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The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty And A Bird Flu Crisis Are Both Arriving At The Same Time
The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty And A Bird Flu Crisis Are Both Arriving At The Same Time Health officials are issuing very ominous warnings about the potential for an H5N1 pandemic among humans at the same time that the WHO is preparing for a vote on the global pandemic treaty at the 77th World Health Assembly […]
The Thermodynamics of Degrowth | Tim Garrett
The Thermodynamics of Degrowth | Tim Garrett Collapse and Recovery What’s the relationship between our energy consumption, our material footprint and our economies? Tim Garrett and I come to refer to these as “the holy trinity”. Tim is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, and over two years ago, he joined me […]
The Renewables Farce
The Renewables Farce The renewals transition is a lie. Here’s why. Photo by CHUTTERSNAP / Unsplash Let me say this loud for the people in the back: RENEWABLES ARE NOT A PANACEA FOR CLIMATE CHANGE Sure, wind, solar or geothermal energy might reduce carbon intensity per unit of output. Indeed, an EV, for example, emits less […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXIX–Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXIX–Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse It’s been a few months since I last posted a Contemplation. There are a variety of reasons for this. I’ve been ‘distracted’ by the preparations in my gardens for the upcoming growing season. The unseasonably warm weather here north of Toronto allowed me to get outside […]
A ‘plague’ comes before the fall: lessons from Roman history
A ‘plague’ comes before the fall: lessons from Roman history The ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. Credit: Livioandronico2013. CC BY-SA 4.0. The Pax Romana—the 200-year “golden age” of the Roman Empire—was a marvel of diversity, connectivity, and unchallenged hegemony. By the middle of the second century AD, imperial Rome ruled territory across three different continents. […]
Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models
Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models Draft script: From Popular Mechanics comes this headline on 22 April 2024: Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models. The story begins with three bullet points: (1) While the world’s soils are home to lots of organic carbon—such as leaf litter and animal […]
Foreign Pollen Follies
Foreign Pollen Follies Autumn crop breeding update Originally, I planned to complete preliminary work on a bunch of different new crops that I began breeding seriously this year so I could write up one big article on each species, but I think progressive updates on all of them is a more useful way to show […]
Insane Footage Shows Tornado Destroying Wind Farm In Iowa
Insane Footage Shows Tornado Destroying Wind Farm In Iowa Shocking footage from Iowa this evening shows multiple tornadoes wreaking havoc on massive wind turbines. This is yet another reminder that wind is not a reliable power source. Here’s the aftermath. Two months ago, a solar farm in Texas with hundreds of acres of ground-based panels was destroyed by a hail […]
Menace on the Menu: The Financialisation of Farmland and the War on Food and Farming
Menace on the Menu: The Financialisation of Farmland and the War on Food and Farming Between 2008 and 2022, land prices nearly doubled throughout the world and tripled in Central-Eastern Europe. In the UK, an influx of investment from pension funds and private wealth contributed to a doubling of farmland prices from 2010-2015. Land prices in the US agricultural […]
Science Snippets: Expect Extreme Weather Events
Science Snippets: Expect Extreme Weather Events Draft script: From Scientific American on 27 March 2024 comes this headline: Global Warming Is Slowing the Earth’s Rotation. Here’s the subtitle: “Drastic polar ice melt is slowing Earth’s rotation, counteracting a speedup from the planet’s liquid outer core. The upshot is that we might need to subtract a leap […]
Ecological Disruption and Militarization of Antarctica Will Push the Planet Closer to Tipping Points
Ecological Disruption and Militarization of Antarctica Will Push the Planet Closer to Tipping Points Antarctica, a continent about 40% larger than Europe in area, has also been called the world’s largest desert and the coldest, windiest, loneliest continent. Such descriptions do not exactly make this the most attractive continent, but in keeping with our times, those […]
Biospheric Cognition
Biospheric Cognition and biospheric awakening If we are going to nurture into being an ecological civilization, or an ecological culture, we’re going to require what in this writing I will call “biospheric cognition”. Cambridge Cognition offers a limited and insufficient first stab at defining cognition here.: “Cognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of […]
“Gain of Function” and Influenza A Virus
“Gain of Function” and Influenza A Virus The two have been intertwined for decades. Cover art, “Potential Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Research, Summary of a Workshop (2015)” On October 17, 2014, spurred by incidents at U.S. government laboratories that raised serious biosafety concerns, the United States government launched a one-year deliberative process to address the […]
New Developments and Accepting Our Predicaments Without Blame
New Developments and Accepting Our Predicaments Without Blame Forest clear cut along Chattooga Ridge Rd. in South Carolina Today’s eclectic article has to do with new developments that have popped up recently, reiterating issues I have brought up previously, sometimes repeatedly. One of these things has to do with who and what we are as a species. This differs […]
The Radical Step
THE RADICAL STEP BUILDING A COMMUNITY FOR SURVIVAL Climate news this week is bleak. More floods, more wildfires, more death, more nature lost. The climate change warning bell is tolling hard. It’s time to take the most radical step you’ve ever taken in your life. It’s time to build the community you need to survive. […]
