Into the Ruins Issue 3: Review
Into the Ruins is a rare breed of magazine. Unlike most other science fiction periodicals, its attitude toward the future charts a refreshing middle ground between mindless cheeriness and unremitting apocalypticism.
Frank Kaminski
Inauguration Day: Kicking Against the Prick(s)
Never assume the next 4 years are lost to us. They may well be the making of us, and the turning point we so desperately need. This is our time. Let’s get to it, and create something appropriate to the scale of the challenge.
2016: Toward the Deep Future
One of the oddest features of contemporary industrial society, it seems to me, is the profound ambivalence it displays toward the future. It’s hard to think of any society in human history that has made so much noise about the future, or used images and ideas of the future so relentlessly as rhetorical ammunition in its political and cultural controversies.
If We’re Honest, We All Know Trump’s America
When a local organizer for a new adult education project in Austin, Texas, asked me to teach a course on politics in January, it was tempting to focus on the potentially disastrous short-term consequences of the election. Instead, I decided to frame the course around the disastrous long-term forces that shape the contemporary United States, no matter who is in office.
The Real Reason your City has no Money
NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed. Image from Wikimedia. Lafayette, Louisiana, has a population of around 125,000. That makes it about the 200th largest city in the country; not really big but not really all that small either. It has a unique culture and geography, but the layout and design of the … Read more
Water and Climate Dominate World Economic Forum Risk Report
Environmental risks, steadily rising in importance, are recognized as authentic and relentless obstacles to peace, wealth, and health, according to the World Economic Forum’s global risk report, an annual survey of business, academic, and political leaders.
How “Open Source” Seed Producers from the US to Indian are Changing Global Food Production
Frank Morton has been breeding lettuce since the 1980s. His company offers 114 varieties, among them Outredgeous, which last year became the first plant that NASA astronauts grew and ate in space.
Movie Un-Review: Wendell Berry, the Not-Quite Rock Star Seer
To me, that’s the big question when it comes to film. Is such a thing possible, or does making a film – even one about Berry – not have a net effect of legitimizing film even more, spurring the making and watching of even more films (eco-type films in this case), rather than inspiring viewers and filmmakers themselves to “turn the television [and camera] off and go outside”?
A Good Day for a Walk in the Woods
Not since the Civil War has an American presidential Inauguration Day been so fraught with fear and dread (on February 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln traveled to his inauguration under military guard, arriving in Washington, D.C., in disguise). The incoming president is the most unpopular of any to assume office since modern polling began.
A Look at What Works and — and Doesn’t — in the World of Conservation
For public land managers, policy-makers, natural resource specialists, farmers, ranchers and others in the business of protecting and renewing the world’s diverse ecosystems, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of studies and strategies. How does a person determine which solutions will yield the best results in any given situation?
Analysis: UK Wind Generated More Electricity than Coal in 2016
The UK generated more electricity from wind than from coal in the full calendar year of 2016, Carbon Brief analysis shows. The milestone is a first for the UK and reflects a collapse in coal generation, which contributed just 9.2% of UK electricity last year, with 11.5% from wind. The coal decline saw its output fall to the lowest level since 1935.
Reducing Consumption and Local Exchange Better than “Sustainable Consumption”
While it is clear that global trade play a major role as a driver of destruction of biodiversity there is no way “consumers” in the US or other developed economies can be expected to take responsibility for the effect on biodiversity of their consumption.