Environment
illconsidered | June 25, 2012 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Another Week of Anthropocene Antics Sipping from the Internet Firehose...June 24, 2012 Chuckles, Solstice, Rio+20, Rio - NGOs, People's Summit, COP18+, G20, Global Witness Subsidies, Pricing Nature, Global Legal Framework, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Arctic Sanctuary, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Tifton 85, Land Grabs…
stoat | June 25, 2012 Well, sort of. Via Timmy I find Will Hutton bemoaning the failure of yet another GW-type summit, Rio-20. We all knew it was going to fail: had I thought there was any question about it, I would have offered to bet heavily on its failure (in fact, so little do I care that I haven't even looked to see if it has failed. But I assume so...). But there would have been no takers. Nonetheless the pointless waste of time took place, which merely demonstrates how broken our politics is. But we knew that too.
Hutton correctly identifies at least one problem, but fails to see the obvious solution:…
sastyk | June 22, 2012So everyone raise your hand if you are shocked, shocked and appalled, that the sum up for the Earth Summit Rio+20 conference was, as the UK's Deputy Prime Minister put it "Insipid."
The meeting, marking 20 years since the iconic Earth Summit in the same city and 40 since the very first global environment gathering in Stockholm, was aimed at stimulating moves towards the "green economy".
But the declaration that was concluded by government negotiators on Tuesday and that ministers have not sought to re-open, puts the green economy as just one possible pathway to sustainable development.
Mary…
pharyngula | June 20, 2012Oh, boy — Bobby Jindal's new program to open up state funds to support all kinds of random nonsense in schools is going to have some interesting (that is, horrifying) effects. They are going to be throwing money at A Beka Books and Bob Jones University texts, and Accelerated Christian Education. What kinds of things will Louisiana kids be learning?
Science Proves Homosexuality is a Learned Behavior The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution No Transitional Fossils Exist Humans and Dinosaurs CoExisted Evolution Has Been Disproved A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur Solar Fusion…
illconsidered | June 18, 2012 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Another Week in the Planetary Crisis Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsJune 17, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, Rio+20 - NGOs, COP18+, BP-SRWE, Fish Kill, Barnosky, 2C Subsidies, Pricing Nature, Global Legal Framework, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Jet Streams, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Food vs.…
jrosenhouse | June 18, 2012Update: June 19, 10:56 am: The commenting issues have now been fixed! Yay! So please ignore the first paragraph of the post.
The commenting issues around here remain unresolved. In the past I have been told by the overlords that this was being treated as a high-priority problem. If that is so, then I would hate to see how a low-priority problem is treated. It's also been pointed out to me that if you read the blog through an RSS feed, then you will have to resubscribe to the blog. Of course, if you are reading this post then you have already surmised that something was wrong with the…
lborkowski | June 12, 2012by Kim Krisberg
When an explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused what would be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Glenda Perryman's friends and neighbors answered the call for clean-up workers.
Perryman lives in Lucedale, MS, about 45 minutes from the Gulf Coast — "we're in the middle of nowhere...and there's no jobs in George County," she said. So when the call for clean-up workers went out, residents in and around George County decided to take BP up on the offer. As Perryman told me, "they quit their jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonald's for better pay and went down…
pharyngula | June 12, 2012Both Andrew Sullivan and Kevin Drum are wrong, but I think Drum is infuriatingly wrong.
They're arguing over a statistic, the observation that about 46% of Americans believe the earth is 6000 years old and that a god created human beings complete and perfect as they are ex nihilo. Andrew Sullivan sees this as a consequence of the divisiveness of American politics, that they're using it as a signifier for red vs. blue.
I'm not sure how many of the 46 percent actually believe the story of 10,000 years ago. Surely some of them know it's less empirically supported than Bigfoot. My fear is that…
illconsidered | June 12, 2012Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another Week in the Planetary Crisis Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomJune 10, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, GOE, COP18+, Bonn, WOD, WED, Barnosky Elmendorf, Dyings, Yes Men, Trade, Woodie, Psyche, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Jet Streams, Plankton, Methane, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling,…
stoat | June 12, 2012* On global solar power growth and its prospects - "Many existing markets – in particular China, the USA and Japan, but also India – have addressed only a very small part of their enormous potential for PV development. Moreover, several countries from large sunbelt regions like Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and South America are on the brink of starting their development, pushed by an increasing awareness of solar PV potential. As a whole, the global PV market will grow more sustainably, driven by the competitiveness of PV solutions rather than mainly by financial support schemes.…
pronald | June 8, 2012It seems that plant biologists just cant take the misinformation about genetics any longer. First we had the moving and informative video from the Rothamsted Research Group and now an elqouent article from two professors from Swedish agricultural university. You can read their story here: ”Populistisk miljörörelse demoniserar gentekniken” - DN.SE.
Is the tide turning in Europe? Are consumers now able to more easily access knowledge-based information on genetically engineered crops? Can we finally move on from from talking about how the seed was made and instead focus on what really matters?…
sastyk | June 5, 2012Greenpa asked me to talk about how we cook in the summer, and that's a very good subject to talk about - what does a woman who "dances with wood" and cooks on a wood cookstove all winter long do in the summer? Well, part of the answer is that when we're lazy, we use the electric stove that came with the house. Now from an environmental standpoint, electric stoves are a pretty lousy option. Using electricity to create heat mostly means burning coal in the US. Now my family purchases renewable electricity and also my region uses a fair bit of hydro-power, but that's something of a grey area…
illconsidered | June 4, 2012 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Another Week in the Planetary Crisis Information Overloadis Pattern RecognitionJune 3, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, COP18+, Kahan, Leakey 400 ppm, Corps, 11F, Tuna, Bottom Line, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures…
egrossman | June 4, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
Tap water bursting into flame, water sources contaminated with toxic chemicals, once-pastoral rural hillsides turned over to industrial fossil fuel extraction, and unprecedented earthquake activity. These are among the environmental health concerns commonly associated with the extraction of natural gas by the method known as hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. But one of the more pernicious and pervasive potential occupational fracking hazards may come from sand. Not just ordinary sand, but sand that is nearly 100% crystalline silica and specially produced to play a key…
pronald | May 30, 2012Here is a link to a an interesting new book by Julia Gordon. She just graduated from Washington University in St Louis as a graphic design major, and for her senior thesis she designed an informational book, using the chapter "Green Genes" from Stewart Brand's book "Whole Earth Discipline". For this project she used his text as the body for the book, and created additional images, graphics, maps, captions and footnotes to accompany the text.
When given the assignment to design an informational book for her thesis, she was excited to base it on Green Genes because she found it "eye opening,…
illconsidered | May 28, 2012Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom
Another Week in the Planetary Crisis
Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
May 27, 2012
Chuckles, Rio+20, COP18+, Bonn, G8, Elgin, Peru
Subsidies, Banks, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production
Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols, ENSO
Solar, Ocean…
kbonham | May 23, 2012Last week, I had the privilege of attending the launch of a new initiative from the Union of Concerned Scientists - The Center for Science and Democracy. The UCS itself was founded in the late 1960's in response to the Cold War nuclear arms race. Graduate students and faculty at MIT decided that someone needed to advocate for "greater emphasis on applying scientific research to pressing environmental and social problems rather than military programs." That goal seems even more important in today's political climate, though the issue today is not between environment/society vs military, but…
egrossman | May 23, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
As it pursues its anti-regulatory agenda, the Republican-led House of Representatives appears to be setting its sights on a non-regulatory program, the National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens (RoC). The House Republicans’ scrutiny of the RoC coincides with industry objections to the Report’s listing of styrene as a possible carcinogen. It also follows a strategy common to previous debates over chemical regulation – that of sowing doubt about scientific findings in hopes of averting action on a hazardous substance.
For those not familiar with it, the RoC was…
illconsidered | May 21, 2012 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another Week in the Ecological Crisis Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsMay 20, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, Bonn, WWF, Elgin, Carbon Tariffs, Subsidies, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Aerosols Paleoclimate…
esiegel | May 15, 2012"The doctors realized in retrospect that even though most of these dead had also suffered from burns and blast effects, they had absorbed enough radiation to kill them. The rays simply destroyed body cells - caused their nuclei to degenerate and broke their walls." -John Hersey
Everyone (well, almost everyone) recognizes that radiation is bad for you. And the higher the energy of the radiation, the worse it is for you. The reason is relatively straightforward.
Image credit: Environmental Protection Agency.
When high energy particles (or photons) come into contact with normal matter, they…