He who knows only their own language and culture is also living hand to mouth. And I wish we had something more to show for it after these last 150 years of burning ancient sunlight just for microliters of dopamine times billions of people. If we had acted more wisely, we could have made fossil fuels a blessing for humanity. But we acted like spend thrift heirs. We're going to take the income and have a big party. The circumstances reflect how human nature is manifested in the world but we're still the same beings we were 30,000 years ago.
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 scholarship, 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 the enormity of the biophysical challenges we will have to 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’.
For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/47-patrick-ophuls