Search result for: “energy”
The Steady-State Economy: What It Is, Why We Need It
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Viewed superficially, humanity’s material condition and prospects have never looked better. Modernization and affluence are unprecedentedly democratized. A more penetrating examination, however, reveals that humanity is hideously vulnerable, that its present course cannot long endure, and that a radically different type of economy is urgently needed. I. Our Growth Economy is Unsustainable …
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AWAKENING? (An NPG Internet Forum Paper)
Some major oil companies seem to be trying to persuade Washington that the energy transition is real and imminent and that it must be addressed. The tone of the academic debate is changing, and the imminence of the peak in oil production is now acknowledged by groups that have rejected the possibility in the past. However, most commentators don’t recognize …
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COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (NPG Bootnote)
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Dr. Diamond’s new study of “how societies choose to fail or succeed” has received considerable attention, and deservedly so. He describes eight threats to traditional societies and twelve among modern societies. He details the process by which various well-known collapses occurred in Easter Island, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, the Anasazi, Mayan civilization, …
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The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 2. Twilight or Dawn?
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version  Part 1 addressed the period of decline of fossil fuels, lasting perhaps through much of this century,and concluded that the fossil fuel era has been a brief spike that generated an unsustainable growth in population and, in the industrial world, consumption. We are entering an age of overshoot. Humankind may have …
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The End of Fossil Fuels Part 1. How Long the Twilight?
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version This country and the world are in for profound change as the petroleum boom winds down. I find that even specialists in the fields that will be most affected have not seriously considered what that transition will be like or how they will handle it. This study is an effort to describe …
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The New American Century
The New American Century An NPG Forum Paper by Lindsey Grant December 2023 Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version. In 1997, a small group of neo-conservatives organized the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and published a Statement of Principles. The organization’s name describes its state of mind. Its philosophy is perhaps most succinctly expressed in a …
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Forecasting the Unknowable: The U.N. “World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version The United Nations Population Division has put the highlights of its new population estimates and projections onto the Web1. Present world population is 6.3 billion. It is projected to rise to 8.9 billion by 2050, a number almost identical to the 1998 projection but 400 million below the 2000 version and slightly …
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DIVERGING DEMOGRAPHY, CONVERGING DESTINIES: GROWTH, INTERDEPENDENCE, MIGRATION AND WORLD INSTABILITIES
Much of human activity can be characterized as accidental experiments.
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An NPG Commentary: The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development – A Counter-Productive Exercise in Futility (An NPG Internet Forum Paper)
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version The World Summit on Sustainable Development concluded its 10 days of deliberations at Johannesburg on September 4th. If the purpose of the conference was to define the problem and then advocate an adequate solution to it the conference was a disappointing – although not an unexpected – failure. Based on newspaper reports, …
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A No-Growth, Steady-State Economy Must Be Our Goal (An NPG Position Paper)
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Summary: 1. Economic growth in a finite world, which is the only world we have, is not sustainable. Sustainable economic growth is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.2. In order to create a sustainable economy we must first discard the goal of macro economic growth and replace it with the goal of …
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