Megan Bachman

School lunchrooms put planet and kids at risk

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If an alien species were to visit our school cafeterias at lunchtime, it might conclude that we don’t value the health and well-being of the most vulnerable members of our society—our developing children. Not only are our youth daily served low-quality processed products, they are inculcated, at a young age, to the factory-farm model at the heart of our worst environmental problems, namely water pollution, soil erosion, global climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

Perfectly comfortable

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I don’t particularly like cars. I don’t like the way they smell, on the inside or the outside. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped in a sheet metal-and-vinyl box, my body slowly warping to the shape of a bucket seat.

If any of this seems strange to you, then there may be something funny going on inside your head and you should get it checked out. Around the world, for over a century, people everywhere have used the bicycle to get around in every kind of climate and weather.

The great carbon bubble: Why the fossil fuel industry fights so hard

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If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet — as we shall see — it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us.

Economist calls gateway pipeline an inflationary ‘threat’

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In a detailed analysis submitted to the National Energy Board, Robyn Allan, the former president and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, concludes that “Northern Gateway is neither needed nor is in the public interest.” Moreover the project, if built, would raise the price of every oil barrel by $2 to $3 dollars in Canada over the next 30 years, and thereby create an inflationary price shock that would have “a negative and prolonged impact… by reducing output, employment, labour income and government revenues.”

Growth and free trade: Brain-dead dogmas still kicking hard

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There are two dogmas that neoclassical economists must never publicly doubt lest they be defrocked by their professional priesthood: first, that growth in GDP is always good and is the solution to most problems; second, that free international trade is mutually beneficial thanks to the growth-promoting principle of comparative advantage. These two cracked pillars “support” nearly all the policy advice given by mainstream economists to governments.

Gas boom goes bust

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The current boom in drilling for ‘unconventional’ gas has helped raise US production to levels not seen since the early 1970′s. This has been an incredible boon to consumers and has kept spot prices contained below $5 per million BTU for the past year, recently dropping below $3/mmbtu. Unfortunately, this price is below the cost of production for many of these new wells. When the flood of investment currently pouring into natural gas drilling operations dries up, the inevitable bust will be as scary as the boom was exciting.

Oil – Feb 6

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– Oil prices will rise as supplies tighten? Hardly. (NEW)
– Energy policy and the Madness of Crowds (NEW)
– Debate rages on when oil will peak
– Too Much Energy Used to Mine, Move Bitumen Says BC Firm
– Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming “Humanity’s Most Pressing Concern”

Ending “Farmer’s Wife” Syndrome

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We have used language to write women out of agriculture – out of its history, out of its present, engaging in the “housewifization” of real agricultural work. The implication that the farmer’s wife is not a farmer, and is thus knowledgeable about only kitchens and babies (as important as those things are) is a diminuation, an act of linguistic violence that erases the multiple competences of farm women, partnered or not.