From Fire to Fermentation: A Review of Michael Pollan’s Cooked
The book, like others Pollan’s written, benefits from his exceptional storytelling.
Dark Age America: The Population Implosion
For millennia to come, the peoples of North America will have to contend with drastically expanded deserts, coastlines that in some regions will be many miles further inland than they are today, and the presence of dead zones where nuclear or chemical wastes in the soil and water make human settlement impossible.
Update on US natural gas, coal, nuclear, renewables
On August 6, I wrote a post called Making Sense of the US Oil Story, in which I looked at US oil. In this post, I would like to look at other sources of US energy.
As the bees go, so goes the world?
It is as simple as this – when the bees lose, we lose, and that is the road we are going down.
Activism and Integrity
Truth be told, my goal here is not to belittle Bill McKibben, nor is it to scold climate activists in particular or activists more generally.
Why does anyone even care about the future?
Some say we humans deeply discount the future–which is just a way of claiming that we care less and less about the effect our actions have on the future, the more distant that future is. But I would say that we don’t discount the future so much as we continuously reimagine it to suit our purposes.
Heading Toward The Sidewalk
Talking about historical change is one thing when the changes under discussion are at some convenient remove in the past or the future. It’s quite another when the changes are already taking place.
Shedding light on a gas patch blackout
When a friend recently asked me how work was going, I told him about an investigative research project that Earthworks was finishing up. He responded with a quote by writer Kurt Vonnegut: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do the maintenance.”
Investing in Nutrient Dense Food: Magnesium
The last nutrient I’ll focus on in this series is magnesium, which, like iron and calcium, is a mineral rather than a vitamin, and it serves a range of purposes in our bodies.
Investing in Nutrient Dense Foods: Calcium
We can get calcium from a range of foods, including dairy products like milk and cheese, deep green leafy vegetables like kale and cabbage, as well as broths made from the bones of animals like cows and chickens.
Review: A History of the Future by James Kunstler
In the category of thrilling fiction about our post-industrial future, James Howard Kunstler’s World Made By Hand novels have no equal.
I’d be happier if I didn’t write this stuff!
For years my father–who is a really great guy–has been telling me that I’d be a happier person if I didn’t write about all the converging threats bearing down on the human race. Turns out he’s right!
