Soil
We grow food in dirt, devoid of life
“The difference between soil and dirt,” explains Rob Avis on countercurrents.org, is that “soil is alive. Dirt is dead. A single teaspoon of soil can contain billions of microscopic bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes. A handful of the same soil will contain numerous earthworms, arthropods, and other visible crawling creatures. . . . These billions [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Food production limited by worsening environment
“Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos,” reports Scientific American. “Such ‘failed states’ can export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees. Water shortages, soil losses and rising temperatures from global warming are placing severe limits on food production. Without massive and rapid intervention to address these three [...]
Population triples in one lifetime. Cause for alarm?
The worldwide average lifespan of a human is about 66 years (64 for males and 68 for females). During that average human’s life, say from 1943 to 2009, the total population has grown from about 2.2 billion to about 6.7 billion. Three hundred percent in one lifetime. Considering that scientists estimate it took about 15,000 [...]
Ethanol is a scam!
Look up “scam” in the dictionary and you will see something like this: “A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.” That’s an apt definition of the marketing of ethanol as an alternative to petroleum fuel. Ethanol producers receive tax breaks and subsidies that add up to as much as $1.38 a gallon to maximize their profits, [...]
A glimpse at what’s wrong with this country
“You can get a glimpse of what’s wrong with this country by taking a ride through a huge tract of open land south of Chicago. Some of the land is used for growing corn or soybeans. Some is pasture land.” Thus begins an op-ed piece by Bob Herbert in yesterday’s New York Times. Herbert goes [...]
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