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Category Archives: Environment
Catastrophic Hurricanes Are the ‘New Normal,’ and They Will Cost Trillions
Catastrophic Hurricanes Are the ‘New Normal,’ and They Will Cost Trillions Taxpayers and already struggling communities are largely bearing the brunt of the costs for climate change-fueled disasters created by big oil and big business. “We got a little bit lucky,” said President Donald Trump about the storm which killed at least six people in […]
Climate explained: why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate
Climate explained: why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate I heard that carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the world’s atmosphere. Not 0.4% or 4%, but 0.04%! How can it be so important in global warming if it’s such a small percentage? I am often asked how carbon dioxide can have an important […]
Delaware Just Sued 30 Fossil Fuel Companies and the American Petroleum Institute Over Climate ‘Denial and Disinformation’
Delaware Just Sued 30 Fossil Fuel Companies and the American Petroleum Institute Over Climate ‘Denial and Disinformation’ Delaware, the home state of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, announced on Thursday, September 10 that it is taking dozens of major oil and gas companies including BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil to court over the rising costs of climate impacts […]
The Net Zero Emissions Lie
The Net Zero Emissions Lie Cutting carbon emissions has become a central focus of countries and companies alike in the past decade. The oil majors are racing to ‘go green, Microsoft has pledged to go ‘carbon negative’, and over 20 nations have either committed to or achieved net-zero carbon targets. For public companies, the incentives to go green are […]
Why Permaculture?
Image by author Why Permaculture? It’s been several years since I first stumbled upon permaculture, and several years minus a couple of months since I started doing my best to practice it. Many people have a similar story, and my guess is, like me, they’ve been asked dozens, possibly hundreds, of times what permaculture is. But, it’s […]
Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change?
Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change? Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA ‘We’re doomed’: a common refrain in casual conversation about climate change. It signals an awareness that we cannot, strictly speaking, avert climate change. It is already here. All we can hope for is to minimise climate change by keeping global average […]
Nobel prize-winning economics of climate change is misleading and dangerous – here’s why
Nobel prize-winning economics of climate change is misleading and dangerous – here’s why While climate scientists warn that climate change could be catastrophic, economists such as 2018 Nobel prize winner William Nordhaus assert that it will be nowhere near as damaging. In a 2018 paper published after he was awarded the prize, Nordhaus claimed that 3°C of warming would reduce global […]
Possible Future Trends of CO2 Concentration and Global Temperature
Possible Future Trends of CO2 Concentration and Global Temperature Wildfire smoke and power line, northern California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Carbon dioxide gas (CO2) has been accumulating in the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (~1750), because increasingly voluminous fluxes of that gas have been exhausted from the lands and the oceans, and […]
Do we have room for a billion Americans?
Do we have room for a billion Americans? As I was reading Matthew Yglesias’ piece “The Case for Adding 672 Million More Americans,” the Soviet-era designation of Mother Heroine, initiated by Joseph Stalin in 1944, came to mind. Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders gave Mother Heroine medals to mothers who bore and raised 10 or more children. Lesser […]
To Be Farming and Fortunate
To Be Farming and Fortunate Photographed by Paige Green To arrive at Fortunate Farm, you have to drive along the California coast, either north or south, passing some of the most epic viewsheds to be seen on Coast Highway 1. The farm is hours away from any major city, and just south of Fort Bragg, a […]
North Dakota blues: The legacy of fracking
North Dakota blues: The legacy of fracking When oil drillers descended on North Dakota en masse a decade ago, state officials and residents generally welcomed them with open arms. A new form of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” for short, would allow an estimated 3 to 4 billion barrels of so-called shale oil to be extracted […]
An alternative agriculturist’s guide to science
An alternative agriculturist’s guide to science To begin, just a heads up on a couple of new things on the site. First, I’ve posted on the My Book page advanced comments about my forthcoming book that have come in from a number of interesting thinkers. It’s nice to get such positive notices. Currently, I’m pretty busy gearing […]
Big Oil’s Backers Are Jumping Ship — and That’s Good for the Planet
Big Oil’s Backers Are Jumping Ship — and That’s Good for the Planet Investors, banks and even some oil and gas companies are breaking ranks on the future of high-emission energy. Alberta’s oilsands are increasingly toxic for major investors concerned with global warming. Photo by Kris Krug, Creative Commons licensed. The oil lobby’s political friends are […]
Preparing for the end of the world as we know it
Preparing for the end of the world as we know it For many Indigenous people, the collapse of our current system is not necessarily bad news. Image: Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, all rights reserved Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) is a collective of researchers, artists, educators, activists and Indigenous knowledge keepers from the Global North […]
How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to viruses
How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to viruses As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex […]
