Carbon Emissions
milhayser | October 30, 2015New reporting by Inside Climate News shows that petroleum giant Exxon knew, more than thirty years ago, that burning too much fossil fuel would cause catastrophic climate change. Comparing Exxon's subsequent emphasis on profits over planetary health to the efforts of Big Tobacco hiding the dangers of cigarettes, PZ Myers writes "the future is going to look back on rabid capitalism as one of the damning pathologies of our history." Now that the wider public is accepting the fact that anthropogenic global warming will transform and could destroy our way of life, Exxon is very much on the hook.…
sastyk | March 19, 2012The always-thoughtful Gail Tverberg has a great post that simply shows in visual terms the history of world energy consumption - well worth a look. I've reproduced one of her graphs here, but please read the whole thing.
One graph not in her post (not suggesting it should be, but I like the contrast) is world discovery of oil over about the same period - anyone who implicitly believes we are discovering vast reserves should contrast the two:
(Source, Colin Campbell)
Gail goes on to write about how an economist might be misled by past trends to disregard "facts in the ground" - lack of…
milhayser | October 12, 2011
On Casaubon's Book, Sharon Astyk asks if we can stomach a new kind of cuisine— in case, you know, a massive volcanic eruption wipes out all our staple grains. Instead of wheat, corn and rice, "we probably would begin getting comfortable with acorn pancakes and turnip stew with taro dumplings." But Sharon says that even barring catastrophe, "something *is* happening, something disastrous. The wheat is being grown often on dry prairie soils that should never be plowed at all. The corn and soybeans are being grown continuously in the midwest at a high cost to both topsoil and the ability of…