The prospect of a famine-free world hinges on improved governance and peace. It is as simple - or as difficult - as that. Cormac Ó Gráda Sometimes it happens that you are vaguely aware of a person and you know they coined a term and then by some random chance you come across evidence that this person effectively made the world just much worse.
Almost all researchers use “gap-spotting”, a process that only creates boring research questions It usually does not happen that I read through a non-fiction book in two days, but I could not put this one down. In the recent months, I noticed that one thing that I have to improve to become a better researcher is to come up with more and better research questions.
How warm will it get? This question is probably on the mind of every person dealing with the issue of climate change. It is so important because all other consequences of climate change depend on it. The less the earth warms, the better mankind will cope with it. In the following, I will deal with this question and its implications.
“ How do we know there is such a thing as a long-term version of our kind of civilization? ” Adam Frank Summary Given some basic assumptions about how planets and civilizations’ energy use interact, we can create a model that shows that it is likely that most or even all exo-civilizations run into their own version of an Anthropocene.
Diversity is important. Not only inherently, but instrumentally as well. Based on ideas from the book “Why Trust Science?” by science historian Naomi Oreskes this post argues for increased diversity as a chance to produce more reliable knowledge. The main argument is that a more diverse community has more diverse perspectives on any given topic.
End of an age Why do civilizations collapse? For some civilizational collapses in the past there is one striking event that leads to a quick end, like environmental damage for the people on the Easter Islands.