I’m reading a book by Vaclav Smil called “How the World Really Works”.
I hadn’t heard of Vaclav Smil, but apparently he is widely read, and Bill Gates (who I have heard of) says he is one of his favourite authors.
Any opinions on this guy from others here (before I reveal mine)?
The Rev Dodgson said:
I’m reading a book by Vaclav Smil called “How the World Really Works”.I hadn’t heard of Vaclav Smil, but apparently he is widely read, and Bill Gates (who I have heard of) says he is one of his favourite authors.
Any opinions on this guy from others here (before I reveal mine)?
I’m afraid that I’m still in the dark.
I can’t offer an opinion. I’ve not heard of him before you post. I see from a search that he is a Canadian professor.
buffy said:
I can’t offer an opinion. I’ve not heard of him before you post. I see from a search that he is a Canadian professor.
Seems like he’s important.
Vaclav Smil does interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production, history of technical innovation, …
buffy said:
I can’t offer an opinion. I’ve not heard of him before you post. I see from a search that he is a Canadian professor.
Of Czech origin (I just looked him up on TATE).
Not familiar
>Smil said “I have never been wrong on these major energy and environmental issues because I have nothing to sell,” unlike many energy companies and politicians.
Um, what about your books?
>He “does not intend to have a cell phone ever.”
Luxury. In today’s world it’s increasingly hard to get by without one.
Maybe he uses his wife’s.
Never heard of him.
>He “does not intend to have a cell phone ever.”
Never heard from him.
So is the Rev going to give us his views?
dv said:
So is the Rev going to give us his views?
in due course.
The Rev Dodgson said:
dv said:
So is the Rev going to give us his views?
in due course.
In my view he is one of the most annoying authors that I have ever read. He writes page after page of straw person arguments. A random sample from this morning’s reading: a full page decrying Emmanuel Macron for calling the Amazon forests “the lungs which produce 20% of our planet’s oxygen” in a tweet. He explains in detail why forests are not in fact lungs, as though Macron in fact believed that they were, or at least wanted others to think that they were.
His book so far gives the clear impression that he regards climate change as some sort of lefty political ploy, but reading his Wikipedia page it says:
“Smil favours reducing demand for fossil fuels through energy conservation, and calls for having the price of energy reflect its real costs including greenhouse gas emissions.
Position on economic growth
Smil believes economic growth has to end, that all growth is logistic rather than exponential, and that humans could consume much lower levels of materials and energy.”
All of which I completely agree with, but I would not have guessed that he held these opinions from what I have read of his book so far (177/229 of the main text).
So I wondered what others thought.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/09/17/book-review-how-the-world-really-works-a-scientists-guide-to-our-past-present-and-future-by-vaclav-smil/
Given the increasing demonising rhetoric suggesting ‘just’ a few extractive companies are responsible for climate change (or high gas prices), Smil’s educational efforts are, to a point, salutary. Yet the data bombardment sometimes feels intended less at persuasion and more at numbing the senses into obedience.
Consider his contention that Germany’s decades-long Energiewende changed ‘the share of fossil fuels in the country’s primary energy use only from about 84 percent to 78 percent’. The numbers are correct, but highly misleading, as the overwhelming share of primary energy generated from fossil fuels is wasted, primarily by dissipating as heat (a hotter engine doesn’t make for a faster car). For Germany, as illustrated below, some two thirds of primary energy are ‘rejected’:
Smil’s insistence on supposedly missed forecasts of electric passenger car adoption (contrasted with ‘combustion engines keep improving their efficiency’) is similarly puzzling. Not only is the very company that invented it calling time on further developing the combustion engine, but all major automakers are racing for a massive ramp-up of electric vehicles, whose sales have steadily kept doubling over the past years (now meeting all the growth in new passenger vehicles). If anything, mainstream energy forecasts (made by industry insiders, not utopian green social planners) have actually tended to underestimate the growth of clean energy over the past decades.
—-
Seems like a bit of a fudger, then.
Also… it’s not clear to me why someone with his educational background would be considered an expert in this field. Obv anyone can write a book about anything they want but his degree from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971 was in geography.
I think I’ll make some edits to his WP page.
dv said:
I think I’ll make some edits to his WP page.
The ultimate comeuppance.
dv said:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/09/17/book-review-how-the-world-really-works-a-scientists-guide-to-our-past-present-and-future-by-vaclav-smil/Given the increasing demonising rhetoric suggesting ‘just’ a few extractive companies are responsible for climate change (or high gas prices), Smil’s educational efforts are, to a point, salutary. Yet the data bombardment sometimes feels intended less at persuasion and more at numbing the senses into obedience.
Consider his contention that Germany’s decades-long Energiewende changed ‘the share of fossil fuels in the country’s primary energy use only from about 84 percent to 78 percent’. The numbers are correct, but highly misleading, as the overwhelming share of primary energy generated from fossil fuels is wasted, primarily by dissipating as heat (a hotter engine doesn’t make for a faster car). For Germany, as illustrated below, some two thirds of primary energy are ‘rejected’:
Smil’s insistence on supposedly missed forecasts of electric passenger car adoption (contrasted with ‘combustion engines keep improving their efficiency’) is similarly puzzling. Not only is the very company that invented it calling time on further developing the combustion engine, but all major automakers are racing for a massive ramp-up of electric vehicles, whose sales have steadily kept doubling over the past years (now meeting all the growth in new passenger vehicles). If anything, mainstream energy forecasts (made by industry insiders, not utopian green social planners) have actually tended to underestimate the growth of clean energy over the past decades.
—-
Seems like a bit of a fudger, then.
Also… it’s not clear to me why someone with his educational background would be considered an expert in this field. Obv anyone can write a book about anything they want but his degree from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971 was in geography.
I think I’ll make some edits to his WP page.
I’m glad it’s not just me then :)
I’m surprised Gates is such a fan.
Maybe it’s a N. American thing.
The Rev Dodgson said:
dv said:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/09/17/book-review-how-the-world-really-works-a-scientists-guide-to-our-past-present-and-future-by-vaclav-smil/Given the increasing demonising rhetoric suggesting ‘just’ a few extractive companies are responsible for climate change (or high gas prices), Smil’s educational efforts are, to a point, salutary. Yet the data bombardment sometimes feels intended less at persuasion and more at numbing the senses into obedience.
Consider his contention that Germany’s decades-long Energiewende changed ‘the share of fossil fuels in the country’s primary energy use only from about 84 percent to 78 percent’. The numbers are correct, but highly misleading, as the overwhelming share of primary energy generated from fossil fuels is wasted, primarily by dissipating as heat (a hotter engine doesn’t make for a faster car). For Germany, as illustrated below, some two thirds of primary energy are ‘rejected’:
Smil’s insistence on supposedly missed forecasts of electric passenger car adoption (contrasted with ‘combustion engines keep improving their efficiency’) is similarly puzzling. Not only is the very company that invented it calling time on further developing the combustion engine, but all major automakers are racing for a massive ramp-up of electric vehicles, whose sales have steadily kept doubling over the past years (now meeting all the growth in new passenger vehicles). If anything, mainstream energy forecasts (made by industry insiders, not utopian green social planners) have actually tended to underestimate the growth of clean energy over the past decades.
—-
Seems like a bit of a fudger, then.
Also… it’s not clear to me why someone with his educational background would be considered an expert in this field. Obv anyone can write a book about anything they want but his degree from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971 was in geography.
I think I’ll make some edits to his WP page.
I’m glad it’s not just me then :)
I’m surprised Gates is such a fan.
Maybe it’s a N. American thing.
Sometimes these authors are popular despite not being very rigorous because people like the way they write.
Also … I wouldn’t be looking to Germany as an exemplar on climate action. They are very much in the worse half of the OECD in terms of per capita greenhouse emissions: they do still very much depend on coal. You could easily look at more successful cases such as the U.K. or Denmark which have halved their per capita GHG.
| Costa Rica | 3.16 |
| Colombia | 3.71 |
| Sweden | 4.56 |
| Mexico | 5.39 |
| Switzerland | 5.41 |
| Chile | 5.85 |
| Latvia | 6.05 |
| Turkey | 6.1 |
| Hungary | 6.23 |
| France | 6.32 |
| Portugal | 6.5 |
| Italy | 6.61 |
| Lithuania | 6.73 |
| United Kingdom | 6.8 |
| Spain | 6.99 |
| Slovakia | 7.33 |
| Greece | 7.9 |
| Denmark | 7.92 |
| Slovenia | 8.28 |
| Austria | 8.48 |
| Norway | 8.91 |
| Japan | 9.38 |
| Belgium | 9.72 |
| Germany | 9.72 |
| Iceland | 9.74 |
| Finland | 9.88 |
| Israel | 9.89 |
| Poland | 10.26 |
| Netherlands | 10.37 |
| Czech Republic | 11.56 |
| Ireland | 13.37 |
| South Korea | 13.93 |
| Estonia | 14.07 |
| New Zealand | 16.6 |
| Luxembourg | 16.81 |
| United States | 18.44 |
| Canada | 19.56 |
| Australia | 24.63 |
dv said:
Also … I wouldn’t be looking to Germany as an exemplar on climate action. They are very much in the worse half of the OECD in terms of per capita greenhouse emissions: they do still very much depend on coal. You could easily look at more successful cases such as the U.K. or Denmark which have halved their per capita GHG.
Costa Rica 3.16 Colombia 3.71 Sweden 4.56 Mexico 5.39 Switzerland 5.41 Chile 5.85 Latvia 6.05 Turkey 6.1 Hungary 6.23 France 6.32 Portugal 6.5 Italy 6.61 Lithuania 6.73 United Kingdom 6.8 Spain 6.99 Slovakia 7.33 Greece 7.9 Denmark 7.92 Slovenia 8.28 Austria 8.48 Norway 8.91 Japan 9.38 Belgium 9.72 Germany 9.72 Iceland 9.74 Finland 9.88 Israel 9.89 Poland 10.26 Netherlands 10.37 Czech Republic 11.56 Ireland 13.37 South Korea 13.93 Estonia 14.07 New Zealand 16.6 Luxembourg 16.81 United States 18.44 Canada 19.56 Australia 24.63
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi!Oi
ChrispenEvan said:
dv said:
Also … I wouldn’t be looking to Germany as an exemplar on climate action. They are very much in the worse half of the OECD in terms of per capita greenhouse emissions: they do still very much depend on coal. You could easily look at more successful cases such as the U.K. or Denmark which have halved their per capita GHG.
Costa Rica 3.16 Colombia 3.71 Sweden 4.56 Mexico 5.39 Switzerland 5.41 Chile 5.85 Latvia 6.05 Turkey 6.1 Hungary 6.23 France 6.32 Portugal 6.5 Italy 6.61 Lithuania 6.73 United Kingdom 6.8 Spain 6.99 Slovakia 7.33 Greece 7.9 Denmark 7.92 Slovenia 8.28 Austria 8.48 Norway 8.91 Japan 9.38 Belgium 9.72 Germany 9.72 Iceland 9.74 Finland 9.88 Israel 9.89 Poland 10.26 Netherlands 10.37 Czech Republic 11.56 Ireland 13.37 South Korea 13.93 Estonia 14.07 New Zealand 16.6 Luxembourg 16.81 United States 18.44 Canada 19.56 Australia 24.63 Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi!Oi
See, we have the most points. ;)