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Category Archives: Environment
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. […]
Tornadoes strike across 7 states with more severe weather on the way
Tornadoes strike across 7 states with more severe weather on the way Severe weather is forecast for Thursday across the entire South. The threat for tornadoes continues Thursday following an outbreak of deadly storms throughout the Midwest and South over the past few days. As of Thursday afternoon, at least 17 tornadoes had been reported […]
Notes from the edge of civilization: May 12, 2024
Notes from the edge of civilization: May 12, 2024 Solar flares could cause disruptions – are you ready?; conflicts could bubble over – is the US military ready?; and how classical music can help with cognition, memory, and emotion. Skywatchers across the country saw dazzling northern lights this week, reaching as far south as Georgia, […]
Tree rings reveal summer 2023 was the hottest in 2 millennia
Tree rings reveal summer 2023 was the hottest in 2 millennia Tree rings suggest the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2023 was the hottest in 2,000 years, with temperatures exceeding those of the coldest summer in the same period by 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3.9 Celsius). A photo taken in May 2024 shows three women shielding themselves […]
Orange Juice Prices Primed For Breakout After Forecast Warns Brazil Set For Worst Harvest In Decades
Orange Juice Prices Primed For Breakout After Forecast Warns Brazil Set For Worst Harvest In Decades Breakfast lovers are in for another jolt as orange juice prices surge to near-record levels. A new report released on Friday indicates that Brazil, the leading global exporter of OJ, is facing its worst harvest in over three decades. This alarming development […]
Musings on the Nature of Technology
Musings on the Nature of Technology A picture taken during the trip (own photo) Recently I have been on a four-day hiking trip, completing another 80 km (~50 mile) stretch of the 1171 km National Blue Trail running across my tiny country. This gave me plenty of time to tune into and ponder on the many […]
We All Need to Be Tree Huggers Now
We All Need to Be Tree Huggers Now It’s about respecting our elders Originally published pre-Substack, on January 14, 2020, and included in my collection, From Outside, available in paperback or as a digital download. The author with a giant fir tree in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon Nearly everything about contemporary human life needs to change if we […]
