Home » Environment (Page 351)
Category Archives: Environment
Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Lies
Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Lies Over the last few years, a growing number of people have been taking a hard look at what is happening to our planet – historic droughts, rising sea levels, massive floods – and acknowledging, finally, that human activity is propelling rapid climate change. But guess what? Exxon (now ExxonMobil) […]
Michael Klare, Tipping Points and the Question of Civilizational Survival
Tipping Points and the Question of Civilizational Survival In mid-August, TomDispatch’s Michael Klare wrote presciently of the oncoming global oil glut, the way it was driving the price of petroleum into the “energy subbasement,” and how such a financial “rout,” if extended over the next couple of years, might lead toward a new (and better) world of energy. […]
Fukushima Kids Suffer Thyroid Cancer Up To 50x Normal Rate, New Study Finds
Fukushima Kids Suffer Thyroid Cancer Up To 50x Normal Rate, New Study Finds Children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, according to a new study. As AP reports, most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture have been given ultrasound […]
Taking a Bite Out of Plastic Waste: New Research Offers Unexpected Promise as Permaculture Hack
Taking a Bite Out of Plastic Waste: New Research Offers Unexpected Promise as Permaculture Hack Reducing plastic pollution has seemed a daunting prospect, until now. Can the tiny Mealworm bite off more than we can chew? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans alone throw away 25 billion Styrofoam cups each year. Styrofoam […]
The Problem of Agriculture
The Problem of Agriculture This is an excerpt from the new book Plain Radical: Living, Loving, and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully, published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull, which tells the story of Robert Jensen’s intellectual and political collaboration with teacher/activist Jim Koplin. I was born and raised in North Dakota, a rural state with an economy […]
A New Kind of Frackademia? New Environmental Inspectors Offered Free Industry-Funded Classes on Fracking
A New Kind of Frackademia? New Environmental Inspectors Offered Free Industry-Funded Classes on Fracking At an industry conference in Philadelphia last month, oil and gas executives gathered to hear about a little-known public relations effort with a very precise target: newly hired state and federal environmental inspectors. At a seminar titled “Staying Ahead of Federal and […]
Bushfires rage in Australia as ‘Godzilla El Nino’ takes affect
Bushfires rage in Australia as ‘Godzilla El Nino’ takes affect A charred car stands destroyed after a bushfire moved through the area near One Tree Hill in the Adelaide Hills on January 5, 2015. © AFP Over 100 bushfires are blazing in the state of Victoria, Australia, with over 200 homes at risk. Unusually high […]
An Unprecedented Future
An Unprecedented Future I can see The Age of Consequences from my home. We live on a former ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico, that is now a subdivision with more than two thousand houses. Due to its proximity to a center of colonial Spanish, Mexican, and American administrations, as well as the Santa Fe Trail, the […]
Sociocultural Boundaries
Sociocultural Boundaries Some years ago now a team of Swedish scientists proposed an interesting framework for understanding planetary environmental problems. It generated a range of responses from the environmental community, mostly positive. I had what is undoubtedly a very unusual response to their framework, and while it is perhaps old news, it may still be […]
More Evidence We’ve Reached a “Peak Water” Tipping Point in California
More Evidence We’ve Reached a “Peak Water” Tipping Point in California March in Yosemite, four years running (source; click to enlarge) It may be a see-saw course, but it’s riding an uphill train. A bit ago I wrote, regarding climate and tipping points: The concept of “tipping point” — a change beyond which there’s no turning […]
Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment?
Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment? The reality has always been that it takes land to grow crops…no matter the type of crop. People need certain nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, roughage, and others) to thrive and all come from crops that are presently grown on arable land. The problem is […]
Two thirds of EU states reject GMO crops, file cultivation opt-out requests
Two thirds of EU states reject GMO crops, file cultivation opt-out requests Two thirds of EU states have requested to be allowed to ban the growing of genetically modified crops in their countries, choosing the “opt-out” clause of a European Commission rule that allows members to override EU-wide GMO approvals. Nineteen European Union member states […]
Corporation vs. Nation: The Ultimate Showdown
Corporation vs. Nation: The Ultimate Showdown A secluded private courthouse in Washington DC is currently the scene of a gargantuan legal battle that could have serious ramifications for all of us. Yet virtually nobody knows about it. On one side of the battle is the tiny, poverty-crippled Central American nation of El Salvador; on the […]
“Everyone Is Doing It”: How Carmakers Manipulate Emissions Test Results
“Everyone Is Doing It”: How Carmakers Manipulate Emissions Test Results With Germany’s largest company by revenue, Volkswagen, deep in damage recovery mode, and the market still unable to decide just how systemic and profound the fallout will be from the emissions scandal which has already cost the job of VW’s CEO and which according to some will impact […]
Fukushima police sends nuclear contamination case against TEPCO execs to prosecutors
Fukushima police sends nuclear contamination case against TEPCO execs to prosecutors Water tanks storing radiation contaminated water are seen at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture. © Shizuo Kambayashi / Reuters Fukushima police have finally reacted to a criminal complaint filed against TEPCO and 32 of its […]
