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Category Archives: Environment
Greening the Desert with Permaculture
GREENING THE DESERT WITH PERMACULTURE “I have never seen soil like this before” was the comment that Bill Mollison made during a visit to the Greening the Desert Project in 2011. At the time, he was referring to the poor state of the soil in the small village of Jawasari, Jordan. An area of the […]
Derailed Oil Train Spills 230,000 Gallons of Tar Sands in Flooded Iowa River
Derailed Oil Train Spills 230,000 Gallons of Tar Sands in Flooded Iowa River On June 22, a train carrying Canadian crude oil derailed in northwestern Iowa, releasing an estimated 230,000 gallons of oil into a flooded river. As a result of the derailment, over 30 rail tank cars ended up in the water, with 14 cars confirmed to […]
Solar Storms Present Danger Of BLACKOUTS For Major East Coast Cities
Solar Storms Present Danger Of BLACKOUTS For Major East Coast Cities The largest solar storm in recent history struck in 1859 and the auroras could be seen across the globe. But a solar storm of that magnitude today would cause devastating blackouts in major cities on the East Coast of the United States. An upcoming report […]
Caught in a Trap of Our Own Making: Climate Change, Blame, and Denial
Caught in a Trap of Our Own Making: Climate Change, Blame, and Denial Photo by Marco Verch | CC BY 2.0 Come morning, I throw my covers aside, throw my legs over the edge of the bed, turn on my bedside lamp, turn on my bedside radio for a first dose of the daily news, […]
Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready To Solve Climate Change. Check The Fine Print.
Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready To Solve Climate Change. Check The Fine Print. On Wednesday, former senators Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA) announced, with a big public relations blitz, a new campaign, Americans for Carbon Dividends, to address the threat of climate change. The effort is being heralded as a breakthrough by some […]
Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas 60% Higher Than EPA Estimates, New Study Finds
Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas 60% Higher Than EPA Estimates, New Study Finds Each year, oil and gas industry operations in the U.S. are leaking roughly 60 percent more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into our atmosphere than previous estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which relied heavily on self-reporting by the industry. That’s the conclusion of […]
What science fiction ought to be
What science fiction ought to be Science fiction has become the dominant genre of the last four decades – the biggest film of the year has been sci-fi almost every year in my lifetime. Of those, some are simply swashbuckler fantasies set in space, like Star Wars, while others are the very entertaining superhero fantasies […]
Neoliberalism, Pipelines, and Canadian Political Economy
Neoliberalism, Pipelines, and Canadian Political Economy Photo by Luke Jones | CC BY 2.0 The national debate about how to get diluted bitumen to trans-oceanic markets by means of a twinning of the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline route between Alberta and British Columbia – known as the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project – illustrates the […]
Water Wars: India Facing “Worst Crisis In Its History”
Water Wars: India Facing “Worst Crisis In Its History” India is facing its worst-ever water crisis, with some 600 million people facing acute water shortage, a government think-tank says. The Niti Aayog report, which draws on data from 24 of India’s 29 states, says the crisis is “only going to get worse” in the years […]
California Lacks Real Marine Protection as Offshore Drilling Expands in State Waters
California Lacks Real Marine Protection as Offshore Drilling Expands in State Waters One of the big news stories neglected by both the mainstream and “alternative” media is the capture of California politics and the regulatory apparatus by Big Oil and other corporate interests in recent years – and the massive expansion of offshore drilling that has occurred […]
30 Years Ago Global Warming Became Front-Page News – and Both Republicans and Democrats Took It Seriously
30 Years Ago Global Warming Became Front-Page News – and Both Republicans and Democrats Took It Seriously June 23, 1988 marked the date on which climate change became a national issue. In landmark testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dr. James Hansen, then director of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies, stated that […]
What to do With Bad Soil
WHAT TO DO WITH BAD SOIL After watching the sun set and the full moon rise atop my neighbour Sergey’s hill which overlooks the entire eco-village, he walks me back to my tent hidden in the midst of young pine trees upon the insistence of his mother (“You need to walk the young lady all […]
Conservativism Now? Market Economies and the Liberal Anti-Culture
Conservativism Now? Market Economies and the Liberal Anti-Culture The persistent purpose of my writing over the past decade has been to reflect in a hopefully complex manner on the sort of culture necessary to “solve” the climate and ecological crisis and create a truly sustainable way of life. One of my main themes has been […]
The Beast From The East, coal, gas and the UK
The Beast From The East, coal, gas and the UK In late February 2018 high pressure over the North Atlantic and low pressure over the Mediterranean combined to generate a strong easterly airflow that brought Siberian temperatures to Western Europe, increasing heating demand to the point where there was a shortage of natural gas. The […]
Our energy challenge in 6 eye-popping charts
Our energy challenge in 6 eye-popping charts Renewable energy is winning and coal is on the skids. Disruption of the fossil fuel industry is well under way, and the global energy system is being decarbonised. We’re right on track, right? To avoid dramatic climate system tipping points, the world needs to decarbonise very quickly and […]
