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Naomi Klein’s Inconvenient Climate Conclusions | Common Dreams
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the idea that we can win the climate fight without engaging in ideological battle over these core questions about the role of government has always been a fantasy. Trying to dodge this fight is a big part of why we lose, and we need to get over it. It’s no coincidence that the countries with the most enlightened climate policies are also, overwhelmingly, the most social democratic.
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Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category
Sustainability 12/10/2011
Posted by rosshunter on December 9, 2011
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Sustainability 09/06/2011
Posted by rosshunter on September 5, 2011
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Gail Zawacki Thanks Ross! I confess I am confused. I honestly don’t know what tack to take, or the best action going forward – I only know that so far if we continue unimpeded, we are headed towards oblivion.55 minutes ago · -
Ross Hunter I can’t remember now who said it – the question was, what’s the solution to climate change? And the answer is, everything. We throw everything we have at it.So you are doing more than your part with your great act of bearing witness to the dying trees. You have no idea how you inspire us do you?
Just keep rooting for everyone and every thing. Read “Blessed Unrest” by Paul Hawken to see how we are all playing our parts. We are all called into service in our way. The patient may die. We ourselves may never live to see the result. Doesn’t matter. We do what we can and what we must.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U
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Sustainability 07/05/2011
Posted by rosshunter on July 4, 2011
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Climate Change and how to move forward
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Ross Hunter beyond all other considerations, climate change for sure. But I’m persuaded (by Paul Hawken’s concepts) that social justice and indigenous rights form a crucial component of same. And there are some nuances from seeing how we’ve drifted past tipping points unable to pull back – this shows our society’s architecture is at least corrupt and perhaps even wrong in its original design. So I’m greatly interested in sustainable economics and accountable politics as the necessary tools both to “recover” and to “rebuild” with whatever survives the crisis.
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Sustainability 02/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 24, 2011
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Colony Collapse Disorder may be caused by Bayer, and EPA and USDA scientists may have suspected this for two years – thanks to European media this story is breaking here. Please pass it on so that this all comes to light
Top USDA bee researcher also found Bayer pesticide harmful to honeybees
www.grist.org
Remember the case of the leaked document showing that the EPA’s own scientists are concerned about a pesticide it approved that might harm fragile honeybee populations? Well, it turns that USDA researchers also have good evidence that these nicotine-derived chemicals could be playing a part in Colon -
The planet has become the computer model and we’re following behind events that sweep us up. Soon everyone will be talking about this everyday – because this is real life now.
ABC connects the dots between “wild weather” & climate change in Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka
www.youtube.com
ABC World News reports on the torrential floods in Brazil, Australia, & Sri Lanka and record snowstorms across the US, and draws a strong connection to a warming climate. -
pictures (only 10, won’t take long)
Best Nature Photos of 2010
See the most incredible images to cross our desks in 2010! Here are 10 amazing photos–see the full slideshow at: http://nature.ly/fvWwP0
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Bard Center for Environmental Policy – National Climate Seminar
www.bard.edu
Listen in real time to climate and clean energy specialists talk about the latest science, policy, law, and economics of climate change. Assign these half-hour calls to your students for a chance to hear top scientists, analysts and political leaders discuss climate and clean energy solutions -
“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”
- Revelation 11:18. King James Bible -
which is melting and releasing methane, 20 times worse than CO2 for the atmosphere – watch the bubbles. And how ironic that the lies about climate conditions come from the U.S. and the truth now comes from Russia.
Russian Permafrost Melt – BBC
www.youtube.com
Russian scientists travel to Siberia to measure output of methane from permafrost lakes. BBC goes along.-
Russian scientists travel to Siberia to measure output of methane from permafrost lakes. BBC goes along.
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Leading the dirty life | Rodale Institute
www.rodaleinstitute.org
Kristin Kimball and her husband Mark run Essex Farm near Lake Champlain in New York. The incredibly diverse CSA is powered by draft horses and feeds over a hundred families a whole diet year round–from milk to meat to vegetables to grains and even sweeteners. But Kristin wasn’t always a farmer. Kri -
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”the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes.
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”the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes. If coral reefs fail, the rest will follow in rapid succession, and the Sixth Mass Extinction will be upon us — and will be of our making.”
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climateprogress.org
When J.E.N. Veron speaks, we all should listen. Veron is the former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. He is principal author of 8 monographs and more than 70 scientific articles on the taxonomy, systematics, biogeography, and the fossil record of corals.
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Sustainability 02/19/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 18, 2011
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Urban NYC farmers have set their eyes on a new prize: transforming privately owned backyards into lush, fruitful farmlands. By signing up to share your yard with a urban farmer, you can eat fresh from your own personal farm during the harvest months, and even sell produce to your neighbors – grow
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Ross Hunter this is great – I note that it’s also a business model that makes sense – they grow your food for you on your property. Thinking either as a customer or a producer, that’s an attractive plan.
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Sustainability 12/31/2010
Posted by rosshunter on December 30, 2010
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Supported by Tea Party polluters, incoming GOP energy chair Upton flips on threat of global warming.
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Ross Hunterthe question is, how to fight back? We knew we’d see an assault on social security, an assault on EPA, and with the Assange affair now an assault on the Constitution itself. We have two years to make a noise that carries electoral weight. A…ll these assaults will turn a lot of people against the corporate interests and our bought politicians.
Two years to face down the Koch brothers and Exxon in public. Two years to counteract Fox and Murdoch.
Two years to get Obama’s attention and free his eyes from the headlights they’re caught in.
Two years of showing up, staying in touch, and recruiting to this new movement.
Happy New Year
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Sustainability 06/19/2010
Posted by rosshunter on June 18, 2010
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Can you solve global warming without talking about global warming? « Climate Progress
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We are engaged in a multi-year messaging struggle here. The planet is going to get hotter and hotter, the weather is going to get more extreme. One of the reasons to be clear and blunt in your messaging about this is that even if you don’t persuade people today, the overall message will grow in credibility as reality unfolds as we have warned. To shy away from telling people the truth because they don’t want to hear it or they think it’s liberal claptrap is just incredibly un-strategic. EcoAmerica doesn’t want people to talk about “global warming.” And — even worse — they don’t want people to talk about extreme weather, which, as I have previously argued, is in fact the same thing that the climate disinformers want — see “Why do the disinformers try to shout down any talk of a link between climate change and extreme weather?“ You must tell people what is coming, not just because it is strategic messaging, but also I believe because we have a moral responsibility.
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I would also like to expand on the last paragraph of this post. The media has been downplaying most of the extreme weather events in recent years and any potential link to climate change. As a resident of middle Tennessee, the statewide flooding caused by our extreme deluge on May 1 and 2 was a wake-up call. It’s barely been six weeks since that catastrophic event, but during that relatively short time period, I’ve noticed several other significant weather events in the US, and globally.
Just two weeks after the Tennessee disaster massive flooding occurred in Poland. Parts of Texas were flooded when they received 11 inches of rain on June 9. At least 20 people were killed in Arkansas on June 11 when rivers rose at a rate of 8 ft per hour from torrential rain. On June 14, storms dropped about 10 inches of rain in Oklahoma, causing significant flooding in several counties. At least 11 people died in southern France on June 16 when heavy rains triggered flash floods. At least 35 people have died as result of flash flooding in China from torrential downpours, also On June 16. To my knowledge, none of this flooding was the result of rain storms associated with tropical storms.
During this same six week period, Colorado received a massive hailstorm on May 26 that delivered up to 12 inches of baseball sized hail in some places. Deadly tornadoes ravaged parts of the Midwest. There have also been tornado warnings in the Northeast on at least two different occasions (an area that almost never experiences this kind of severe weather), and we are experiencing a heat wave in parts of the Midsouth currently.
These are just the anomalies that I happened to notice. This spring/early summer seems to have an exceptionally high concentration of extreme weather events. It seems obvious for there to be a connection between all these weather extremities and the fact that this is one of the hottest springs on record. If 100 to 1000 year floods are happening daily, or weekly, citizens need to understand the likelihood of this continuing trend, and prepare for these kinds of events.
This is not just about energy policy and it’s link to climate change (which also must be addressed), it’s also about creating a greater awareness of the current weather trends, and helping to prepare our fellow citizens and infrastructure for this unsettling new reality.
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Eric Normand;
Adding to your list is are reports on the Weather Channel. Today the SE US from Texas to North Carolina and south to the tip of Florida are covered with tropical air. Tropical air = extremely high humidity and heat indexes far above the thermometer reading. This seems to be unprecedented especially before the beginning of summer. The Pacific Northwest is cold and wet because the jet stream is taking a highly contorted path from near Anchorage parallel to the coast to southern Oregon / Northern California – thousands of miles away. It bends sharply back through western Montana and all the way north to Hudson Bay. This weather pattern is unprecedented for late spring or summer. Humidity is high over every area of the US except the Southwest. (As far as I know – any SoCal / AZ folks dripping in sweat?)
Perturbations in the Jet Stream are predicted prior to a “reset”. This might result in a rapid migration, or expansion, of the dry subtropical band to the north. Do we have a decade or more, or a decade or less, before the west and central states switch to nearly the nearly permanent drought typical of the subtropics?
Any politician who blanches at the use of the words “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, or “looming catastrophe” will be seen as Neville Chamberlain, possibly within a few short years.
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Sustainability 06/01/2010
Posted by rosshunter on May 31, 2010
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Big Oil’s Fairy Tale « Climate Progress
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Coming late to the discussion, but Joe that’s a nice piece of writing. I went over to Salon just to admire it. This thread turned to BP and the plug but your piece was originally about Obama and his realpolitik.
He IS a mystery though, don’t you think? I truly believe he’s the very, very best we could hope for in a man for these times. And I believe that, as with any presidency, eight years is the true time-scale to view him in.
But how to square his capabilities with the way he responds to all these hollywood-sized situations gripping enough for even the dimwit media to take an interest?
Is he the canary sent into the mine, the litmus paper that shows the temper of the times and the degree to which the fix is in? Why is it that he fails to act as boldly as his temperament and rhetoric indicate that he would, if he had a level, or at least supportive, field to play on?
I’m genuinely stumped, at this point, about our man. I should wait the eight years of course, but we live in impatient times. I’m glad you think about all this too. I hope you can supply the answers to the enigma.
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Best BP Oil Disaster cartoon so far? « Climate Progress
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yep. It’s funny. And worth reposting to facebook, which I just did.
There’s an old Chinese story about the man who walked past the guards and picked up some precious gold object on display and started to walk away with it. Arrested, he realized and explained that he hadn’t seen the guards, or thought about the ownership; all he could see was the gold. It’s very profound, and deals with attachment, which drives out wisdom, which is always present in every situation if WE are present in that situation. The story of the West could be the story of that thief.
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Sustainability 05/29/2010
Posted by rosshunter on May 28, 2010
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Well biofuels, including algae:
Compete with food security, energy security, and water security; a World Bank 2008 report estimates that biofuels have increased food prices by 75%; increasing AGW-related temperatures expected to decrease crop yields (recent US national assessment) and increase irrigation requirements; algal biodiesel potential, but current small-scale production costs of $33/gal are too high and based on first principles of solar insolation falling on a square meter of land, the maximum algal biodiesel yield you could expect to get is around 1 gallon/square meter/yr with photobioreactors cost over $100/square meter; a recent Proceedings of NAS study reported that jatropha requires five times as much water per unit of energy as sugarcane and corn, and nearly ten times as much as sugar beet–the most water-efficient biofuel crop and jatropha requires an average of 20,000 liters of water for every liter of biodiesel with soybeans and rapeseed, the two other biodiesel crops considered in the study, being next highest, each requiring roughly 14,000 liters of water per liter of fuel
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Sustainability 05/15/2010
Posted by rosshunter on May 14, 2010
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y’know, ALL the economists have embraced the notion of limits to growth at the limits of natural resources.
I think that the only future left to us – if any future is left to us – is steady-state economics: sustainable enterprises working in stable cycles unto the nth generation without impacting the planet other than by growing its natural resources.
5 minutes ago ·
Ross HunterSo I’m opting for a green party. Any political platform that fails to include sustainability at its bedrock, and as the dynamic engine of its planks, is failing the needs of this time, in my opinion.
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Sustainability 04/23/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 22, 2010
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Ross Hunter“like a syrupy muffin, connecting socially online may be like eating empty calories. The circuitry activated when you connect online is the ‘seeking’ circuitry of dopamine. Yet when we connect with people online, we don’t tend to get the calming effect of oxytocin or seratonin that happens when we bond with someone in real time, when our circuits … See Moreresonate with real-time shared emotions and experiences. As a result, you want more and more social connections. On Twitter, you rarely get to feel satisfied and ‘full’ the way you might if you chatted in person with 50 people at a conference (after which you’d want nothing more to do with people for a while as your circuits recovered.) “
So that’s the circle. Good to know. It’s the same as karma anywhere – we take a plus and make it a habit, and take the food for the habit as representing the “needs” of the original plus – although it’s not. We stay hungry trying to feed the representation of the original plus, all the while creating more distance between us and the original. Thus is born the pattern known by buddhists as samsara, again and again.
It is not the hardest thing to break through this, it is the hardest thing to stay broken through this.
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Sustainability 04/16/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 15, 2010
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Ross Huntertry to remember we have a permeable administration, unlike the rock-hard one before. Count blessings briefly, get to work and understand that our example will permeate an administration that is willing to be influenced by groundswell.
All Obama has ever asked for is for the forces in play to stand up and show themselves so he can make consensus. … See MoreWe are a force. Don’t position yourself to argue against the status quo – position yourself to LEAD – the way is open for this now.
don’t argue, persuade..
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Ross Hunteryes…but there are nuances to this that I hope we can fuse into our soundbites.
Let’s also account for Lierre Keith’s viewpoint in The Vegetarian Myth. Let’s understand that Joel Salatin is creating an inch of new organic topsoil per year through farming techniques that include animal slaughter (I’m just sayin’ – personally I’m Buddhist).
So, “veggie” is not necessarily the mantra, especially if the veg comes 2,000 miles from an industrial-organic factory farm powered by fossil fuels and fertilizers.… See More
“Local” may be the better mantra, and if it’s close enough to home AND creating nutrients to restore the desolated land, it may be less footprint to include grass-fed meat too, if your ethics permit.
I’m just saying there are nuances. I’m also saying it’s necessary to condense these into soundbites for wider distribution. But let’s keep talking until we’ve distilled and condensed the best soundbites covering the most nuances.
Love, peace, and carbon sequestration through sustainable agriculture
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Sustainability 04/11/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 10, 2010
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Worse still, I think Krugman misses the opportunity to advance another important argument, which is that we’re almost certainly going to be better off in a world where we act boldly on climate, not just compared to the hell we’ll live in if we don’t act, but compared to the world we live in now.
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A bright green economy is not analogous to a dirty economy, just with the energy sources swapped: it can work differently, and, on balance, better: it can produce new innovations, better designs, more intelligently planned cities, stronger communities, healthier kids, long-lifespans, higher qualities of life. A bright green world isn’t just less bad environmentally; it’s better in nearly every way.
Perhaps, as I’ve been told, economists would have to break long-established traditions and count more externalities in order for their models to reflect that reality. Maybe it’s time they got started.
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Sustainability 04/10/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 9, 2010
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Climate Change – Building a Green Economy – NYTimes.com
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In particular, there is no reason to assume that free markets will deliver an outcome that we consider fair or just. So the case for market efficiency says nothing about whether we should have, say, some form of guaranteed health insurance, aid to the poor and so forth. But the logic of basic economics says that we should try to achieve social goals through “aftermarket” interventions. That is, we should let markets do their job, making efficient use of the nation’s resources, then utilize taxes and transfers to help those whom the market passes by.
But what if a deal between consenting adults imposes costs on people who are not part of the exchange? What if you manufacture a widget and I buy it, to our mutual benefit, but the process of producing that widget involves dumping toxic sludge into other people’s drinking water? When there are “negative externalities” — costs that economic actors impose on others without paying a price for their actions — any presumption that the market economy, left to its own devices, will do the right thing goes out the window. So what should we do? Environmental economics is all about answering that question.
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Now, efficiency isn’t everything. In particular, there is no reason to assume that free markets will deliver an outcome that we consider fair or just. So the case for market efficiency says nothing about whether we should have, say, some form of guaranteed health insurance, aid to the poor and so forth. But the logic of basic economics says that we should try to achieve social goals through “aftermarket” interventions. That is, we should let markets do their job, making efficient use of the nation’s resources, then utilize taxes and transfers to help those whom the market passes by.
But what if a deal between consenting adults imposes costs on people who are not part of the exchange? What if you manufacture a widget and I buy it, to our mutual benefit, but the process of producing that widget involves dumping toxic sludge into other people’s drinking water? When there are “negative externalities” — costs that economic actors impose on others without paying a price for t
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Sustainability 04/08/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 7, 2010
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The Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist – On Faith at washingtonpost.com
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Those teachings today still describe a deeply personal inner journey that’s spiritual, yes, but not religious. The Buddha wasn’t a god — he wasn’t even a Buddhist. You’re not required to have more faith in the Buddha than you do in yourself. His power lies in his teachings, which show us how to work with our minds to realize our full capacity for wakefulness and happiness. These teachings can help us satisfy our search for the truth — our need to know who and what we really are.
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Religion, on the other hand, often provides us with answers to life’s big questions from the start. We don’t have to think about it too much. We learn what to think and believe and our job is to live up to that, not to question it. If we relate to the Buddha’s teachings as final answers that don’t need to be examined, then we’re practicing Buddhism as a religion.
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Sustainability 04/04/2010
Posted by rosshunter on April 3, 2010
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Just in case anyone believes that nuclear can be brought online even if we ignore the never-yet-solved lethal waste aspect – here’s some information.
Go straight to the latest full analysis of the actual costs of nuclear development here:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
… See More
Partly for fun, partly because it’s France, but mainly to see the huge footprint nuclear has on water (necessary for life you’ll recall), see how nukes have to shut down if the climate gets warm:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/06/france-imports-uk-electricity-summer-heatwave-puts-nuclear-power-plants-out-of-action/And just to vary sources, see what Time says about how hard it actually is to build a new nuclear generating station, and how costs and delays are spiraling out of control:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1869203,00.htmlOnce the Cold-War military hidden subsidy is taken out of the nuclear equation, the true economic fundamentals of nuclear are extremely daunting.
And as for the environmental damage, consider the huge water sequestration involved. And the aforementioned waste problem that has never been solved yet, simply buried like a ticking bomb.
We might solve all of the issues with nuclear eventually – but no one should believe that we have answers to its problems today, because we totally do not. It’s an engineering nightmare.
TIP: All of the energy, active or dormant, resident on the planet comes or came from the sun. The straightest line to energy is to get it directly from the sun, with no middleman.
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Sustainability 04/01/2010
Posted by rosshunter on March 31, 2010
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we have to be careful thinking we can adjust to the changing climate – this is the strategy settled on by the oil industry and all the, uh, fat cats, if you’ll pardon my implied prejudice.
Fact is, the wealthiest few on the planet figure if they can enclave themselves in the last remaining temperate zones, the rest of us can go hang. … See MoreBefore that happens I suspect the rest of us will actually drag them out and hang them – but it’s hard to know how the military will swing, with the world in extremis.
As to Lovelock (and I respect him) – doesn’t matter who intended what, ain’t no standing still and just enjoying the twilight. Our industrial savagery is the disease and across the planet humanity’s immune response in all its varied forms is racing into action to combat this disease. Antibodies are swift and ruthless, and the patient may yet die, but it’s game on.
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raw milk is fabulous – you can only buy it at the farm, by law it can’t be shipped. I have a dairy right on the edge of town. And Weston A. Price was a very wise man> The foundation continuing his work in my opinion is one of our great champions of natural health.
The FDA? Not so much
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well, I don’t have any proof to hand but I don’t think we’re really running out of energy yet – the fossil fuel industries make this argument, but on the other hand I’ve seen very serious analysis that says we waste such huge percentages of our energy in our current infrastructure that simply doing things like building a smart grid, retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency, and doing more about the automobile would produce a vast amount of “free” energy out of current consumption.
What we’re addicted to I think is WASTING energy. The producers of that energy of course are happy for us to continue, and disinformation, combined with “junk science” such as the tobacco companies used in their final years, is very cheap for them to produce and cloud our perceptions with.
We’re already at incredibly dangerous carbon levels, and everything on the planet that can melt is melting. The fear of running out of energy I believe is mistaken when placed against the fear we should be feeling about climate change scenarios that have already started to play.… See More
In the end, it’s not going to be the oil industry that solves our energy problems, it’ll be the renewables industries.
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Sustainability 03/26/2010
Posted by rosshunter on March 25, 2010
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Smoke gets in your eyes: US News pits me vs. Big Oil on climate science « Climate Progress
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I have to agree with those who’ve noted the shamefully low quality of your journalism, US News. Really do we have to point out you’re matching science against celebrity, checkable fact against uninformed opinion?
The greatest tragedy of our age in the West is the poisoning of the information stream, and the failure of the Fourth Estate to bear accurate and courageous witness to these times. Viewing the sad decline of journals such as yours, I find it no wonder that the blogs have surpassed your integrity, and taken over your readership.
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Population growth should be curbed, argues Jane Goodall | Grist
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Reforesting large areas of degraded landscape is central to the project’s goal of promoting sustainable use of tropical forests, whose conservation Goodall believes is vital in the fight against climate change because of their ability to remove or “sequester” CO2 from the atmosphere.
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“Google Earth has a new kind of cell phone which the local people can use with GPS but also video,” she said. “It allows them to map deforested areas by filling in data points — here the forests are being cut down, here there are new trees. If communities can demonstrate that they are having an impact in terms of restoring their forests, then they get this money from the carbon polluters.”
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Scientists: BPA has widely contaminated the oceans | Grist
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One of the notable findings in this study is that in the ocean environment, “unbreakable” polycarbonate plastic… breaks down. And when the stuff breaks down, it releases a nasty set of toxins, including BPA. Meanwhile, every ship in the world contributes to the process simply by the act of steaming about the ocean while the BPA in its exterior paints and epoxy resins leach into the water. Even worse, the scientists measured BPA concentrations at levels known to affect mollusks, crustaceans and other sea life.
It sorta makes the FDA’s refusal to ban the chemical irrelevant, at least for the oceans’ sake. But for the sake of people ingesting the stuff through can linings, etc, the agency needs to act. Now. Thanks to the potent combination of a gung-ho chemical industry and lax sygovernment oversight, we are now well into a massive experiment with the endocrine systems of pretty much every form of life on earth.
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Sustainability 03/18/2010
Posted by rosshunter on March 17, 2010
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Severance: Nuclear Power Makes No Business Sense « Climate Progress
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#21, Dr. Ginosar, you may be correct, but all that will happen is the continued externalization of true costs as countries bring nukes online. So the footprint has a delayed impact. Maybe GW is cooled, but the patient dies from the poison? Sorry, I don’t have the analysis to say more about this. Your point No. 8 about cost for example – what’s the measure of that cost? Does it include waste as discussed above?
In our part of the world only – not to be provincial but just from a political viewpoint – thanks #10, Craig Severance himself, for this: “The argument will be completely over within five years — before even the first of any new nuclear plants begun today can even come on line.”
I agree and I think anyone touting nuke here in the west today is mostly using it as a crutch during rehab from the other fossil fuel dependence. It DOES serve to break the mind-set on oil and coal. It serves to show you’re still a he-man not afraid to drill if you need that political credential.
But even the U.S. in its heedless insanity of today wouldn’t keep writing the checks for this bogus industry to miss all deadlines year after year. (That would actually cut into the revenues of the rich!)
The rest of the world ultimately may prove that nuclear is viable, but to do so it will have to overthrow the hidden costs of the externalities developed in the western model.
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Sustainability 01/22/2010
Posted by rosshunter on January 21, 2010
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Ezra Klein – Will bloggers profit if newspapers charge?
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If there’s one lesson to be learned from recent history it’s how powerfully new things can happen when information is freely available.
The newspapers haven’t really failed to learn this, but I agree they just can’t figure our how to make money from it. This, even after Google showed that advertising (paid information) will gladly and profitably travel along with free information.
Raising the quality and extent of journalism to give us unimpeachably complete information doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of the old school as a model to explore, sadly.
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Sustainability 01/20/2010
Posted by rosshunter on January 19, 2010
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Sen. Lisa “dirty air” Murkowski now top fundraiser from utility industry
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Speaking of convergence, and in case one wonders, a discussion of ethics and cruelty to animals DOES belong in a website about climate change.
In fact Paul Hawken recently gave us the framework of reason that connects these things in commmon cause, introducing what to me was a brand-new paradigm, in his book Blessed Unrest.
He combines the three disparate movements of environmentalism, social justice, and indigenous peoples, and shows how they are interconnected and part of the same whole.
He cites the literally uncountable number (but in the millions) of organizations and efforts across the globe and calls them, together, the spontaneous arising of the Earth’s immmune system to defeat the great disease of industrial plunder.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 01/15/2010
Posted by rosshunter on January 14, 2010
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Ezra Klein – Americans not getting fatter
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alessandra_barbadoro is correct, it’s our food system that’s poisoning us – chronic illness is a main product of our unsustainable agri-business and food-processing industries.
Cheap “food-products” are a principal cause of our health care crisis, which is what SimonCox is pointing to also I assume.
Michael Pollan has been talking about this repeatedly lately. Try him in a short talk with Jon Stewart (pointing out that the food industry today creates patients for the health industry), and a longer one with Amy Goodman:
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THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2009— Page 1
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Given what we have today, the Internet could easily become Invisible High School, with a modicum of educational material in an ocean of narcissism and social obsessions. We could, however, also use it as an Invisible College, the communicative backbone of real intellectual and civic change, but to do this will require more than technology. It will require that we adopt norms of open sharing and participation, fit to a world where publishing has become the new literacy.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 12/10/2009
Posted by rosshunter on December 9, 2009
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Palin’s “Boycott Copenhagen” Op-Ed: Annotated – The Atlantic Politics Channel
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And the “science” against AGW –
anthropogenic global warning — is based on fitting into a grand theory
the bits of data noise and occasionally unconventional results that
scientists do get. In other words, AGW is supported by the research –
it is a theory of probability (not certainty) that is large enough to
account for discrepancies, too. The case against AGW is supported by a
theory that seizes on the discrepancies, magnifies them, and disregards
the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 12/04/2009
Posted by rosshunter on December 3, 2009
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Jobs for Today, Jobs for the Future
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Today, contractors offer unsecured home improvement loans for energy-efficient and renewable energy products, with a typical energy savings of 20 percent to 40 percent. But this market is small—approximately 5,000 loans per year—because interest rates are 10 percent to 15 percent—too high to be attractive for the typical homeowner. A program to “buy down” these loans would reduce the interest rate on a typical $7,000 loan from 12.99 percent to 6.99 percent at an approximate cost of $1,200 per loan. Loans would be a maximum of $20,000—typical loans are $10,000—with a 12-year term. In the meantime, the Obama administration should direct Fannie Mae—which oversees an existing energy loan program—to reduce its rates, which now range from 11.5 percent to 14.0 percent. This would also lower the cost of a buy-down program.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 10/17/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 16, 2009
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Ezra Klein – The Business of Business in Washington
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A little late for this thread, but for the record:
rmgregory – that BBC post has been completely discredited everywhere – start at climateprogress.org for Joe Romm’s peer-science debunking. It was a sad day when the BBC of all people (well regarded up til now for its climate reporting) let such a blunder from a weather presenter slip under its radar.
mogreenie – yes, what you said, and please stick around. If we’re going to start turning now to climate and farming (they go together in lots of ways), it’s true we have to realize the FB speaks as little for the good of farming as the AMA speaks for the good of health care.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 10/14/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 13, 2009
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And for the sake of our health, please keep raising and selling your pastured beef.
The system of producing feedlot beef requires antibiotics to keep the cattle alive because the unnatural food they’re forced to eat makes them sick. Michael Pollan has illustrated this clearly.
So what you provide us is non-sick beef.
Looking across America we see an increasingly unwell population. And sick beef is cheap enough everyone can eat it all the time.
Poor, foolish, overweight, health-impaired America.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 10/08/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 7, 2009
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Worldchanging Interview: Paul Hawken
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What I discovered was people, themselves. And really just the number, and the breath, and depth of the ingenuity and authenticity in which people really applied themselves to being problem solvers and alleviate suffering, to addressing the ills of the world, and innovating and re-imagining what was possible. And they are organizing around different ways and different issues around different cultures and different manners. And when you stand back and you really get to see, if you will, not visually, not directly, but see it in a conceptual way, how large and diverse this movement is, then you just have to either laugh, or grin or smile.
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Now then, you know what we pay attention to instead? All the institutional obstacles, and the resistance, and corruption, and financial chicanery, and on and on and on. And you look at that and you want to just jump off a bridge. And because you just see that, humans seem self serving, greedy, short sighted and violent. And if you just look at that, you just drink that potion, its toxic.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 10/07/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 6, 2009
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Woman’s Shattered Life Shows Ground Beef Inspection Flaws – NYTimes.com
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Costco said it had found E. coli in foreign and domestic beef trimmings and pressured suppliers to fix the problem. But even Costco, with its huge buying power, said it had met resistance from some big slaughterhouses. “Tyson will not supply us,” Mr. Wilson said. “They don’t want us to test.”
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The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”
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Sustainability 10/06/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 5, 2009
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It’s Time for a Delicious Revolution | Conversations…
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It turns out these same foods and methods of agriculture are often the best for the planet. Agriculture and the transportation, processing, storage, and preparation of food are a big part of our ecological impact. When it comes to environmental impact, how a family eats is more important than the type of car they choose to drive.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sustainability 10/03/2009
Posted by rosshunter on October 2, 2009
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Community Markets Association of Williamson County
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We are in a silent crisis in America because our food supply chain is being poisoned, and will ultimately be destroyed. What’s causing this is the action of corporate practices that exist only to strip every last dollar out of farming until the land is dead. Then the buyers of food will eat whatever they are fed to survive.
This crisis needs to become louder. It needs to turn into the scream it really is. We are being killed by bad food, and the answer for each one of us lies within a few miles of where we live.
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I think the answer is we make our markets where we can. In the end I don’t think all of America drives out to the farmer’s market, I think the food will come to us, one way or another.
I can’t make it to the market tomorrow so I’ve asked someone else to pick up some things for me. Meanwhile I have neighbors here in Georgetown who drive to a market in Austin to buy farm food.
Obviously I need to organize my neighborhood so only one person needs to drive to Florence to buy food for all.
And you farmers need to have subscribers – people similar to investors really – who will guarantee a market for your crop, and who will stay with you in good season and bad, in order to keep you in business and to guarantee that they can put wholesome food on their tables.
It’s a matter of re-arranging the economics of how we grow and buy food more than anything else, in my opinion.
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A Portland sustainability center could sprout in 2010 | Oregon Environmental News – – OregonLive.com
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The $90 million Oregon Sustainability Center — for several years a gauzy notion but this year funded by the Oregon Legislature — will be a showcase of the state’s green building innovation that draws visitors, researchers and designer-developers from across the world. It will rely solely on its own solar panels for energy and use no more water than falls on the site, among other major environmental feats.
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The driving goal: to become a magnet for any business or government looking to meet its sustainability challenges while growing green jobs in Oregon.
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The sustainability center is intended to meet the Living Building Challenge, a new green building certification program that lays out the most all-encompassing green standards in the industry.
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Ezra Klein – The Persistence of Obesity
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interesting post, and discussion. I do think the food chain is poisoned nowadays, and with genetic modification now loose and untracked in the fields there are a lot of untested imponderables going into our mouths no matter how rich we are.
But as to your main point, that the poor suffer extreme stress, and your secondary point, that the rich don’t really understand this because of their own relative insulation from stress – this is clearly true, and verified by all of our experiences if we review them in this light.
As for answers…
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It’s certainly not the powder keg, it may not even be a blasting cap, it’s perhaps no more than a basic chemistry class showing that powder burns. Don’t look for results from this today, but look towards 2012. It’s odd that you have such ambivalence about this action when you yourself donated so much character and strength and engagement to it. All honor to you for showing up and taking it on. This is the real lesson you’ve taught here.
Much respect and gratitude.
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