Wouldn't balloons or maglev catapults be good alternatives for first stage boosters? Both would feature considerably less energy input.

Because the ancient Hebrews wouldn't let a good story get in the way of their numerology. What, you thought that was literal?

Unfortunately the chemicals that industrial agriculture uses interferes with the nutrient cycle that you're thinking of. Because everything other than the plant of interest is treated as something to be killed off with insecticides, fungicides, etc., the soil microbes are killed off, and the survivors are in an imbalanced ecological state which means that they're more likely to act in ways not helpful to the crop. It all leads back to dependency on oil-based fertilizers and pesticides while the soil is little more than a medium to hold the plant upright.

Otherwise, your solution would fit right in.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

I assume that's the quote you wanted! And since we see Monsanto execs running the FDA and regulatory officials literally sleeping with BP execs, it sure seems spot on.

Nah, the news would show some guy taking a dump on the flag, some smashed windows, not cover the rest of the story. The viewers would be telling the trigger-happy police "Atta boy!"

This one single educational model for everyone was broken from the start. Mostly it stifles the natural urge to learn. Children are born ridiculously curious and if you feed that, they'll learn at a rate that embarrasses the current system. But, everyone learns differently: some learn best by watching something, others by hearing, others by experimenting. Some are big-picture thinkers, others are specialists.

I think the Socratic method is the ideal teaching system, because it encourages everyone on their own path.

It's based on the idea that by switching from one brand to another, the costumer has freedom and power.

That's not the case if the whole market is shaped by a race to the bottom. Foxconn does in fact produce many of the Android devices, and their competitors are no different. You won't get far asking an individual maker to fall on their sword to make positive changes that their competitors won't. Those that do usually go into niche markets.

It takes a societal agreement with government-enforced teeth to do anything about this. I want my devices produced free of toxins for fair wages with a long life expectancy and a recycling plan, and the manufacturers should be able to do this without expecting to be undercut.

To those weird appearances on the list, I would ask how many of them are under umbrella organizations or holding companies or even majority shareholders with large stake in the movie industry. The actual money behind the scenes is highly concentrated and shareholders, especially big ones, keep diverse portfolios.

We've destabilized the climate and destroyed a lot of the coral habitats owing in great part to their temperature sensitivity. Seeing as they're a key species for providing habitat to whole ecosystems, I have this really odd idea. What if we selectively breed or modify coral species for greater resilience to these hostile conditions, and reintroduce them to hold onto reefs that are otherwise lost?

These are methods usually associated with liquidation of environmental capital. They should totally give you pause while you reflect on the number of things done wrong with that kind of meddling. I think that it's worth considering, though.

There's a lot of cherry picking here with a valid point in the end that the ridiculously wasteful way we use energy right now can't continue. However, the points made do not serve as the hit piece on renewable energy that someone along the chain seems to want. I would expect this of the Atomic Scientists: they're by definition interested in yet another fuel that is only created by supernovae, and is not renewable. They're on the wrong end of this debate, muddying the issue.

Renewables are renewable but within a specific timeframe. You have to tailor your way of life to resources that can renew at least at the rate you're consuming them, or else you're creating an energy deficit. If you're liquidating other resources like the environment doing it, you're screwing humanity's future, and you have to adjust to that. There is no other option for the long term.

They're cherry picking a couple of really badly done attempts to characterize the entire concept of cleaner, greener electricity. A bunch of solar panels out in the desert is not a good example of renewable energy done right. It's not cost-effective, whereas concentrated solar thermal is in that setting. Solar panels, however, can go places that other power generators can't, and this means you can generate power onsite, eliminating waste due to resistance of the grid. They aren't the full answer.

You could do solar thermal - or you could build with heavily insulated windows and thermal mass to let the sun heat your home and water to where your requirements from electricity sources should be minimal. You can also use thermal mass and basic convection for cooling. I know firsthand: I've stood outside a strawbale home on a 90 degree day and had goosebumps from air cooled by a huge northern wall that was kept out of the sun flowing down into an enclosed garden with a solid fence around it and plants respirating, all of which combined to cool part of the outdoors more than adequately. That only cost what it took to build: straw, plaster, and rebar. The investment is good for at least the owner's lifetime.

The other thing is excessively part things out. If you have a woodstove that's your home's backup heat, your cooking, your hot water, that's your answer when solar and wind aren't there for you for a lot of things. If you burn at the right temperatures to create pyrolysis and generating biochar, you're getting more from that biomass and creating your fertilizer for plants you'll presumably be replenishing and fertilizing so that not a drop of sun goes to waste. The maximum uptake of energy through living, renewing systems is key, and we have to respect how good nature has gotten at that and play along.

Digging up hydrocarbons from hundreds of millions ago to burn wastefully, that's what these authors should be targeting. We all know it on some level. I'm tired of the denial and false logic keeping it going just so the oil companies can have their business model, consequences be damned.