Sustainability and Future

The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality 1 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 1: The Fossil Fuel Paradox and the Pace of Decarbonization 2 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 2: Food, Nitrogen, and the Existential Cost of Eating Fossil Fuels 3 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 3: Concrete, Steel, and the Four Pillars of the Material World 4 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 4: Globalization as Technology and the Retreat from Interconnection 5 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 5: Quantifying Risk, Dread, and the Calculus of Catastrophe 6 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 6: The Biosphere's Tightrope and the Price of Ambition 7 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 7: Inertia, Innovation, and the Limits of Predicting the Future ← Series Home The Age of Extrasomatic Energy The decades since the Second World War have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in global living standards, health, and aggregate knowledge. This modern success is fundamentally rooted in the energy available to the average individual. Where once human and animal muscles provided nearly all mechanical work, today’s average Earthling commands nearly 700 times more useful energy than their ancestors had in 1800,. This enormous mobilization of extrasomatic energy—external to one’s body—translates directly to higher quality of life, mass-scale travel, and mechanized production. ...

Carbon Illusion 1 The Carbon Illusion – Part 1: Displacement in the Name of Climate Neutrality 2 The Carbon Illusion – Part 2: The Dark Engine of Charcoal: Burning the Carbon Sink 3 The Carbon Illusion – Part 3: The Myth of the Monoculture: Why Native Savannah Stores Triple the Carbon 4 The Carbon Illusion – Part 4: Certification Compromised: When Audits Ignore Violence and Water Loss 5 The Carbon Illusion – Part 5: From Minas Gerais Furnaces to Hamburg’s "Sustainable" Subway ← Series Home The Modern-Day Gold Rush Threatening a Generation’s Home Brazil is currently experiencing what has been described as a modern-day gold rush, driven by the expanding promise of global climate protection. This rush brings consequences that are alarmingly familiar, including widespread environmental destruction, violence, and the displacement of local communities. In regions like Minas Gerais, massive reforestation projects are advancing under the guise of offsetting CO2 emissions, yet this promise of sustainable development is simultaneously being weaponized to dispossess traditional communities of their ancestral land. Families like Eddison’s, who have lived in Pindaiiba for generations, face an uncertain future as they battle to protect their home. ...

The Contested Circle: A Critical Roadmap to the Circular Economy 1 The Contested Circle – Part 1: Beyond Take-Make-Waste: The Promise and Physics of Perfect Loops 2 The Contested Circle – Part 2: Green Growth's Illusion: Why Efficiency Alone Cannot Sustain the System 3 The Contested Circle – Part 3: The Systemic Choke Points: Overcoming the Economic and Logistical Barriers 4 The Contested Circle – Part 4: Quantifying the Decoupling: How Circularity Mitigates Carbon and Secures Supply 5 The Contested Circle – Part 5: The Mandate of Justice: Governance, Labor, and the Equitable Framework ← Series Home The Implosion of Linearity: Why the “Throw Away” Model Must End The prevailing economic structure, inherited from the Industrial Revolution, operates on a stark and finite logic: take, make, consume, throw away. This linear economic model functions as an open-ended material flow, relentlessly extracting vast quantities of cheap, easily accessible virgin materials, manufacturing products, and then discarding them as waste after a single, limited use. This systemic reliance on high material throughput has yielded significant economic growth but has proven fundamentally destructive to planetary systems. In 2022, the average European consumed 14.9 tonnes Average raw materials consumed per European in 2022 ...

The Arithmetic of Sustainability ← Series Home The current discourse surrounding sustainable energy is frequently dominated by “twaddle.” Everyone agrees that transitioning away from fossil fuels is crucial, and individuals are encouraged to “make a difference,” yet many of the actions and proposals suggested simply don’t add up when scrutinized numerically. This high level of “twaddle emissions” arises because public debate often becomes emotional—concerning wind farms or nuclear power, for example—and people rarely discuss concrete numbers. If numbers are mentioned, they’re often cherry-picked to create an impression, sound impressive, or score points in arguments, rather than genuinely contributing to thoughtful discussion. ...

The Uninsurable Future: Climate Risk and the Collapse of Property Insurance 1 The Uninsurable Future – Part 1: Mapping the Climate-Driven Crisis Through Soaring Premiums and Nonrenewal Rates 2 The Uninsurable Future – Part 2: Policy Paralysis: Deregulation, Debt, and the Failure of State Insurance Backstops 3 The Uninsurable Future – Part 3: The Systemic Threat: How Rising Home Insurance Costs Trigger a Mortgage and Credit Collapse ← Series Home The Canary in the Coal Mine Sings of Climate Risk Insurance stands as the “canary in the coal mine” for the broader climate crisis,. Historically, property and casualty insurance has served a crucial function by pooling risk, channeling capital, and preventing unexpected financial shocks for households and financial institutions. This is particularly vital in the U.S. mortgage market, where lenders routinely require insurance as a precondition for securing a loan,. ...

The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality 1 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 1: The Fossil Fuel Paradox and the Pace of Decarbonization 2 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 2: Food, Nitrogen, and the Existential Cost of Eating Fossil Fuels 3 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 3: Concrete, Steel, and the Four Pillars of the Material World 4 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 4: Globalization as Technology and the Retreat from Interconnection 5 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 5: Quantifying Risk, Dread, and the Calculus of Catastrophe 6 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 6: The Biosphere's Tightrope and the Price of Ambition 7 The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality – Part 7: Inertia, Innovation, and the Limits of Predicting the Future ← Series Home The Faustian Bargain of Modern Harvests In every species, securing a sufficient and varied food supply is the core existential imperative. For the vast majority of people in affluent and middle-income countries, the chronic anxiety of obtaining food has been replaced by concern over healthy eating. This transformation is historically profound: rising food production slashed the global malnutrition rate from two out of three people in 1950 to just one in eleven by 2019. ...

Carbon Illusion 1 The Carbon Illusion – Part 1: Displacement in the Name of Climate Neutrality 2 The Carbon Illusion – Part 2: The Dark Engine of Charcoal: Burning the Carbon Sink 3 The Carbon Illusion – Part 3: The Myth of the Monoculture: Why Native Savannah Stores Triple the Carbon 4 The Carbon Illusion – Part 4: Certification Compromised: When Audits Ignore Violence and Water Loss 5 The Carbon Illusion – Part 5: From Minas Gerais Furnaces to Hamburg’s "Sustainable" Subway ← Series Home The Illusion of Climate-Friendly Monoculture In glossy public relations videos, global steel producers like Gardell, which is publicly listed and worth billions, showcase their use of CO2 certificates and present themselves as aggressively climate-friendly. This narrative centers on the idea of large-scale tree plantations offsetting industrial emissions. However, the core claim being propagated—that clearing naturally grown savannah woodlands that have evolved over thousands of years and replacing them with monoculture plantations constitutes climate protection—is fundamentally challenged by the trail of destruction. If the goal is climate neutrality, the massive areas of land required for these protection plantations must be sourced, and the method of utilizing the planted trees is central to evaluating the success of the model. ...

The Contested Circle – Part 2: Green Growth’s Illusion: Why Efficiency Alone Cannot Sustain the System The Ideological Comfort of Decoupling The circular economy has ascended to the forefront of global policy, business, and research agendas, largely predicated on a powerful and comforting narrative: that of sustainable growth. This narrative, often dubbed “Green Growth,” promises a win-win outcome where economic growth and environmental preservation are successfully reconciled, allowing the economy to hum nicely without wrecking the planet. The appeal is immense, suggesting that humanity can decouple economic activity from resource consumption and environmental impact simply by becoming more efficient and innovative. ...

The Arithmetic of Sustainability ← Series Home The initial step in tackling the formidable challenge of moving away from fossil fuels is to calculate precisely the sheer scale of the problem: determining the total energy we consume. The current sustainable energy discourse is often mired in emotion and “twaddle,” obscuring the fundamental numerical challenge ahead. To create viable strategies rather than “pipedreams,” we must quantify our energy use—the “red stack”—and compare it directly against potential sustainable production—the “green stack.” ...

The Uninsurable Future: Climate Risk and the Collapse of Property Insurance 1 The Uninsurable Future – Part 1: Mapping the Climate-Driven Crisis Through Soaring Premiums and Nonrenewal Rates 2 The Uninsurable Future – Part 2: Policy Paralysis: Deregulation, Debt, and the Failure of State Insurance Backstops 3 The Uninsurable Future – Part 3: The Systemic Threat: How Rising Home Insurance Costs Trigger a Mortgage and Credit Collapse ← Series Home The Stark Choice Between Deregulation and Debt Florida and California, two large, heavily populated states highly vulnerable to natural hazards, offer a stark comparison in policy response to the same climate-driven insurance crisis,. Florida, facing hurricane and flooding exposure, has aggressively deregulated its market, eliminating state rate control. Conversely, California, primarily battling wildfire risk, maintained rate regulation but eventually conceded massive rate hikes justified by catastrophe models,. ...