Jesse H. Ausubel joins Jason Spiess on The Crude Life to discuss “Peak Human” and “Peak Humans” in a 34-minute podcast and explore new research showing how humans’ minds and bodies may near their limits and even start on a downward curve. “For 200-250 years humanity has had an incredible run,” Ausubel said. “When you think of your great grandparents, grandparents, parents and you, generally speaking you are going to be better… than they were.”
Area of Research: Energy and Climate
Jesse podcasts on “Peak Human?”
Journalist/author Robert Bryce interviews Jesse Ausubel about PHE’s work on “peak human” and “peak humans.” The interview covers four dimensions of human performance: the physical (how far and fast can we go?), lifetime (how long can we live and how well?), cognitive (measures of intelligence and learning), and immunity (is our resistance to disease waning?). The podcast was recorded on December 7, 2022. For the audio and transcript, see the Bryce website, and also on YouTube.
2007 Interview with Jesse cited in WSJ
A 5 Nov 2022 Wall Street Journal article by Holman Jenkins cites
JH Ausubel. Renewable and nuclear heresies . Int J Nucl Governance, Econ Ecol 1 (3): 229–243, 2007 and this interview with Robert Bryce also from 2007.
Storing carbon or growing forests?
Jesse Ausubel to receive 2022 Nierenberg Prize
Jesse Ausubel will be honored with the 2022 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest. This award is presented annually by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the Nierenberg Family to honor the memory of William A. Nierenberg, an esteemed physicist and national science leader who served Scripps Oceanography as director for two decades. Previous awardees include atmospheric scientist Warren Washington, biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, filmmaker Sir David Attenborough, and primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, among others.
Iddo on resource demands of renewables
PHE senior research associate Iddo Wernick publishes an op-ed in RealClear Science: Green Technologies Have a Glaring Problem of Scale
Podcast with Jesse Ausubel
Jesse reflects on decarbonization, dematerialization, land-sparing, industrial ecology, industrialization of the oceans, biological traces of fishes and of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Seven Deadly Sins in an 83″ podcast with Robert Bryce, author of Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: and A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations.
The Podcast is also on YouTube where you get to see who sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
Quantifying forest change in the European Union
Quantifying forest change in the European Union
Iddo Wernick, our long-time collaborator Pekka Kauppi, and other forestry experts published Quantifying forest change in the European Union in Nature vol 592 pages E13–E14 (2021). The authors argue that net carbon stored in the EU continues to increase as forest volume accumulates faster than additions to (and fluctuations in) the annual harvest.
For some of our earlier forest work, see PNAS publishes Forests paper and Quandaries of forest area, volume, biomass, and carbon explored with the forest identity.