The Age of Enlightentertainment
Comedy Break, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts February 28, 2009
 Click for full view. Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
The media don’t take this stuff seriously. It’s not good for business and it’s simply not sexy – so no matter that we’re pumping it out faster than ever or that we’re going to be left holding frazzled stalks of nowt come harvest time – we’ll wait untill we’re staring down the barrel before we think about dodging the bullet. We’ll sell more ads that way.
Comments (0)The WHO Farm (The White House Organic Farm)
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 20, 2009
Imagine a United States President that was aware – aware of Peak Oil (and all that this means for our ability to feed ourselves), aware of Peak Soil, aware of Peak Water, aware of the health implications of industrial agriculture, a system that locks us into a cycle of stupidity and is doomed to fail us in every way. Imagine a President that realised that we’re facing an economic and environmental crisis without precedent, where consumer demands will soon become far simpler than they have been – where the desire for cheap electronics and holidays is already giving way to the more pressing need to put affordable food on the table. Such a President might be tempted to set an example to his nation (and, indeed, the world) with the land at his disposal, might he not?
During WWII, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a large Victory Garden on the White House lawn, inspiring millions of Americans by her example. If ever there was a time to inspire citizens with the potential of their lawns to solve a great many problems – now is that time!
Click here to sign the petition to urge the Obamas to ‘Eat the View’.
Comments (3)Trading Places
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts February 16, 2009
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
The carbon market, being as bolloxed as every other market, has screwed the price of carbon into the ground. One result of this is that the contribution to emissions reductions made by Germany’s world-beating renewables industry is offset by the ease with which less scrupulous players can get their hands on the newly liberated excess permits – thus enabling carbon spewers to party like there’s no tomorrow.
Comments (1)Wake Up, Freak Out, Then Get a Grip
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 28, 2009
Feedback loops made simple.
And if you’re into cool animations, here’s another for good measure:
Comments (4)Food Miles, or ‘Fair Miles’
Consumerism, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 21, 2009
When you make your purchases, are you struggling over the decision to ’shop local’ or ’support the poor in distant lands’? If so, read this.
I had been meaning to make a post on the subject of ‘Food Miles, or Fair Miles’, and finding this article from Reuters provided an ideal vehicle to do so. Please consider the following:
Comments (2)BR-319 – Amazon’s Highway to Hell
Consumerism, Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 16, 2009
An old road through central Amazonia, that became overgrown and impassable in the 1980s, may get reopened and fully paved — threatening to escalate destruction of one of the world’s last remaining stands of tropical rainforest
To date, one fifth of the Amazon forest has been destroyed, that’s an area the size of France. Will it stop? It must, but will it? To stop it will require planning, foresight, and political and consumer awareness, determination and restraint. If the choice is left to industry alone, they won’t stop until it’s all gone.
It is said that if the Amazon shrinks much more, its inability to water itself from its own cycles of evaporation and precipitation will begin a spiralling cycle of drying – a tipping point that will be nigh impossible to return from. One of the greatest threats is the increasing demand for meat.
Comments (2)Skating on Thin Ice
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
I have spent the last two evenings skating. Last night we laid lanterns out across the ice and swooped and swung and fell flat on our faces on this silent lake in mid-Wales, for hours by moonlight. I should have been in bed – I have a chest infection and a cold – but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
For the exhilaration of this primal game was shaded with sadness: all of us knew that this time might be our last. It is many winters since most of the lakes in England and Wales have frozen hard enough to support a skating party; with every year the chances of another one recede. The fuss this country has made about the current cold snap reminds us how rare such events have become.
Comments (0)Slip Hazard
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts January 3, 2009
With apologies to Robert Newman
A percentage of climate scientists expect that climate engineering of some sort will be required – because we as a species just can’t be arsed with changing our behaviour.
Marvellous. Can I have my Jet-Pack now?
Planting Trees and Managing Soils to Sequester Carbon
Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Earth Policy Institute January 2, 2009
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
As of 2007, the shrinking forests in the tropical regions were releasing 2.2 billion tons of carbon per year. Meanwhile, expanding forests in the temperate regions were absorbing 0.7 billion tons of carbon annually. On balance, a net of some 1.5 billion tons of carbon were being released into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming.
Comments (2)Veiling Our True Predicament – Global Dimming
Global Dimming, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 17, 2008
Have you heard the expression ‘Global Dimming’ yet? The documentary embedded in this post examines the phenomenon, but, in brief, I’ll endeavour to give a rough heads up on the topic. It’s yet further evidence that our dangerous habit of underestimating the complexities of natural systems will surely backfire on us, and in direct proportion to our tinkering with the same.
At Last, a Date
Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by George Monbiot December 16, 2008
For the first time, the International Energy Agency has produced a date for peak oil. And it’s not reassuring.
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
Can you think of a major threat for which the British government does not prepare? It employs an army of civil servants, spooks and consultants to assess the chances of terrorist attacks, financial collapse, floods, epidemics, even asteroid strikes, and to work out what it should do if they happen. But there is one hazard about which it appears intensely relaxed. It has never conducted its own assessment of the state of global oil supplies and the possibility that one day they might peak and then go into decline.
Woody Harrelson Waxes Poetic on the Life that Shouldn’t Be
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Musical Interlude, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 15, 2008
No New Coal
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts December 14, 2008
Courtesy: Throbgoblins
A lone anonymous protestor single handedly shaves 2% off our emissions by temporarily knocking out a turbine at Kingsnorth. How audacious. Desperate times – desperate measures.
Comments (0)Global Warming, Hitler and World War II Rationing
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 7, 2008
 Peer pressure, national pride, and legal mandates worked together against the common evil |
It’s an unusual title, I know – but bear with me.
If you were to personify global warming, to literally morph it into some kind of effigy – something you could tie to a stake in the town square, and throw cabbages, or rocks at – what would the guy look like?
I guess the degree of grotesquery in your visualisation would largely depend on where in the world you live, and to what extent this ‘person’ has adversely influenced your life, although in some ways it could be easy to conjure an image of one of last century’s most notorious, infamous villains – Adolf Hitler. Couldn’t it?
Comments (2)Whistling in the Wind
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot December 3, 2008
The new climate change report falls miles short of what we need. Here are some of the emergency measures it should have contained.
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
Lord Turner has two jobs. The first, as chair of the Financial Services Authority, is to save capitalism. The second, as chair of the Committee on Climate Change, is to save the biosphere from the impacts of capitalism. I have no idea how well he is discharging the first task, but if his approach to the second one is anything to go by, you should dump your shares and buy gold.
His climate change report, published yesterday, is long, detailed and impressive(1). It has the admirable objective of trying to cap global warming at two degrees or a little more. This, it says, means that greenhouse gas pollution in the UK should fall by 80% by 2050 and by 31% by 2020. But there’s a problem. There is no longer any likely relationship between an 80% cut and two degrees of warming. This gets a little complicated, but please bear with me while I explain why Turner’s proposal is about as likely to stop runaway climate change as the Maginot Line was to hold back the Luftwaffe.
Comments (6)
