Category Archives: How the World Really Works

Links of the Quarter: December 2019

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Dave Pollard

The stuff in this post is pretty heavy so I thought I’d start off light: “The reason we know the earth isn’t flat is that if it was, cats would have knocked everything off it by now.” (origin unknown) cartoon … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 1 Comment

Understanding Collapse: A Physical Systems View

Posted on December 7, 2019 by Dave Pollard

image from the good folks at Pixabay CC0 (thanks Guillaume Preat) While my belief in the inevitability of civilization’s collapse in this century is rooted in my study of complexity science and a commensurate appreciation of how change happens in … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Preparing for Civilization's End | 2 Comments

What Would Net Zero Emissions by 2025 Look Like?

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Dave Pollard

graph by Our World in Data The latest IPCC report says that in order to prevent catastrophic climate change global net CO2 emissions will have to reach net zero by 2050, from their current levels of 33-38B tons rising by … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 30 Comments

XR and the Defence of Necessity

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Dave Pollard

Image of Ken Ward in 2016 Valve-Turners action, from the film The Reluctant Radical.  Last week, Donald Zepeda was found guilty by a jury in Washington State for his actions to disrupt the flow of Alberta tar sands bitumen sludge … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments

Pollard’s Laws and XR

Posted on September 28, 2019 by Dave Pollard

some of the half-million Montréalers who participated in yesterday’s climate march; from Greta’s twitter posts One of the things that intrigues me about XR is that their three demands are simple, measurable and revolutionary: Government must tell the truth by … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 1 Comment

IFLS

Posted on September 24, 2019 by Dave Pollard

image from nutritionfacts.org There’s a new survey that suggests that 1/3 of Canadians, up from 1/4 in the last survey, are “skeptical” of scientists and scientific research. And globally, 45% say they only agree with science “if it aligns with … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 2 Comments

If You Wanted to Sabotage the Canada/US Elections…

Posted on September 14, 2019 by Dave Pollard

(In case it isn’t obvious, this article is meant as satire.) image from The Daily Show Canadians go to the polls for a federal election this fall; Americans do so next fall. There is already evidence of large-scale election meddling … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 3 Comments

Links of the Quarter: September 2019

Posted on September 11, 2019 by Dave Pollard

cartoon by Lars Kenseth in the New Yorker What have we to do But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards In an age which advances progressively backwards?    (TS Eliot) Hiraeth (heer-eye-th) (Welsh) A word with no direct English … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 2 Comments

Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Dave Pollard

It’s encouraging to see that the terms “climate crisis” and even “climate collapse”, which even five years ago were ridiculed as doomerism, are now considered perfectly reasonable descriptions of our current state. That doesn’t mean there is any consensus on how to … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Preparing for Civilization's End | 23 Comments

Conversations That Matter: What It Takes to Have Them

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Dave Pollard

photo by Maren Yumi on flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Ironically, despite the fact that I engage in fewer conversations than I used to (maybe because since I’m retired I don’t have to, and because I find few conversations valuable anyway), I’ve started … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 4 Comments