Steve Brusatte’s “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World” was a quick and engaging read about the fascinating field of palaeontology, and, of course, dinosaurs. A new species of dinosaur is currently being discovered, on average, once a week. (I took time to wrap my head around this … Continue reading Some Dino Facts
In the beginning the earth was without parking. The planner said, Let there be parking, and there was parking. And the planner saw that it was good. And the planner then said, Let there be off-street parking for each land use, according to its kind. And developers provided off-street parking for each land use according … Continue reading The Tragedy of Free Parking
Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain’s 'World Without End' – a comic about Climate Change that outsold Asterix in France in the year of its launch was a sharp, engaging introduction to Energy Sources and Climate Change. The panels that caught my attention were the ones explaining the long-term impacts of Chernobyl and Fukushima. According to … Continue reading The Real Costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima
So many of the gastronomical delights of our modern life would be impossible without modern refrigeration. Cheeseburgers, chilled beer, ice cream and of course all the imported exotic items like Norwegian salmon, Swiss cheese and Australian beef would have just remained local delicacies restricted to a few 100 kilometers from their point of origin had … Continue reading Our Refrigerated World
Rob Henderson, the psychologist and writer grew up in nine different homes before his eighth birthday. He was born to an unwed drug junkie who died when he was three. His childhood, as described in his memoir ‘Troubled’ was typical of orphans growing up in foster homes in the US – abuse, neglect, teen gangs, … Continue reading Luxury Beliefs
Sustainability is all about doing things in such a way that the impact on the environment is minimal so that future generations suffer less. Most well-meaning folks focus on the second aspect, about reducing environmental impact to the bare minimum without bothering about the moral imperative of ensuring a decent life for the humans alive … Continue reading Becoming a ‘Sustainable Generation’
When something sounds too good to be true, always be suspicious. The incoming revolution in the transport sector heralded by Musk revolutionizing EVs - by making them an object of desire – has been touted as the best thing to have happened to mankind. While the energy to power these vehicles will someday be ‘clean’, … Continue reading The Underbelly of the EV Revolution
I spent last weekend with Alex Epstein’s 2014 “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’ and his recent 2020 work “Fossil Future”. However controversial his defense of fossil fuels may be, I must admit that his whole approach had a convincing ring. With a background in philosophy, Epstein frames the whole debate using the concept of … Continue reading The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
