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Category Archives: Environment
Weather Disasters: Climate Change and the Potential for Conflict
Weather Disasters: Climate Change and the Potential for Conflict Photo Source U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | CC BY 2.0 East Island was an uninhabited remote island in the Hawaiian chain, but it was an important refuge for wildlife: Many of the endangered Hawaiian monk seals numbering about 1400 raised their young on that island; […]
UK Fracking Pauses, Again
UK Fracking Pauses, Again For the second time in two weeks since Cuadrilla started fracking at an exploration site in northwest England—resuming hydraulic fracturing in the UK for the first time in seven years—the company had to stop operations on Monday due to a micro seismic event measuring above the threshold requiring a halt. Cuadrilla […]
USGS: Yellowstone Super Volcano Threat Set To ‘HIGH’
USGS: Yellowstone Super Volcano Threat Set To ‘HIGH’ The United States Geological Survey has increased the Yellowstone supervolcano threat to “high.” This is the first time that the USGS has updated its volcano threat assessments list since 2006. The USGS said that 11 of the 18 volcanoes they have classified as a “high threat” or a “very […]
Degrowth: A Call For Radical Abundance
DEGROWTH: A CALL FOR RADICAL ABUNDANCE When orthodox economists first encounter the idea of degrowth, they often jump to the conclusion that the objective is to reduce GDP. And because they see GDP as equivalent to social wealth, this makes them very upset. Nothing could be further from the truth. I reject the fetishization of […]
Petro-Hegemony and the Carbon Rebellion
Petro-Hegemony and the Carbon Rebellion Part 1: An introduction to a theory of change for the climate justice movement The following post is the first in a four part series that I am hoping will help translate what I’ve learned throughout my PhD dissertation research into accessible and useful tools that can be shared and […]
The Climate Crisis is Back in the News
The Climate Crisis is Back in the News Photo Source Peter Prokosch | CC BY 2.0 The prospect of drastic climate change is back in the news. But, for all too many people it is just that, a news item. It is like other eye-grabbing stories: a bit scary, but also happening somewhere else and […]
Collapsing Rainforest Ecosystems
Collapsing Rainforest Ecosystems Photo Source A.Davey | CC BY 2.0 The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report on the status of arthropods in rainforests (Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia, Climate-Driven Declines in Arthropod Abundance Restructure a Rainforest Food Web, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115). The report’s shocking analysis […]
Our Bonus Decade
Our Bonus Decade “The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, […]
A Field Guide to the Petrochemical and Plastics Industry
A Field Guide to the Petrochemical and Plastics Industry The shale gas industry has been trying to build demand for fossil fuels from its fracked oil and gas wells by promoting the construction of a new petrochemical corridor in America’s Rust Belt and expanding the corridor on the Gulf Coast. To help demystify terms like “natural […]
City Size & Structure Can Influence Influenza Epidemics, Scientists Say
City Size & Structure Can Influence Influenza Epidemics, Scientists Say New research is suggesting that the size and structure of the city you live in has the possibility of influencing epidemics. With flu season upon us, and everyone lining up to get the flu shot, researchers are saying an outbreak may be less in our […]
World wakes up to scale of climate challenge, so what should a Labor government do?
World wakes up to scale of climate challenge, so what should a Labor government do? Quite suddenly, in the wake of the recent IPCC report, it’s become commonplace to talk about a global climate emergency. Al Gore told PBS on 12 October: “We have a global emergency. You use a phrase like that and some […]
Is A Diesel Crunch Coming?
Is A Diesel Crunch Coming? The new ship fuel regulations coming into force at the start of 2020 are set to create an initial confusion on the refining market and crude oil and oil product trade flows, analysts and industry experts say. We are now just 14 months away from January 1, 2020—the start date […]
Why Canadian Tar Sands Oil May Be Doomed
Why Canadian Tar Sands Oil May Be Doomed At current prices, Canadian tar sands oil producers are losing money on every barrel of oil they dig out. Despite signs earlier this year the industry would “turn profitable in 2018,” a much more likely scenario at this point is a fourth straight year of losses. Producers are forced […]
Tectonic Plate Splits in Two Raising Risks for West Coast
Tectonic Plate Splits in Two Raising Risks for West Coast San Andreas Fault in California Can Be Observed from the Sky Recent studies have revealed that the massive earthquake which stuck Mexico actually split a tectonic plate in two. This has done more than just shaken the ground. It has also shaken up the geologist […]
