LifeItself

One year ago, 42 million human lives were interrupted at 3:40 a.m. in late winter, when the genocidal Russian mafia state attacked Ukraine. I am listening right now to the Polish internet radio, Nowy Świat (New World). In addition to the usual superb music, they are providing a broad coverage of the conflict from the human and animal welfare side. Today they also aired a Ukrainian rap song "Fuck Putin."  Civilian homes are regularly destroyed by the Russians. Source: The Ukrainian Red Cross . A year ago, 10 million Ukrainians crossed the Polish border. The Polish civil society self-organized instantly, not waiting for the government and NGOs to step in. It is important to understand that at the peak this nation of 38 million people received and housed 4 million Ukrainians, while others continued west. Ordinary people had let refugees into their apartments, and gave them their second, rental or vacation homes. All on their own dime.  Thousands of Poles drove into Ukraine in...

I just attended an SPE workshop, "Oil and Gas Technology for a Net-Zero World – Defining Our Grand Challenges for the Next Decade."  Of the 60 people in the audience, I knew 1/3, some very well.  It makes sense, because I have been an SPE member for 40 years, and a Distinguished Member for 20 years.  Last year, I received an SPE EOR/IOR Pioneer Award for my work at Shell and UC Berkeley on the thermal enhanced oil recovery processes that involved foams, and their upscaling to field operations. This was nice, because Shell recognized me as one of their best reservoir engineers, and in 1985 I received an internal Shell Recognition Award for the same work. But I am not a mere oil & gas reservoir engineer.  First and foremost, I am a chemical engineer and physicist, who has thought rigorously about the sustainability of human civilization , ecology and thermodynamics of industrial agriculture and large biofuel systems, as well as about the overall gross and net prima...

 This is a guest post (first ever) by my dear friend, a brilliant physicist, Prof.  Michael Marder. When I went as a prospective graduate student to Santa Barbara the person who became my advisor told me he was studying how snowflakes grow. They build layer by layer, with small bumps emerging into fingers that sprout fingers in turn. The shape of the snowflake is comprehensible at any time in relation to its shape a moment before -- and only in relation to its shape a moment before. The environment matters too and it influences details of the shapes, which is why no two snowflakes are identical. It is an odd mixture of idiosyncrasy and inevitability. This seems to me a useful metaphor for what we call news and opinion. When I pick up the news in the morning, which I do every day and not just in the morning, it appears at first to be, well, new. Here are all the new things that just happened. And here is how to interpret them. By Alexey Kljatov - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:/...

When I reminisce about the year 2022, I think about noise.  The loud white noise is everywhere, and it buzzes in my ears even when I am in a quiet wilderness.  For good reason.  There is no truly untouched wilderness left in this Age of Anthropocene.  Humans have invaded and damaged or destroyed every part and parcel of land and water on this beautiful Earth that is still trying to protect us from our mass extinction.  Not for much longer, unless you believe the delirious false prophets of technology who shout ever louder and are getting more aggressive by the minute.  They must shout to make their cult followers suspend sound judgement, but they have little appropriate education and no fig leaves to cover their ugly lust for social power.   The cult groupies keep on clinging to a legion of these frauds, e.g., to the  Michael Shellenberger s and  Elon Musk s ( here too ) of this world.  Draw your own conclusions after loo...

 I have been thinking about how to capture current craziness that is unbearable, way up from the usual level of having been insufferable for the last five years.  The problem with intelligent people, a saying goes, is that they think people think.  This is demonstrably false for at least one half of the global population, venting their grievances, tribalism and anger in real blood baths or on virtual monsters called Facebook and many other names. Other media platforms, such as Fox Lies & Entertainment and the Russian TV 1 News are dedicated to the repetitive stoking of anger and hatred by all means possible. The incurious and lazy, make it 50 milion Americans and Russians - each - find comfort in this onslaught of familiar propaganda that reminds them of church sermons, drug highs and drunken stupor. In this atmosphere of sweeping hatred and ignorance, the crazed, slighted vor (the Russian slang for a mafia thief), murderer and war criminal, President Vladimir Vladimi...