Population – Sept 14
Russia’s demographic crisis
Russian ‘sex day’ to boost births
Child mortality at record low; further drop seen
Birth control sticker shock
Society
Transport – Sept 12
As commutes begin earlier, new daily routines emerge
Fear and loathing at the airport
Gas costs spark high-speed rail Interest
Children – Sept 11
Lack of play hurting children’s mental health
Turning the ride to school into a walk
Is it normal to let your kids get eaten by a bear?
The power of voluntary actions
Dismissing the importance of small personal behavior choices in favor of a sole focus on policy changes is a big mistake. Small behaviors are important not only for the direct environmental impact they have, but because they often lead to more and more pro-environmental behaviors over time.
Unprepared
Not too long ago I was marooned for an entire day at Chicago O’Hare airport. While there, I got the impression that the standard uniform for airline passengers is now a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
Global peak energy:
Implications for future human populations
The fact that the amount of energy available to human beings is subject to a limit—global peak energy—has profound implications for future human population levels and living standards.
The following analysis represents my initial attempt to understand the issue; the primary conclusions are unsettling, but clear.
- Based on publicly available data, global peak energy will probably occur between the years 2025 and 2030; total available energy will decline continuously thereafter.
- The maximum supportable worldwide human population level will peak between the years 2025 and 2030 as well, and decline continuously thereafter.
Population, depletion, planet
Greens need to grasp the nettle: aren’t there just too many people?
Interview with Professor Albert Bartlett
Fishery collapse in the North Sea
Planet in Peril coming to CNN in October
Searching for scapegoats
The question of what to do about the imminence of peak oil has become tangled up with questions about who to blame for it. A hard look at this thinking may be in order.
Museletter #185: Peak Everything
This issue is an edited version of the Introduction to Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines.This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; …Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which the event is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas in order to better navigate this perilous time.
survival
I had a much treasured book when I was a kid—something to the effect of “How to Survive in the Woods.” It covered the basics of building shelter, finding food, starting fire, and purifying water—important skills for a ten year old.
Can ecologists save the ecosphere?
Whenever ecologists gather, we might expect them to be screaming at the top of their lungs (or at least doing what passes for this in academic circles) about the imminent peril in which we humans find ourselves. But at a recent annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), those figurative screams could only be rated as somewhere between muffled and nonexistent.
Plastics & pollution – Sept 1
Plastic and the albatross
Message in the drink bottle: recycle
Not in whose backyard? (environmental justice)
