Media & Communications

Methane in well water from gas fracking

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Many of you may have seen this kind of video, showing the effects of methane in drinking water near some shale gas extraction wells: Before now, I’ve never known what to make of this kind of thing. Is this a very rare, if spectacular occurence, or is it common where shale gas drilling goes on? Now, there is a paper in this weeks PNAS, Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing by Osborn et al, researchers at Duke University. It appears to answer the question, and the answer is not good.

Midday with Dan Rodricks Power Ahead: Oil

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Day two of Midday’s special series Power Ahead focuses on fossil fuels. During the first hour we look at coal with Robert Bryce, author of Power Hungry: The Myths of Green Energy and The Real Fuels of the Future, Bill McKibben, leading environmentalist and award-winning author of The End of Nature and Richard Heinberg, peak-oil expert, author and senior fellow, Post Carbon Institute.

Youth climate movement worthy, needs to include peak oil

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A new youth climate movement lead by Alec Loorz, who is suing the US government on behalf of his generation over lack of action on climate, seeks to raise awareness and move the climate conversation to an actionable tipping point. While his iMatter movement inspires, and shows the best in youth, iMatter hasn’t included climate’s twin issue —peak oil— and it faults their parents and grandparents for causing the problem, rather than recognizing that youth today are the inheritors of the work of energy and environmental giants that came before them.

Midday with Dan Rodricks : Power Ahead Consumption & Sustainability

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Midday begins a week of daily programming devoted to one of the most urgent matters facing people of Maryland, the United States and planet Earth — our energy problems and solutions. The week begins with a look at energy consumption and sustainability. Our guests include Alan Knuckman, Agora Financial’s broad-market analyst, Malcolm Woolf, director, Maryland Energy Administration and Laura Schaefer, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Center for Energy, University of Pittsburgh.

Grace Lee Boggs on Detroit and “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century”

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We discuss the state of the economy in Detroit, “ground zero” for the economic downturn in the United States, with civil rights activist and author, Grace Lee Boggs. “I think it’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t live in Detroit to say you can look at a vacant lot and, instead of seeing devastation, see hope,” says Boggs, “see the opportunity to grow your own food, see an opportunity to give young people a sense of process, that’s very difficult in the city, that the vacant lot represents the possibilities for a cultural revolution.”

What the oil bloom bought us

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Greens are portrayed in the media as profits of doom, as though a fascination with the negative impacts of our lifestyle might be some sort of psychological flaw. My own view is that we are closer to reality than the vast majority of the population, who are trapped in denial about the ecological crisis, but none the less I think it is worth re-evaluating the extraordinary achivements of the 200-year oil bloom.

Millennium Consumption Goals— plus An Update

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I read yesterday that “a Sri Lankan scientist is calling for the drafting of “Millennium Consumption Goals” to [help] rich countries to curb their climate-damaging consumption habits, in the same way the poor have Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to get them out of poverty.” A fantastic idea—but what would these MCGs include?