At the moment, The Silverthorn Institute is only a name for my personal sandbox on the web. Whether it ultimately becomes more than that remains to be seen. For now, it's a place where visitors can find information about sustainable living, economic and environmental forecasting, and various energy-related issues.
It's also very much "under construction", so check back ocassionally to see what's new. Links in red are not functional, but are "coming soon". Happy Browsing!
Roger Arnold
November 2002
Essays, opinions, and "food for thought":
| What's in a name? | Backstory on The Silverthorn Institute, and my intentions for this site. |
| The Agnostic Engineer | Musings about ideologies and doctrines, and limitations thereof. Is there any hope for science in social science? I think so, but it will require changing entrenched ways of thinking. |
| Religion and Evolution | How did we, in the U.S., allow "religion" to become equated with "creationism"? There's no inherent conflict between religion and evolution, once you get over the silly insistence that Genesis is the literal "Word of God". |
| Evolutionary Psychology Links | Evolutionary psychology, like its close cousin, sociobiology, is controversial and widely misunderstood. Some regard it as antagonistic to traditional psychology. It's not. One concerns itself with learning what we are, the other with understanding how we came to be that way, and our relationship to the rest of the world. The two complement each other. Here are links I've found helpful for exploring the topic further. |
| Oil supplies are finite, and everyone pretty much agrees that the "age of oil" will be history before the end of this century. But how soon will the move to other energy sources need to gear up? Turns out to be a rather controversial subject. | |
| Beyond Hubbert's Peak | What happens after oil production peaks and begins its long decline? How rough will the transition to sustainable energy sources be? The answer (of course) is "it depends.." |
| Who Speaks for the Poor? | An address by L.R. Wallis, Executive Director of Citizens for Total Energy, delivered during the annual meeting of the American Nuclear Society. Caveat lector: I was impressed when I read it, and that's why I'm posting this link. But if you're relentlessly anti-nuclear, and don't want to hear anything that may conflict with what you've already decided, better pass this one by. |
| A Declining Hegemonic Power? | A provocative interview with Yale University research scholar Immanual Wallerstein, published in the online library of the Foreign Policy Association. Sobering and more than a little scary, if he's correct in his assessment of Washington's thinking, under the Bush administration. |
Information Resources for Environmentalists:
| Environmental Fact Sheet | A collection of handy facts and statistics for environmentalists who like to keep their arguments grounded in quantitative reality. |
| Policy Pete | On "Petroleum Policy and Geopolitics". A compendium of digests and links. Pete tracks a lot of sources and posts nice summaries and links to the good stuff. Superb signal to noise ratio. Also a good sense of humor. I suppose that's necessary if you care about sane policies in an insane world. |
| The Guru's Lair | Don Lancaster's information-rich site covering a wide range of subjects. Very readable, with clear explanations of technical matters. Check out his tutorial on hydrogen and energy basics. |
| Energy Information Administration | Official energy statistics from the U.S. government. |
| Energy Resource page from Swans | Additional links for energy resources and other information. |
On the Technical Front--Reality-Based Environmentalism:
| Hybrid and Electric Vehicles | What are the prospects for high mileage hybrid and electric vehicles? What issues will pace their development? A technical report with some helpful links. |
| Fuel Cell Basics | Ben Wiens excellent tutorial site on types of fuel cells, principles of operation, and state of development. |
| Hydrogen Production | There's an awful lot to sort through, but the California Hydrogen Business Council site is a gold mine of news summaries and links on hydrogen technologies and developments. This is their main page on hydrogen production. |
| In Defense of Hydrogen | A posting I submitted to the Energy Resources list on Yahoo Groups. It was in response to a wave of Hydrogen bashing that I thought was unjustifiably harsh. |