#green-revolution — Public Fediverse posts

Cory Doctorow: Comrade #Trump is the unwitting hero of a #greenrevolution
In the first of a new monthly column for the Nerve, the author and cyber-activist argues that by dumping cheap solar panels on Asia and starting a catastrophic war in the Gulf, the president has started a headlong rush for cleantech that no eco-activism could match

https://www.thenerve.news/p/cory-doctorow-column-enshittification-trump-cleantech-green-revolution-pakistan?

“It’s the bell curve again”*…

Joseph Howlett on how the central limit theorem, which started as a bar trick for 18th-century gamblers, became something on which scientists rely every day…

No matter where you look, a bell curve is close by.

Place a measuring cup in your backyard every time it rains and note the height of the water when it stops: Your data will conform to a bell curve. Record 100 people’s guesses at the number of jelly beans in a jar, and they’ll follow a bell curve. Measure enough women’s heights, men’s weights, SAT scores, marathon times — you’ll always get the same smooth, rounded hump that tapers at the edges.

Why does the bell curve pop up in so many datasets?

The answer boils down to the central limit theorem, a mathematical truth so powerful that it often strikes newcomers as impossible, like a magic trick of nature. “The central limit theorem is pretty amazing because it is so unintuitive and surprising,” said Daniela Witten, a biostatistician at the University of Washington. Through it, the most random, unimaginable chaos can lead to striking predictability.

It’s now a pillar on which much of modern empirical science rests. Almost every time a scientist uses measurements to infer something about the world, the central limit theorem is buried somewhere in the methods. Without it, it would be hard for science to say anything, with any confidence, about anything.

“I don’t think the field of statistics would exist without the central limit theorem,” said Larry Wasserman, a statistician at Carnegie Mellon University. “It’s everything.”

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the push to find regularity in randomness came from the study of gambling…

Read on for the fascinating story of: “The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere,” from @quantamagazine.bsky.social.

Howlett concludes by observing that “The central limit theorem is a pillar of modern science, ultimately, because it’s a pillar of the world around us. When we combine lots of independent measurements, we get clusters. And if we’re clever enough, we can use those clusters to find out something interesting about the processes that made them”– which follows from the story he shares.

Still, we’d do well to remember that there are limits to its applicability, both descriptively (as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out, “because the bell curve ignores large deviations, cannot handle them, yet makes us confident that we have tamed uncertainty”) and prescriptively (as Benjamim Bloom argues, “The bell-shaped curve is not sacred. It describes the outcome of a random process. Since education is a purposeful activity….the achievement distribution should be very different from the normal curve if our instruction is effective).

For (much) more, see Peter Bernstein‘s wonderful Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

* Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

###

As we noodle on the normal distribution, we might send curve-shattering birthday greetings to Norman Borlaug; he was born on ths date in 1914. An agronomist, he developed and led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the voluminous increases in agricultural production we call “the Green Revolution.” Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal; he’s one of only seven people to have received all three of those awards.

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...👉There simply is no other possibility if we are to withstand once more the #Kassandra predictions👈 like mine here, or e.g. quite some time ago, about the #Overshoot, the #PopulationBomb, the #GreenRevolution, and the importance of the so-called #PhantomCarryingCapacity:

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/112047709692840344.

As I summed up in this in this thread here, I guess, is the best example of 👉the imminent reality of this #PhantomCarryingCapacity is deep-well...

@DoomsdaysCW

any recommendations for modernist depictions of agriculture and food production?

i've included some example images below.

some keywords:
* mechanized agriculture
* industrial farming
* industrial food production
* farm as factory
* farm modernization
* chemical agriculture
* green revolution

i've got the following materials on my to-read list:

* "every farm a factory: the industrial ideal in american agriculture" by deborah fitzgerald
* Ch. 8 of "seeing like a state": "Taming Nature: An Agriculture of Legibility and Simplicity" by james c. scott
* "Farming according to 'the laws of beauty': Aesthetics and agriculture" by david cooper (https://www.academia.edu/14380031/Farming_according_to_the_laws_of_beauty_Aesthetics_and_agriculture)
* "the american technological sublime" by david nye (not sure if it has anything about agriculture specifically)
* "the machine in the garden: technology and the pastoral" by leo marx (update: i've now skimmed this work and it seems to be concerned with an earlier era, not the high modernist period)

if you're familiar with any written works looking at this kind of aesthetic specifically, i'd love to hear about it.

also, if you have suggestions for archives (online or irl) that might have more materials like this, i'm all ears.

#sundaylibrarian #history #art #ArtHistory #agriculture #GreenRevolution #food #aesthetics #modernism #industrialization #ResearchLibrarian

@benfell @GhostOnTheHalfShell

...the #Automotive industry, which pushed the ecocidal #CombustionEngine for at least 30 years longer than was ecologically sensible and #Technologically feasible (because it remained highly profitable), is coming to SN end (electric cars.)

Also, after the first #GreenRevolution 7), #Agriculture set on #MassProduction of crops instead of water-reduction of farming on a global scale. (https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/109972629386382918)

7) #GreenRevolution:
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/112047724725803354

...

Are you an environmentalist? Are you part of the green revolution? Do you care about the planet? If so…are you vegan? 🌱 #environment #environmental #greenrevolution #vegans

Why Environmentalists Should B...

Interested in ultra-sustainable heating and cooling, in-ground construction, or construction with non-traditional materials? If yes, then this open source guide to thermal mass and thermal lag will help.
https://www.onecommunityglobal.org/thermal-lag/

#FutureOfFarming #AgriTech #SustainableAgriculture #UrbanFarming #Hydroponics #FoodSecurity #InnovationInAgriculture #GreenRevolution #SmartFarming #Sustainability

@Akshay *gasp UK GOV in sound policy shocker!

#UKPOL #UKPOLITICS #FossilFuels #GreenRevolution

Breaking News – Minister Prathap: Minister bought a Tesla car.. What happened to the word 'Swadeshi'?
https://vaartha.com/minister-who-bought-a-tesla-car-what-happened-to-the-word-swadeshi/national/542220/
#PratapSarnaik #TeslaIndia #Swadeshi #TeslaModelY #ElectricVehicle #MaharashtraMinister #EVAdoption #GreenMobility #TeslaIndiaLaunch #SustainableTransport #BreakingNews #PoliticalControversy #VaarthaLive #TeluguNews #IndianPolitics #MakeInIndia #CleanEnergy #ElectricCars #GreenRevolution #EnvironmentFriendly

"Pride happened despite the ban. And the legalization of cannabis hasn't even begun. It seems that there is something that courage has already protected - and something that it still has to fight for." 🌈🌿🛑

🔥 Follow: https://msha.ke/stonerdaddy

#cannabis #pride2025 #freedomrights #420hungary #legalizationnow #pride #weedtruth #weedcrime #ganjalife #cannabiscommunity #wakeandbake #freeourplant #hungarianpolitics #legalizeit #realworld #greenrevolution #hypocracy #equality #stonerculture #stonerdaddy

Yonhap News Economic TV's 'Magazine Y' to explore vertical farming and modern hanok architecture, highlighting innovative approaches to agriculture and traditional Korean housing
#YonhapInfomax #VerticalFarming #Hanok #GreenRevolution #SmartGreenhouse #ModernArchitecture #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=62232

Genetically Modified Crops

What narratives around genetically modified crops persist? What is the role of the state in pro-biotech frames? What tools can we employ to explore marginalized perspectives?

Examine the open access scholarship on genetically modified crops!

#Read all you want! #OpenAccess
#Share generously! #KnowledgeSharing
#Grow your understanding of #Food
#Repeat

#GMO #Biotech #GeneticallyModified #GreenRevolution #InVitroMeat #Ecofeminism #ReadingList

https://canadianfoodstudies.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cfs/search/index?query=genetically+modified+crops&dateFromYear=&dateFromMonth=&dateFromDay=&dateToYear=&dateToMonth=&dateToDay=&authors=

The #GreenRevolution brought major improvements in #cropbreeding, irrigation & #fertilizer use, leading to a substantial rise in #foodsecurity & reduced rural #poverty. But the focus was primarily on #yields; the cultivation of other food crops decreased... (1/2) https://doi.org/10.1186/s42269-024-01281-4

⚡ Renewable energy could deliver nearly 40% of the needed emissions cuts by 2035. Solar, wind, and forest protection are crucial to closing the #EmissionsGap. We need a #GreenRevolution now. #SustainableEnergy #COP29 https://buff.ly/3UKmmYL

The Wizard and the Prophet is an interesting but rather long book by Charles Mann. Here are some more critical thoughts about it: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/c9304406-baf1-4ae1-8797-c309a46afe39

#books #review #bookstodon #agriculture #GreenRevolution #technology #ecology

Successive Zambian administrations have been among the most enthusiastic adopters of the kinds of policies recommended by the Gates Foundation. The country is a poster-child for Agra’s drive to industrialise African agriculture, having implemented in 2009 a new subsidy programme to incentivise farmers to switch to commercial seeds and intensive fertiliser use. More than a million farmers did.
But, instead of increasing yields, the new approach simply increased farmers’ vulnerability to climate shocks like the current drought, the new report concludes.

#PRESS CONFERENCE | African Faith Leaders Demand Reparations from Gates: Ending the Harm of the Green Revolution

Aug 28, 2024

Register at
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0wq60WRzSBehJjT3BZNh6w#/registration

#africa #greenrevolution #foodsovereignty #policy #gatesfoundation #billgates #reparations #climatechange #food

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGk4EJ0lMV4

#Iran's #GreenRevolution: Rigged Elections & Student Riots in 2009 (during #MahmoudAhadinejad's regime)

Why don't we know about real innovations instead of hearing about "artificial intelligence" all the time?

#RealInnovation #GreenRevolution #ClimateChange
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/30/posiwid/#social-cost-of-carbon

Untangling the roots of Empire

The coterie of billionaires and foreign aid agencies intent on transforming African agriculture have mostly upturned people’s lives.

https://africasacountry.com/2024/05/untangling-the-roots-of-empire

"[...] common narratives that center the agency of White Westerners who bring technology to the agrarian frontier while devaluing the knowledge of indigenous people and smallholder farmers the world over."

#Africa #GreenRevolution #WhiteSaviorComplex #GMO #AIAC

🌍💡 Embracing nuclear energy is key to protecting our planet from disastrous climate change! 🌿💪 Let's harness the power of the atom to create a sustainable future ⚛️💚

#NuclearEnergy #ClimateAction #GreenRevolution #CleanEnergy #PoweringOurPlanet