Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Dave Cohen When I think about dyed-in-the-wool, dystopian End-of-the-Worlders, MarketWatch’s Paul Farrell does not come to mind. I think of Club Orlov and its Honorary Members, people like Jim Kunstler or others in the Club who I have talked to in the past.
President Obama has issued marching orders for the rapid national adoption of “clean coal” technology. Last week, shortly after his budget address, he ordered a high-level task force to deliver a plan within 180 days determining how “to overcome barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with the goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects on line by 2016.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has initiated a review of the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for wood heaters. That might seem like a desperately boring bureaucratic project, and in some ways it probably will be, but after all the hand-wringing and endless haggling is over, the result could be fundamental changes to wood heating technology that could shake the foundations of the manufacturers that make it and forever alter the wood heating experience of users.
-Saudi Arabia Says Peak Demand for Oil Is an ‘Alarm’
-Virgin’s Richard Branson takes on peak oil
-Oil groups mount legal challenge to Schwarzenegger’s tar sands ban
-Can Climate Shift the Biology of Ecosystems?
-Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than ‘our most pessimistic models’: researcher
-Snowmaggedon Backs All Climate Change Views
-Time to think small on climate change
-U.N. climate panel needs overhaul, top scientists argue in ‘Nature’
We stand at a critical point in human cultural evolution. Going back to the old normal where peace is just an interval between wars is not an option; what we need is a fundamental cultural transformation.
The best way to influence policy is for the “scientists and engineers” to influence policy makers directly — and you don’t do that in a report, in a letter, on a petition, or a blog. It requires a commitment to face-to-face relationship building, nurturing, and maintenance. Rarely does a policy discussion center solely around facts.
The Story of P(ee)
-Forest Carbon Scheme Gains Support, Faces Hurdles
-Warming Water Spurs U.S. to Consider ESA Protection for 82 Coral Species
-Rewilding’ the World: A Bright Spot for Biodiversity
To those familiar with the science and the IPCC’s work, the current media discussion is in large part simply absurd and surreal. Journalists who have never even peeked into the IPCC report are now outraged that one wrong number appears on page 493 of Volume 2. We’ve met TV teams coming to film a report on the IPCC reports’ errors, who were astonished when they held one of the heavy volumes in hand, having never even seen it. They told us frankly that they had no way to make their own judgment; they could only report what they were being told about it. And there are well-organized lobby forces with proper PR skills that make sure these journalists are being told the “right” story.
-War at Home: The Local Eco-Warriors Making a Big Noise
-Brock Dolman on water: “Basins of relations: reverential rehydration revolution”
-Pathways to Re-Localisation with Joel Salatin
-Die Transition Towns-Bewegung – Städte und Menschen im Wandel
-Environmentalists launch low-carbon ‘churches in transition’
-Could chicken manure help curb climate change?
All those earnest health policy analysts laboring over the pros and cons of a Public Option have made an unacknowledged ethical decision about how to allocate resources –distribute medical care and, in fact, life chances. They intellectually/ethically are constrained from asking Mitroff and Silvers’ question.
-Watching China Run
-The Recession is Dead, Long Live the Recession: Life Without Jobs
-How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
-Why GDP Is No Measure of Quality; and What We Can Do About it
-Athens protest: ‘We are at war with them, as they are with us’
