Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The announcement on Thursday that the government is lifting its moratorium on fracking held all the surprise of turkey on the Christmas menu. The decision, which allows the resumption of test drilling by Cuadrilla in Lancashire and opens the way to fracking across the UK, was inevitable following the government’s gas generation U-turn last week…
•Drilling spills reaching Colorado groundwater; state mulls test rules •Shale Shocked: Studies Tie Rise Of Significant Earthquakes In U.S. Midcontinent To Wastewater Injection •Ignore the doom merchants, Britain should get fracking •Shale gas is not a game changer •The fracking dream which is putting Britain’s future at risk
Paul Gilding is calling for a complete reset on the climate debate, saying we will not get a global agreement on climate change and it’s a waste of time to think we ever will.
But unfortunately, the United States is like the most obdurate bully in this—in this room. It is the elephant in the room that we don’t want to talk about. And it is the elephant that refuses to recognize the fact that it is living in a world that is interdependent.
If last week’s energy bill announcement was about building the low carbon power system of the future, this week’s gas strategy and autumn statement felt like a blast from the past.
•Imagining Cities That Can Save The Planet: Alex Steffen Talks About Carbon Zero •Wean transport off fossil fuels, or grind to a halt •Build inter-city cooperation to stave off resource fights – experts •Sustainable cities will be more resilient in extreme weather
"Those of us who have been attending these meetings for the past 20 or more years have felt very frustrated by the slow progress and the lack of an international treaty. Exemplary work by Wackernagle, Rees, Meadows, Daly, Costanza, Rockstrom and others points a direction forward, but it always comes around to some international agreement. What will it take to get that?
Is Superstorm Sandy a game changer for the national conversation about climate disruption? In the wake of the hurricane, activist Bill McKibben and oil industry veteran John Hofmeister face off on the topic of global warming.
What it says on the tin…
The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System takes on the task of interpreting and re-interpreting our capitalist economic system while exposing the degree to which we’ve lost our way within it.
Flood myths are common to human culture. Swollen rivers, tidal storms, and tsunamis make their appearance frequently in literature. But Hurricane Sandy, which has drawn newly etched high-water marks on the buildings of lower Manhattan (and Brooklyn), has shifted the discussion from storytelling to reality.
Rarely does the release of a data-driven report on energy trends trigger front-page headlines around the world. That, however, is exactly what happened on November 12th when the prestigious Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released this year’s edition of its World Energy Outlook.
