do-the-math | I started Do the Math in 2011 as a way to reach a larger audience
than a handful of students every year or two in an energy course at
UCSD. I had (and still have) deep concerns about the assumptions we make
as a society based on our fossil fuel trajectory over the last century
or so. Trying to steer policy from the top seemed a losing proposition:
feckless politicians hew to their constituents’ desires via a mechanism
we call democracy, so why not try to get people on board directly?
I never imagined creating a blog that would get millions of
pageviews, although this by itself falls well short of having an impact
on a grand scale. But I figured I owed it to myself to reach as many as I
might. What I have found is that a select few seem to share my
concerns. And some vocal contributors to comments strongly disagree that
we need to worry (why then make the seemingly wasted effort to respond
to—in their eyes—doomsaying kooks if in fact we need not be concerned?).
But most people simply don’t care enough to tune in. They’ve learned to
ignore prognostications of any flavor, perhaps. Lately, even fewer
people are entertaining ideas of resource limits owing to increased
global oil production (led almost entirely by U.S. shale oil) and a recovering economy.
But I think there is something more fundamental going on here. I
think we’re dealing with personality traits cooked into human nature.
Are we capable of mitigating a far-off potential calamity via proactive
efforts decades ahead of a putative crisis? In this post, I’ll use some
survey data suggesting that we may be in trouble.
