We're in the middle of a climate crisis. We need big ideas.
Monday, November 22, 2021
Saturday, November 20, 2021
“Our house is on fire”
"...Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swedish activist who, in 2018 after Sweden's fierce hot summer of wildfires and omens of disaster, sat outside the Swedish parliament every day to get her message across. Her message was simple: "Our house is on fire."
Five words, not one wasted, and you could paint it on any wall and everyone would know what you mean.
Five words, not one wasted, and you could paint it on any wall and everyone would know what you mean.
Children have great power to shame the rest of us, as every parent knows, and this cause is worth their effort. It's about the survival of our kind. Everything we love is in the balance, language, art, music, history, the art of story, dance, Eros, baseball, bird-watching, and the effect of apocalypse on the bond market would not be good..."
https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/#:~:text=Greta%20Thunberg%2C%20the,not%20be%20good.
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Tech Can’t Fix the Problem of Cars
Flashy new car technology may be exciting, but it might also be distracting us from what we need.
...Our health and that of the planet will significantly improve if we switch to electric cars. They are one focus of the global climate summit underway in Glasgow. And taking error-prone drivers out of the equation could make our roads much safer. But making better cars isn't a cure-all.
Popularizing electric vehicles comes with the risk of entrenching car dependency, as my New York Times Opinion colleague Farhad Manjoo wrote. Driverless cars may encourage more miles on the road, which could make traffic and sprawl worse. (Uber and similar services once also promised that they would reduce congestion and cut back on how many miles Americans drove. They did the opposite.)
...
nyt
...Our health and that of the planet will significantly improve if we switch to electric cars. They are one focus of the global climate summit underway in Glasgow. And taking error-prone drivers out of the equation could make our roads much safer. But making better cars isn't a cure-all.
Popularizing electric vehicles comes with the risk of entrenching car dependency, as my New York Times Opinion colleague Farhad Manjoo wrote. Driverless cars may encourage more miles on the road, which could make traffic and sprawl worse. (Uber and similar services once also promised that they would reduce congestion and cut back on how many miles Americans drove. They did the opposite.)
...
nyt
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Greta animated
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Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Future-world
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Monday, August 23, 2021
Saturday, August 21, 2021
"This Is the World Being Left to Us by Adults"
"We will not allow the world to look away."
Last week, some of the world's leading climate change scientists confirmed that humans are making irreversible changes to our planet and extreme weather will only become more severe. This news is a "code red for humanity," said the United Nations secretary general.
It is — but young people like us have been sounding this alarm for years. You just haven't listened... (continues)
It is — but young people like us have been sounding this alarm for years. You just haven't listened... (continues)
Monday, July 12, 2021
Jane Goodall Still Has Hope for Us Humans
"Traveling the world I'd see so many projects of restoration, people tackling what seemed impossible and not giving up."
... you don't have hope, why bother? Why should I bother to think about my ecological footprint if I don't think that what I do is going to make a difference? Why not eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die?
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Displacing the human: "The Overstory”
After a Hard Day’s Writing, Michael Pollan Likes to Unwind With a Novel “Getting to read fiction purely for pleasure is the carrot I hold out for myself as a reward for the work of reporting and writing.”
...
What’s the last great book you read?
“The Overstory,” by Richard Powers, is a book that, the further I am from reading it, looms larger and larger in my imagination. My über-subject as a writer is our species’ engagement with nature, and in “The Overstory” Powers has done something no one else has done (outside of science fiction): Displace the human in favor of other species in a realistic narrative about people and the natural world...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/books/review/michael-pollan-by-the-book-interview.html?smid=em-share
A Young Naturalist Inspires With Joy, Not Doom
At 17, Dara McAnulty is becoming one of Britain’s most acclaimed nature writers, with work that touches on his autism as much as the world around his home.
MONEYDARRAGH, Northern Ireland — While he carefully stepped from one moss-carpeted rock to another, Dara McAnulty outlined his rules for nature watching.
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“You’ll never see something if you bring a camera,” he said on this coastal stretch of Northern Ireland, “and you’ll definitely never see what you’re intending to find.”
His rules quickly proved true. McAnulty had wanted to use the ramble near his home to show off the local curlew population, but it was high tide — with waves sending salt spray spurting over the rocks — and there were no birds to be seen.
Instead, he squatted down to stare into a rock pool in search of his latest obsession: shrimp. Seaweed swayed in the water, but there were no signs of marine life. Then, suddenly, he noticed the smallest movement. “Oh, there’s a shrimpy boy!” he shouted. “Oh my God, it’s amazing. Can you see it? Can you see it?”
(continues) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/books/dara-mcanulty-diary-of-a-young-naturalist.html?smid=em-share
Sunday, June 27, 2021
What if American Democracy Fails the Climate Crisis?
Ezra Klein and four environmental thinkers discuss the limits of politics in facing down the threat to the planet.
The Participants
Saul Griffith
Chief scientist and founder of both Otherlab and Rewiring America, a nonprofit that advocates rapid electrification to meet our climate goals.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Climate-policy director at the Roosevelt Institute and an author of the Green New Deal.
Sheila Jasanoff
Professor of science and technology studies at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Novelist and author, most recently, of "The Ministry for the Future."
________________________________
Are our political systems even capable?
Ezra Klein: The American Jobs Act, President Biden's infrastructure bill, includes an ambitious clean-energy standard and huge investments in renewable-energy and electric-car technologies. It is effectively this administration's big climate bill. Its passage right now certainly isn't clear. But even if it did pass in its proposed form, how far would it get us on the climate fight?
Rhiana Gunn-Wright: It would certainly be a good start, but it really leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, the scale is simply too small; $900 billion on climate is not enough to catalyze the pace of decarbonization we will need in order to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030, while providing millions of good jobs. That's more like $10 trillion over 10 years. It isn't entirely the Biden administration's fault. The reconciliation process in Congress, just because of the way that it is structured, really forces you to rely really heavily on existing programs. For example, the plan routes some of its investments in the built environment through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program, which has a history of being exploited by developers. It also relies heavily on existing tax credits to fund the building and deployment of clean-energy infrastructure. If the programs that we had were enough to decarbonize, they would have done that already. It is certainly better than what we have now, but there's still a lot of room to improve.
Saul Griffith: It's not even remotely close to sufficient. But something extraordinary did happen when the Biden administration came out and said it was aiming for a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It may not be binding, but that is enormously more ambitious than John F. Kennedy standing up and saying we'll go to the moon by the end of the decade. We knew how to build rockets, and we knew where the moon was. We don't know all the answers of where we're going... (continues)
Saul Griffith
Chief scientist and founder of both Otherlab and Rewiring America, a nonprofit that advocates rapid electrification to meet our climate goals.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Climate-policy director at the Roosevelt Institute and an author of the Green New Deal.
Sheila Jasanoff
Professor of science and technology studies at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Novelist and author, most recently, of "The Ministry for the Future."
________________________________
Are our political systems even capable?
Ezra Klein: The American Jobs Act, President Biden's infrastructure bill, includes an ambitious clean-energy standard and huge investments in renewable-energy and electric-car technologies. It is effectively this administration's big climate bill. Its passage right now certainly isn't clear. But even if it did pass in its proposed form, how far would it get us on the climate fight?
Rhiana Gunn-Wright: It would certainly be a good start, but it really leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, the scale is simply too small; $900 billion on climate is not enough to catalyze the pace of decarbonization we will need in order to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030, while providing millions of good jobs. That's more like $10 trillion over 10 years. It isn't entirely the Biden administration's fault. The reconciliation process in Congress, just because of the way that it is structured, really forces you to rely really heavily on existing programs. For example, the plan routes some of its investments in the built environment through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program, which has a history of being exploited by developers. It also relies heavily on existing tax credits to fund the building and deployment of clean-energy infrastructure. If the programs that we had were enough to decarbonize, they would have done that already. It is certainly better than what we have now, but there's still a lot of room to improve.
Saul Griffith: It's not even remotely close to sufficient. But something extraordinary did happen when the Biden administration came out and said it was aiming for a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It may not be binding, but that is enormously more ambitious than John F. Kennedy standing up and saying we'll go to the moon by the end of the decade. We knew how to build rockets, and we knew where the moon was. We don't know all the answers of where we're going... (continues)
Eco-philosophy
READ: @five_books asked me to recommend the best books that contemplate eco-philosophy and our place on this Earth. Check out my suggestions. #nonfiction #bookshttps://t.co/bhsUT6LvUk
— Rupert Read 🌍 (@GreenRupertRead) June 25, 2021
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Ecstatic environmentalism
From Emerson to Humboldt to Muir to Leopold to Stewart Brand to Gail Bradbrook, you could tell a history of environmentalism through the ecstatic experiences that inspired its leaders. https://t.co/cd83Z6g1zl https://t.co/HlEIeDfaqs
(https://twitter.com/JulesEvans11/status/1406151595965005825?s=02)
(https://twitter.com/JulesEvans11/status/1406151595965005825?s=02)
Sunday, June 6, 2021
Let’s Celebrate a Lower Birthrate, Not Lament It
Readers criticize two Times pieces that raised concerns about slow population growth, instead viewing the trend as a positive for the planet.
To the Editor:
“World Is Facing First Long Slide in Its Population” (front page, May 23) misses the big picture. World population is still growing by 80 million people annually, and it won’t stop for several more decades.
Most of that growth is happening in the poorest places on earth — many in sub-Saharan Africa. If the Italian towns of Capracotta and Agnone want to boost their populations of working-age residents, there’s a steady stream of people willing to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean to get there.
The article refers to a paradigm shift necessary to address the “strain of longer lives and low fertility” that “threatens to upend how societies are organized.” As the status quo changes, people adapt to the new normal.
If public health campaigns can get billions of people to wear masks and stay six feet apart for over a year, surely economists and politicians can figure out how to restructure economies away from a strict dependency on infinite population growth. Perhaps the cleaner air and water that will result from our slower growth will even be inspirational...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/opinion/letters/population-birthrate.html?smid=em-share
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Be inconvenient
Al Gore (@algore) tweeted...
Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of An Inconvenient Truth. I'm inspired by those who've worked for decades to solve the climate crisis. We're finally crossing the political tipping point. So let's persist, #BeInconvenient & secure a sustainable future.
(https://twitter.com/algore/status/1396996483203932163?s=02)
Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of An Inconvenient Truth. I'm inspired by those who've worked for decades to solve the climate crisis. We're finally crossing the political tipping point. So let's persist, #BeInconvenient & secure a sustainable future.
(https://twitter.com/algore/status/1396996483203932163?s=02)
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Good intentions not enough
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Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu
👣Solvitur ambulando
💭Sapere aude
Monday, April 26, 2021
Icelandic gutpunch
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“Most humans dead...”
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Biden’s climate moonshot
On Thursday and Friday of last week, April 22 and 23, President Biden convened a virtual meeting of 40 world leaders to discuss addressing climate change. It is no longer possible to ignore changes in the world's climate: the last decade was the hottest in recorded history, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached record levels. Arctic ice is melting; last summer's fires in Australia, California, and Colorado were catastrophic...
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-25-2021?r=iqpjt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Why Bitcoin Is Bad for the Environment
...According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, bitcoin-mining operations worldwide now use energy at the rate of nearly a hundred and twenty terawatt-hours per year. This is about the annual domestic electricity consumption of the entire nation of Sweden. According to the Web site Digiconomist, a single bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of power that the average American household consumes in a month, and is responsible for roughly a million times more carbon emissions than a single Visa transaction. At a time when the world desperately needs to cut carbon emissions, does it make sense to be devoting a Sweden’s worth of electricity to a virtual currency? The answer would seem, pretty clearly, to be no. And, yet, here we are...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-bitcoin-is-bad-for-the-environment?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker
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