The Tar Sands Disaster

President Obama rejected the pipeline last year but now must decide whether to approve a new proposal from TransCanada, the pipeline company. Saying no won’t stop tar sands development by itself, because producers are busy looking for other export routes — west across the Rockies to the Pacific Coast, east to Quebec, or south by rail to the United States. Each alternative faces political, technical or economic challenges as opponents fight to make the industry unviable.

Exploring the Climate “Mindscape”

Exploring the Climate “Mindscape”: an interview in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The climate change problem might ultimately reside as much in our heads as in the external world. Researchers need to map the “mindscape,” a virtual space within which most of the world’s people are clustered in a few ideologically polarized groups. Vast, unexplored regions of the mindscape, he says, may offer new ways of thinking about problems such as climate change and new ways of living together successfully in the future.”

All’s Not Lost, Ontario. The Future Is Green, Not Black

Green Energy in Ontario: an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail
Commentators on the political right often slam the economics of green energy. They say that renewables are inefficient, that they create jobs in China, not in Canada, that Europe is cutting green-energy subsidies and that, in any case, the world and especially Canada are hopelessly hooked on carbon. Many of these criticisms are factually wrong, and they’re all shortsighted.

Ontario should focus on the long game. While Alberta and the federal Conservatives double down on carbon, Ontario can be in the vanguard of one of the biggest technological revolutions humanity will ever experience. The future is green, not black.

Our Peak Oil Premium

Global Oil Supply: an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail
Analysts concerned about global oil supply usually point to two basic facts. First, each year, the world’s mature conventional fields produce about four million barrels a day less oil than the previous year, a gap that has to be filled just to keep global output constant. In only five years, that gap grows to 20 million barrels a day of production – equivalent to twice Saudi Arabia’s output, which is mammoth. Second, the world’s cheap and easy-to-get oil is disappearing fast. So, on average, each additional barrel requires more work, more complex technology, more environmental risk to get and refine than the last.

Video: Civilization Far from Equilibrium: Energy, Complexity, and Human Survival

“Civilization Far from Equilibrium: Energy, Complexity, and Human Survival,” Equinox Summit—Energy 2030, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Ontario. View the presentation.

Our Fukushima Moment

A quarter of a century after we first heard it, the word “Chernobyl” stands in our minds for technological calamity borne of incompetence. Environmentalists used the label to deliver a near-fatal blow to the nuclear power industry. What will Fukushima mean to us in 2036, and how will we have used the label to change our world?

Complexity Science and Public Policy

On May 5, 2010, I had the honour of giving the Manion Lecture for the Canada School of Public Service, in Ottawa, Canada. The article is a revised text of the lecture, titled “Complexity Science and Public Policy.”

The Enticements of Green Carrots

On August 9, 2009, in an article titled “The Enticements of Green Carrots,” published in the Toronto Globe and Mail, I describe a scheme for rewarding consumers for green behavior, modeled on an airline’s frequent flyer points.

The Great Transformation: Climate Change as Cultural Change

A speech to a conference in Essen, Germany. I’m delighted to be here with you this evening, in part because this is my first visit to the Ruhr. This region has an extraordinary history as a crucible of an industrial revolution that was, of course, powered by coal. And coal is a substance that will [...]

Podcast: Speech to a conference on “The Great Transformation: Climate Change and Cultural Change” (part 1 of 2)

On June 8, 2009, I gave a speech to a conference in Essen, Germany on “The Great Transformation: Climate Change as Cultural Change,” in which I identified the cognitive, economic, political, and normative components of the coming cultural transformation arising from climate change.