Year: 2012

50 years after silent spring

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It is the nature of popular books to inspire people to wildly overstate their importance. The most stunning example is Abraham Lincoln’s statement upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war.” While _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ was an incredibly important book, one that moved many people to shift their sympathies on the subject of slavery, this was, of course, the wildest hyperbole….The single possible exception to the overstatement of the importance of popular books might be the claim that Rachel Carson’s _Silent Spring_ began the environmental movement.

Is shale oil production from Bakken headed for a run with “The Red Queen”?

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In this post I present the results from an in depth time series analysis from wells producing crude oil (and small volumes of natural gas) from the Bakken (Bakken, Sanish, Three Forks and Bakken/Three Forks Pools) formation in North Dakota. The analysis uses actual production data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission as of July 2012 from what was found to be a representative selection of wells from operating companies and areas.

Land and resources – Sept 25

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-Land grabbing and food sovereignty in West and Central Africa
-Africa: Land, Water and Resource-Grabbing and Its Impact on Food Security
-Antonio Trejo, Honduras rights lawyer, killed at wedding
-Chinese villagers protest at slow progress over land dispute
-The global need of non-violent struggle around land rights: a path for change?

The hidden issue in this year’s campaign

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There is this idea, not discussed because it is so widely accepted even on the political left, that some sort of independent, free-standing market exists with its own laws, similar to those of natural systems, such as the law of gravity. Democrats want to poke, prod and regulate this market; Republicans say they want to leave it alone. But this so-called free market doesn’t exist, not even as a valid concept. Governments create markets.

International Conference on Sustainability, Transition & Culture Change features elusive Daniel Quinn

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This sixth-annual conference begins in the morning on Friday November 16 and continues through Sunday afternoon on November 18. The venue is the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The theme of the conference is Vision, Action, Leadership. Headliners at the conference include Daniel Quinn, Steve Keen, Richard Heinberg, Nicole Foss, Albert Bates, and Stephanie Mills.

From start to finish: Why we won and how we are losing

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We label as “crazy” those members of the human species whose behavior we find hard to understand, but the cascading crises in contemporary political, economic, and cultural life make a bigger question increasingly hard to ignore: Is the species itself crazy? Has the process of evolution in the hominid line produced a species that is both very clever and very crazy?

The “Switch Energy Project” highlights the scale of our energy challenges

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Every year in Washington DC, the annual Environmental Film Festival screens thought-provoking films. And at this year’s festival in March 2012, one of the world premieres was the film”Switch.” Switch follows Dr. Scott Tinker on a spectacular journey to explore the world of energy in a sweeping period of transition.

Activate your (climate) science – Sept 24

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-Limiting global warming to 2 °C is unlikely to save most coral reefs
-Arctic Crisis: Far From Sight, the Top of the World’s Problems
-Yikes: Avoiding dangerous climate change is still possible, but just barely
-Freaked-out climate scientists urge other freaked-out climate scientists to speak up, fight Man
-Activate (?) your science

Biodiversity in Kanazawa: Autumn’s lesson

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Various traditional industries rely on the water resources of the region, from paper, gold leaf manufacturing and silk dyeing, to sake and soy sauce production. The arrival of autumn marks the start of many of the processes associated with these industries, as it is during the cold months of the year that water is clear. Biodiversity has supported Kanazawa’s traditional industries at all levels: through the water-regulating function of the forests, through the direct provision of plant materials, and through the workings of the microscopic diversity of organisms involved in the processes of fermentation central to much of the local food culture.