This is a blog by me, Kirk, a “leftist” scientist/engineer in the process of reorienting myself from the technocratic, growth-oriented, high-tech clean energy research and development paradigm.
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, sometimes called Mound City for its proximity to the Cahokia Mounds.
I am pursuing a career as a clean energy technology researcher due to my concerns about climate change, but now, after finishing many years of school, obtaining my PhD, and starting a postdoctoral appointment, the cognitive dissonance is becoming too much to handle. I now believe we have already had all the technology we need to solve the climate crisis (as much as is possible) while improving quality of life globally, and that the problems are not chiefly technoeconomic, but sociopolitical.
Yet, I remain in the academic-industrial complex. (Update January 2025: I am now independent!)
This blog is partly me trying to come to grips with this tension and figure out what role I can play in the transition(s). It’s also a home for my non-institutionally-affiliated scientific work.
In the absence of any concise political manifesto, my politics are roughly approximated by this Monty Python sketch.
Analog icons created by Paul J. – Flaticon
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