Latest Articles

So 2003

Reason magazine discovers that environmentalists and corporations are working more and more frequently as partners rather than adversaries.

Peak oil: Dec. 16, 2005

Noted oil analyst Kenneth Deffeyes has put a new date on peak oil: "we passed the peak on December 16, 2005."

That's it. I can now refer to the world oil peak in the past tense. My career as a prophet is over. I'm now an historian.

Read the whole post for details.

So where were you on Dec. 16?

(via Oil Drum)

Umbra on Valentine’s Day

Dear Umbra, Do you have any advice on how to have a guilt-free, pleasurable Valentine’s Day? I would like to give my husband gifts that are good for him and the environment. Krista Ashley Gadsden, Ala. Dearest Krista, Love, love, love. Does greeting him at the door dressed in strategically placed hemp napkins count as […]

Poverty in a civilized world

Poverty is a by-product of civilization. We cannot eradicate it by spending more, organizing more, analyzing more, developing more technology, or curbing consumption. We can only make limited, short-term improvements. This does not mean we should not make the effort to address specific concerns. What else would the action-minded have to do? We do need to be realistic that we are treating a symptom of a human condition. A true solution would require a radical change in our nature. When was the last time there was a truly lasting shift in the way of being human?

Dispatches from a NATO gathering on Middle Eastern water woes

Eric Pallant is a professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. Monday, 13 Feb 2006 Kibbutz Ketura, Israel A Moldovan, two Bulgarians, and three Canadians walk into the desert. It’s like the start of a bad joke, but this […]

Greenhouse mafia

Apparently there's a "Greenhouse Mafia" in Australia, consisting of industry lobbyists and bureaucrats who used to be industry lobbyists, exercising immense power over Australian climate policy, insuring that the public remains in the dark about climate change and that the government does nothing to address it.

Deltoid has lots of links. So does Peak Energy.

When I first read about this, my reaction was, "wow, I wish somebody would do an investigative piece on America's greenhouse mafia." And then I remembered: In the U.S., there's no secret to be uncovered. It's all right out in the open.

Down for the count

Be sure to head over to Grist's Counter Culture section, where yours truly has compiled facts and figures about poverty in the United States.

Doom

According to The Independent, our goose is cooked.

Then again, I could have posted this exact thing pretty much any time in the last 10 years.

(via theWatt)

A virtual walking tour of Columbia, Miss.

Activist and evangelist Charlotte Keys founded Jesus People Against Pollution to help clean up her hometown of Columbia, Miss., site of a now-shuttered plant where Reichhold Chemical once manufactured Agent Orange. The company shut the factory down after an explosion in 1977 and abandoned or buried thousands of barrels of toxic waste near the water supply of the predominantly poor, African-American neighborhood where it had operated; flooding and leaks followed. In this virtual walking tour, Keys describes life near the plant and her fight to win justice for her community.

Steve Frillmann, community-garden guru, answers Grist’s questions

Steve Frillmann of community-gardening group Green Guerillas (try saying that five times fast!) helps his 8 million neighbors create and protect green spaces in New York City. As this week's InterActivist, Frillmann chats about how something as simple as giving away a few seedlings can make a big difference in helping a community grow. Send Frillmann a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish his answers to selected questions on Friday.