Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at http://www.mit.edu/%7epinker/ Harvard University. For more info go to www.meaningoflife.tv.

Robert Trivers and Noam Chomsky on Deception

Robert Trivers and Noam Chomsky discuss deception.

Read this and make a decision

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has release a comprehensive study of the livestock industry.

The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent -- 18% -- than transport.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33% of the global arable land, [which is] used to produce feed for livestock

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20% percent of all terrestrial animal biomass.

Meat and diary animals, our pets and humans make up 98% of land vertebrates.

Full report and summary here.

My suggestion - eat low on the food chain.

Best Summary of Sustainable Energy Ever!

Listen to this presentation by Nate Lewis if you want to learn something about sustainable energy. Best single discussion I have heard on the subject.

Listen to a streaming audio version of this presentation.
Download the Powerpoint Presentation.
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(requires Real Audio Player, a free download HERE)

Below is a summary of the discussion taken from http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mmrc/nslenergy/.

The Lewis Group
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA

Scientific Challenges in Sustainable Energy Technology

This presentation will describe and evaluate the challenges, both technical, political, and economic, involved with widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies.

1. First, we estimate the available fossil fuel resources and reserves based on data from the World Energy Assessment and World Energy Council. In conjunction with the current and projected global primary power production rates, we then estimate the remaining years of supply of oil, gas, and coal for use in primary power production. We then compare the price per unit of energy of these sources to those of renewable energy technologies (wind, solar thermal, solar electric, biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal) to evaluate the degree to which supply/demand forces stimulate a transition to renewable energy technologies in the next 20-50 years.
   
2. Secondly, we evaluate the greenhouse gas buildup limitations on carbon-based power consumption as an unpriced externality to fossil-fuel consumption, considering global population growth, increased global gross domestic product, and increased energy efficiency per unit of globally averaged GDP, as produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A greenhouse gas constraint on total carbon emissions, in conjunction with global population growth, is projected to drive the demand for carbon-free power well beyond that produced by conventional supply/demand pricing tradeoffs, at potentially daunting levels relative to current renewable energy demand levels.
   
3. Thirdly, we evaluate the level and timescale of R&D investment that is needed to produce the required quantity of carbon-free power by the 2050 timeframe, to support the expected global energy demand for carbon-free power.
   
4. Fourth, we evaluate the energy potential of various renewable energy resources to ascertain which resources are adequately available globally to support the projected global carbon-free energy demand requirements.
   
5. Fifth, we evaluate the challenges to the chemical sciences to enable the cost-effective production of carbon-free power on the needed scale by the 2050 timeframe.
   
6. Finally, we discuss the effects of a change in primary power technology on the energy supply infrastructure and discuss the impact of such a change on the modes of energy consumption by the energy consumer and additional demands on the chemical sciences to support such a transition in energy supply.