Population
Time to curb population growth running out
“Earth’s population is approaching seven billion at the same time that resource limits and environmental degradation are becoming more apparent every day,” says Gary Peters on The Oil Drum. “Rich nations have long assured poor nations that they, too, would one day be rich and that their rates of population growth would decline, but it [...]
Garbage Planet
Garbage. On average, each of us deposits over four pounds of garbage every day in waste baskets around the house. That’s about 30 pounds of garbage per person, per week. If we didn’t take the trash out, it would soon fill up our houses and apartments. If garbage trucks didn’t haul it away, it would [...]
Guest essay: Life after growth
Life after growth by Richard Heinberg What if the economy doesn’t recover? In 2008 the U.S. economy tripped down a steep, rocky slope. Employment levels plummeted; so did purchases of autos and other consumer goods. Property values crashed; foreclosure and bankruptcy rates bled. For states, counties, cities, and towns; for manufacturers, retailers, and middle- and [...]
Infinite monkeys, finite resources
Ever heard of The Infinite Monkey Theorem? It goes something like this: Given infinite time, a monkey banging randomly on typewriter keys would reproduce a given work, such as Hamlet. Variations of the theorem add more monkeys to reproduce more works, such as the complete plays of Shakespeare, or all the books in the British [...]
Guest essay: The Paradise Imperative
A few days ago, “The Paradise Imperative” appeared as a comment on my “Contact” page. It was purportedly an essay by William H. Kötke, author of such works as The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future, and Garden Planet. I had read the former work and mentioned it on [...]
Are humans smarter than yeast?
Are humans smarter than yeast? That question has become a catch phrase among environmentalists, increasingly posed not in jest but in earnest. It’s the title of an eight minute YouTube video by Dan Chay, but Dave Bice explains its meaning more concisely: “Yeast growing in grape juice provide a good example of overshoot and collapse [...]
depressed about the Depression
I’m baaack. Haven’t written a lick in months. I’ve been bummed out that millions of Americans, including my brother, are out of work, and that the government is lying about it (double their unemployment percentages; it’s closer to 18% than 9%). And I’m angry that instead of prosecuting the crooks at AIG, Goldman Sachs and [...]
Earth 2100: ABC’s worst-case scenario
“Earth 2100,” ABC’s two-hour “journey through the next century to explore what might be our worst-case scenario,” aired on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Through a graphic novel format, the program follows generations of an American family during a 21st century in which “the ‘perfect storm’ of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change converge . [...]
Growth without limits–a false assumption
“. . . Our economy, indeed our entire civilization, is based on an obviously false assumption that we can have growth without limits. Even if we were able to restart the economic engine and push the pedal to the floor, we would not get far before we ran out of gas. And fresh water. And [...]
Will humanity survive the current mass extinction?
The Earth is experiencing its sixth mass extinction. An estimated 30,000 species are disappearing each year, three or more every hour of every day. By 2050, up to 50 percent of all species could be gone. The most recent of five previous mass extinctions was 65 million years ago and caused the demise of dinosaurs [...]
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Recommended sites
- Charles Hugh Smith
- Global Climate Change - NASA
- James Howard Kunstler
- Joseph Romm
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Mother Earth News
- National Geographic - Environment
- No-Dig Vegetable Garden
- Post Peak Living
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