Showing 1 - 10 of 12
Russia's hope for 'General Winter' missed the bus
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2023
» 'The cold is coming soon," gloated former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev last June. He predicted that the citizens of the European Union, deprived of the Russian gas that normally supplied about 40% of their energy, would be freezing in their homes when "General Winter" arrived.
Will we soon have unlimited clean energy?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/12/2022
» Nuclear fusion, the "holy grail" that would finally end all the world's energy problems, has been receding into the future at the rate of about one year per year all my adult life -- it was always "about 30 years away" -- but suddenly we're catching up. Unfortunately, the change of pace comes too late to save us from an acute global climate emergency.
COP27 meet: A case of the glass being half full
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/11/2022
» As after every climate summit, the air is filled with shouts of rage and despair. What was agreed was unclear and inadequate, and what was left undecided or simply ignored was vast and terrifying. For example, they still haven't managed to agree that the world needs to stop burning fossil fuels.
Early extinction of fossil fuels a risk in itself
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/12/2021
» The "new normal", said International Energy Agency spokesperson Heymi Bahar last May, may be a far faster expansion of renewable energy than expected, driven mainly by market forces. So fast, in fact, that it raises a different kind of risk (but he didn't mention that).
Prepare for a fossil fuel fire sale
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/11/2021
» An article with the innocuous title "Reframing Incentives for Climate Policy Action" slipped out in the scientific journal Nature Energy three weeks ago and got very little attention, presumably because of the hopeless title. But it's not innocuous at all. It's explosive.
Do we need more rockets in the stratosphere?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/08/2021
» If you're worried about your "carbon footprint" -- a concept foisted on the world in 2004 by British Petroleum to persuade people that their own behaviour, and not giant oil companies like BP, is causing the climate problem -- then you definitely should not sign up for a sub-orbital space flight. Besides, you probably can't afford it (US$250,000 -- about 8 million baht -- per person).
Iran: Yet another nuclear bungle?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/02/2021
» The self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That's why the toys don't get picked up and the broken treaties don't get fixed, and why there may be a tantrum (in the case of two-year-olds) or a nuclear war (in the case of the United States and Iran).
The last prime minister of the United Kingdom
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/07/2019
» It has been suggested that Boris Johnson (who becomes the prime minister of the United Kingdom this week) is what you would get if Donald Trump had been educated at Eton and Oxford. Maybe, although there is a great gulf between Mr Trump's bombastic self-promotion and Mr Johnson's self-deprecating, rather shambolic persona.
Gay rights and trends in global culture
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/09/2018
» Is there really such a thing as a global culture? Consider gay rights.
President Trump all talk when it comes to return of coal
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/04/2017
» 'My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," said Donald Trump, surrounded by the usual gaggle of officials and (in this case) coal-miners, as he put his super-size signature on the Energy Independence Executive Order. But coal is dying as a major energy source in the United States for reasons far beyond the reach of executive orders.