we’re not taking care of our gerbil, so we have not demonstrated that we deserve a pony
Tom Murphy [physics.ucsd.edu], in his blog post Sustainable Means Bunkty to Me [physics.ucsd.edu]
I’ve been reading Tom Murphy’s blog on “astrophysicist’s-eye view of societal issues relating to energy production, climate change, and economic growth” since I first came across it a few months ago. It’s a wonderful blog for anyone remotely math capable who is interested in the details of what it would take to ‘fix’ the current issues of human impact on the earth. Somehow in the age of social updates via Facebook, Google+, Twitter and the like I have never plug it on this site… Consider that oversight fixed.
The articles are long and a bit math heavy, as might be expected of an astrophysicist, but you don’t need to focus on the math to understand the conclusions. In fact the only reason to focus on the math would be to try and disagree with him or because you could actually do that level of math and enjoy the challenge. As long as you trust his ability to actually setup and solve the equations the math is just a tool to lead to the inevitable and, bleak, conclusions that our gluttony is leading the world to, spelled out in metaphor and examples that a non-astrophysicist can actually understand.