Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb In “Transcendent Man” it is a sadder than usual Ray Kurzweil who appears on the screen. The 2009 documentary film about Kurzweil, an acclaimed inventor and futurist, shows that the laws of entropy are at work on his body. He undergoes open heart surgery during the course of the film even as he continues to espouse the belief that technological developments over the next 30 years will make human immortality a reality.
If you didn’t know better, you might think the planet was simply piling on to make a point. The extreme weather events of the last year have proven little short of biblical.
Given your influence and the speed with which you can turn out a blockbuster, Mr. King, you might take my feeble attempt to point out the error of our ways, turn the truth of it into fiction and a few million Americans into Committees of Correspondence, planners of a new Declaration of Independence, this time from the global economy and the Powers that run it and get the lion’s share of the benefit out of it.
The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline, known as Keystone XL to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now. If this project gains approval, it will become exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands monster.
The inherent contradictions of the UK government’s approach to energy and climate policy were made clearly visible this week. On the one hand Thursday saw the release of further detail around the Green Deal, a fairly ambitious bill aimed at facilitating the retrofitting of private homes in order to improve energy efficiency. On the other, evidence emerged that the UK is one of just two EU governments (the other is the Netherlands) stalling on a new EU fuel directive which would see oil from the Canadian tar sands banned in Europe, due to their high emissions.
The recent announcement by two Italian researchers of a new method of attaining energy from nuclear fusion has brought back hopes of an easy and inexpensive way of generating energy. It is almost if the nuclear genie that Walt Disney had created in the 1950s is back with new promises of energy “too cheap to meter.” But what exactly do we expect from fusion? Why do we think it could solve our problems? Perhaps, these possibilities have been much overrated.
Food prices may jump by as much as 180% by 2030, driven by poor policies and a changing climate. Already, the FAO estimates 1 billion people are starving and another 2.5 billion are malnourished. With food prices climbing, yield productivity flat lining, and the global population on track to hit 9 billion by 2050, it appears we are on the brink of major catastrophe.
But Fair Food… is not a book primarily about the problems of our broken food system,” says Hesterman. “It is a book primarily about the solutions.” It serves as a guide to changing not only what we eat, but also how our food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed, and sold. The book starts by outlining the nuances of our food system, how it evolved the way it did, and why it is failing us.
A recent Post-Carbon Institute paper, “Public Health Concerns of Shale Gas Production,” (contained in: Natural Gas Report Supplements: Public Health Agriculture & Transportation) is plagued by irony: the authors’ (Brian Schwartz and Cindy Parker) commitment to protect public health nonetheless defaults into placing business interests ahead of the public interest.
Krijimi i këtyre sistemeve është bërë i mundur nga burimet fosile të energjisë, burime të jashtëzakonshme energjie, një dhuratë që natyra ja bën vetëm një herë njeriut. Albanian translation of the Post Carbon Institute report ‘The Food and Farming Transition’.
Few people seem to have noticed that two governments went belly-up in North Africa recently – as a result of riots which began as protests over the price of food.
With little fanfare, a press release appeared last week on the website of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES)…There are many implications buried in this seemingly innocuous announcement. First, American readers should note that the British government recognizes that energy policy and climate change are inextricably linked so that you cannot formulate policies for one without the other…
