Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Surviving the collapse of the population
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/02/2026
» 'To them that hath shall [more] be given" is generally a reliable guide, especially in economic matters, but it doesn't work if the beneficiaries are too stupid to take advantage of the gift. The scarce and precious commodity in this case being people, who are in increasingly short supply.
Kingdom of Denmark vs the Shadow Fleet
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2025
» Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, two-thirds of the Danish kingdom's income came from taxes paid by every ship passing through the Øresund ('The Sound') Strait, the only exit from the Baltic Sea. Each ship had to declare its cargo -- and if the Danes thought they were undervaluing it, Denmark had the right to buy it at the declared price.
Climate effort needs to be more proactive
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/07/2025
» Start with China, the world's biggest emitter by far of greenhouse gases: 27% of the entire world's emissions, and more than twice that of the second-biggest emitter, the United States. In fact, it's more than all the emissions of all the other developed countries combined. Bad China.
Earthquakes, Turkish politics and culpability
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2023
» If you are trying to dodge the blame for a great disaster, the best policy is to say that it was God's will. So Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting one of the 6,000 buildings that collapsed on their sleeping residents in eastern Turkey last week, said: "Such things have always happened. It's part of Destiny's plan."
The industrialisation of space
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/01/2022
» It will be a bumper year for big space launches to the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, including many manned flights, but the real shocker is the number of satellites and spaceships being launched by private companies.
Shipping is worse than aviation
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/03/2021
» 'We're waiting on food goods like coconut milk and syrups, some spare parts for motors, we've got some fork lift trucks, some Amazon goods on there, all sorts," said Steve Parks of Seaport Freight Services in England, who is awaiting twenty of the 18,300 containers aboard the Ever Given. Which of those things cannot be sourced from somewhere closer than Asia?
Aviation must innovate to stop ‘f lygskam’ fate
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/10/2019
» Qantas, the Australian airline, has just test-flown the world’s longest commercial air-route: 16,500km from New York to Sydney non-stop. There were only 60 passengers aboard the Boeing 787, all in business class, because the plane needed to conserve the rest of its weight for fuel. And, we are told, they danced the Macarena in the empty economy class to stay limber during the 19-hour flight.
India-Pakistan: Maybe war, but not a water war
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/03/2019
» After the terrorist attack on Indian troops in Kashmir two weeks ago that killed 40 Indian soldiers, but before Tuesday's retaliatory air strikes across the border into Pakistan by the Indian Air Force, the Indian government did something unprecedented. It threatened to cut off Pakistan's water. Or at least, it sounded like that.
Robots declare war on the middle class
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/02/2018
» Don't bother asking if jobs are being lost to computers. Of course they are, and the current wave of populist political revolts in Western countries is what Luddism looks like in an era of industrialised democracies. The right question to ask is: What kinds of jobs are being lost? Moravec's Paradox predicted the answer almost 30 years ago.