Expert warns of Arctic drilling risks

A highly acclaimed Oxford professor who’s considered an expert on energy research has thrown cold water on Norway’s hopes for a new oil era in the Arctic. Dieter Helm doesn’t think oil prices will rise much higher and are more likely to fall, making costly oil investments in the Barents Sea unprofitable. Environmental activists have been at the forefront of […]

The Bomb That Never Detonated

On the 1970s, Paul Ehrlich, overpopulation, and why poverty is mostly caused by bad ideas and lack of virtue, not lack of resources. James V. Schall, S.J. us.fotolia.com/bagotaj I. Back in the early 1970s, in the heyday of unceasing rancor over Humanae Vitae, a great number of books were published that prophesied disaster for the human race. […]

Without a bucket to RCP in

“The only thing holding this global tsunami back is the cold depth of the deep blue sea.“   We are in a crisis of civilization but most people, by and large, have not realized it yet. It is as if we are a prizefighter in the ring with a stronger opponent and we have just […]

Coconut: Depletion of trees raises fear of extinction

Coconut farmers have raised the alarm over the imminent depletion of coconut trees, if urgent steps are not taken by stakeholders to urgently block the identified loopholes. Nigeria currently ranks 18th on the world coconut production country index and produces 265,000 metric tonnes of coconut annually, with Badagry, Lagos State, ranking as number one, leading […]

‘Overwhelmed’ Massachusetts Nuclear Power Plant Spikes with Radiation

The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant has spiked with radiation to near alert levels alarming officials. The already troubled plant located in Cape Cod Bay has spiked local radiation detectors as high as 115 counts per minute (CPM), adding concern to an already ‘overwhelmed’ staff. “Now, a group of Massachusetts politicians, including Governor Charlie Baker, Attorney […]

The Burning Issue: The Energy Transition From Fire to Electricity

Fire is at the root of our climate problems and it is time we put it out, writes Walt Patterson, Associate Fellow at Chatham House. “We need to switch from using fire to using electricity.” Is climate complicated? Yes – except in one key respect. Countless reams of disputed text preceded the Paris Agreement of […]

Fuel removal at Fukushima reactor again faces delay

Work to retrieve spent nuclear fuel in the No. 3 reactor building storage pool of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will again be postponed due to a delay in clearing radioactive debris at the site. TEPCO planned to begin removing 566 spent nuclear fuel assemblies in the storage pool in January 2018. […]

The Coming Water Crisis

Water is life. Water is the new oil. Water is power. Fresh, life-sustaining water is draining away. It’s becoming an increasingly scarce resource across the globe through overuse and pollution. As these issues become more acute, tensions that have already begun will escalate, and this will affect us all. Some say water is the new […]

There is only one culture: bringing back science into the fold of humanism

Yesterday, I was invited to give a talk at a public meeting on the usual themes: climate change, resources, pollution, and the like. This time, a question I received from the audience caused me a small enlightenment that I am describing here as I remember it (h/t Lorenzo Citti for having organized this interesting meeting) […]

Like Giraffes, Reindeer And Polar Bears Are Also Going Extinct

It’s indeed bad times for the wildlife. Recently, reports came out about giraffes, the tallest animal on earth, facing threats to their survival, leaving environmentalists a worried lot. Now, new studies have found that the reindeer population in northern Russia and other parts of the Artic is also declining. Besides, researchers have also warned against […]

Officials Admit Radioactive Fish Off U.S. West Coast Have “Disturbing Fingerprint Of Fukushima”

The entire Pacific Coast of the United States, Canada and Mexico has been contaminated with radioactive particles from Fukushima. And finally, it is being officially acknowledged. This is really happening… It is a stark reminder that the effects from Fukushima radiation continually spilling into the ocean have not been abated. The site continues to leak […]

Thousands of Invisible Oil Spills Are Destroying The Gulf

Hurricane Ivan would not die. After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, it stewed for more than a week in the Caribbean, fluctuating between a Category 3 and 5 storm while battering Jamaica, Cuba, and other vulnerable islands. And as it approached the US Gulf Coast, it stirred up a massive mud slide on the sea […]

Should we be worried about Fukushima radiation?

(Photo: AP) For the first time, seaborne radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster has been detected on the West Coast of the United States. The levels are very low and shouldn’t harm people eating fish from the West Coast or swimming in the ocean, according to Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  “To put […]

Giraffes May Become Extinct

Giraffes are now at risk of extinction as their numbers reportedly dropped by 40 percent in the last 30 years. With all the attention on global warming and climate change, many were surprised to find giraffes slowly disappearing. Scientists believe that if their population declines further, giraffes will be vulnerable to extinction. Known for their […]

Looking to the Future of Our Humans-First World

The term Anthropocene is geological shorthand for a world of carbon-induced climate havoc — i.e., the world in which we now live, a world where, given the frightening pace of global warming, all bets are off. (By last summer, the hottest on record, mass coral bleaching was racing through the world’s oceans, with more than […]

Moms Outraged at Trump’s Pick to Head EPA

By Dominique Browning The nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is unprecedented. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, it is a travesty—because Pruitt has vigorously used his office to derail and obstruct clean air safeguards that are broadly supported by Americans in red and […]

Let us save every drop of water

Water conservation means using our water wisely and caring for it properly. Since each of us depends on water for life, it is our responsibility to learn more about water conservation and how we can help keep our water pure and safe for generations to come. Since we all enjoy the benefits of having pure, clean water, we must […]

Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening

At a time when a huge pulse of uncertainty has been injected into the global project to stop the planet’s warming, scientists have just raised the stakes even further. In a massive new study published Wednesday in the influential journal Nature, no less than 50 authors from around the world document a so-called climate system “feedback” […]

End Games Part I: There Aren’t Always Enough Fish in the Sea

The board game “Fleet” (Eagle-Gryphon Games) is a simple engine-building game with auction mechanics.  Each player starts with limited financial resources that are then used to generate capacity for more resources by purchasing fishing licenses and hiring captains.  The game ends when there are either no more fishing licenses to distribute or no more tokens […]

Peak Oil & System Justification: Damned Environmentalists

  The tendency to justify the system may interfere with a clear evaluation of environmentally damaging aspects of the socioeconomic status quo and prevent a person from becoming dissatisfied and from taking action to correct environmental problems or stop destructive cycles     DEALING WITH FEAR & UNCERTAINTY     Jost et al. (2007) suggest […]

Do pipeline economics add up?

There are three arguments over the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline and they all start with the letter “e” — environmental, eminent domain and economic. The first two seem pretty easy to understand. Natural gas is cleaner than coal. Or it’s dirtier than coal, when you factor in the fracking that brings it to the surface. Likewise, […]

Fukushima decommissioning costs to soar

The combined costs of paying compensation for the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the decommissioning of the plant’s reactors may be double the initial estimate, rising to more than 20 trillion yen ($176 billion), according to estimates by the country’s industry ministry. At the end of 2013, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry calculated the cost at 11 trillion […]

“No Fracking Anywhere” Doesn’t Help the Earth; It Hurts It!

…. Ill-informed fractivists shouting “No Fracking Anywhere” or “Keep It in the Ground” do nothing to help the Earth; rather, their stupid slogans only hurt it. Today, Ryedale Against Fracking and others are protesting in London to support the Friends of the Earth case against North Yorkshire County Council’s approval of the Third Energy project […]

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused widespread land erosion in Louisiana

Oil on the shores of Bay Jimmy, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, in 2010.Bruce A. Davis, Department of Homeland Security Marnie Winter remembers seeing the oil spread through the waters of Barataria Bay in southeastern Louisiana. It was 2010, just a few weeks after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico […]

Land is scarce. Or just a civilization myth!

You can Google this one. Just the way I did. Keywords ‘World Population’. The world population as of October 2016 is estimated at 7.4 billion. And the UN estimates it will further increase to 11.2 billion by the year 2100. This one is on Google as well. Total Earth’s land mass is 36.8 billion acres. […]

Fukushima reactor cooling system stops following quake & tsunami

The cooling system of the third reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has stopped circulating water following a powerful 7.3 offshore earthquake. TEPCO said it managed to restart the system some 90 minutes after the failure. LIVE UPDATES: 7.3 Fukushima quake & tsunami The cooling system servicing the Unit 3 spent fuel pool was […]

Parts of China’s water supply are getting worse

China is making progress in battling the damaging smog that can shroud its big cities, but in many areas – from parts of the giant Yangtze river to the coalfields of Inner Mongolia – its water pollution is getting worse. Despite commitments to crack down on polluters, the quality of water in rivers, lakes and […]

Trump: on the way to “Scenario 3

Margarita Mediavilla and her coworkers have performed extensive simulations of the future using system dynamics models, (see here). One of their scenarios, called “Scenario 3,” is based on the hypothesis of a return to national competition, protectionism, deglobalization, and the like. In comparison to other scenarios, Scenario 3 is the least expensive in terms of […]

Gulf War Fires That Turned Kuwait’s Oil Fields into Hell

The following excerpt is from Sebastião Salgado’s impending book “Kuwait: A Desert on Fire” (out November 23 via Taschen) in which the Brazilian photographer explains what inspired him to capture the oil fires set ablaze by Iraqi soldiers in 1991, as well as why he decided to publish those images a quarter-century later. All photos […]

Earth is Angry for a Reason

November is here, which means winter is coming, and so is our demise. Why are we surprised when natural disasters occur? The Earth is simply trying to fight back against the virus we call “humanity.” The overpopulation of the world and carelessness of its inhabitants have caused environmental issues that can’t be ignored. While there is […]

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