Standing for the Future
What does it mean to honor Grace Limits? Dowd considers Grace Limits to be “the inescapable, geological, ecological, and thermodynamic constraints to which humanity must rapidly adjust.”
Environment featured
The Twelve Days (and Months) of Climate Justice Day Nine: The Simple Logic of the End of Fossil Fuels (Again)
Following in these footsteps, and standing on their shoulders, what this next piece, collectively authored under the auspices of Oil Change International and its allies, does beautifully – starting with its clever title – is present an open and shut case that what the world needs now (besides love) is to leave the coal in the hole, the oil in the soil, the tar sand in the land, and the gas [use your imagination to fill in this rhyme]. It lays bare the logic behind Blockadia‘s attempts to stop every pipeline, railway, port, refinery, seafaring oil rig, mountaintop strip mine, fossil-fueled power station – and so much more.
Four Strong Winds: First US Offshore Wind Project Launches
As the public learned of the recent opening of America’s first offshore wind power project, many wondered why it took so long? This week on Sea Change Radio, we talk with the executive editor of EcoRI News, Tim Faulkner, to discuss the opening of the Block Island Wind Farm off of Rhode Island.
The Twelve Days (and Months) of Climate Justice Day Seven: Take a Leap toward Climate Justice
The Leap is a manifesto that aspires to spark and inform a movement. I was one of hundreds who attended a meeting where it was presented to a global audience at COP 21 in Paris in December of 2015. There was real enthusiasm in a room of intergenerationals, much of it for a chance to hear Klein and her husband Avi Lewis, whose film based on the book, and is also titled This Changes Everything, had just been released.
The Futile War between Conservationists and Farmers
Fungi and other soil microbes are critical to the health of soil and our food systems yet ‘conservation biodiversity’ often overlooks them for more charismatic wildlife.
Robert Macfarlane: How Language Reconnects Us with Place
I have come to realize that language is an indispensable portal into the deeper mysteries of the commons. The words we use – to name aspects of nature, to evoke feelings associated with each other and shared wealth, to express ourselves in sly, subtle or playful ways – our words themselves are bridges to the natural world. They mysteriously makes it more real or at least more socially legible.
How to Make Hydropower More Environmentally Friendly
NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed. Hydropower provides 85 percent of the world’s renewable electricity, but comes with a hefty environmental price tag. Here’s what some are doing to fix that. December 20, 2016 — Humanity got its first large-scale electricity thanks to hydropower. On Aug. 26, 1895, water flowing over Niagara … Read more
Obama Banned Arctic and Atlantic Offshore Drilling and Big Oil Isn’t Happy
President Obama has announced what amounts to a ban of offshore drilling in huge swaths of continental shelf in both the Alaskan Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, a decision which came after years of pushing by environmental groups.
NASA Produces First 3D Animation of Global Carbon Emissions
NASA, the US space agency, has released an “eye-popping” three-dimensional animation showing carbon dioxide emissions moving through the Earth’s atmosphere over the course of a year.
The Global Road-Building Explosion is Shattering Nature
The bottom line is that if we’re smart and plan carefully, we can still increase food production and human equity across much of the world.
The climate trials of the 21st century have begun
The question in these trials is straightforward: Do governments and corporations have an obligation to protect the habitability of the Earth’s climate for human populations?
How to Convince Your Neighbors Climate Change Is Real? Stop Calling Them Idiots, Says DeSmog Founder Jim Hoggan
Clean coal.” “Ethical oil.” How could fossil fuels that produce pollution which sickens, kills, and hospitalizes tens of thousands of Americans each year end up sounding so … desirable?