Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms
August 30th, 2007For me, comprehension of the way industrial scale (including “Organic”) food worked was the last straw. Many aspects of politics and society are disturbing, but toxic—and or long distance—food isn’t some theoretical, far out, future threat. The wolf is at the door. It’s right here, right now. The food issue, more than anything else, drove […]
German Physicists on the Carbon Theory Behind Global Warming
August 5th, 2007Comments on this post are open only to university physics professors. If you are a university physics professor and would like to comment on this paper, send me a private email from your university email account and I will be happy to post your comment. These will be on-the-record comments. Your name will be included. […]
The Chinese “Miracle” Will End Soon [sic]
August 4th, 2007Yesterday wouldn’t be soon enough. Via: Spiegel: The world has been dazzled in recent years by the economic strides being made by China. But it has come at a huge cost to the country’s environment. Pollution is a serious and costly problem. Pan Yue of the ministry of the environment says these problems will soon […]
BP Gets OK to Dump Mercury into Lake Michigan
July 31st, 2007Via: USA Today: A BP refinery in Indiana will be allowed to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan under a permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great […]
UK Floods: Looting, Panic Buying – and a Water Shortage
July 23rd, 2007Via: Times Online: Food and drinking water shortages, panic buying and the threat of looting have followed the worst flooding to hit England in 60 years. Amid concerns that the government-run Environment Agency acted far too slowly in responding to serious flood alerts from the Met Office, parts of the West Country woke up this […]
Ice-Cream Makers Frozen Out as Corn Price Rises
July 18th, 2007HAHA! Did you hear the one about Dow 14,000? HAHA! Tell me another one. Via: Times Online: What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream? Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other. This month, the price of milk in the United States […]
The Ants of Gaia
July 9th, 2007Joe doesn’t seem to acknowledge the kill off of the die off, but I’m not sure that it matters anymore. Via: Joe Bageant: The hearts of even our most avowedly thriving cities are just a dead, reduced to nothing more than designated spending zones, collections of bars and banks and overpriced eateries lodged at the […]
China Exporting Ecological Disaster to the World
July 8th, 2007Via: Spiegel: Can the environment withstand China’s growing economic might? As one of the planet’s worst polluters, Beijing’s ecological sins are creating problems on a global scale. Many countries are now feeling the consequences.
China: Food Crops Grown in Soil Polluted with Heavy Metals
July 3rd, 2007Devastation. Via: Wall Street Journal / Moneyweb: For nearly two decades, Lai Mandai regularly ate and sold beans, cabbage and watermelons grown on a plot of land a short walk from a lead smelting plant in her village. Like dozens of other villagers who ate locally grown food, Ms. Lai, 39 years old, developed health […]
Giant Microwave Turns Plastic Back to Oil
June 26th, 2007This is some interesting news. I wonder how much electricity the machine requires!? Hopefully, the Indonesians will be at the top of the list of customers… Via: New Scientist: A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas. All that is […]
