Great Power, Great Responsibility

Written by Ryan McGuine // The history of humanity is to a large extent one of harvesting increasingly powerful sources of energy. Indeed, the relationship between energy consumption and income level is nearly linear, and Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev famously defined a society’s level of technological development based on the amount of energy it is capable of using and storing. But at the same time that controlling ever-higher amounts of energy is necessary for improving levels of well-being, it also creates immense dangers. Continue reading

The Carbon Must Flow

Written by Ryan McGuine // Most countries around the world, and increasingly many companies, have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by or around 2050. Crucially, net-zero does not necessarily mean zero emissions. Rather, it means that a quantity of carbon emissions equivalent to those emitted have been either removed from the atmosphere, or prevented from having reached the atmosphere in the first place. Additionally, nearly every modeled pathway to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the global temperature rise well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably below 1.5°C, include assumptions for large amounts of carbon capture and sequestration. As such, even though carbon management is a nascent field today, it is poised to grow dramatically in the next few decades. Continue reading

Forging the Modern World

Written by Ryan McGuine //

The modern age has been characterized by the skyrocketing use of a number of materials, including steel. Remarkable for its strength as well as its durability, steel is the key metal of industrialization — in 2014 steel production was almost 20 times larger than that of aluminum, copper, zinc, and lead combined. As countries build out the infrastructure needed for the energy transition and urbanization, global steel demand is poised to grow by over one-third by 2050. Continue reading

Green, Green Grass of Songshan 

Written by Ryan McGuine // Beijing became the only city in the world to host both a summer and winter Olympics when it opened the 24th Winter Olympics last Friday. The Games put on by Beijing in 2008 were exactly the kind of thing all host countries hope for — China used the Games to demonstrate its technological and economic might on a global stage, pairing dramatic pageantry with impressive organization to cement its role as an emerging superpower. This year, China plans to use the Games to emphasize the environment, so let’s dig into some of their initiatives. Continue reading

Doing Less More With Less

Written by Ryan McGuine // In many ways, it feels like the world is changing faster than it ever has, yet measures of economic productivity have been growing more slowly than any time in the last 200 years. Productivity growth has been the main driver of historically-improving living standards, leading to more food, better health, better housing, and more consumer goods. But despite growing at around 2% per year for the past few decades, productivity growth has been slowing in advanced economies around the world. Continue reading

The Deep Roots of Deforestation

Written by Ryan McGuine // Humans have been changing the landscapes around them for millennia. Some began electively breeding crop varieties, grazing livestock, and clearing forests to do so as early as 3,000 years ago. The population was quite small then by today's standards, but the amount of land per person required to grow enough food was quite large. While clearing forests is not a new phenomenon, and crop yields today are much higher than they once were, deforestation has still accelerated in recent decades. Continue reading

Demography & Development: Fruitful Multiplication

Written by Ryan McGuine // For millennia, there was very little change in the number of humans on earth, but like so many other measures of physical well-being and consumption, the global population skyrocketed in the 19th and 20th centuries. While it seems intuitively obvious that fewer people is good, because fewer people means higher incomes, as well as smaller environmental impact, there is actually good reason to be worried about declining populations. Continue reading

Sustaining Conversations – Marty Havlovic on International Development Assistance

Ryan McGuine in conversation with Marty Havlovic // In this installment of Sustaining Conversations, Marty joined Ryan to discuss the changing picture of agriculture, entrepreneurial beekeeping, the importance of vocational education in Africa, international volunteering, local governance, differences between American and Chinese development assistance, and more. Continue reading