Post No.: 0438 Furrywisepuppy says: Indium for touch screens, rhenium for jet turbines, neodymium for magnets in motors, lithium for batteries, helium for MRI scanners… These things we need (or want) for our technological civilisation are all rare … Read More
Post No.: 0398 Fluffystealthkitten says: Electronic devices and apps, such as mobile phones and social media apps, bring enormous benefits, including connecting users from all over the world so that we can keep in touch, share our stories … Read More
Post No.: 0380 Furrywisepuppy says: For many here in the UK, it took a highly visual documentary (Blue Planet II) on plastic pollution gathering around innocent islands across the world, and being able to directly trace some of … Read More
Post No.: 0356 Fluffystealthkitten says: The single-use plastic carrier bag charge in the UK, introduced since 2015, has been quite successful in decreasing the amount of plastic bags used. This was mentioned in Post No.: 0346. It’s a … Read More
Post No.: 0346 Furrywisepuppy says: Personal responsibility is something that a lot of us don’t seem to want to take when it comes to collective action problems such as looking after the environment – or at least intentions … Read More
Post No.: 0327 Fluffystealthkitten says: You probably already know about photovoltaic solar panels, solar thermal energy, hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, bioenergy and geothermal energy when it comes to renewable energy sources or technologies. There’s also nuclear power, as … Read More
Post No.: 0295 Furrywisepuppy says: Putting a monetary price on natural resources and the environment may help us to see their value to us – but a danger of doing so is that governments start to commoditise natural … Read More
Post No.: 0288 Fluffystealthkitten says: Many people don’t understand why, despite overall rising average global temperatures over the past several decades, or global warming and melting glaciers, we’re experiencing more extreme cold weather events, as well as hot … Read More
Post No.: 0265 Furrywisepuppy says: The main barrier against solving a lot of human problems isn’t so much not knowing what needs to be done – but getting people to actually individually and collectively do it! Some … Read More
Post No.: 0244 Furrywisepuppy says: When investigating the impacts of products, we must look at their entire product lifecycles, from the cradle to the grave – from extracting the raw materials, the manufacturing, the transport used at all … Read More
Post No.: 0202 Fluffystealthkitten says: When it comes to science, knowledge and technology at least, the ‘golden age’ is not at any time in the past. Who’d genuinely want to live in the past rather than right now … Read More
Post No.: 0185 Fluffystealthkitten says: Technology is overall a wonderful thing and I love checking out and looking forwards to all sorts of new gadgets (I want a grapple gun like Batman!) Indeed, without a whole myriad of … Read More
Post No.: 0155 Furrywisepuppy says: A lot of people who live in the long-industrialised nations of the world tend to automatically blame people and manufacturers in the ‘still-developing’ nations of the world for their growing carbon dioxide and … Read More
Post No.: 0139 Furrywisepuppy says: The size of the global human population matters because this planet only has a limited amount of resources, including land, and can only take so much human-made pollution. The vast majority of human … Read More
Post No.: 0117 Furrywisepuppy says: Some people ask what’s the point in space research, science in general, furthering knowledge and the (often public) money spent on these activities? But many others and I see exploring and learning as … Read More
Post No.: 0081 Fluffystealthkitten says: Humans, as a species overall, pat themselves on the backs too much. Many humans are too myopic. According to the most up-to-date evidence – the first Homo sapiens appeared maybe only about 300,000-350,000 … Read More
Post No.: 0071 Furrywisepuppy says: As a consequence of not compensating nature enough for the things we buy and do, and not living in harmony with nature, as discussed in Post No.: 0055 – we are strongly arguably … Read More
Post No.: 0060 Fluffystealthkitten says: Human-accelerated climate change is slow and isn’t something anyone has any complete and unequivocal personal experience of in their own single lifetime (in the sense that it’s not like e.g. recognising day and … Read More
Post No.: 0055 Furrywisepuppy says: Market prices for goods usually seriously undervalue the true costs of things to nature e.g. a barrel of Brent crude oil could be valued at around, say, $75, but really – how do … Read More
Post No.: 0049 Fluffystealthkitten says: We need power to build and spread across the galaxy. But power corrupts and also allows destruction to be more easily carried out too. Power, allied with greed and selfishness, or at least … Read More
