The problem with mining

Table courtesy of Steven Rocco. The image above is one of the best illustrations of the real problem we have with mining. As it was said already with the 1972 study “The Limits to Growth” we are NOT running out of anything. What we are running out of is the resources needed for mining, facing […]

TransCanada natural gas pipeline explodes near Winnipeg

A natural gas pipeline operated by TransCanada exploded and caught fire in a rural part of western Canadan early on Saturday, putting fresh focus on the firm’s safety record ahead of a crucial White House decision over a controversial cross-border project. The explosion happened near Otterburne, Manitoba, about 15 miles south of the provincial capital, […]

Can Geoengineering Save the Planet?

Two Climate Scientists Debate Pros and Cons of Climate Engineering The concept of geoengineering, whereby humans artificially moderate the Earth’s climate, is not the sexiest sounding topic, but a small group of scientists say it might be able to prevent catastrophic global warming. In a fast-flowing and sometimes heated head-to-head climate professors David Keith and […]

Bill Gates Asks Fellow Billionaires to Help Reduce World’s Population

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have invested several billions of dollars into vaccine initiatives to fight the polio virus. Bill Gates is encouraging fellow billionaires to do the same. Gates is concerned about Nigeria and Pakistan because “local conspiracy theories have undermined inoculation drives.” Gates said: “The truth is the vaccine is to […]

Natural Gas and Albacore: What Tuna Says About the Future of Mozambique

Fishermen in Mozambique. Image: Flickr. A 20-year peace accord between Mozambique’s two major political parties was brought to an abrupt end last fall. A series of violent skirmishes between FRELIMO and RENAMO resulted in at least 10 deaths, dozens injured, and fears that the country might relapse into the kind of political violence seen during […]

New leak found in Fukushima plant’s wrecked No. 3 building

A new water leak, possibly from the effort to cool a crippled reactor, has been detected on the first floor of a reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Jan. 18. TEPCO said workers discovered by a video feed that water was leaking on the first floor […]

Recharting Collapseniks

“Only a few are willing to risk arrest for the sake of an utopian outcome. Ted ‘The Unabomber’ Kaczynski obviously occupies the upper right corner. Starhawk, Bill McKibben and David Graeber are not lighting any fuses but at least have what they think are better plans, or maybe just better processes.” Our post of January […]

Japanese rivers unleash ‘perennial supply’ of radiation into Pacific Ocean

A study published in the Elsevier journal Anthropocene late last year has revealed that many of the rivers, streams and other waterways located throughout coastal Japan have inadvertently become delivery systems for transporting radioactive waste directly from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility into the Pacific Ocean. Researchers from both France and Japan discovered […]

California Water Crisis May Head off Potential Oil Boom

Drilling for oil in California dates back to the late 19th Century, allowing it to become the country’s top producer by the beginning of the 20th. One hundred years later, California still ranks third, but its aging fields have been in decline for decades. Hydraulic fracturing requires a lot of water, and as California’s water […]

Thousands of Gas Leaks Discovered Under Streets

“Researchers from Duke revealed today that they had discovered nearly 5,900 gas leaks under the streets of Washington DC, including 12 that posed a serious risk of explosion. And it’s not just Washington: a gas industry whistleblower who is part of the team showed this was happening in cities all over America.” New research today […]

Peak Oil Is Irrelevant

CC BY 2.0 Wikipedia Peak oil has been predicted since the 1950s to occur by various near-future dates, originally as early as 1965. The prediction that US oil production would peak in the 1970s was, in fact, accurate, but new discoveries – including North American sources involving fracking and tar sands – keep pushing the […]

Remember the Future?

The population bomb was ticking, and apocalypse was next in line .  .  .   Two households, both alike in dignity,  sierra club / ballantine books In fair Verona where we lay our scene.  —Romeo and Juliet  The Ehrlichs and Simons, like the Montagues and Capulets, were remarkably similar families: both Jewish, both two generations off the […]

US Army colonel: world is sleepwalking to a global energy crisis

Senior figures from industry, military and politics explore risks of financial chaos, oil depletion and climate catastrophe A conference sponsored by a US military official convened experts in Washington DC and London warning that continued dependence on fossil fuels puts the world at risk of an unprecedented energy crunch that could inflame financial crisis and […]

Radio Ecoshock: The Awful Truth About Fracking

True stories from Walter Brasch, author of”Fracking Pennsylvania”. An update from Friends of Earth UK campaigner Helen Rimmer as government makes new “dash for (fracked) gas”. With clips from American biologist/activist Sandra Steingraber. Don’t buy into fracking! Radio Ecoshock 140108 FUKUSHIMA FRAUDSTERS Just before we get to the main theme of this program, I want […]

Albert Bates: Charting Collapseniks

“Rather than spurning financial system terrorists, Holmgren urges activists to become “terra-ists”; to directly bring down the system by thousands of acts of economic disobedience.“ A ferment in the environmental movement, brewing for many years, has now bubbled up into the blogosphere. We are dipping our ladle in here to take a little taste of […]

The Challenges Presented By Global Population Growth

As we embark on a new year, it’s important to keep the really big elements of our global predicament squarely in mind. To that end, we’re surfacing this excellent discussion on population growth that Chris recorded in 2012 with Bill Ryerson of the Population Institute At the heart of the resource depletion story that we […]

Gaia: you ain’t seen nothing yet

The magnificent lady who gathers up the divine powers of heaven and earth and rivals great An, is mightiest among the great gods. She makes their verdicts final (from the electronic text corpus of Sumerian Literature) A review of the book by Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson “Revolutions that made the earth” (Oxford 2011) The […]

The 4 Big Dangers of Fracking

By now you’ve likely heard that the U.S. is expected to overtake Russia this year as the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas. The surge in production comes from a drilling boom enabled by using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, along with, in many places, horizontal drilling. These technologies have made previously inaccessible pockets of […]

Tepco “Explains” Plumes Of Smoke Above Exploded Fukushima Reactor 3

In the past two weeks there was significant speculation that the Fukushima catastrophe was once again rapidly escalating after plumes of mysterious smoke were detected above the destroyed Reactor 3 – the one with a mixed MOX and uranium fuel core. RT described it as follows: Fresh plumes of most probably radioactive steam have been […]

Green Capitalism: Why it can’t work

Daniel Tanuro Green Capitalism: Why it can’t work translated by Jane Ennis Merlin Press, in association with Resistance Books and the International Institute for Research and Education ISBN 978-0-85036-646-4 London, 2013 reviewed by Ian Angus Roughly speaking, there are four schools of thought about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert climate catastrophe. The […]

People have overfilled world

Our population continues to grow: From 1950 to 2013 the United States grew from 152 to 316 million and the world from 2.5 to 7.2 billion; United Nations projections suggest 9.6 billion by 2050. But ecological footprint analysis indicates we already use 1.5 world’s worth of resources to live, and would use 5.4 world’s worth […]

Slowing Population Growth Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth

What do you think are the biggest solvable problems facing humanity? Justice and inequality? Violence and war? Climate change and pollution? Today we’re going to focus on one that I believe underlies all of those: Population. The last book from today’s guest, Alan Weisman, was thought-provoking, award-winning, and best-selling. The World Without Us, which was […]

Dead Sea Creatures Cover 98% of Ocean Floor Off California Coast; Up From 1% Before Fukushima

The Pacific Ocean appears to be dying, according to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever […]

U.S. EPA unlikely to step up fracking enforcement

Federal regulators are unlikely to step up enforcement of potential water contamination cases linked to natural gas drilling – despite new concerns about water safety – given a lack of political will and limited resources to pursue such cases, analysts said. A report quietly made public on Christmas Eve by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s […]

Study Shows Fracking Is Bad for Babies

The energy industry has long insisted that hydraulic fracking — the practice of fracturing rock to extract gas and oil deep beneath the earth’s surface — is safe for people who live nearby. New research suggests this is not true for some of the most vulnerable humans: newborn infants. In a study presented today at […]

Fukushima Radiation Hits San Francisco

This shocking video was taken December 23rd 2013 with a quality Geiger Counter at Pacifica State Beach (Surfers Beach), California. Location: http://bit.ly/1g26Zjm Geiger Counter used: http://www.geigercounters.com/Inspector.htm Background radiation is 30 CPM. Near the ocean it’s 150 CPM. The fine mist coming from the ocean waves seems to be what makes the Geiger Counter jump. Fukushima […]

The deadly secret behind the Lac-Mégantic inferno

Emergency crews ran for cover when they heard the noise, as they fought blasts of burning oil during the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. The kettle-boil scream meant one thing: Oil vapours were shooting out of a derailed tank car and another fireball was about to rip from the broken train. It wasn’t until four days after […]

World Population, 2013 – 2050

It’s interesting to look at some long-term world trends at the end of 2013. The graphs appear more normalized, for instance with the population growth rate above. Countries like Nigeria (see population chart below) are unfortunate exceptions. How will the world really look like in 2050? Trends are extrapolations from current and past data, enhanced […]

Pollution Threatens China’s Food Security

A Reuters report this week noted that nearly 3.33 million hectares (eight million acres) of Chinese farmland are too polluted to grow crops. The article, which was re-posted by the state-run China Daily news site, quoted Wang Shiyuan, China’s vice minister of land and resources. Wang says that the government is determined to address the […]

Mexican Communities On Guard Against Thirst for Oil

The Terra 123 oil and gas well in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco was in flames since late October, just 1.5 km from a community of 1,500 Oxiacaque indigenous villagers, who were never evacuated. The gas leak, which Pemex only managed to get under control on Dec. 21, caused irreversible damage, said Hugo Ireta, […]

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