Train Derails In Lynchburg, Massive Fire Erupts, “Flames Stories High”

  In what can only be explained as a massive oil pipeline derailment, because trains are obviously so much safer when transporting flammable commodities, moments ago another train derailed in Lynchburg, Virginia with numerous railcars falling in the river, and a massive fire erupting with flames that are “storeys high” according to ABC13. And moments […]

Tech Talk – of oil, water and the age of Stone

There seems to be an assumed correlation between those who have some concerns over the accuracy of the theories of climate change (shall we call them the doubters for today’s discussion) and those who believe that there is a plentiful amount of fossil fuel available that will see us properly provided for well into the […]

Confronting China’s water insecurity

Among the numerous challenges China faces in its quest to become a great power, the biggest, perhaps, is mounting water insecurity. China has 20 per cent of the world’s population but only 7 per cent of the world’s fresh water. To make matters worse, the country’s scarce water resources are unevenly distributed between the south […]

Report from Fukushima: lots of cleanup to do, not enough workers to do it

The sudden arrival of a battered Toyota and its three occupants at our place last week underscores the problems Japanese construction steel producers face. I’m back from a quick trip home. It’s in a once pristine corner of rural Fukushima, just outside the 20km exclusion zone around the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant. The back roads […]

They’ve Found the Missing Fukushima Nuclear Cores … Scattered All Over Japan

We reported in May 2011 that authorities knew – within days or weeks – that all 3 active Fukushima nuclear reactors had melted down, but covered up that fact for months. The next month, we reported that Fukushima’s reactors had actually suffered something much worse: nuclear melt-throughs, where the nuclear fuel melted through the containment […]

Powerful solar flare triggers temporary communications blackout

The sun erupted with a massive solar flare late Thursday (April 24), triggering a temporary communications blackout on some parts of Earth. The powerful flare peaked at 8:27 p.m. EDT Thursday (0027 April 25 GMT), and ranked as an X1.3-class solar storm, one of the strongest types of flares the sun can experience, according to […]

North Dakota Finds More Radioactive Oil Waste

North Dakota confirmed Thursday the discovery of a new radioactive dump of waste from oil drilling, and separately a company hired to clean up waste found in February at another location said it removed double the amount of radioactive material originally estimated to be there. The Canadian company hired to clean up the largest dump […]

What Happens When Oil Spills in the Arctic?

As sea ice melts and the oil industry prepares to exploit the Arctic’s vast resources, the United States faces big gaps in its preparedness for an oil spill in the region, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Research Council (NRC). The 183-page report marks the first time in more than ten years […]

Land Optimization Helps World’s Population

Smog and pollution is a huge problem in modern environments. The rich world is better off than most considering the legal restrictions on pollutants, but there are plenty of problems in other parts of the world (such as Asia). Many of these problems stem from poor use of land and it can have drastic effects […]

Tech Talk – is coal that dirty?

So when was the last time, reading an article about the coal industry, that you saw a photograph of the land after the mine has closed, and the site reclaimed? Or, in talking about an oil or gas rig, how many times do you see the relatively small footprint at the site, once the rigs […]

When resources run out — averting the apocalypse

In 1944, the United States Coast Guard released a herd of reindeer on St. Matthew Island off the coast of Alaska so top naval personnel could hunt them for recreation. The reindeer population grew exponentially. From the 29 creatures initially released during World War II, the island’s reindeer population reached 6,000 by 1963. By that […]

Why Degrowth?

Human and ecological economist Bill Rees recorded in April at the Vancouver Degrowth Event on why degrowth is the only realistic path to sustainability. Watch the Q&A for this event

Is population growth really a bad thing?

The debate around population growth and its risks has raged for over two centuries. Economist Thomas Malthus was the first to predict that rapid population growth during the Industrial Revolution would bring starvation and death to his native England due to dwindling food resources. History proved him wrong, but Malthus’ argument is still very much […]

Be Thankful On Earth Day For Oil & Gas

Today is Earth Day, the annual celebration of Mother Earth and all she provides to us. So I just wanted to spend a few moments and words here urging you all to take time out of your busy days to thank Mother Earth for the following: Thank Mother Earth for giving us the natural gas that […]

The World’s Most Toxic Money Pit

The Kashagan oil field, located fifty miles offshore in western Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea, takes its name from a 19th century poet and from the Kazakh word meaning “skittish” and “elusive.” That’s one understated way to describe the oil that some of the world’s biggest companies are hoping to suck out of the Earth. In thirteen years, they’ve spent $50 billion, building islands and pipelines and […]

Those Fracking Lies

Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future by Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute, 2013) is about the economics of fracking. Also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking refers to using pressurized water and chemicals to release oil or natural gas trapped in underground rock formations. Heinberg’s new book describes the behind-the-scenes role of […]

Deepwater Horizon oil spill timeline, updated from April 2010 through 2014

The following is a detailed timeline of the events regarding the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil leak through the most recent government actions and court developments. It was compiled by multiple staff members of Alabama Media Group. April 20, 2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig kills 11 workers. Oil begins gushing into […]

Out of control: Fukushima manager admits to ‘embarrassing failure’

The manager of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant has admitted not having full control of the facility. Contrary to the statements of the Japanese PM, TEPCO’s Akira Ono said attempts to plug the leaks of radioactive water had failed. Image: Fukushima Plant (Wiki Commons). “It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are certain parts of […]

North Dakota oil boom keeps getting the wrong kind of attention

Despite already dealing with a slew of issues ranging from a housing shortage to an increasing crime rate, North Dakota officials now have another problem grabbing headlines: illegal dumping. On May 11, several news outlets reported that 200 hundreds bags of radioactive material were found in an abandoned building in Noonan, a small northwest town […]

The Case Against Sustainability

Do you recycle? Cool, me too. Do you turn off your lights when you leave the room? Good idea. Do you only buy produce that’s in season? Nice! Way to support your local farmer. Are you worried about the future of the planet? Politically active in some way around conservation of resources or green energy? […]

China’s soil: How polluted is it?

A nationwide investigation has shown that as much as 16 percent of China’s soil contains higher-than-permitted levels of pollution, the environment ministry said on Thursday. China is desperate to tackle the impact of rapid industrialization and urbanization on its food supplies, with the aim of maintaining self-sufficiency and reducing its dependence on grain imports amid […]

Is Natural Gas No Better than Coal?

A new study by scientists from Purdue and Cornell suggests that the methane emissions from shale gas could be much higher than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at fugitive methane emissions in Pennsylvania by flying an airplane over drilling sites and collecting samples. What they […]

Fukushima Basements Mistakenly Flooded with 200 Tons of Radioactive Water

A pump at Japan’s battered Fukushima power plant has mistakenly flooded its basements with highly contaminated cooling-tank water. But the latest mishap follows a far more worrying discovery about one last year’s leak. About 200 tons of water ended up flooding the basements beneath the complex, although the water didn’t have a pathway to reach […]

To the 34% of American Adults Who Are “Worried a Great Deal” about “Global Warming”

Preface:  A recent Gallup poll showed that 34% of American adults worried “a great deal” about “global warming”.  This essay is written for that 34%. Many well-intentioned people are desperately trying to stop climate change … And yet they are proposing things that will put more C02 and methane into the air and otherwise do […]

Why Controlling the World’s Population Might Not Be About Numbers After All

In a world with limited resources, we have to conserve what we have and reduce the number of people on the planet—at least, that’s what most of us believe. But is this true? That’s the provocative question raised by the new documentary Misconception. The film, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, […]

Peak Soil: Are We Taking More Than the Earth Can Give?

There is a tendency for humans to perceive ill occurrences as unconnected events, rather as the Biblical plagues of Egypt: water into blood, frogs, lice, wild animals or flies, deceased livestock, boils, storms of fire, locusts, darkness and death of the firstborn. Scientists now believe that these events really happened, but they were in fact […]

Japan Fukushima Radiation Reaching West Coast

  Concerns are being raised about the plumes of radiation released from the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor during the tsunami that rocked the area in 2011. The radiation from Fukushima is floating through the Pacific Ocean from Japan and beginning to reach the west coast of America. Ken Buesseler, a research […]

China oil leak poisons water for millions

An oil pipe leak caused excessive levels of the toxic chemical benzene in a major Chinese city’s water supply, prompting warnings against drinking from the tap and sending residents to queue up to buy bottled water. The scare, which has affected more than 2.4 million people in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, has once again […]

Oil Limits and Climate Change – How They Fit Together

We hear a lot about climate change, especially now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently published another report. At the same time, oil is reaching limits, and this has an effect as well. How do the two issues fit together? In simplest terms, what the situation means to me is that […]

Up for Grabs: Land and Food in a Hungry World

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, warned that battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to ten years as a result of climate change.  As he was talking of the risks of climate change, the UN announced that food prices had risen to their highest in almost a […]

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