Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Albert Bates An ecosystem is no more nor less than the sum of individual responses of diverse cooperating or competing organisms to stimuli from events in their environment. Diversity is a sign that there is a high number of stimuli and that the system has become dynamic in response. A great many small parts, making separate and nimble adjustments, solve problems better than a few large parts responding ponderously.
The National Intelligence Council has released a report on the expected effects of climate change to the Caribbean region. This 21 page report is entitled Mexico, The Caribbean and Central America: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030: Geopolitical Implications (NIC Conference Report, Jan. 2010). The report is authored by a team of private researchers under the Global Climate Change Research Program contract with the CIA’s Office of the Chief Scientist.
These fish and shellfish are delicious, healthful, and can be eaten with a clean conscience. Still, there’s something missing in my line-up in recent years, and my customers and I miss it terribly: local, wild salmon. Not long ago, Chinook salmon pulled from our cold, clean offshore waters, constituted up to 50 percent of my business. Today: zilch, nothing. That’s because there hasn’t been a commercial salmon season in California and Oregon for the last two years.
Weeds growing up through the cracks in the pavement is a fractal assertion of life revealing itself through the cracks of civilization. My neighborhood is indicative of that, and this year’s Festival of Life in the Cracks (March 10) coincided with a meteorologically beautiful day, one of the first of spring’s blessings of warmth and sunshine.
-World oil demand’s shift toward faster growing and less price-responsive products and regions
-Economists deliver a sturdy smackdown of peak oil demand
-Study Finds that Peak Oil Demand is Decades Away, but Minimizes Effects of Rising Consumer Product Prices
-Forecasts underestimate oil demand, study says
-Moody’s Says U.S. Debt Could Test Triple-A Rating
-Europe and America Wrestle over Tighter Financial Regulation
-Gazing Through The Long Tall Grass
-Berlin and Paris Take Aim at Speculators
-Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System
-Detroit Wants To Save Itself – By Shrinking
-Orange officials sue couple who removed their lawn
-Obama’s Nuclear Blind Spot
-Tory budget ‘walks away’ from renewable energy, environmentalist says
-The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs
-Big Oil Behind Yet Another Biofuels Research Paper
-Harrabin’s Notes: Battle over biofuel strategy
People grasp what their drinking water has to do with them. Overwhelmingly, I think they do not fully grasp what global warming has to do with them – and that’s a rhetorical failure…At the same time that highly effective movements are arranging million person demonstrations in the streets, most of the people who will actually tell their congressfolk whether to vote for change were watching Law and Order SVU.
But lately I’ve been asking myself a different question. What are the best mental patterns of thinking for surviving tough times? There are a variety of ways to look at this issue, and one is looking at who survives when bad things happen in the wilderness, or in dangerous recreational pursuits and why. I’ve taken some of the ideas outlined by Gonzales and added some of my own here.
EROI theory is rooted in the biological principle that in order to survive each species on earth must procure more energy from its food than it expends attaining that food. From this basic principle the importance of energy surplus became evident, as food sources needed to “pay” not only for metabolism but also for reproduction and storage for leaner times. Part 1 of this three part series presents a brief history of the concept of surplus energy and how it has influenced both biological and human evolution.
-Malaysia begins caning women for adultery
-Fred Pearce: overpopulation worries are a potentially racist distraction
-1325 implementation – Where is Secretary-General’s leadership?
