Yet more boondoggles: Extracting carbon dioxide from the air, mining asteroids
Many of the proposed solutions to climate change and resource depletion are really just boondoggles that benefit a few insiders
Kurt Cobb
Dr. Seuss and the weight-loss drug craze
The chemical soup we live in every day is a major cause of chronic disease including obesity that no weight-loss drug can address.
Presidential immunity and the ‘Dark Age Ahead’
I’ve been thinking about Jane Jacobs’ book, Dark Age Ahead, as I’ve contemplated the idea that former presidents of the United States should be immune from prosecution.
Are your Cheerios impairing your fertility?
A lax U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is aiming right at your reproductive organs.
Why we call it climate change
Our damage to the climate will make temperatures go up in many places, but in some places temperatures will plummet.
The short-circuiting of societal feedback mechanisms
Virtually all human and natural systems require feedback to operate properly. Modern global society has been manipulated to prevent effective feedback that could allow us to address the critical environmental problems we face.
Biofortification: The latest technical fix for depleted soils
In the tradition of filtering air that we’ve polluted and treating water that we’ve sullied, we now have replacing minerals in soil that we’ve depleted because of industrial agriculture.
The hidden potential of bicycles
In perhaps one of the great ironies of human civilisation, mechanical devices to truly magnify human power came along as soon as we didn’t need them.
Why don’t humans respond to extinction-level risks?
Human extinction is a topic much in the air these days. But we humans are very short on action in response to the many threats.
Owning your own information revisited
Now that AI has made it possible to reproduce anyone’s image and voice for video or audio communications, it is more imperative than ever for the law to give each of us ownership of our own information, image and voice.
Surprise! Saudi Arabia is no longer wholly-owned gas station of the United States
It has been apparent to anyone paying attention that Saudi Arabia was and would be limiting its oil production. We got another reminder last week.
U.S. natural gas exports signal higher prices for U.S. consumers (in the long run)
It’s simple economics really. When you have less of something for which there is high demand, the price will go up.