Decouple6 Helmi 2021

Wizards and Prophets, Ecomodernists and Environmentalists feat. Charles C Mann

Just as the political spectrum is divided between left and right, thinking on environmental problem solving is similarly split into two rival camps exemplified by the archetypes of the Wizard and the Prophet. Award winning science writer Charles Mann explores these archetypes as personified by the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug and the intellectual godfather of the environmental movement, William Vogt.

Crudely put wizards are foremost humanists who eschew limits believeing that our growing population and appetites can be accommodated by the wise application of decoupling technology. Prophets are foremost environmentalists who believe that carrying capacity is limited and that humans must remain within natural energy flows or risk ecosystem and civilizational collapse.

Understanding the origins of one's opponents ideological beliefs and values goes a long way to depersonalizing a sometimes ugly debate and perhaps finding a small patch of common ground.

Prophets who have contributed some impressive advances in natural resource stewardship such as water conservation must wrestle with an ugly history of malthusian ideas which at their worst have justified horrific campaigns of coercive population control. Despite the success of technofixes that fed billions and averted famines wizards must temper their scientific rationalism with a sociologic understanding of the dark sides of modernization such as enclosures of the commons.

This conversation challenged my cognitive biases more then I was expecting. I hope it does the same for you.

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Sunk Costs & Diminishing Returns of Iran's Nuclear Program w/ Farzan Sabet

Iran’s nuclear program is now more than seven decades old, stretching from the Shah’s ambitious Atoms for Peace-era plans to the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of enrichment, missile capability and nuclea...

6 Elo 1h 25min

Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

For almost the whole of human history, wood was the main act. It was the fuel that cooked food and smelted iron, the material that framed every house and hull, and the first bulk commodity ever moved ...

31 Heinä 1h 10min

Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joins Decouple to examine the history of Iran’s nuclear program and the negotiations that produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. As the agre...

23 Heinä 43min

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

Why are nuclear power plants so difficult to finance, and who ultimately pays when megaprojects run late or over budget? Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Michael Seely, The Atomic Blender, fo...

16 Heinä 1h 29min

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

In this reactor deep dive, Chris Keefer is joined by Navid Badie, Chief Nuclear Engineer at Candu Energy Inc, to explain the inner workings of the distinctive CANDU reactor. They trace how Canada’s de...

24 Kesä 1h 9min

The Birth of America’s Nuclear Power Industry

James Krellenstein returns to take apart one of the most persistent myths in energy discourse: the idea that there was a golden age when nuclear power was cheaper than coal. The plants people point to...

17 Kesä 1h 2min

Limits to Growth of LLMs w/ David Helmer

AI hype has bled deep into the nuclear sector, and in this episode, Chris Keefer sits down with returning guest David Helmer, an engineer and AI advisory consultant with a decade advising the US gover...

4 Kesä 1h 32min

The Gas Turbine: The Final Revelation in Humanity’s Pantheon of Prime Movers (w/ David Helmer)

David Helmer spent years working on cooling systems for GE jet turbines before moving to Boston Consulting Group, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and West Point. He joins Decouple to explain why the g...

12 Touko 1h 5min