Ramez Naam
Ramez Naam
Ramez Naam is a professional technologist and science fiction writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
thinking environmental movement
I think the environmental movement is now so large and diverse that it's hard to talk of it as a single entity.
ozone carbon-emissions issues
Ozone and climate are global issues, and it's hard to find a way in which the benefits of shutting down carbon emissions are going to pay for themselves for any given power-plant, say.
environmental energy brilliant
That, to me, is a kind of brilliant environmental ju-jitsu - using the energy of the market and the profit-motive to get businesses to invest in preserving and improving natural systems.
technology levels way
Often we need to use policy to level the playing field, or to be sure that a technology is managed in a responsible way.
oil feet atmosphere
Just like you could dump oil into the Cuyahoga in the 60s and let someone else foot the bill, today you can pump CO2 into the atmosphere and let the whole world foot the bill.
people climate poverty
We have climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from human power and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, we have 2 billion people who live in energy poverty.
two optimism worry
There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.
impact ideas persons
Often an idea has impact far larger than the person who originated it.
children expression play
Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today.
giant goes tilt vertigo york
In a VR setting, you tilt your head up, and you really have the vertigo and the sense that it goes up to infinity, and it's like you're in New York City or Dubai, and you're looking up at a giant skyscraper. You have a sense of awe.
teaching land ideas
TNC was once limited by the resources it could directly marshal to buy land. But teaching people a new idea is incredibly more scalable.