From Craig et al., Can History teach us? A retrospective examination of long-term energy forecasts for the United States. Annu. Rev. Energy and Environment 27, 83(2002)

Stewart Brand sent in a piece by the Klimazweibel blog covered by Seekerblog.  It shows where the actual US energy consumption came in by 02000 vs the predictions from 01975.  It is interesting to see that we came in well below the lowest (read: most optimistic) prediction.  While the US still uses an amount of energy that would be unsustainable if adopted worldwide, it does look like all those energy efficiency programs that we started back in the seventies had a real impact…

The anti-state economy

Gilman described deviant globalization as “the unpleasant underside of transnational integration.”

There’s nice tourism, and then sex tourism, such as in Thailand and Switzerland. The vast pharmacology industry is matched by a vast traffic in illegal drugs. The underside of waste disposal is the criminal dumping in the developing world of toxic wastes from the developed world. Military activities worldwide are fed by a huge gray market in weapons. Internet communications are undermined…

Read the rest of Stewart Brand’s Summary

Stewart Brand sent in this blog piece by Warren Senders about time scales.  A good read on how the human mind’s primary feature is now operating as a bug…

I’m not sanguine about our ability to solve the climate crisis — and it’s not because the monolithic forces of global capitalism won’t let us (although they’re not helping). It’s not because we’re too greedy and acquisitive (although we are). It’s not because things have progressed too far already for us to stop them (although they have).

It’s because we humans aren’t very good at thinking in different timescales. We’re basically monkeys, and we have monkey minds. Our species-wide ADD started out as a feature, but in our present situation, it’s a bug.

Senders goes on to list his 8 thoughts, some of which cross over territory covered in this blog and Long Now content in general, but he does a great job re-synthesizing it.  You can read his full article on his blog.

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

It used to be thought that what defined us as human is the fact that we make tools. But in the past few decades, toolmaking has also been observed in chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, otters, octopuses, and several kinds of birds. Still, no other species manipulates matter as relentlessly as humans do. And over the long term, our tools are getting smaller and more sophisticated as we learn more about how to fiddle with molecules, engineer new substances, and tinker with the stuff of… stuff.

Some recent news stories from the world of materials science:

1. Pushing the envelope with paper:

Scientists say paper battery could be in the works

‘Tissue paper’ could stop bullets, harness solar energy

2. Cracking the glass ceiling:

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

3. Water water everywhere:

MIT researchers harness viruses to split water

Device to convert seawater offers hope to parched lands

Water practically flies off new surface

4. Meanwhile, machines are getting smaller every day:

Scientists create world’s first molecular transistor

Scientists harness bacteria to turn microscopic gears

Molecules made into motors

Nanodevice powered by motion

We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.