Stephan: The transition out of the carbon era is happening faster than American car makers are prepared for because they have tried to stretch-out the life of the manufacturing systems in which they are already invested. The effect will be a decline, and it is going to be accelerated by the tariffs, on automobiles, which will protect American carmakers from having to keep up, and keep carbon energy alive. Meanwhile remember that much of Europe, China, Singapore and other countries are committed to have no carbon vehicles on their roadways by 2040 -- 22 years. The damage being done to the United States by this president, and this congress is breath-taking.
Credit: Climate News Network
Oil and gas companies have underestimated probable electric vehicle sales and the effect they will have on their own businesses and profits, a new report says.
If the car manufacturers’ projections of future sales of electric cars are correct, then demand for oil will have peaked by 2027 or even earlier, sending the price of oil in a downward spiral as supply exceeds demand, says Carbon Tracker (CT), an independent financial think-tank carrying out in-depth analysis on the impact of the energy transition on capital markets.
It says fossil fuel companies have taken into account some engine fuel efficiencies and the effect they would have on oil demand, but not the expected increase in electric vehicles themselves. There is a big mismatch between forecasts of EV market penetration from vehicle manufacturers and from oil majors, says Laurence Watson, a CT data scientist.
“The oil industry is underestimating the disruptive potential of electric vehicles, which could reduce oil demand by millions of barrels a day. Increases in fuel efficiency will also eat into oil demand […]
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Ahmed Alkhateeb, - Alternet
Stephan: I agree with this essay, and see it as a very important trend. I urge you to read it.
Credit: Cambridge University
The duty of man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads and … attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.
– Ibn al-Haytham (965-1040 CE)
Science is in the midst of a data crisis. Last year, there were more than 1.2 million new papers published in the biomedical sciences alone, bringing the total number of peer-reviewed biomedical papers to over 26 million. However, the average scientist reads only about 250 papers a year.Meanwhile, the quality of the scientific literature has been in decline. Some recent studies found that the majority of biomedical papers were irreproducible.
The twin challenges of too much quantity and too little quality are rooted in the finite neurological capacity of the human mind. Scientists are deriving hypotheses from a smaller and smaller fraction of our […]
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David Callahan, - Guardian
Stephan: This is what Citizens United has wrought. Here's the reality. American democracy is slipping away, and many people don't even seem to notice or care, if they do notice.
Credit:radio.foxnews.com
Pull up a seat, this year’s election is getting interesting.
In one corner, backing the Republican, are billionaire heavyweights like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. In the other, wearing the blue trunks, are mega-donors such as Tom Steyer and George Soros, as well as one of the richest Americans of all, Michael Bloomberg, who recently confirmed that he’ll spend at least $80m to flip the House of Representatives to the Democrats – in a midterm election that will likely be the most expensive in history.
The rest of us, ordinary citizens without big bank accounts, will certainly play a role in the outcome this November. We cast the votes, after all. But more and more, US politics – along with civic life broadly – often feels like a spectator sport, as a growing array of billionaire super citizens battle it out in the public square.
The outsized clout of the rich is hardly a new story, of course. But this influence game is changing as the dollar signs get bigger and as the wealthy exert influence in more arenas using a more […]
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douglas rushkoff, - Medium
Stephan: This is where neo-Feudalism goes. This is what many amongst the uber-rich are thinking. It is so utterly wrong it is hard to know where to start, but this is the direction the new economic aristocracy is headed. This is what is guiding their worldview.
Illustration: Matt Huynh
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”
I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.
After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with […]
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Stefan Kuzmany, - Der Spiegel (Germany)
Stephan: At a time in human history when cooperation on a planetary scale is the only way we will get through what climate change does, Trump is doing everything in his power to break relationships and factionalize humanity.
De Spiegel is one of the most respected publications in Europe and this is what the United States now looks like in its pages.
Vladimir Putin operates in the shadows. The Russian president controls a clever disinformation campaign with the aim of upsetting the populations of Western countries, discrediting their institutions, dividing society, influencing elections and ultimately causing the collapse of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, there are still many people who continue to believe that Putin is innocent and that the claims are merely the malicious fabrications of Western intelligence agencies. Is it all just a conspiracy theory?
Regarding Donald Trump’s intentions, by contrast, there can no longer be any doubt. Since taking office, he has carried out a scorched-earth policy against multi-lateral treaties of all kinds. He is a man with no interest in foreign policy, seeing it merely as an instrument to pursue his “America First” ideology. He views cooperation as a weakness, the latest proof being the US withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Trump acts quite openly. And now, the American president has turned his attentions toward launching a disinformation campaign against Germany. He is doing […]
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