Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff There was much to welcome in the new coalition’s energy policy. In particular, ODAC supports the commitment to a “huge increase” in anaerobic digestion; raise renewables targets; the “full establishment” of feed-in-tariffs while maintaining the existing banded ROCs to ensure continuity for big renewables investors; a shift of aviation duty from people to planes; scrap Heathrow’s third runway and block new ones at Stanstead and Gatwick.
-Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the ocean
-Nature loss ‘to damage economies’
-US climate bill or not, the world is on track
-After the crash – a new direction for climate policy
It is now more than two months since we published out article (read the peer-reviewed paper) that showed that the IPCC’s emissions scenarios of 2000 (the same scenarios that are used by the world’s climate researchers to calculate future temperature increases) cannot be realized. We have also reported on this internationally at the Energy Bulletin. What amazes me most is that not one single journalist around the world thinks that this is interesting. I don’t think they realize the magnitude of our research result.
Congratulations to Mother Jones for dedicating the cover of their May/June 2010 issue to the population crisis. I have worked in the population field for four decades, and since joining the movement in the late 1960s, when the issue was at the forefront of public concern, I have witnessed an alarming decrease in responsible reporting on population issues and the importance of addressing the dramatic growth we are faced with each and every day. So, thank you, Mother Jones, for being one of the few to bring the population issue back to the forefront of public discourse.
The unraveling of industrial society, like the declines and falls of other civilizations in the past, involves sweeping changes to the most basic assumptions of economics, and these have practical implications here and now. One of these unfolds from the role of money in contemporary economies — a role that will face dramatic changes in the years ahead of us.
-Relief wells
-Flow diversion: “top hat” and pipe insertion
-Top kill/junk shot
-New BOP
-Congressional hearing reveals “significant problems”
-Cementing
A senior House Democrat said that the blowout preventer that failed to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a “useless” test version of one of the devices that was supposed to close the flow of oil and a cutting tool that wasn’t strong enough to shear through joints that made up 10 percent of the drill pipe.
A battle is quietly being waged between the industry that produces genetically modified seeds and scientists trying to investigate the environmental impacts of engineered crops. Although companies such as Monsanto have recently given ground, researchers say these firms are still loath to allow independent analyses of their patented — and profitable — seeds.
Most discussion on transportation alternatives to single-occupant fossil fuel-powered vehicles focuses on moving people from place to place. Options might include electric trains, walking, and bicycling. But also important for functioning cities is moving goods around, and most of the above options would seem to have severe limitations when one considers the variety of things that need to be moved. How does one carry a sheet of plywood across town? Surely not on a crowded subway. But a recent trip to China demonstrated for me that almost anything is possible.
I was out of town when Zuska posted this piece about trying to feed a family on a food stamp budget, and I’ve been meaning to respond to her suggestion that I might have something to add for a while. The article she builds on is one in which chefs try and come up with food stamp budget menus that are also healthy and appealing.
When BP’s Deep Water Horizon well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, it was difficult to imagine the scope of its impact on the delicate coastlines of Louisiana and adjacent states. Today, the former platform site continues to spill about 5,000 barrels a day – or 210,000 gallons – into the Gulf, with no containment strategy yet in sight.
We are appoaching all the wrong limits at blowout speed. The choices are do nothing (crash) or “degrowth” (planned radical contraction). Speeches from 1st North American Degrowth Conference.
