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Category Archives: Environment
Leaking Las Vegas: Lake Mead At Record Lows, “We Have To Change”
Leaking Las Vegas: Lake Mead At Record Lows, “We Have To Change” This is it, warns one water advocate, “it really does (make critical) the fact that we have to start changing.” Lake Mead water levels have sunk to their lowest levels on record (below the levels when the dam was built) at 1075 feet. This […]
Why B.C. may be in for a long, hot summer
Why B.C. may be in for a long, hot summer A dry spring, a warmer than usual Pacific Ocean, and an El Niño means the hot weather could be here to stay Whenever temperatures approach 30 C in Metro Vancouver, it’s a talker. While the thermostat does get close once or twice each summer, this particular heat […]
EPA’s New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print
EPA’s New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print When EPA’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry triumphantly focused on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” But for fracking’s […]
Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy
Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy As the metrics of sustainability become ever more robust and sophisticated, it is ever more apparent to many of us who study those metrics that industrial civilization, as currently configured, is unsustainable. Ecological footprint analysis tells us that we are presently using 1.5 Earths’ worth of resources annually. We […]
The Delusion of Control
The Delusion of Control I’m sure most of my readers have heard at least a little of the hullaballoo surrounding the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. It’s been entertaining to watch, not least because so many politicians in the United States who like to use Vatican pronouncements as window dressing […]
The Day the Earth Died
The Day the Earth Died And Why Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Etc., Were Virtually Silent About It As the civilizations that we all know, and love, and lived, slide increasingly into totalitarian misery; and the environment, which had been our lives, becomes less and less livable, there will be, in retrospect, one key day, which historians […]
How Pope Francis’s climate encyclical is liberating the world
How Pope Francis’s climate encyclical is liberating the world In my life there are two things that have the effect of at least somewhat isolating me from others. The first is being a writer on climate change, peak oil, and the economic crises bound up with those modern predicaments. The other is being a Christian […]
Unnatural Disaster: How Global Warming Helped Cause India’s Catastrophic Flood
Unnatural Disaster: How Global Warming Helped Cause India’s Catastrophic Flood The flood that swept through the Indian state of Uttarakhand two years ago killed thousands of people and was one of the worst disasters in the nation’s recent history. Now researchers are saying that melting glaciers and shifting storm tracks played a major role in the […]
Water Wars Crush California Wineries: “Whoever Has The Longest Straw Wins”
Water Wars Crush California Wineries: “Whoever Has The Longest Straw Wins” Eerily reminiscent of the determinedly evil oil baron from the movie ‘There Will Be Blood’, Reuters reports the growing tensions amid California’s drought-stricken wineries are boiling over: “There is way too much demand. I blame a lot of vineyards like other people do… It’s a matter of who […]
Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China
Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China China’s leadership has called in recent years for the creation of a new “ecological civilization.” Some have viewed this as a departure from Marxism and a concession to Western-style “ecological modernization.” However, embedded in classical Marxism, as represented by the work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, was a powerful […]
Peak oiler? Not Catholic? You should still stand with the pope on climate
Peak oiler? Not Catholic? You should still stand with the pope on climate I get it, you believe in peak oil. So do I, despite gas at $2.50 a gallon. But peak oil is no excuse for either you or me to just sit around waiting for the final oil crash to make the climate problem moot by […]
Massive Budget Cuts Looming For EPA As Republicans Seek to Limit Rules on Air and Water Pollution
Massive Budget Cuts Looming For EPA As Republicans Seek to Limit Rules on Air and Water Pollution The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was dealt a massive blow this week by the House Appropriations committee, where the Republican majority voted to further cut the agency’s budget and reduce its authority to enforce laws safeguarding our air, water and health. The House committee […]
Toxic algae blooms: What you should know about the mysterious phenomena
Toxic algae blooms: What you should know about the mysterious phenomena Algae can produce some of the most harmful natural toxins known to science In August 1961, a bizarre scene unfolded in the skies above the coastal town of Capitola, Calif., on the northern end of Monterey Bay. Residents watched in terror as seabirds dive-bombed into the ground at […]
