Gene Logsdon

Even Earthworms Are Bad Now

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I am having trouble with one of the latest scientific findings. Some researchers are saying that earthworms are bad for forests. The new data claims the worms, which are mostly non-native species, gobble up too much of the leaf litter, leaving the forest floor bare and compacted. Wildflowers like trillium and bloodroot and even maple seedlings disappear, according to these scientists.

Battening down the hatches

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It’s true that both sides confuse weather with climate, though the two are obviously linked. But none of this matters when key details relevant to how we live today alter how we experience storms in the era of accelerating of global warming.

TED-Stravaganza

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My wife calls it spying. I call it data. To-may-to, To-mah-to. It’s true that I know what she’s been up to (electrically) while I’m away. And it’s true that I can access this information anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. But domestic surveillance is not my aim (cameras and microphones would be far more informative in that regard). I just care about the energy angle.

The Drowning Pool

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Such is the importance of legitimacy: the basic condition for governance, especially among supposedly free people. You can meddle in a lot of distributory issues – who gets what – but when you mess with the most basic operations of money to the extent that no one is sure what it’s really worth, or what it represents, then you are deeply undermining society.

A New Era of Worker Ownership?

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The workers of the just-formed New Era Windows cooperative in Chicago—the same workers who sat in and forced Serious Energy to back down on a hasty shutdown of their Goose Island plant a few months ago, and famously occupied the same factory for six days in December 2008—are doing more than putting together a bold plan for worker ownership. They are likely to move the entire subject into national attention, thereby spurring others to follow on. Though they have a powerful start, if the past is any guide they will need all the help they can get—financial as well as political.

Peak oil oppositional disorder: neurosis or psychosis?

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What happens to individuals also happens to entire societies. Take a neurotic Peak Oil-denying industrial civilization, put it through a terrible global financial crisis, tell it that economic growth is over forever, and what you get a psychotic, delusional industrial civilization.

Should Food Stamps Only Pay for Healthy Food?

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As you probably know the 2012 Farm Bill has food stamps on the block. I write a lot about food stamps because they are incredibly important — one in seven Americans uses them. One in four children is on food stamps. When you subsidize food for this many people, you functionally transform the larger food system. America, it turns out, subsidizes food just as many other nations do, because without it, people would be hungry. Although food represents one of the smaller budget items for many Americans, an increasing number can’t afford it. The transformation of our society into one dependent on subsidized food is enormous — and it mostly passes unnoticed.

The Dark Shapes Ahead

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If someone were to ask me what kind of cause is sufficient to live for in dark times, the best answer I could give would be: to take responsibility for the survival of something that matters deeply. Whatever that is, your best action might then be to get it out of harm’s way, or to put yourself in harm’s way on its behalf, or anything else your sense of responsibility tells you.

The global economics of our fragile earth – July 10

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-The Global Economy: It’s All About Increasing Leverage
-China exports yet more excess capacity to crippled West
-Rio+20: Tim Jackson on how fear led world leaders to betray green economy
-The Future /Who/ Wants (or needs)?
-Libor was a criminal conspiracy from the start