Paul Ehrlich's legacy is one of unequivocal disgrace - intellectually, scientifically, and morally. His doomsaying was catastrophically wrong, and refused to ever admit it. His bankrupt ideas benighted environmentalism for 60 years. Enough is enough.
It's time for brighter ideas.
Most of my colleagues in the academy and especially the environmental disciplines still have no clue that we're well along our march up the foothills of the Singularity. If you thought this was all science fiction still decades or centuries away, it's time to wake up.
Why degrowth is one of history's truly terrible ideas - a fun conversation with Mark Lynas of WePlanet: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p11F...
You're muddying the waters by conflating aggregate wealth ("make everyone poorer") with distributional equity - standard degrowth confusion, which I address in the book, but if you want the details you'll have to buy it! 🤣
Laughably ignorant nonsense. If that rubbish were true, goods and services plus all human development indicators would be greater/better in the past prior to "capitalism".
Nevermind...
Simple, obvious, and non-controversial:
Availability+accessibility of goods&services ==> measurable outcomes in health, literacy, life expectancy, infant/child/maternal mortality, self-reported happiness, etc. (e.g. HDI metrics).
PhD at UCLA under Suzanna Hecht, a cofounder of the field of political ecology. Dissertation fields were political ecology, ecological economics, environmental justice. Degrowth promises the moon, but in reality absolutely makes everyone poorer. Just one reason why it is a truly terrible idea.
The Degrowth Delusion is out today!
“One of the most important books I’ve read in a decade at least. It’s a very long time since I read a book in just one day. That’s how good it is.” -- Mark Lynas
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FTMB4T8Z
Launching on Monday, October 13:
www.amazon.com/Degrowth-Del...
New interview of mine in @theguardian.com about AI, robots, and the disruption of human labor - perils and promise both:
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
I'm seeing a resurgence in climate change fear-mongering this week, centered on scenarios out to 2100 (!)🤣 🤦♂️ Climate change is real and a major challenge, but conventional @ipcc.bsky.social scenarios are technologically illiterate garbage. Here's why:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfh8...
Stop panicking. Can you even tell from global emissions data which US administration was in power over the last 75 years?The world will continue building and buying enormous amounts of solar and EVs, regardless of what happens in Washington. Technology and markets solve climate change, not policy.
For 15 years, my friends and colleagues across the environmental disciplines said AI and robots were "just science fiction" that would take "decades, if ever" to arrive. Funny I don't hear that anymore.
How does that crow taste? 🤣
"Each sheet of A4 paper takes 10 liters of water to make". lol, no. That would mean the global paper industry uses 3x more water than the entire United States economy!
We need to get these things right, or the public will rightly dismiss our environmental concerns as unhinged.
Wondering whether AI will be good or back for climate change? Or how robots are a cornerstone for solving our environmental problems? Here you go:
www.amazon.com/Brighter-Opt...
🤣 👍
With #climate there is massive over-attribution of causal power to US politics and policy. Biden, Trump, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative - doesn't matter. The differences in outcomes are rounding errors. #Technology, not policy, solves climate change.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9N...
Relax. Everything will be fine. Two things matter more than anything else: 1) avoid violent conflict, 2) make technological progress. That’s the cake. The rest is icing. Don’t lose sight of what’s most important.
Crazy to see so many folks in a lather about AI and energy use. It’s pure nothingburger. Energy use will rise and virtually ALL of it will come from solar+wind+batteries. Everything else - gas, nuclear, hydrogen - will be a rounding error. Meanwhile, emissions will plummet. Stop panicking.
With #climate there is massive over-attribution of causal power to US politics and policy. Biden, Trump, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative - doesn't matter. The differences in outcomes are rounding errors. #Technology, not policy, solves climate change.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9N...
It's not too late to give something uplifting for the holidays!
www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNBKYR1G
www.amazon.com/Brighter-Opt...
Humanoid robots won’t just displace human jobs.. they will create an entirely new, vastly larger and more capable labor system 🌎 🤖 🚀
Read RethinkX's Top 15 Insights into the Inevitable Humanoid Robotics Disruption... www.rethinkx.com/labor/in-dep...
False assumptions about ecological restoration are built into the overshoot logic taught to undergrads. Using standard bathtub analogy: falsely assumes fixed tub size, no pumping, etc. Sorry, too busy to debunk the entire Degrowth orthodoxy today. See my book and video series for details.
Degrowth is an idea too bankrupt to be salvaged or accommodated or appeased. It's like thinking slavery is a way to handle labor shortages. Just, no.
Some days it's just too exhausting to deal with the sheer *wrongness* of the Doomer and Degrowther narratives around climate change and sustainability. If you're tired of all the fact-free pessimism and are hungry for some data-driven optimism for the holidays: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQT...
😄If you can, please leave a rating and review on Amazon or Goodreads! The algorithms won't recommend it until it gets to about 50 reviews!
Ever wonder what Elon Musk's real plan with Neuralink is? It's worth a LOT more than $440 billion. And it's not what either his fans or his haters think. Answer is in here:
www.amazon.com/More-than-St...
Just a reminder that the conventional climate narrative is dead wrong because it fails to understand technology. We have no technology theory in our environmental science curricula (eg UM SEAS and @uclaioes.bsky.social), so we're easy targets for misinformation: youtu.be/Qfh83yqKkBc?...
