John Michael Greer: The Pleasures of Extinction

One of the wry pleasures that’s repeatedly come my way since the beginning of this blog seven years ago is that of watching a good many of my predictions come true in short order. Now it’s true that I’ve also made a certain number of failed predictions over that time.  Back in 2007 and 2008, […]

Orlov: Look for loopholes to avoid extinction

A tiny blip in the news media registered the fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide has exceeded four hundred parts per million for the first time in the history of the human species, with no sign of slowing down. Among other things, it means that ocean levels will be going up by at least 30 feet, […]

Why are birthrates falling around the world? Blame television

“I find it extraordinary that the massive global drop in human fertility has been so little noticed by the media,” writes Stanford geographer Martin Lewis, “escaping the attention of even highly educated Americans.” Lewis has a fascinating, chart-heavy essay over at the Breakthrough Institute pointing out that birthrates are dropping rapidly almost everywhere around the […]

Requiem for 400

“The scope and speed of the climate changes, our lack of information about coupled systems, and our limited ability to influence human behavior all make it probable that more large surprises lie ahead.” We take no relish nor revel in saying we told you so. We will be long dead before the really worst of […]

Banks Now Asking for Data on Fracking Risks

Rich Liroff reports in his blog on GreenBiz.com that European banks want more hard data on risks from frackers. According to Rich, some of the world’s largest banks, as part of the Climate Principles for the Finance Sector, wish to see quantitative data on key performance indicators in 16 areas of corporate performance. The data are being […]

Canada Betting On Large-Scale Carbon Capture

Canada is betting that carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that is fairly well understood but unproven at the scale needed to significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions, can reduce the environmental footprint associated with making fuel from oil sands—its fastest-growing source of greenhouse-gas emissions. (See “Alberta’s Oil Sands Heat Up.”) If things go as […]

Radioactive water was released into Lake Michigan before Palisades nuclear plant shutdown Sunday

Before Sunday’s shutdown of Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, about 79 gallons of diluted radioactive water were released into Lake Michigan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday, May 6. But by the time the water reached the lake, the level of radioactivity had been diluted to the point where it did not represent a health or […]

Jeremy Grantham Has Bad News and Good News

Jeremy Grantham, the famed investor and co-founder of GMO, one of the world’s most successful investments firms, has both bad news and good news for us. The bad news, briefly stated, is that we are on the road to economic and ecological ruin. Grantham’s good news, if I can characterize it, is that there may […]

Boom in Jellyfish: Overfishing Called Into Question

Will we soon be forced to eat jellyfish? Since the beginning of the 2000s, these gelatinous creatures have invaded many of the world’s seas, like the Japan Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, etc. Is it a cyclic phenomenon, caused by changes in marine currents or even global warming? Until now, the causes remained […]

Population and Ecology

World  governments, the public, and the UN now recognize that the human population number matters in achieving ecological sustainability for human communities. For forty years, since the first United Nations environment meeting in Stockholm in 1972, environmentalists have debated whether we should include human population growth among the urgent challenges of  human consumption, industrial toxins, […]

Weather radicalization worsening, global food supply at increased risk of regional failures

If you live in the USA, you’re probably experiencing some of the effects of a cold weather front and multi-state blizzard that’s sweeping across much of North America. While the weather felt like summer just a few days ago, suddenly much of the upper Midwest is blanketed in snow and reeling from freezing temperatures. As […]

Six Billion, or Fifteen Billion People

A Discussion With Environmental Scientist Leon Kolankiewicz Leon Kolankiewicz at New Mexico’s Rio Grande Bosque © Kathy Kolankiewicz Leon Kolankiewicz is an environmental scientist, wildlife ecologist, and natural resources planner whose career spans almost 30 years, multiple states, and three countries, having worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska […]

Future looks crowded, impoverished

Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834), an English Clergyman, predicted that increasing population would be limited by famine and disease. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University professor, predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and ’80s because of increasing population. Both prophecies failed because of improvements in agricultural productivity. I’ve just read five interesting books: “Limits […]

Gulf oil spill is sickening fish vital to seafood industry

The seafood is safe to eat and the Gulf of Mexico tourism industry is recovering three years after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the waters off Louisiana. But despite that BP-sponsored commercial message, something appears to be amiss at the bottom of the Gulf’s […]

Jeremy Grantham On The Fall Of Civilizations (And Our Last Best Hope)

In a slight digression from the usual pure market-based discussions of Jeremy Grantham’s perspectives, the fund manager addresses what is potentially and even more critical factor for the markets. As he writes, we are in a race for our lives, as our global economy, reckless in its use of all resources and natural systems, shows […]

Is Sustainability Still Possible?

On Tuesday, April 16, the Worldwatch Institute held its seventeenth annual State of the World Symposium to launch its latest book, State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? As contributors to the book, Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan were invited to attend the event, where Pat spoke on one of several panels. The […]

Who’s In Charge Here? At U.S. Oil Spills, It’s Whoever Made the Mess

When ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline burst last month, filling the streets and front lawns of small-town Mayflower, Arkansas, with pools of heavy crude oil, the company followed what has by now become standard protocol: attend to the spill and clamp down on the media. It’s a scenario all too familiar to those journalists who covered 2010’s […]

3,000 Years of Abusing Earth on a Global Scale

Wherever you go on this blue, green and white globe of ours, odds are some person has been there before you—and left a mark. That’s because the hunting, farming or burning practices of our most distant ancestors have shaped most land areas on the planet, argues an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and ecologists in Proceedings […]

Tar Sands Is Worse Than You Can Imagine: Incredible Images You Have to See

Post Carbon Institute and Alternet have partnered to shed a powerful light on the true costs of our addiction to fossil fuels, starting with the Alberta tar sands .  Every powerful photo is linked to three meaningful actions that you can take right now to fight back against tar sands mining. We need your help getting the word out; […]

Practice of workers covering-up Gulf oil spills widespread

It was something of an eye-opener when an oil company pleaded guilty to two environmental crimes in January. Not because the pollution reported was anything on the scale of the BP spill, but because of the brazen cover-up involved. The company, Houston-based W&T Offshore, admitted its workers had used coffee filters in October 2009 to […]

No lonely planet

Malthusians can breathe a sigh of relief: If current trends hold, human beings won’t fulfill doomsday predictions by making like rabbits after all. Thanks to the success of incessant fear-mongering, the world’s population is expected to peak soon and then begin a long slide downward. That’s fewer of us “defacing” the planet. A research team […]

How to solve overpopulation

Overpopulation and possible solutions to make the world sustainable took center stage in a presentation to Lions Club members by speaker David Paxson Wednesday. Paxson, of Minneapolis, Minn., is president of World Population Balance, a nonprofit organization. He explained to about 20 Lions Club members how many people the planet can sustain. “The human numbers […]

The ‘mess’ that oil made

We discuss the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico cleanup and how the US government remains divided over Keystone XL. Kidney damage, liver damage, and memory loss are just some of the health effects being reported by many who worked on the BP oil spill cleanup. Time and again, those working to clean up the […]

If Climate Change and Population Growth Are Going to Push Food Prices Up by 50%, What Happens When you Add in Peak Oil?

From the Japan Times: Former Irish President Mary Robinson’s foundation for climate justice is hosting a major conference in Dublin this week. Research presented there said that rising incomes and growth in the global population, expected to create 2 billion more mouths to feed by 2050, will drive food prices higher by 40 to 50 percent. […]

BP Oil Spill Worse Than Thought

Newsweek on the Deepwater Horizon spill The extent to which the 2010 explosion and collapse of Deepwater Horizon has affected the Gulf of Mexico and land abutting it has been obscured, writes Mark Hertsgaard, who reports on an ongoing trial against British Petroleum in Louisiana. “BP was warned in advance about the safety risks of attempting to […]

Scientists warn bulging population could spawn world starvation

As Earth Day celebrations are happening everywhere today, scientists are contemplating how to increase already declining food supplies by 60 percent in order to meet the needs of a massive global population expected in 2050. On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported drought-related crop losses in 2012 across the US were the […]

Earth Day 2013 – The Paramount Issue of Overpopulation!

As another Earth Day rolls around, a California organization reminds us that population growth is still the fundamental environmental problem. “The consequences of that growth are all around us–loss of open space, air and water pollution, traffic congestion, and never-ending sprawl,” said Jo Wideman, executive director of Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). “Habitat loss due […]

More faults seen as active under nuclear plant

More faults may be regarded as active under the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, a survey by its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., showed Thursday. Of the plant’s seven nuclear reactors, the faults below the Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 reactors are now suspected of having moved about 200,000 to 400,000 years […]

Genetically modified crops needed to ‘feed the world’

Sir Mark says EU regulation means not enough GM crops can be grown The case for genetically modified (GM) food is getting stronger because of its importance as a tool to feed a growing global population, according to the Government’s new chief scientific adviser. Sir Mark Walport, who is one month into his new job, […]

Mexico Lacks Water to Frack for Shale Gas

Mexico plans to expand shale gas exploration this year, but it could run into a shortage of water, which is essential to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the method used to capture natural gas from shale rocks. “In Mexico there isn’t enough water. Where are they going to get it to extract shale gas?” Professor Miriam […]

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