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The Way We Were
We are in the western part of Turkish Anatolia, which in Greek means "East" or "Sunrise." Suddenly, we are inside of many of the oldest human stories that are particularly dear to my heart. The...
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Is U.S. Shale Oil & Gas Production Peaking? Part I: Gas Production
Part I of this post shows my calculations of ultimate gas recovery from the Barnett, Fayetteville, Haynesville and Marcellus shales. They might deliver 6-7 years of natural gas consumption in the U.S....
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Is U.S. Shale Oil & Gas Production Peaking? Part II: Oil Production
In Part I of this post, I discussed production of gas from the four largest shale plays in the U.S. Ordered by production levels, these are the Marcellus, Barnett, Haynesville and Fayetteville shales....
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Quo vadis, Britannia?
Where are you going, Great Britain? The ongoing vigorous discussion of Brexit seems to be vacuous on both sides of the argument, because it misses the most important physical realities of staying alive...
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Where Now?
Two years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a blog, The Bird of Dawn, full of hope for the indomitable human spirit which can transcend and erode all repression, whether religious or political. A year...
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Why Did You Have to Leave, Wise Ancients?
We are on the island of Sicily, near Syracuse, one of the five Corinthian colonies that also included the island of Ortygia nearby. Old people still remember that Leto gave birth on Ortygia to Artemis,...
View ArticleNow What?!
If you are like me, you may read, watch and listen to what is happening around you with disbelief. But should we be incredulous? Perhaps not...By chance, I looked at "What on earth are we doing?," a...
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Is It Just Idiocracy?
OK, I am furious, so furious that words can't pass through my throat that dried up from anger. You'd expect me to take an easy path and lash out at President Trump. But this would too self-serving and...
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A Very Brief History of Humans
Have you wondered recently what makes us humans do what we do? Have you pondered why can we be so beautiful at times and act like crazed savages at other times? Why, for example, President Donald J....
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I have not written for a year, because I did not want to infect you with my depression. The climate is warming up like never before in all human history, the polar ice is melting at the fastest rate...
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All is well on our planet Earth, isn't it?
11/15/2018. This haze in San Francisco is caused by the fires burning for weeks 170 km to the north. On Nov 17, 2018, air quality in San Francisco was worse than that in Beijing on a bad day.Please...
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A brief story of the human future
Here at KAUST, we had three good rains in the last ten days. I just finished my 18 km bike ride and inhaled the vibrant shades of green of all leaves and the efervescent colors of flowers. The...
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A Requiem for the Beautiful Earth
First, let me remind you that a pessimist is an optimist who shed his delusions and denial, and educated himself. Please keep this in mind, if you continue reading. If you don't, that's fine too. You...
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Crazy
Here is what David Attenborough, the most trusted person in the U.K. and a great naturalist, told the space aliens that descended in 1500 private jets on Davos:"I am quite literally from another age, I...
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The New Improved 1984
Many people ask me how can I be happy writing and thinking about so many sad and desperate things? Well, let me explain. Happiness is the fleeting rush of dopamine I feel seeing my little grandson, my...
View ArticleNotes to the New Improved 1984
The subjects of the previous blog are complex and warrant further explanation. A friend of mine and I have had a lively discussion on several issues I brought up in that blog. With his permission, I...
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The New Green Revolution, a.k.a. The Grand Transition to... ?? - Part I
Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others have been touting the multitudinous advantages of colonizing the Moon and Mars. The scientific idiocies of these proclamations are so outlandish that I will not bother...
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Green New Deal II - Population growth and control
In Part I of this blog, I explained difficulties with comprehending the astronomical scale of change that is awaiting us, the rich people in the developed countries, in our journey to a more...
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Green New Deal III - How to transit from fossil energy to renewables?
In Part I, I showed how most people have little understanding of the complex issues of global power transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and may jump to false and dangerous conclusions colored...
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Green New Deal IV - Any Other Paths?
Recently, I gave in Polish an opening lecture, “Can we salvage our global civilization?”, at a one-day conference of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU). The conference took place in the...
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