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Ep 47  |  Patrick Ophuls

Patrick Ophuls: “Energy, Politics, and The Future”

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Patrick Ophuls The Great Simplification

Today, ecologist, political scientist, and author Patrick Ophuls joins Nate to discuss his new book, The Tragedy of Industrial Civilization and The Future of Politics. As he’s been doing for his lifetime of work, Patrick unpacks how energy, ecology and our political arrangements leave us in a predicament with no simple solutions. Before we can even begin to plan for the future, we need to understand what we face – Patrick Ophuls helps us do just that.

About Patrick Ophuls

Dr. Patrick Ophuls (who writes under the pen name William Ophuls) is an American political scientist, ecologist, independent scholar, and author. Patrick has a PhD in political science from Yale University and has been a prominent voice in the environmental movement since the 1970s. His award winning book in 1977 is on the bookshelves of most people I know. He has written 10 books including ‘Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity’, ‘Plato’s Revenge’, ‘Politics in the Age of Ecology’, and ‘Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail’.

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

00:40 – Patrick Ophuls work + info

01:28 – The Tragedy of Industrial civilization and The Future of Politics (Not Yet Published)

03:18Ecology and the politics of scarcity

07:02Minamata Heavy Metal poisoning

07:51Garrett Hardin Tragedy of the Commons

08:40Plato, Thucydides, and The Great Tragedies

09:01Hobbes, Machiavelli, Rousseau

11:06Blood and Ruins by Richard Overy

11:11A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th… by Barbara W. Tuchman

14:22Joseph Tainter + TGS Episode

15:14Niall Ferguson, Doom

17:05NYC Professor let go for making Organic Chemistry to difficult

18:11 Tsundoku

21:43Vaclav Smil, How The World Really Works

23:11Fossil fuel warming locked in for the foreseeable future

23:33Amplification in the Arctic warming compared to the rest of the world

24:55Electrifying the Titanic

25:1395% of the components of renewable energy are made in China with coal and gas powered factories

26:32Psychology of changing a human’s mind

27:17 Charlton Heston

28:29Material limits for renewable energies

29:47 Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems

33:38Hobbes, State of Nature

34:02 Apollonian Civilization

36:03Mass democracy

36:26 Democracy is a historical exception

38:50Mark Zuckerberg, “I’m gonna break things”

39:00Dennis Meadows (TGS episode)

46:55 Ivan Illich

57:57Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama

1:03:20 Methane release from melting permafrost

1:03:35Accelerated decreasing biodiversity

1:03:5270% loss from living planet index

1:04:36Macron “The end of the age of abundance”

1:04:55French Prime Minister – energy sobriety and encouraging using 10% less energy

1:05:20Collapsology

1:05:33Advance Policy

1:06:35 Greek Gods and Mythology

1:07:03 Trente Glorieuses, Fukuyama: The End of History

1:08:09A Brief For The Defense by Jack Gilbert

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