Latest Articles
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Umbra on freezing local foods
Dear Umbra, I am lucky enough to live across the street from a farmers’ market, and I shop there all summer. But when summer’s done, the market closes and I am left to buy produce from California. Would it be better for me to buy a small freezer and freeze farmers’ market veggies for winter, […]
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Aspen Backwards
Colorado’s ski industry says global warming won’t stop the shredding Colorado’s lucrative ski industry claims it’s got no worries about global warming, saying the state’s high altitudes and remarkably cold winters will keep things white and wonderful. Others think the sector’s got its collective head stuck up its snowpack. “Heavens, I think that’s shortsighted,” said […]
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The Trash Money Crew
New Orleans garbage will fill at least 3.5 million truckloads We’d hate to be the ones tasked with separating out the recycling: Cleaning up New Orleans will involve hauling 22 million tons of garbage and waste that have been moldering in the heat and damp since late August’s Hurricane Katrina, including rotting food, ruined furniture, […]
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Trunk’d
As USFS suspends many activity permits, enviros say it’s playing games The U.S. Forest Service has suspended permits for 1,436 activities in national forests nationwide, from cutting the U.S. Capitol’s Christmas tree to guiding hunting and fishing trips. It claims it’s just complying with a court order, but eco-advocates say the agency is intentionally stirring […]
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And the Land Played On
Judge rules Oregon’s Measure 37 unconstitutional Oregon’s voter-approved Measure 37, which would mandate that private landowners be compensated for changes in their property value brought about by state land-use decisions, has been ruled unconstitutional by Marion County Circuit Judge Mary James. Oregon was widely seen as a national model in land-use planning, pushing new development […]
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Phil Brick, environmental politics professor, answers questions
Phil Brick. What work do you do? I am professor of politics and codirector of environmental studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. I am also the founder and director of an environmental-studies field program, Whitman College Semester in the West, a three-month field tour focusing on the political, ecological, and human dimensions of […]
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Big ag is energy intensive and has no plans to change
Big Ag is nervous about energy costs. The hand-wringing reveals much about the energy-intensive nature of industrial agriculture -- and its lack of imagination regarding alternatives.
Even before the latest big runup in oil prices -- incidentally, oil had reached $60 per barrel before Hurricane Katrina trashed the Gulf of Mexico -- farmers were feeling the pinch. Here's an Associated Press article from May laying out the energy story in terms dictated by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which not inaccurately calls itself "the voice of agriculture." It has only forgotten to add a few compound modifiers: vast-scale, heavily subsidized, export-minded energy-intensive.
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“We don’t conserve until we’re down to the last roll of toilet paper.”
Over at Current TV, which is the new cable network that I'm obsessed with even though I don't have cable, browsers of the online studio can find out if a video clip has made it on air. So this morning I was pleased to learn that part one of Earth Current "cody" did so.
Earth Current "cody" is a three part series of video shorts, produced by Dharma Dog Pictures, which introduces us to Cody Lundin, founder of Aboriginal Living Skills School and ACES Arizona Center for Environmental Sustainability. In part one, we get a tour of Cody's home, which looks to me like a Hobbit hole in the middle of the desert. In fact we discover it is a eco-designed house.
Part two is an interview with Cody, formerly known as ABO DUDE, where get gems like "we don't conserve until we're down to the last roll of toilet paper" during conversations on global warming, sustainability, and conservation. According to Cody, what is going to get people to "shift" their behavior so that they make less of a footprint is "pain." Not public-education campaigns, but pain. Ouch!
In part three, we learn how one would make fire in a world without matches, lighters, and Swedish Firesteel. The moral of the story: We've lost touch with the basics of nature. (Yeah, but the Swedish Firesteel is so cool!)
So head on over to Current TV, watch the clips, leave some comments, and greenlight parts two and three if you think they deserve to be on air.
And you can check out some other clips from Dharma Dog over at the Current TV studio, including one of my favorites, the Organic Rap.
Lastly, let us know in comments if Cody would make for an interesting InterActivist.
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Mooney on TPMCafe
For the past week, on TPMCafe's Book Club, they've been discussing Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science. It's been a great back and forth among Chris and several guests, including Roger Pielke Jr. and Lawrence Krauss. The reader comments, as usual on that site, have been literate and insightful. Head on over and start scrolling down.
