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Looking Inside Fukushima Prefecture
Looking Inside Fukushima Prefecture An Insider’s Story Because of Japan’s unconscionable open-ended new secrecy law, it is very likely journalism in the nation has turned tail, scared of its own shadow. Nevertheless, glimmers of what has happened, of what is happening, do surface when brave people come forward. On May 22nd 2015 Hiromichi Ugaya, a […]
Bill McKibben: The Planet’s Future Depends On Distributed Systems
Bill McKibben: The Planet’s Future Depends On Distributed Systems One of the best ways to address climate change To environmental activist Bill McKibben, it’s all about math. The planet has warmed 1 degree Celsius over the past few decades and is on track to rise another 4 to 5 before the end of the century. […]
Will climate chaos reign in the Anthropocene?
Will climate chaos reign in the Anthropocene? “Far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth’s climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts even to small nudges.” “Human civilization developed during the Holocene (the past 12,000 years). It has been warm enough to keep ice sheets off North America and Europe, but cool enough for ice […]
Two Startling Victories for Global Sanity in One Week
Two Startling Victories for Global Sanity in One Week Austerity doesn’t work. Dutch judge: Citizens are right, slash carbon emissions. Two remarkable developments in the past week that could have a significant impact in many countries are worth a lot more attention in Canada and the United States. First, a major research document published by five top […]
Energy Files: Defra report reveals extent of impacts on people living near fracking wells
Energy Files: Defra report reveals extent of impacts on people living near fracking wells People that live near fracking sites could be affected by health problems and financial hardships – and fracking might not even help climate change – a government report has revealed. The report – which was initially heavily redacted but has now been […]
Groups Encourage Transparency, Ask Obama For Honesty About Corporate Spending
Groups Encourage Transparency, Ask Obama For Honesty About Corporate Spending The Sierra Club sent a letter to President Obama this week, urging the President to make good on his promise of increasing transparency in Washington. Specifically, the environmental group wants the administration to be forthright about the political spending of mega-polluters and their government contracts. Courtney Hight, director […]
Supreme Court Rejects Argument to Dismiss Landmark Fracking Case
Supreme Court Rejects Argument to Dismiss Landmark Fracking Case Jessica Ernst’s charter claim hearing slated for 2016. The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected a motion by the country’s most powerful energy regulator that Jessica Ernst’s case involving fracking and groundwater contamination raises no significant constitutional claim and should be dismissed. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin ruled that […]
Zero Carbon Emissions: The New Language Of Climate Change
Zero Carbon Emissions: The New Language Of Climate Change This is a guest post by David Suzuki. If nothing else, the G7 countries’ recent agreement to end fossil fuel use for energy by 2100 signals a shift in the way we talk and think about global warming. Previous agreements were about reducing carbon emissions from burning coal, […]
Agriculture beyond water
Agriculture beyond water Drought is becoming more prevalent and causing havoc for food producers around the globe. Many regions have been hit by severe water scarcity over the past few years and this trend seems set to continue. New data from NASA shows how the world is running out of water, with more than half of […]
New York State Ban On Fracking Made Official
New York State Ban On Fracking Made Official “After years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts, prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative.” Those were the words many activists in New York never expected to hear from Joe Martens, head of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, but they were […]
Is Fukushima Getting Worse?
Is Fukushima Getting Worse? Straight Disaster The Fukushima multiple nuclear disasters continue spewing out hot stuff like there’s no tomorrow. By all appearances, it is getting worse, out-of-control nuclear meltdowns. On June 19th Tepco reported the highest-ever readings of strontium-90 outside of the Fukushima plant ports. The readings were 1,000,000 Bq/m3 of strontium-90 at two locations near […]
Earthcare, Literally Speaking
Earthcare, Literally Speaking A version of this essay appeared in the May-June 2015 edition of BeFriending Creation, the newsletter of Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW), with the title “An Earth Testimony.” In light of the Pope’s climate encyclical, it seems appropriate to share more widely. From the beginning, care for the living Earth and all its creatures has been woven […]
Chicken Little Meet the Friends of Science
Chicken Little Meet the Friends of Science Canada’s leading climate conspiracy theorists, the Friends of Science, are out this week with a critique on climate change that would make even Chicken Little blush. In a press release issued Thursday, the Friends of Science state that if plans proceed to move our country away from carbon-intensive fuel sources like oil and coal, “Canada […]
Beyond the Real Time Catastrophe of Capital
Beyond the Real Time Catastrophe of Capital Dystopia Now A Pundit Takes on the Pope: “Dynamists” and “Catastroophists” In a recent column on Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Laudato Si, the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says that “After this document, there’s no doubting where Francis stands in the great argument of our time….But,” Douthat elaborates, “I don’t mean […]
