Rob Hopkins

How the BP oil spill is affecting New Orleans schools

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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.

Deconstructing Dinner: Crack down on backyard and farm fresh eggs

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Over the past month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (the CFIA) has embarked on a concentrated effort in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, threatening area businesses with fines unless they remove their ungraded farm-fresh eggs from store shelves. Close to a dozen businesses that Deconstructing Dinner is aware of have received such a visit. This episode hears from a number of those businesses including comments on the issue from the BC Egg Marketing Board, the CFIA and the regional health authority Interior Health.

No more nuggets: Berkeley schools serve Epic Chicken

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My instructions, simple enough, were spelled out in permanent black marker on the cover of a brown pizza delivery box: Lay six chicken breasts down on one side of a parchment-covered baking sheet pan, lay four across, then fill all the spaces in between…If all went well, the final product, roasted teriyaki chicken, would be ready three days hence, to be served as lunch to some 3,000 children in all 16 of the public schools in Berkeley, California.

Something I bet hardly anyone else knows

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Okay, so I sound like a megalomaniac. But I’m not bragging. The bit of knowledge I’m referring to is something very few people need to know which is why you probably don’t. But just in case you ever happen to start a new woodlot from scratch, the following experience might come in handy.

Replacing coal with green jobs in Navajo Nation

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As a small girl, Enei Begaye knew to be quiet when visiting friends’ houses. Nearly everyone in the 4,900-person town of Kayenta, Arizona, part of the Navajo Nation, worked in the area’s coal mines, Black Mesa and Kayenta, which operated twenty-four hours a day. Begaye and her friends would play quietly so they wouldn’t disturb sleeping elders back from the night shift.

Getting intimate with my weeds

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I plant weeds sometimes. I just feel I should admit this upfront, and come out with it and accept your outrage. You see, my property isn’t exactly untouched – it was a sod farm at one point (although most of the actual sod harvesting was done across the road on a field that is not mine), which means that for about decade from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, people poured incredibly toxic chemicals on the ground to keep the grass uniform and then dug up the topsoil and sold it rich people who couldn’t wait long enough for grass to grow.

It’s worse than you think: plotting global hydrocarbon collapse

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More than 90 per cent of the world’s energy comes from non-renewable sources – and its decline can be projected on a Hubbert bell chart. It’s just that we are more familiar with the concept of peak oil. After all, oil is the world’s largest source of energy, and the size and immediacy of the problem tends to overshadow debate on the remaining energy sources. But Hubbert’s model proves versatile, as the exploitation of any non-renewable resource – from oil to uranium – follows similar patterns.