Fascination for Death

We are a peculiar culture. We are extremely reluctant to accept the possibility that our civilization might decline and fall, like all those which have preceded us, yet consider the idea of utterly trashing the biosphere with a fascination which would have made an early twentieth century symbolist uneasy. We have had another example of […]

World Fresh Water Maps

Fresh water is a fixed quantity.  Population and water usage per capita are rising quantities.  When the demand exceeds supply, various forces come into play:  allocation by price and affordability, efficiency changes, investment in desalination, legal disputes and at some point wars. Total world consumption of fresh water currently exceeds the replenished amount.  The difference […]

Can we bear the legacy costs of industrial society’s toxic pollution?

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stunned the nuclear industry last week by putting power plant licensing decisions on hold while it reconsiders rules on nuclear waste storage struck down by a federal appeals court in June. At issue is the NRC’s 2010 ruling that spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored on a plant […]

The Great Culling has begun: Will your genetic lineage survive?

The “Great Culling” of the human population has quietly begun. Covertly, insidiously, mercilessly, a global depopulation agenda has been launched. As this plays out, the vast majority of the human race will be removed from the gene pool. Genetically annihilated. Will you and your genetic lineage survive? That’s what this article explores: WHAT are the […]

Two quakes in Iran kill 180 and injure 1,500

Two strong earthquakes killed 180 people and injured about 1,500 in northwest Iran where rescuers frantically combed the rubble of dozens of villages through the night into Sunday. Thousands fled their homes and remained outdoors after Saturday’s quakes, as at least 40 aftershocks hit the area. Casualty figures could rise, Iranian officials said, as some […]

Overpopulation is everyone’s problem

At one point, the prevailing wisdom was that nations needed robust birthrates to protect their economic welfare, and that if only we could produce food more efficiently, feeding the Earth’s burgeoning population wouldn’t be a problem. Now, with 1 billion of the world’s people chronically hungry and the population expected to increase by 50% before […]

Here’s Where Farms Are Sucking The Planet Dry

This map is disturbing, once you understand it. It’s a new attempt to visualize an old problem — the shrinking of underground water reserves, in most cases because farmers are pumping out water to irrigate their crops. The map itself isn’t hard to grasp. The colored areas show the world’s largest aquifers — areas which […]

Global Food Reserves Falling as Drought Wilts Crops

Stockpiles of the biggest crops will decline for a third year as drought parches fields across three continents, raising food-import costs already forecast by the United Nations to reach a near-record $1.24 trillion. Combined inventories of corn, wheat, soybeans and rice will drop 1.8 percent to a four-year low before harvests in 2013, the U.S. […]

Peak Sun Cycle Threatens Satellites, Power Grids from Space Storms

The delicate threads that hold modern life together are dramatically cut by an unexpected threat from outer space, with disastrous effects. It’s the stuff of science fiction usually associated with tales of rogue asteroids on a collision course with earth. But over the next two years, as the sun reaches a peak in its 10-year […]

‘Fracking’ for Natural Gas Is Linked With Earthquakes

Hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. “fracking”) recovery techniques for oil and natural gas are a controversial business. The practice—in which a mix of water, sand and chemicals is injected deep into bedrock at high pressure to create fractures, allowing gas and oil to flow upward—was developed in the late 1990s and has become more and more common […]

A Terrifying Study Of Planetary Collapse

A few days ago, I posted an article on how the Brazilian government has sacrificed the lush Amazon Rainforest for short-term economic profits over the course of a few years. Today, I’d like to share more “good news” about the global environment that probably went unnoticed by many people (h/t Jaded Prole). About two months […]

Meat the Food of the Future: Insects

BBC reports that rising food prices, the growing population, and environmental concerns are just a few issues that have food futurologists thinking about what we will eat in the future and how we will eat it. In the UK, meat prices are anticipated to have a huge impact on our diets as some in the […]

Paul Farrell: Big Oil is Earth’s Public Enemy No. 1

The world has “1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to last at least 200 years,” brags Thomas Donohue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO: “We have 2.7 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to last 120 years. We have 486 billion tons of coal, enough to last more than 450 years, and we need to […]

The implications of overpopulation are terrifying. But will we listen to them?

Sitting on my own in the bar of the Royal Court theatre on Wednesday with my orange juice and lightly sea-salted packet of crisps, I remembered that I was first here more than 50 years ago, as a teenager down on holiday from Scotland and determined to witness England’s cultural revolution. In 1961 that still […]

‘Gasland’ movie doesn’t tell the whole story

We can all agree that natural gas is a clean and abundant energy resource in the U.S. In fact, there is so much natural gas in this country that there is general consensus that it has fundamentally changed the nature of energy policy. As former chief of staff and acting deputy administrator of the EPA during […]

As truth about Fukushima radiation emerges, Japanese authorities struggle to maintain cover-up

The cat is out of the bag, as more evidence continues to emerge proving that clean-up workers at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan deliberately covered up high radiation readings at the order of their superiors. And as more people become aware of this disturbing fact, Japanese authorities are trying to maintain […]

Oil-spill dispersants may have hurt Gulf food chain,

A study on possible effects of the 2010 BP oil spill indicates dispersants may have killed plankton — some of the ocean’s tiniest plants and creatures — and disrupted the food chain in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the nation’s richest seafood grounds. Scientists who read the study said it points toward major future […]

Natural Gas Fracking Industry May Be Paying Off Scientists

Last week the University of Texas provost announced he would re-examine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It’s the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of […]

Our current infrastructure was built for a different planet

It’s easy to forget that every piece of our current infrastructure–roads, rails, runways, bridges, industrial plants, housing–was built with a certain temperature range in mind. Our agricultural system and much of our electrical generating system (including dams, nuclear power stations and conventional thermal electric plants which burn coal and natural gas) were created not only […]

Vacuuming the Atmosphere

“If all of the proven reserves of coal, oil and gas were to be burned by 2100 (2795 Gt), and at the same time the air extraction experiment of Global Thermostat were to be scaled up as Eisenberger and Chicilnisky project (withdrawing 2400 Gt), then Earth’s atmospheric parking lot would still have space for 170 […]

Starting the Great Debate

We at Earth Tribe call it “The Great Debate” and it will be one that will grow more heated in the coming weeks, months and years ahead. It matters to you and it has serious implications for the environment on this planet. Ignore it at your peril. The Great Debate revolves around the U.S. oil […]

Aspen Ideas and how to really talk about population growth

This was my first time attending the annual Aspen Ideas Festival, and what a week it was! Suffice it to say, my head still hurts from all the information I took in from some of the country’s top thinkers and doers. From the polarization of U.S. politics to the Supreme Court’s health care decision and […]

Fukushima – Local Children Unwitting (And Unwilling) Radioactive Guinea Pigs

Seventeen months after the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s six–reactor complex at its Fukushima Daiichi, discussions continue about the possible effects of the radiation “dusting” the prefecture’s inhabitants received, and their consequences. Far outside most media coverage, 2012 is shaping up to be the media battleground between the massed proponents […]

Short History of Progress Book Review

Excerpts taken from Ronald Wright’s book Short History of Progress and put to music and images.

As the world’s population grows, hunger persists on a massive scale

Nearly 1 billion people are malnourished, and a child dies of hunger every 11 seconds. By 2050, farmers would have to double crop production to meet the demand. Kenya — His rib cage rose and fell with tight, rapid breaths. Saad Siyat looked shrunken beneath the hospital blanket. His wide-set eyes rolled up into his […]

Food vs. Fuel and the Midwest Drought

It was bound to happen. As long as US corn output continued to climb year after year, the federal mandate to blend steadily increasing quantities of ethanol into gasoline could be accommodated without creating a shortage of this staple grain. Unfortunately, crops are subject to all sorts of uncertainties, including the severe drought conditions that the […]

TEPCO subcontractor used lead to fake dosimeter readings at Fukushima plant

Workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant were ordered to cover their dosimeters with lead plates to keep radiation doses low enough to continue working under dangerous conditions, the Asahi Shimbun has learned. Some refused the orders. Others raised questions about their safety and the legality of the practice. But the man in […]

Fertility rates fall, but global population explosion goes on

Global birthrates are falling. But with many in their fertile years and political and cultural forces against contraception, the population explosion is far from over. Mamta, left, and Ramjee Lal Kumhar. The rate of global population growth will largely be determined by their generation, the largest in history. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) More […]

Edging Toward Collapse: Masters of the Earth

In 1972 the authors of Limits to Growth predicted the global economy would collapse by 2030. They warned the continued growth of population and the economy would be unsustainable. Government and industry leaders did not listen and did not act. The infographic below, from OnlineMastersDegree.com is a visual reminder of the consequences. The total of […]

US West Coast to receive dangerous levels of Fukushima radiation

It’s been over a year since natural disaster ravaged a nuclear plant in Fukushima and interrupted the lives of millions of Japanese. Scientists now fear though that contaminated water is on course to America, and it could be more toxic than thought. Researchers have released the findings of an intense study into the aftermath of […]

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