Nick Bardsley

Sharing for Survival Chapter 4: Policy Packages

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A viable mechanism to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions, such as Cap and Share, is a necessary part of any coherent action plan to avoid catastrophic climate change, and end fossil fuel dependence. There are many other aspects to the global economic and ecological crisis, though, which have to be dealt with through complementary and synergistic measures. Any element of a coherent package including Cap and Share could, on its own, be counterproductive. This chapter explores some of the main issues that need to be addressed in tandem with capping fossil fuel CO2.

How the Arctic death spiral fuels ‘Wicked backlash on our weather’

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Since the fossil-fuel revolution after World War II, Arctic temperatures have increased at twice the global rate, illustrating a phenomenon called Arctic amplification. Thus, sea ice has melted at an unprecedented rate and is now caught in a vicious cycle known as the ice-albedo feedback: as sea ice retreats, sunshine that would have been reflected into space by the bright white ice is instead absorbed by the ocean, causing waters to warm and melt even more ice.

Fires in the field

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If you want to see the landscape of hell painted prettily on a farmland horizon, watch a field of corn on fire. It is hellish enough, in my view, to see corn fields stretching away in every direction from sea to shining sea with no houses, barns, trees, fences, grazing animals or any other sign of human habitation in sight. But when a curtain of fire is rushing across this land of the free and home of the brave, the effect is quite as terrifying as watching a big slice of the Great Plains suddenly disappear before the onslaught of a dust storm.

Is shale oil production from Bakken headed for a run with “The Red Queen”?

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In this post I present the results from an in depth time series analysis from wells producing crude oil (and small volumes of natural gas) from the Bakken (Bakken, Sanish, Three Forks and Bakken/Three Forks Pools) formation in North Dakota. The analysis uses actual production data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission as of July 2012 from what was found to be a representative selection of wells from operating companies and areas.

Heat and drought ravage U.S. crop prospects—Global stocks suffer

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High temperatures have combined with the worst drought in half a century to wreak havoc on American farms and ranches. Some 80 percent of U.S. farm and pasture land experienced drought. The average temperature across the contiguous United States from January through August 2012 was far higher than in any past year, a full 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the twentieth century average, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The summer of 2012 was the third hottest on record. Only the summers of 2011 and 1936–the latter during the Dust Bowl–were warmer.

Land and resources – Sept 25

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-Land grabbing and food sovereignty in West and Central Africa
-Africa: Land, Water and Resource-Grabbing and Its Impact on Food Security
-Antonio Trejo, Honduras rights lawyer, killed at wedding
-Chinese villagers protest at slow progress over land dispute
-The global need of non-violent struggle around land rights: a path for change?

International Conference on Sustainability, Transition & Culture Change features elusive Daniel Quinn

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This sixth-annual conference begins in the morning on Friday November 16 and continues through Sunday afternoon on November 18. The venue is the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The theme of the conference is Vision, Action, Leadership. Headliners at the conference include Daniel Quinn, Steve Keen, Richard Heinberg, Nicole Foss, Albert Bates, and Stephanie Mills.