Money For Nothing and Climate Change for Free
One of the main stumbling blocks at Copenhagen is the US’s insistence on outside verification of carbon reducation claims. China doesn’t want this verification, but the US is right to insist on it....
View ArticleA Republican Couldn’t Do This
Just like it took Nixon to go to China, it takes Obama to pass Republican policies: The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf...
View ArticleClimate Change: A fighting retreat
I don’t usually write about climate change, because as dire as my views are on economics, they’re even more dire on global warming. As I understand the science it’s already too late—we’re going to get...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Global Warming: A localized pause and then the end of our civilization
Mean continetal temp 95-10 Let’s talk a bit more about global warming and climate change. The majority of the American population now thinks that global warming probably doesn’t exist. Part of that...
View ArticleNo, The Feds don’t want the public to know the extent of the gusher
Seriously, Chris, I know you know better. The Feds are not making sure independent scientists and media can’t measure the oil gusher by mistake. Obama wants to downplay how bad this disaster is. If...
View ArticleThe Gulf Oil Spill Shows What America Has Become
Peter Daou wants to know if this is the best the US can do (h/t Digby): A calamity is unfolding before our eyes – the greatest oil spill in history – and America’s response is little more than a big...
View ArticleGulf Dispersants Still Making People Sick
The Obama administration and BP were warned, but they kept using Corexit (h/t: T-Bear): “I was with my friend Albert, and we were both slammed with exposure,” Matsler explained of his experience on...
View ArticleCarl Safina’s “View From Lazy Point”: Expanding the circle of compassion ever...
There is a life lived within the rhythm of the seasons and the embrace of the land. A life where the cry of the chickadee announces a new season, a world where the return of salmon, silver in the...
View ArticleNo Free Lunch
I haven’t had much to say about the Japanese Tsunami and the nuclear mess there, but here’s the short and to the point. First: the reactors in question were not properly built and tested. It is very...
View ArticleThe Cassandra Complex
The prophet Cassandra was blessed with the ability to foretell the future: but cursed that no one would believe her. Except that this is the way that prophecy works, if people believe a dire prophecy,...
View Article44 Explicit Points on Creating a Better World
1) Ideology is key. If you like (or were horrified by) my Baseline Predictions post, understand that the next two posts on ideology were about the solution. Our decisions about what to do are...
View ArticleThe Role of Violence and Coercion in Saving the World
It will be impossible to save the world from climate change without coercion. The problem of climate change is a problem of common sinks and limited resources: the atmosphere can only absorb so much...
View ArticleThe Ongoing Wildlife Holocaust
We are in immense amounts of trouble: The world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 per cent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought, the...
View ArticleHow To Stop Deliberate Fouling of Aquifers by Frackers
Yup: Industry illegally injected about 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater into central California drinking-water and farm-irrigation aquifers, the state found after the US Environmental...
View ArticleAre you going to be thirsty or hungry in the future?
As I’ve warned before, aquifers are being massively depleted, and it’s happening in places that grow food. California, which is in drought, is now draining its aquifers especially fast. Note also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The complete inability to manage obvious problems: California Drought Edition
So, California has about a year’s worth of water supplies, and groundwater is being depleted so fast wells are going dry. This problem has been coming for years. There should have been rationing, at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We know what our problems are and we do nothing or make them worse
Vasnetov’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse I’m cranky today. A friend asked me about California’s water problems, and I said: “We’ve known for years, and we’ve done essentially nothing.” The problem...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Circles of Belonging
I’ve recently been reading about some Hollywood folks who are very concerned with how women are treated. One of them, the director Lexi Alexander, tweeted the following: A crew guy just said that he...
View ArticleOil=Water=Food
One point which can’t be made enough about unconventional oil production is that it uses a TON of water. Fracking, tar sands, shale all require water to work and a lot of it. So even if it’s true that...
View ArticleTesla’s Home Battery System Is Not the Best Solution
Why? Because it’s a lithium battery. The advantage of lithium batteries is that they’re relatively small. The disadvantage is that they’re lithium. Salt water batteries, though larger, are generally a...
View Article