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Wade's Offline World
“Human civilization is in ‘decline,’ some even say it’s ‘collapsing.’” (pg. 18)
Energy Crisis
“I don’t remember my father. When I was just a few months old, he was shot dead while looting a grocery store during a power blackout.” (pg. 15)
Four major inhibitors to clean and renewable energy:
1. Barriers for new technology that other energy sources are not required to fulfill.
- New technology must monitor potential sites for years before they can be deemed suitable.
- New technology brings new types of issues and ecosystem impacts, while conventional energy issues are well understood.
- Public education is still lacking to encourage a significant amount of people to invest in it.
- There are few workers skilled in the profession.
- Low demand due to lack of education results in higher prices.
2. Government subsidies give conventional energy an advantage over new technology.
- Conventional energy receives subsidies for research and development.
- There is a lower tax burden for conventional energy.
- Income and property tax is higher for new technology.
3. Market does not value public benefits of renewables.
- Public benefits of those who choose new technology apply to everyone. Even if you do not choose new technology, you still benefit from those around you who do.
- Businesses search for short-term answers to solve energy costs, rather than investing in new technology.
- Private funding will most likely dwindle due to benefits being public and are almost always has a slow payoff.
4. Considerable barriers in market transactions.
- New technology companies are generally small and have fewer resources.
- Higher financing costs for new technology.
- No one can predict how big the green electricity market is or will become.
Climate Change
“So now the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and the weather is all messed up. Plants and animals are dying off in record numbers…” (pg. 17)
Future effects of global warming include (but are not limited to):
- Temperatures will rise continuously—this will not be uniform or smooth because it is human-induced warming.
- Frost-free season and growing seasons will lengthen.
- Precipitation patterns will change—this includes heavier rain, but also worse droughts.
- Hurricanes become stronger and more destructive.
- Sea level will rise 1-4 feet by 2100.
- Arctic likely to become ice-free.
Living in Poverty
“We lived in the Portland Avenue Stacks, just west of Oklahoma City’s decaying skyscraper core. It was a collection of over five hundred individual stacks, all connected to each other by a makeshift network of recycled pipes, girders, support beams, and footbridges.”
How people in poverty live today:
- No international consensus measures poverty.
- One in five children struggle with a lack of adequate resources.
- Worldwide, one in five children dies due to poverty.
- It was once estimated by the UN that 10 million people die every year worldwide due to conditions related to substandard housing.