Building Sustainable Future Needs More Than Science

Contrary to popular belief, humans have failed to address the earth’s worsening emergencies of climate change, species’ extinction and resource overconsumption not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of imagination, social scientists and artists say. At a conference for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) here in […]

Why $200 oil is the subprime mortgage of energy

What does an oil price shock have to do with subprime mortgages? Well, consider this: the global economy found itself on the edge of the abyss in 2008 when reality — in the form of wildly overvalued mortgage securities — landed hard on the illusion that real estate-related investments were a guaranteed, perpetual cash machine. […]

Humanity’s Growing Impact on the World’s Freshwater

As the human population has climbed past seven billion, and the consumption per person of everything from burgers to blue jeans has risen inexorably, the finiteness of Earth’s freshwater is becoming ever more apparent. It takes water to make everything, and the explosion of demand for all manner of products is draining rivers, shrinking lakes, […]

Study Says Fracking is Safe In Theory But Often Not In Practice

A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” arise because drilling operations aren’t doing it right. The process itself isn’t to blame, according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. The report is likely to […]

Human population overshoot–what went wrong?

There are seven billion people on earth now. I originally thought that the primary reason for the recent human population explosion was that fossil fuels enabled a larger food supply and better medicine, and thus a higher population. Figure 1. World population from US Census Bureau, overlaid with fossil fuel use (red) by Vaclav Smil […]

Population is ‘our biggest challenge’ says UK government chief scientist

While many commentators look ahead to 9 billion by 2050 there is a more immediate statistic that ‘frightens’ the UK government’s chief scientist: 1 billion extra people in the next 13 years. Speaking at a WWF event last week, which looked ahead to the Rio+20 conference in June, John Beddington told an audience that half […]

Global suicide 2020: We can’t feed 10 billion

Welcome, you’re now on the new “Innovation Saves the World” team. We’re working together, searching for positive solutions. If you’d rather complain about what’s wrong, stop reading. Otherwise, imagine you’re now a member of a “skunk works” research team at a secret Pentagon think tank with unlimited funds. In fact, let’s also assume the best […]

Long live the hockey stick! Climate science fights back

The new book by Michael Mann tells the story of the reconstruction of past temperatures called “the hockey stick” because of its characteristic shape. Despite the propaganda campaign against climate science, climate scientists are standing their ground and fighting back. Repeat something a sufficient number of times and, eventually, people will believe it, no matter […]

Japan’s Nuke dangers nowhere near resolved

n December, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the “conclusion” of the meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, saying Tokyo Electric Power Co. was managing to keep the three crippled reactors cool, as well as the facility’s spent fuel pools. But a former special adviser to Naoto Kan, who was prime minister when […]

Rethinking Climate Doom in Germany: Chaos in Climate Camp

One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he […]

How to Trigger an Ice Age the Easy Way, Killing Billions of People

The secret to killing billions and billions of people without being too obvious about it, is to make it difficult or impossible to grow enough food to feed them. Geological history demonstrates that the best way of doing this — short of a global thermonuclear war — is by triggering a global ice age. If […]

Fukushima Reactors Heating Up Again … Water Fails to Cool Them Down

Steam Seen Rising from Reactors Temperatures are soaring within the reactor 2 containment vessel. And see this. Tepco says that no new nuclear chain reactions are occurring … but admits that the water may no longer be able to cool the reactor. As NHK reports: Attempts to cool the temperature in the No. 2 reactor […]

Peak Water: The Rise and Fall of Cheap, Clean H2O

The Earth’s surface is mostly water, yet across increasingly large swaths of the planet, H2O reservoirs are drying up. This isn’t a metaphor, and it’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact that’s changing the destinies of companies and nations. Three of the world’s greatest rivers, the Colorado in the U.S., the Nile in Egypt and the […]

Farmers Can Grow Food for All, as Long as Ecosystems Hold

Thomas Malthus, history’s celebrated pessimist, wrote in 1798 that, should war and disease fail to claim humanity, “gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.” The concept of “peak food,” that the production will reach an apex that can’t be topped, is […]

Al Gore: Antarctic Glaciers and the Global Water Crisis

Today, our journey takes us to Neko Harbor, one of the prime locations in this region to view glaciers. These towering walls of ice are a majestic sight, and a humbling reminder of the fragility of the natural systems that human beings depend upon for life as we know it. As we began our journey, […]

Mexican Oil Rig Evacuated After Almost Collapsing

An oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico was evacuated yesterday after a support leg failed, causing it to almost collapse, Tribuna reported. Workers stabilized the Ocean Yorktown rig, which was performing drilling and maintenance work in the Abkatum Pol Chuc production area, the newspaper reported on its website. None of the 95 people […]

Forever Planting (for Peak Oil & Climate Change)

We depend utterly on fossil fuels, especially to grow our food. From natural gas comes the millions of tons of fertilizers. Oil provides herbicides and pesticides. All is planted and harvested with oil power, driven, shipped or flown to your table. For now. Until fossil fuels become too expensive, too rare, too polluting to use. […]

San Diego Nuclear Plant Closed After Radiation Leak

A small quantity of radioactive gas leaked inside one of the buildings at San Onofre nuclear power plant north of San Diego, according to a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The spokesman said the radiation levels were “barely measurable,” but the plant was shut down as a precaution. “At no point were the public […]

Biological Conservation Journal: Peak Timber

Buzz words sprout from controversies of the day. From the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, “subpoena” and “alpha  lists” spilled into chatter at barbershops and even diplomatic receptions. Emerging issues mint new buzz words. “Peak timber” is one of them. “Tropical countries should consider implications of ‘peak timber’… [even as] it has become […]

Don’t Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists in the WSJ

The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article. There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy. A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the […]

Thyroid cancer, fracking and nuclear power

Thyroid cancer cases have more than doubled since 1997 in the United States, while deadly industrial practices that contaminate groundwater with radiation and other carcinogens are also rising. New information released by the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that 56,460 people will develop thyroid cancer in 2012 and 1,780 will die from it. That’s […]

BP emails reveal company veiling spill rate

On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP officials warned in an internal memo that if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer at the drill site, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day, an amount a million gallons higher than what […]

Another Terrifying Drought Paper

The conviction has been growing in me for quite some time that the really big deal about global warming is increasing frequency and severity of droughts.  If I’ve succeeded in convincing you of this too (or you already believed it for other reasons of your own), then you will be interested in a new paper by […]

Fracking shakes the Earth, poisons our water

Add yet another new concern to the growing list of reasons to oppose hyraudlic fracturing, the natural-gas extraction process known as “fracking”: earthquakes. That’s right, following a New Year’s Eve earthquake in Youngstown, Ohio — the town’s 11th since D&L Energy began injecting drilling waste underground in December 2010 — state leaders put a hold […]

Peak Fish: Hints of Epic Fish Collapse

Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar’s hold at a measly 10 tons of jack mackerel — the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-meter fishing boat in a few hours. Mr. Pineda, like everyone here, grew up with […]

More Reasons Why We are Reaching Limits to Growth

In a recent post, I talked about why we may be reaching Limits to Growth of the type foretold in the 1972 book Limits to Growth. I would like to explain some additional reasons now. Figure 1. Base scenario from 1972 Limits to Growth, printed using today’s graphics by Charles Hall and John Day in […]

The Permaculture Neighborhood Center

Erik Ohlsen takes you on a tour of an edible oasis he created on a 1/3 acre asphalt lot, encouraging you to think about sustainable living for small-town and suburban life. In the face of drought, fire, peak oil, energy depletion, soil depletion and more, what can you do to live a more eco-friendly life?

Fossil Fuels vs. Renewables: The Key Argument That Environmentalists are Missing

Which of the following can we count on to act as a “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy economy? Oil Natural Gas Coal None of the above The correct answer is: D. None of the above. Mark Twain is reported to have said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s […]

A look inside the Fukushima containment vessel

Forty technicians were needed to create a 8.5 mm hole so an endoscope could be lowered inside the stricken Fukushima containament vessel. The video, highly distorted due to radiation levels, was uploaded to YouTube on Thursday by arevamirpal “Drilling the hole on the containment vessel was done on January 17, requiring 40 workers in 10 teams. […]

Confronting Overpopulation in China

  The world’s population has reached seven billion on October 31, 2011, according to the “2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects”.  As the country with the biggest population in the world, according to the China population clock, China has 1,319,175,365 citizens, which means that in every five people in the world, one is Chinese.  […]

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