Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
•Greedy Lying Bastards, New Film Pulls No Punches To Expose Climate Denial Machine •Climate Change Denying Congressman to Head Subcommittee on Climate Change •Distribution of Carbon Emissions in the UK: Implications for Domestic Energy Policy •How Many Gigatons of Carbon Dioxide…? •Nations urged to combine environmental and development goals
There are signs the climate movement could be on the verge of a remarkable and surprising victory. If we read the current context correctly, and if the movement can adjust its strategy to capture the opportunity presented, it could usher in the fastest and most dramatic economic transformation in history. This would include the removal of the oil, coal and gas industries from the economy in just a few decades and their replacement with new industries and, for the most part, entirely new companies. It would be the greatest transfer of wealth and power between industries and countries the world has ever seen.
We’re not the first people on the planet ever to experience climate stress. In the overheating, increasingly parched American Southwest, which has been experiencing rising temperatures, spreading drought conditions, and record wildfires, there is an ancient history of staggering mega-droughts, events far worse than the infamous “dust bowl” of the 1930s, the seven-year drought that devastated America’s prairie lands. That may have been “the worst prolonged environmental disaster recorded for the country,” but historically speaking it was a “mere dry spell” compared to some past mega-droughts that lasted &ddquo;centuries to millennia.”
Economist Jeff Rubin and environmentalist David Suzuki might seem an unlikely pairing. But they’ve been touring Canada together, talking about the natural limits to growth from their very different perspectives. This event was staged as part of Calgary’s WordFest.
2010 was a rough year on the Mongolian steppe for the country’s herders. That year, an extremely cold winter struck, known locally as a dzud, wiping out 9 million animals, or 20 percent of the national herd in a country where livestock continues to be central to herders’ livelihoods and play a vital role in the national economy. The freezing temperatures of minus 50 Celsius were the worst in living memory, although the effects of climate change have been eating steadily into the lives of Mongolia’s herdsmen for several years. Along with the degradation of the steppe’s fragile grasslands through overgrazing, and the rapid societal change that comes with globalization, the millennia-old way of life on the steppes is under threat.
For Tad Patzek, Peak Oil – not climate change – poses the greatest risk to human health and survival on Earth. The chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas and co-author with Joseph Tainter of Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma, Patzek does not deny climate change or the notion that the human use of CO2 has helped caused it. It’s just that climate change has already been set in motion, and it will take 80,000 to 100,000 years to reverse it. This is, the Polish-born Patzek says, "for us, an infinite time."
"End of Suburbia" director Greg Greene talks with "Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance and Launch Local Energy Projects" author Greg Pahl about the state of local power efforts in America.
As the earth warms, glaciers and ice sheets are melting and seas are rising. Over the last century, the global average sea level rose by 17 centimeters (7 inches). This century, as waters warm and ice continues to melt, seas are projected to rise nearly 2 meters (6 feet), inundating coastal cities worldwide, such as New York, London, and Cairo. Melting sea ice, ice sheets, and mountain glaciers are a clear sign of our changing climate.
Like many other people, when I first encountered Permaculture I thought it was just about gardening – incorporating fruit, nut trees and other edibles into your landscape, using mulch, and composting. And yes it is true that all these are a part of Permaculture, it is also so much more! Permaculture is an ecological design system that helps to connect all aspects of our lives. From the food we eat, the water we use, or the fuel that keeps us warm, Permaculture can help us obtain the necessities for life in ways that work with the Earth and promote the long term health of the planet.
•Critical Part of Keystone Report Done by Firms with Deep Oil Industry Ties •The spreading slick of blame for the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill •Statoil may abandon US Arctic drilling leases •Peak Oil, The Shale Boom and our Energy Future: Interview with Dave Summers
About five years ago a colleague of mine, Dale Allen Pfeiffer wrote an essay I can no longer locate. At the time, Colony Collapse Disorder was just being diagnosed in bees, and one of the discussed potential causes of the problem was cell phones and cell phone towers. Pfeiffer didn’t, as I remember, take a stand on this question as a cause, but what he did do was interview people and ask “If it was true that cell phones caused CCD, and knowing that we depend on bees for a large portion of our food, would you give up your cell phone to save the bees?” The answer, overwhelmingly, was no.
•Will EDF become the Barbra Streisand of climate protest? •US Generals warn of climate change dangers •Is climate change next for GOP? •Michael Grunwald, Time Magazine •China Carbon Tax May Spur U.S. Climate Debate, CMIA Says •EU lawmakers back suspension of airline carbon payments
