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Savanna Blog

CRISPR and GMOs for Nature Part III

The things that make technology great are the things that make human consciousness great. At the same time, the shortcomings of our consciousness are magnified by technology. Human consciousness and technology have long been one interacting system; you could call it techno-consciousness. If we are going to use technology effectively we need to understand how […]

CRISPR and GMOs for Nature Part II

The dogs in the picture above have been genetically altered (using Instagram's algorithm) for maximum cuteness/social media impact. I am amazed at the amount of attention we give to GMOs. The left would have you believe that were it not for GMOs our agriculture would be ‘sustainable.’ The right would have you believe that GMOs […]

CRISPR and GMOs for Nature Part I

The Bentgrass Blog articulates a worldview that threads the needle between the techno-fantasies of the futurists and the head-in-the-sand tactics of the luddites. So, I would be negligent if I didn’t take the opportunity to comment on CRISPR in real time. And make a pitch for CRISPR and GMOs for nature. My thoughts were on […]

Fifty Years Separates NeverAgain and the NRA

I spend a lot of time thinking about paleo-ecology and about business. This means I need to operate in very different timescales. I need to pay the mortgage and restore ecological processes that are tens of millions of years old. This is relevant because we live in an age where political partisans, special interests, and […]

A History of Science and a Future of ‘Industrial Ecology’

Industrial Ecologist in training? (But he can be whatever he wants) Thanks to the simple disciplines of physics and chemistry, there is now light where there was once darkness and there is clean silverware where before the dishwasher left a sticky film behind. The amazingly powerful idea behind these two simple disciplines is that if […]

Fake Meat in the Fake News Part II

Savannas, megafauna, early humans, and tool use. All in one picture. Most modern agricultural innovations have come from chemists and physicists. These include synthetic fertilizer and DDT. Those technologies have a whole chain of unanticipated negative consequences. We can predict that Fake Meat will exhibit the same pattern. We can predict this fifty years in […]