Who is Professor Thomas W. Murphy, Jr. and What Does He Know About Energy and Resource Decline?

 




I have mentioned Tom Murphy many times in this blog precisely because facts don't lie. If anyone wants to truly know where we are as a species on this planet, Tom can definitely tell you. Don't get me wrong, I can also tell you; but I'm not a physicist. Tom is one of the few individuals who has written a book about our predicaments and allowed free access to everyone. 

Tom has done far more than that, however. He has a website which has been a staple within the energy community for many years. He talks about our situation in this video and surprisingly thought the same way I did for many years regarding our future. He thought that we would develop various "renewable" technologies and that our future would be shiny and "green" so that BAU could continue unabated. I actually think a very large portion of society thinks the same way, and it is because they simply do not understand the laws of physics, thermodynamics, biology, and chemistry and how they intersect with human psychology, and how society operates within the confines of the systems we are all embedded within which seriously limit how we deal with these predicaments COLLECTIVELY. 

It is very difficult for the average person to gain a holistic perspective of what we're up against. The neat thing that Tom does is explain what IS and what IS NOT possible, based upon scientific FACTS. His website has absolutely FANTASTIC articles going into great detail about what are likely candidates to replace fossil fuels (SPOILER ALERT: No known energy source can even come close to replacing the energy density, portability, and flexibility in energy systems that fossil fuels provide AND every other source of energy that can be commercially available REQUIRES fossil fuels and the current infrastructural platforms provided courtesy of the fossil fuel platform in order to even exist). He also debunks common myths and replaces them with reality. 

Tom constantly explains the math behind these realities and provides computations in real world equations to give the reader actual problems to solve demonstrating how those problems can be utilized to comprehend the truth behind the predicaments we face. Some of Tom's information and knowledge presents itself in the blog routinely to point out the myths of space travel and colonizing other planets or mining celestial bodies for minerals or other resources. His information appears in my article about ramping up nuclear power and also my article What Would it Take for Humanity to Experience Radical Transformation?

Tom brings a much-needed look into human psychology in his book and has a section devoted to how we actually operate within society, the biophysical reality here on Earth, and the basic premises we utilize to make decisions and what these genuinely mean for our future here from section D.5.2 through D.6.1.

Chris Martenson interviews Tom in a video from 2012 titled, Time to Be Honest With Ourselves About Our Looming Energy Risks. 

Tom's latest blog post discusses another aspect of human psychology: hypocrisy. Most all of us who participate in discussions regarding ecological overshoot have experienced these same scenarios time and again with regard to folks who don't like the message of the inconvenient truths, quote: 

"Purveyors of unpopular messages are often scrutinized for any inconsistent, seemingly hypocritical behavior that might give lie to their preachings and be used to discredit the unwelcome perspective. A famous example is Al Gore’s heavy air travel schedule to spread the word and take action against climate change, resulting in an enormous CO2 footprint. If we all behaved that way, the very problem at hand would be substantially exacerbated.

Such accusations either knowingly or pathetically miss the obvious point that the net effect of Al Gore’s efforts may be positive owing to the simple idea of a lever: a little expenditure here can counteract vast expenditures elsewhere for an overall gain on the problem. For many, the glaring superficial contradiction is enough ammunition to discredit the entire enterprise."

A very worthy article applicable to most all of us!

Questions? Go here to read the first article in this blog which explains many different aspects of what these stories are about.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Problems, Predicaments, and Technology

Image
Welcome to my new blog - titled Problems, Predicaments, and Technology -  because that is the title to a short article I wrote over a year ago to point out the difference between problems and predicaments (often called dilemmas ) and explain the role technology use (and the culture surrounding it) has had in creating most of the predicaments we face today. While this blog is mainly focused on Ecological Overshoot, Abrupt Climate Disruption ( ACD ) and Energy and Resource Decline (generally associated with peak oil and collapse), there are a myriad of other predicaments closely associated with these three that will also be covered. Many scientists focus a large amount of their lives trying to figure out how to solve these predicaments as if they are problems in the hopes of coming up with a way to at least mitigate some of the harm society is doing to life on this planet. My efforts here are to point out that in a very real sense, this has been rooted in denial of reality  and opti
Read more

What Would it Take for Humanity to Experience Radical Transformation?

Image
Today we shall investigate this question: What would it take for humanity to experience radical transformation of individual and collective consciousness within the next decade? This picture looks inviting, doesn't it? But does it realistically represent the world we collectively live in today? In one word, NO. One look at the news stories of today can easily show how individuals, groups, corporations, and nations of all stripes are arguing and fighting for attention, for purposes, and for goals and strategies. Look at social media and it is ripe with every flavor of disagreement known to society. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that there are few things everyone can agree on, and even when one IS found, nobody can agree on the ways to solve what everyone agreed the problems are. Now, throw in a PREDICAMENT instead of a problem and guess what happens? From my experience, when a predicament is put into the mix, most people still look at it from the same standpoint the
Read more

Denial of Reality

Image
  In my last written post (to clarify the difference between the files, which contain only links to outside material), I mentioned denial of reality. You might wonder what this has to do with climate change and extinction. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most powerful mental issues that affects humans. Rob Mielcarski explains the evolution of how this came to be, quote: " The singular emergence of human intelligence, and its ability to write and read this paragraph, evolved in a gene controlled machine with an unusually powerful computer, that was created by an improbable simultaneous adaptation for an extended theory of mind with denial of reality, and whose complexity was enabled by the increased energy per gene provided by mitochondria, that resulted from an accidental endosymbiosis of two prokaryotes, powered by an unintuitive chemiosmotic proton pump, that originated in an alkaline hydrothermal vent, on 1 of 40 billion planets, in 1 of 100 billion galaxies, and that plane
Read more

More Cognitive Dissonance

Image
  In my last post , I expressed my concerns regarding methane emissions along with the growing speed which our collective predicaments appear to be gaining. Then I explained precisely why we have thus far not made any real progress on these predicaments based upon our collective denial , which has a considerable amount to do with our basic human psychology. In conclusion, the reality is that very few people are actually paying an ounce of real attention. What they are paying attention to are all the distractions - the hype, advertising, marketing, and propaganda. Today I bring more evidence of the increasing speed of these predicaments as I recall some of my articles which I had privately hoped might be a long way off into the future. I'm not one to try to evade uncomforting news. If I was, I most certainly wouldn't be reading and watching these articles, reports, studies, videos, and other media to try to understand and comprehend fully where we are and where we're heade
Read more

Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales

Image
  Advertisement from the mid-20th century I have often used this expression (the title) to describe many things people tend to think of as solutions for one thing or another that either are not solutions or are unrealistic at best in terms of actually solving something. For anyone just joining these articles, this post  will help get you started so as to be able to comprehend what this article is about.  As I have expressed before, my deep passion is to help explain where we are (as a species), how we got here, why we are in this mess, and what can and/or cannot be done to "solve" these predicaments. My very first post explained the difference between problems with answers or solutions and predicaments (or dilemmas) with outcomes. In it, we discovered that predicaments don't have solutions, and that every solution proffered for a predicament winds up causing new problems and/or predicaments or comes with unacceptable costs or just simply doesn't solve anything. The re
Read more

What is NTHE and How "near" is Near Term?

Image
I distinctly remember my first introduction to the initialism (or abbreviation or acronym) "NTHE" which ushered me into a whole new set of exploration. I was a member of a climate change group on Facebook at the time (which I had been a member of for quite some time) and I saw a post which was discussing it. I hadn't seen this abbreviation before and wondered what it meant, so I did a search and a whole list of links was presented (as usual) along with the spelled out version, Near Term Human Extinction. I clicked on one which took me to a website blog by Dave Pollard . I started reading and was introduced to another person, Carolyn Baker, with whom Dave had a video interview with. Through this video, I was introduced to another person, a professor by the name of Guy McPherson. A video of him presenting information at an Indiana university, DePauw, where my grandmother attended, was available; so I watched it. The information was stark and I noticed the looks on the ki
Read more

So, What Should We Do?

Image
  Pictures of wildfire damage at Glacier National Park in Montana 2016 What type of activities will help in reducing the effects of ecological overshoot? I'm often asked this question when I point out that solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear energy, hydroelectric dams, EVs, and all other technological devices will not help climate change, pollution loading, or any other predicament under the parent predicament of ecological overshoot: "Well, what are your solutions?" Sadly, this question assumes that I am pointing out a PROBLEM, not a predicament. Predicaments don't have solutions. So, I don't have a solution (and nobody else does either, despite claims to the contrary - more on that in a couple of paragraphs). But I can tell them what WON'T help. Buying more stuff, REGARDLESS of what it is, WILL NOT HELP. Because ecological overshoot is a predicament with an outcome and not a problem with a solution , people need to adjust their expectations accordingly.
Read more