Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. [some links are to the complete Twitter thread]

“If you never change your mind, why have one?” —Edward de Bono — via @stiggylou

“I’m taking an online data analytics class from the Wharton School of Business. The last module is 4.5 hours of how we can track people. Exactly 0 minutes of that is spent on ethics. Just in case you’re wondering what elite business schools are teaching people.” —@kyleejohnson

“If you want to get better at something, you have to stress the system to increase its capacity. You don’t get fit unless you exercise. You don’t become more aware unless you train in meditation or similar. You don’t become better at sensemaking with only soundbites and tweets.” —@euvieivanova

“Why do so many people assume that primary-care and ER doctors have expertise in epidemiology, public health, and transportation policy? This is like assuming an HVAC guy is an expert in climate change.“ —@PFlax1

The Limits of Clean Energy — via @Notium

In 2017, the World Bank released a little-noticed report that offered the first comprehensive look at this question. It models the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and wind utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power roughly half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions—and the results are staggering: 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, and no less than 4.8 billion tons of iron …

The problem here is not that we’re going to run out of key minerals—although that may indeed become a concern. The real issue is that this will exacerbate an already existing crisis of overextraction. Mining has become one of the biggest single drivers of deforestation, ecosystem collapse, and biodiversity loss around the world. Ecologists estimate that even at present rates of global material use, we are overshooting sustainable levels by 82 percent.

“Germany:
– wind (installed: 50,018MW, produced: 79.8TWh)
– nuclear(installed: 10,728MW, produced: 80.1TWh)
nuclear power does more with less” — @HenryK_B_