzzle to work out a deterministic algorithm fors. Take LightBot (the original flash game version) for example - each level is a puzzle you work on, that has many possible solutions, but in each case there's a reasonably obvious algorithm for you to implement, which makes it accessible to those unfamiliar with the concepts already. Exploring the entire problem space with a breadth-first search, or using heuristics to avoid doing so with A*, already assumes a level of familiarity with a range of concepts. That's not a bad thing if it's intentional - I mention it in case it's not.
This one is about law—so I guess sorry for not actually answering your question—but I just finished this one and can't recommend it enough. Someone in an 0L thread a couple months back recommended "A Civil Action" to anyone looking to read something fun this summer that's law school-adjacent but not a casebook or whatever, and I finally picked it up and started reading it about a week ago.
I flew through it and loved it so much—it's a super compelling and true story, a total page-turner, and made me feel in the tiniest way that I was getting in a law school mindset without doing any of the "useless" prep that everyone warns against/discourages. One of my favorite nonfiction books I've ever read.
Exactly, have you ever read Limited Wants, Unlimited Means? It's a collection of articles about anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer societies.
I had read it a long time ago, it really makes you take a step back and realize that our overall culture has issues in regards to how we perceived resources and our place in the world.
Are you wanting to read substantive legal materials (e.g., what does the First Amendment say?) or about the history of law, or biographies of famous or interesting lawyers, or are you looking for information about what the practice of law is like?
"A Civil Action" might be a reasonable start. http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Action-Jonathan-Harr/dp/0679772677/
> some people may have looked for someone who had a bit more experience writing or negotiating treaties specifically
Fellow liberal here. To help ease some of these concerns I'd point out that most of what an oil CEO does is negotiate with foreign governments for complicated agreements.
Also the oil industry is actually far ahead of other industries in terms of environmental protection in spite of what you might assume. Two books on the subject I highly recommend are The Quest (which is on Bill Gate's reading list and probably one of the single best books I've ever read) and Collapse.
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World looks like a great read! Possibly a follow-up to his book The Prize.
Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies looks good as well! David Nye has written quite a few books... He seems like an interesting guy.
This may be useful for you:
The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels
There's a good book out there that details the economics of hunter gatherer societies and contrasts them with our own, really interesting one: http://www.amazon.com/Limited-Wants-Unlimited-Means-Hunter-Gatherer/dp/155963555X
Just gonna leave this here: The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632865688/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_pf.7CbCYBAHC4
It’s not really “new” ... it came out in 2015 but it’s just like you said, nobody really knew about it. Mods if you need to delete this I understand. I can send it as a DM if it’s necessary. There’s no referral code or anything like that.
https://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-Sierra/dp/1491919019
Not a dissenting voice, but Prof Sir David MacKay is a wholly dependable mainstream physicist who analyses the linked problems dispassionately and with a keen sense of humour. Free book here though it's the sort of dip-into book that's better on paper, and you can buy it here or if too lazy to read, watch him for an hour here. He doesn't talk about collapse, but leaves you to draw your own conclusions.
(Was a dependable physicist. Very sadly, he died last year, only 48 years old.)
> Hemp and Cannabis is a great way to go because there's not totality of a monopoly yet.
This has absolute nothing to do with what we're talking about. Monopolies are important when discussing microeconomics, i.e., companies competing against one another. But a monopoly of one product within a country would actually help its GDP out, and per this discussion, wouldn't be a bad thing.
First, Ukraine already produces hemp. There isn't enough demand globally to warrant an increase in production, in addition to the limited infrastructure that's being occupied by other, more important cash crops. More importantly, the current demand of global hemp is being met by the production of it, so a subsidized increase or even inflation in the number of hemp businesses would be meaningless to overall GDP, even driving prices down and hurting global hemp whatsoever. From an FAS report issued last week:
> Approximately 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America currently permit farmers to grow hemp. Some of these countries never outlawed production, while some countries banned production for certain periods in the past. China is among the largest producing and exporting countries of hemp textiles and related products, as well as a major supplier of these products to the United States. The European Union (EU) has an active hemp market, with production in most member nations. Production is centered in France, the United Kingdom, Romania, and Hungary.
The demand is offset by the production bases that already exist. This wouldn't help Ukraine sufficiently.
Moreover, cash crops might be a sufficient way to grow the economy if you're living in the turn of the 18th century, but it doesn't put much towards GDP in modern times, especially in developed economies - which Ukraine is. When I say infancy, I'm referring to its place in the rest of Europe - it's developing the important parts of the economy: finance and banking, heavy industry, education-based services. That's where the country needs to do its work, not with something worthless like hemp. If you're seriously suggesting to me that hemp is going to help break Ukraine from its bounds of Russia, I think you might need to go back and take Macroeconomics 101 again.
> Oil is technically an obsolete resource that is currently forced upon the World as the standard because the big business surrounding it will not allow the more efficient technologies to come forth. The only way to destroy that monopoly is extreme minimization on consumption.
First, I don't see the link between hemp and oil, whatsoever. Is that really relevant to our discussion?
Secondly, the narrative that "big business" is precluding development of more efficient energy sources is manifestly untrue, as they're actually involved in developing energy 2.0.. Big oil will be the companies who actually help push us towards green independence, because they recognize that it's coming and will use some of their capital to invest in projects that allow them to continue to make profits when the oil stops. (Also, you don't understand what a monopoly is. Standard Oil had a monopoly. Exxon, BP, Mobil - there are many competitors that make it, by definition, not a monopoly).
For right now, oil is not obsolete. In fact oil was a necessary component in what drove the growth of China's middle class sparked GDP growth to 8%+ over the past few years. It will also play a critical role in India, Russia and Brazil this decade, and Africa in the next two - two regions that are going to have to offset the global economic malaise of Western Europe and North America, and the world needs them to do it by building up a middle class. Right now, the only energy source viable to do that with is oil - not because it's "forced upon us" as you say, but simply because it's the most efficient, least expensive.
I support green energy, but I don't think you understand that it's also inefficient right now for a few reasons: one, its technologically underdeveloped, it's too expensive, and more over, the global macroeconomic effects of employing some methods of green energy have been actually hurting the global economy, especially the poor. The most obvious example is Brazil's drive to push for ethanol fuel in 2007. Since corn is the base material for ethanol, millions of hectares had to be dedicated to growing corn for ethanol, displacing what would normally be used for corn as food, pushing the ag prices up and causing the price of food overall to go up. Since then, economists in Brazil have suggested bringing it down because it's quite inefficient, and doesn't have an effect pronounced to the extent that it's going to be beneficial.
Finally, the only people who have the luxury of using green energy are advanced economies because they have the capital to invest in green R&D and also have the extra money to spend on using it. In these countries, it's being replaced; this is a process that takes decades, not years. And the mechanisms that will replace it are already in place. If your theory about big business wanting to stamp out green energy development were true, none of these interests, including the Obama administration, would have been investing in these alternate sources in the first place.
If you're looking for some reading about energy, Daniel Yergin's The Quest is the outstanding authority.
I think this read is a must:
"The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World" by Daniel Yergin
https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Energy-Security-Remaking-Modern/dp/0143121944
Para sobrevivir: SAS Survival Handbook
O Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills.
Here is the desktop version of your link
A recent study done in Spain over 50.000 solar stations with real data not estimates, showed that solar has an EROEI of 2.45:1, which is catastrophic to say the least because Spain is quite a sunny place. Here's a blog post about that study if you don't want to buy the book.
Sure, Oil is not as good as it used to be in terms of EROEI, but it's still a lot better than 2.45. Wind is a lot better in terms of EROEI than solar, but as we all know you can't rely on wind alone.
Sadly, today fossil fuels are still the most reliable and cost effective energy sources. People don't want to pay more to protect the environment, nor they want to change their lifestyle to consume less energy.
I had a brief but exciting stint working in an electrochemistry lab and have spent some time reading about various topics in electrochemistry such as batteries, photovoltaics, and semiconductor materials. It seemed to me the gold standard in electrochemistry textbooks was Bard - it is still a goal of mine to save up the money to purchase the latest edition (though if you are savvy you can probably find a pdf online).
Another book that I've found interesting and thorough is Gretchen Bakke's The Grid . This book discusses the evolution of the American electric grid and the challenges that come with integrating various renewable technologies.
Lastly, if you are into batteries - check out flow batteries. I'm unnecessarily into flow batteries... especially ESS, Inc's All Iron Flow Battery . Energy storage is something that could change our future... I'd like to work in this field someday as well. Hopefully some of what I shared is valuable!
This book has a bunch of easy-to-follow guides on weekend garden projects, building raised beds, and the like:
http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Homestead-Self-sufficient-Process-Self-reliance/dp/1934170011
SECTION | CONTENT
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Title | The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein Official Book Trailer by Simplifilm
Description | ORDER NOW ON AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels-ebook/dp/B00INIQVJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415833162&sr=8-1&keywords=moral+case+for+fossil+fuels “With more politicians in climate science than scientists, the refining fire of debate has devolved into the burning of heretics. Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels may make your blood boil, but his cool reason and cold, hard facts will lead us beyond hysterics to a much better future.” —PETER THIEL, technology entrepre...
Length | 0:01:52
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This is the book he is referencing if anyone cares.
(Country Wisdom And Know How)[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1579123686/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499743603&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=country+wisdom+and+know+how&dpPl=1&dpID=51cMPJHEMLL&ref=plSrch]
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. First book to ever truly brake down the world paradigm for me. Wouldn't be in this sub without it. Fair warning though, it's got a lot of earthy, ecology stuff in there. Might be too much for people further to the right. If that is your thing though I'd also recomend Last hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann. Good thread, BWT. Refreshing to see this.
Country Wisdom & Know How has some good stuff. I'm not a homesteader but I liked it.
Here are a few books which kind of explain my pessimistic position:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BDPLS9J/?coliid=I1OBW25CORT2FC&colid=3NEMW8OZR5QG&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
​
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C1R89ZX/?coliid=I2FBYNTNC6QF5Y&colid=3NEMW8OZR5QG&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
​
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044KLPJC/?coliid=I2OSOIW7NP3MJ5&colid=3NEMW8OZR5QG&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
If you’re interested in energy storage and transportation, I highly recommend the book, “The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future.” It goes into depth about the history of how the Grid was built which explains some of the weird geography of which energy gets transported where and talks a lot about the challenges of incorporating solar and wind energy into the grid.
Several manufacturers make a sink that attaches atop your toilet tank and drains to fill it. Or you could DIY it.
The Urban Homestead suggests disconnecting your bathroom sink drain and have it drain into a bucket under the sink. When the bucket gets full, take it out and pour it on your garden. Like smotedsalmon said, you'd need to use biodegradable products.
Edited to fix links
I would check out the professors that teach at The Evergreen State College and see if any of the professors that teach in the sustainable farm and agriculture department have any knowledge of this stuff or perhaps know of some students that have a background in this sort of stuff. I also would check out this book,. I got this one at Orca book downtown a few months back, and at the very least there is always google and youtube. Good luck!
Here is the mobile version of your link
Thanks for the thoughtful response! I think this requires an integrated approach. We need to look at what's needed in city life currently and does it take up resources? Same for rural living in an eco village. The idea is to have net netural consumption of natural resources. How can we achieve this? I think as long as we're having this conversation, we're on the right track -- the concern is there.
Studies show that being in contact with nature helps improve health significantly: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp1663/ (check out the health benefits with nature contact list)
By living in the city, this contact will be limited. If somehow, we can maintain contact with nature, net neutral consumption of natural resources, then I'm all for city life, but currently, it doesn't look like that's the solution.
Also, if a person in rural area is living irresponsibly, then they're not helping out the problem any either. So this really requires a mindful approach on everyone's part. Again, I'm just glad we're having this conversation.
By the way, if I may recommend a book, "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," it really looks into our environmental impacts. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1400051576/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1505341040&sr=8-1
The Sun doesn't break even considering the energy "overhead" required for industrial civilization, rumoured to be around EROEI 10~12:1, at least in the context of our current technology. Solar photovoltaic EROEI isn't very good even with the fossil fuel subsidy for producing the panels. As for the battery "bottleneck", I'm not smart enough to say for sure but it looks like it's not budging much. Think about it, a single 5L canister full of gasoline contains as much energy as 1 ton of fully charged car batteries (Graphics to scale).
As this quest unfolds, people will adapt to the outcomes out of necessity. It may very well be better if fusion and battery tech don't fully work, because adapting to less energy sooner is smarter than getting into the whole mess of exponential population, environmental destruction and resource depletion even deeper than we are now.
I second meet ups and I have found that the best resources from from those recommendations.
For book I absolutely love Badass: making users awesome in terms of how to think about product development.
This will answer your question.
>Can any of you give some advice on some books that a young teen could look into to learn more about the profession and what's involved with it, what types of things she would be studying and such?
It might be a bit advanced for a 13 year old, but A Civil Action is a pretty interesting non-fiction read. It discusses the experience of a litigator in a major trial and the various trials and tribulations that he goes through. I don't remember anything in there that would be inappropriate for a teenager and it is used in high school curriculum.
It might be a bit advanced for an average 13-year-old, but I doubt that an average 13-year-old is actively trying to be a lawyer.
Money isn't the problem. I live in a bohemia that most people can't relate to with no savings, a high level degree, and debt. I can say that much like you don't have to be go out of your way to be tortured to be an artist, you don't have to be broke to escape the prevailing culture. Don't be materialistic.
Try this book: The Urban Homestead. It'll give you all sorts of non-materialistic ways to occupy your time.
http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Homestead-Self-sufficient-Process-Self-reliance/dp/1934170011
This book, Drawdown, models 100 potential solutions to re-sequestering carbon and reversing our trend. Buy it, read it, and if you have the access, use your power at work to make the change.
I searched the name of the book you recommended but couldn't find it. Do you know the authors name?
Wait are those 3 different books?
Edit: Yea I am dumb they are different books. Here they are on amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Struggle/dp/1400030617
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Lawyer-Mentoring-Paperback/dp/0465016332
https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Action-Jonathan-Harr/dp/0679772677
https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Inside-Secret-World-Supreme/dp/1400096790
I'm afraind I don't know but i jst came here to say
READ. THIS. BOOK.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0954452933/davidmackay0f-21
it is fantastic
I don't know of any that compare, but, the Napoleon's Buttons is SUPPOSED to be good.
http://www.amazon.com/Napoleons-Buttons-Molecules-Changed-History/dp/1585423319/
Other books, engineering related, that I liked are:
Norm Lieberman's Process Troubleshooting books, the guy cracks me up!
Working Guide to Process Equipment (3rd edition probably cheaper): http://www.amazon.com/Working-Guide-Process-Equipment-Fourth/dp/0071828060/
Process Equipment Malfunctions (not as good as the other one, some overlap, but still worthwhile, and covers more breadth for individual issues): http://www.amazon.com/Process-Equipment-Malfunctions-Techniques-Identify/dp/0071770208/
The Prize (mentioned above): http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439110123/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/188-3799228-4803548
The Quest (Follow on to The Prize): http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Energy-Security-Remaking-Modern/dp/0143121944/
Oil 101: http://www.amazon.com/Oil-101-Morgan-Downey/dp/0982039204/
The Mythical Man Month (Not engineering directly as it pertains to software, but, projects and project management are huge in engineering, though this book is timeless): http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959/
Piping Systems Manual (You can NEVER know enough about pipe!): http://www.amazon.com/Piping-Systems-Manual-Brian-Silowash/dp/0071592768/
Pumps and Pumping Operations (OMG it is $4, hardcover, go buy now! This book is great... did you know OSU didn't teach their Chem E's about pumps? I was flabbergasted, gave this to our intern and he became not a scrub by learning about pumps!): http://www.amazon.com/Pumping-Operations-Prentice-Pollution-Equipment/dp/0137393199/
Any good engineer needs to understand MONEY too:
The Ascent of Money: http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/0143116177/
It's Nial Fergesuon, who has had his own series of dramas and dumb stuff. The Ascent of Money has a SLIGHT libertarian tinge... but it wasn't bad enough that I didn't enjoy it. I consider it a history book, and he attempts to write it like one.
Have fun!
I'm pretty sure that R.A.W. and Robert Shea took so much acid that they flashed forward and saw what was coming. I'm giving Illuminatus! a second read through now (somewhat interrupted by Stewart Brand's Latest), and it's spooky how spot on it is.
One of my favourite books about being a lawyer: A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (later made into a movie with John Travolta). Book takes place in the American context (and in the context of an environmental contamination case), but it's extremely well-written and interesting and really provides a good in-depth look about what it's like to be a particular type of lawyer (i.e., a small-firm bulldog type). Highly recommended!
My other advice is to try to work at a law firm for a bit - see if you can get a legal assistant job for a little while. It will definitely teach you a great deal about the inner workings of a law firm.
I'm basing my opinions on the course I studied at university, which followed this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sustainable-Energy-Without-Hot-Air/dp/0954452933
I will concede that during our study we didn't look into cruise ship operations, and how that might increase their carbon footprint (cruise ships being generally much more luxurious than air travel), but on a weight moved per distance basis, ships are vastly more efficient than planes.
EDIT: From the above book, a chart indicating passenger-miles-per-gallon: http://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml...which would indicate you're correct!
Further edit: http://www.withouthotair.com/c15/page_92.shtml shows the energy use per ton-kilometer, demonstrating that fundamentally at least, ships are more efficient.
Going back to the original point of all this, I would guess OP isn't thinking about taking a cruise ship to antartica, so adding himself to a boat should have a lower footprint than adding himself to a plane, I think.
H&M stores partner with a firm called I:CO that actually seems to do a good job sorting clothes for resale and recycling. Thrift stores only want clothes that are in sufficiently good condition that you'd also feel comfortable giving them to a friend. What happens to the rest of the clothes they get, though, is hard to say and depends on the store--lots gets sent to the landfill, some might make it to textile recycling, some might get bailed and shipped to Africa.
For other human service organizations, they often have very specific clothing needs. Martha's Table, for example, only wants infant & child clothing; maternity clothing; and business/ business casual clothing, and it needs to be clean, neatly folded, and in sturdy bags or boxes. They do not want anything with tears, stains, holes, broken zippers, or missing buttons.
More on clothing donations from Vice and from Slate, which is an excerpt from Elizabeth Cline's book.
I haven’t looked into specifically starting a business, but I have been reading Eric Toensmeier’s book “The Carbon Farming Solution” link and it has tons of good resources and information. I’d also look at the book “Drawdown” edited by Paul Hawken link
There's a great book I was reading recently called Whole Earth Discipline. It has some great points on Climate Engineering, especially the positive aspects of it.
Maybe you'll also like this book then: Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
I've not read this one: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
edit: and this film: The Corporation but especially: CEO Ray Anderson Playlist
It is a pretty spot on analogy. Cocaine at first feels bloody fantastic to the individual. The more you use it, the more you get hooked. But every time it is taken away from you, you can't bear it. Then it starts crippling the systems around you, finally it cripples you and you start to think why you liked it in the first place. But you are too dependent on it, so you use it until it finally kills you.
There is NO such thing as free electricity. Renewables come with a hefty investment price-tag. Even now they can't compete with nuclear, coal or even gas if you take life-cycle costs. Besides renewables cannot satisfy out requirements PERIOD. Because of technology, land and cost issues.
It is all mathematics, and the numbers for renewables just don't add up.
Country Wisdom & Know-How by the editors of Storey is my personal fave. It has a little bit of everything. They have a few other large Know-How collections I have been meaning to get, browsed through them in the store and they look equally useful.
How do you support that sort of ignorance? By not being ignorant yourself. Read a book. Here's a good one.
The Morale Case for Fossil Fuels
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels-ebook/dp/B00INIQVJA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459039970&sr=1-1&keywords=the+moral+case+for+fossil+fuels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-1ohbRDrE
Jeff Rubin - "Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller" - I read this book a few years ago, and it is an excellent look into how our world will change once the easy-to-get-at oil is gone. I highly recommend reading it.
> It could easily be said that many of those things are along for the ride because of capitalism (especially medical and scientific advances). Does capitalism still play no role in helping increase material quality of life?
So are you suggesting that, without Capitalism, those advances and political/social reforms would not exist? Again, I never suggested Capitalism plays no role, I'm suggesting that Capitalism may not always (or even often) play a central role that could not be played satisfactorily within another framework, given the will.
> Well, the wrong choices maybe but competition gives advantage to those which are the right choices (cough nuclear cough). That advantage those right choices have is called sustainable profitability.
Listen, I get it, I understand the idea of crony Capitalism and how it buffers the status quo from competition. I think that competition can be good, but I will argue that it's simply not a panacea that will solve all of our problems. There are glaring problems created by Capitalism itself (independent of government/cronyist intervention) that absolutely must be solved, at least in part, outside of Capitalism's mechanisms; free market or not.
> Usually its science backed by interest in real world uses that gives us most of these things. Capitalism doesn't exploit the discoveries, it utilizes the discoveries so everyone can benefit from them. You assume it then gains a monopoly. Monopolies are actually very much going agaisnt the principles of free market capitalism (removing chance for competition). Patents aren't permanent and allow for it to be profitable to invest huge amount of resources into trying to make a potential huge discovery (huge amount that wouldn't be worth/able to be invested into making that discovery if it wasn't for the protection of a patent). Those massive discoveries (expensive but nonetheless very important) are what drive progress in society and improve everything.
Capitalism is all about exploitation. Take a given form of capital/resources/labor, combine it with a potentially profitable innovation, and monetary profit is gained. The interests are profit, not the innovation itself. Innovations are only put into use if they can prove their more/less immediate profitability. Profit-motive is a double-edged sword within Capitalism and can serve to crush or deny innovation just as it serves to boost it. Like the law, Capitalism is external from more core fundamentals; in law, not everything that is right is legal and not everything that is legal is right, similarly, not everything that is superior is profitable and not everything that is profitable is superior.
> Exactly, profit is a hugely successful motivator for innovation and ingenuity.
Yes, innovation and ingenuity towards making profits, not necessarily towards visionary, or even technological progress.
> Ha, you really like just making statement and not backing them up with anything (logic, examples, etc.),don't you? People will innovate new things that are desirable (and the most desirable things are those that are beneficial). We already know that causes society and technology to advance (because that's exactly what has happened).
This is magical thinking, the religion of the market, more focusing on the positives, ignoring the negatives.
> Ha, I find it ironic that you complain that people's innovations under capitalism doesn't "necessarily mean that society or technology will advance" all while you praise "tribal/band societies" which often stay the same for millenniums because of a lack of advancement in society and technology. Like you pointed out, the "tribal/band societies" is what "humans lived in for over 90% of our history. 90% of our history! That shows just how little advancement (both in society and technology) happened during that time.
"very efficient lifestyles with less-hours-worked and very efficient use of resources over the long-term" and no innovation, no improvement to society or technology. Just a pure system of stagnation, society sitting where it is forever. Neat.
Tribal/band societies don't "stay the same for milleniums", they do/have change(ed). They are also very socially advanced in the sense of embodying highly sustainable equilibrium with ecology (comparatively) and one another (systemic egalitarianism); all while working less hours than modern workers and seeing their "work" as passion, survival, or play rather than as alienated abstraction from their lives. We have much to (re)learn from them, at least socially speaking. You're speaking in binary again, you say there was NO innovation/change/advancement, but this is simply inaccurate and precisely why I advise you study Anthropology to learn more about how other cultures operate(d). Start with this primer:
https://www.amazon.com/Limited-Wants-Unlimited-Means-Hunter-Gatherer/dp/155963555X
> And innovation moving ahead and is constantly working out ways to solve it.
Don't fear change and wish for the predictableness of the past.
I don't fear change at all, I fear the wrong change and the wrong traditions of the past. Currently, we're holding onto too many of the wrong traditions and failing to embrace the proper changes.
Also, I feel I must make it clear to you that I'm not advocating we eliminate efficiencies in our technologies, but that we do not simply trust in market-driven efficiencies to solve our immensely daunting (and, to some degree, inevitable) and looming collapses on the mid-term horizon. It's going to take MANY (if not EVERY) approach(es) and Capitalism, like Jesus, or space aliens, or implementing the right political reforms, simply will not do the job alone. I caution, always, against technophilia, unscientific optimism, and market worship.
I believe the majority of people saw prices continuing to rise due to supply shortages and continuing volatility internationally.
I think this book summed it up best, basically based on the assumption that oil would go above $200/barrel and anyone living in a rural area or away from major cities would have a hard time surviving.
I don't think it was a far out assumption at the time before the US was working towards energy independence and the Saudis were bottoming out the market.
http://www.amazon.ca/Your-World-About-Whole-Smaller/dp/030735752X
I always chuckle when people like OP jump for joy at their cheap gas prices...
Here's one
http://www.amazon.com/Environment-Economy-International-Library-Writings/dp/1840640758
> How does the DOD generate the vast amount of weapons grade plutonium
Dedicated plutonium production reactors. See: https://www.amazon.com/Megawatts-Megatons-Future-Nuclear-Power/dp/0226284271
Wind and solar create nothing but drag in every industrialized economy in which they exist: https://stopthesethings.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Spains-Photovoltaic-Revolution-Investment-SpringerBriefs/dp/144199436X
https://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
Thank you, I've been looking for a new book to read!
here's a link for the fortunate, supporting bad capitalism
I would buy land and books.
With the land, I would set up ecovillages, and I would (also) set aside vast areas where the plants and animals would be able to rejuvenate uninhibited.
I would find like-minded people, and I would ultimately try to integrate them into the enviornment with the wolves and the buffalo and the other animals. Humans can, and have been, ecologically sustainable organisms in natural environments. Not all agriculture is bad. Many Native American groups practiced agriculture in harmony with the rest of the environment.
I am also not against technology. A bow and arrow is technology, any tool that people use is technology. I am, however, against plastics and other harmful chemicals.
I would also build an army with the people who come to live on my land. There is no shortage of people - homeless people, high-school and college dropouts, homeless children, the unemployed, environmentalists, and lots of people I talk to IRL would be down for this idea.
I would learn assorted martial arts, I would teach them to others, and I would have the others teach them to more people, and we would spend a lot of time on it. This would be both for the health benefits and the self-defense benefits. It would be an army of ninjas, who also grow their own food and are self-sustaining. This will be great in case of societal failure or economic collapse. I would also teach/learn as many natural survival skills as I can. The goal of the army would be to establish peace and not wars, and to help people achieve independence (from money, oil, and industry) while also keeping a healthy relationship with the environment and the other animals.
We would also care for our children. We would raise them to be physically healthy and open-minded. We would not overshelter them, or put taboos on their sexuality, and we would make it the job of the entire community (especially the elders) to educate and take care of them. We will not over-shelter them or raise them to be weak. We will teach them how to socialize with each other in healthy ways, in an open, nurturing, loving environment. We'll also make it official policy that everything we do is done with the well-being of the next seven generations in mind.
There are also some books that I would want to buy and distribute. They include Circle of Life Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders, by James David Audlin, The Other Side of Eden, by Hugh Brody, The Conversations with God trilogy, by Neale Donald Walsch, The Art of Shen Ku, by Zeek, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann, A Practical Guide to Setting Up Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, by Diana Leafe Christian, and I'm sure there's lots of other good ones. You should really conduct your own search, but I feel all the ones I've listed have valuable information and the power to change the ideas of large groups of people. Anything on Native American culture, history, and philosophy, or on organic gardening, or self-sustainability in general. I might even set up my own bookstore or library, now that I think about it, and make more money. I'm definitley not against making money, because everyone in our world believes in money and money is power in our society.
Smells like bullshit. Let me check those prices.
Acta Philosophorum The First Journal of Philosophy: $270
Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications: $283
Management Science An Anthology: $37
History of Early Film: $224
Biostatistical Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology: $140
Companion Encyclopedia of Psychology: $40
Feminism and Politics: $4
Concepts and Design of Chemical Reactors: $149
Advanced Semiconductor and Organic Nano-Techniques: $195
Ethics in Business and Economics: $4
Environment in the New Global Economy: $400
Solid State Chemistry and Its Applications: $40
Of course, they're still a rip off.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002U80G36?qid=1421878844&sr=8-1
read this
https://www.amazon.com/Watermelons-Environmentalists-Destroying-Stealing-Childrens/dp/1849544050/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479583415&sr=8-1&keywords=watermelons