Long-time readers of this blog are aware that it has gone through several phases — or rather, I have personally gone through several phases — of intense doomerism. Leading up to the global financial crash/panic/mini-apocalypse of 2008, I was fully caught up in the doom meme, with a special emphasis on peak fossil fuels and…
Category: Environment & Ecology
BP Spills Coffee
I’ll present this without comment, since it speaks for itself. But I will mention that I almost broke a rib laughing.
The Human Race at a Crossroads
Guy McPherson, professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona, pulls no punches in his May 21 essay, “Humanity at a crossroads.” In fact, he begins with his punchline itself: The evidence is gaining increasing clarity: We’ve reached a crossroads unlike any other in human history. One path leads to despair for Homo industrialis….
It’s official: The human race is earth’s disease
Okay, so it’s not actually “official” (since, after all, what would such a claim even mean?). But the following represents an interesting progression of an interesting idea through modern-day media culture. 1961-1964 and 1981: William Burroughs and the human virus In his classic Nova Trilogy, published in 1961-4, William Burroughs famously developed the idea that…
Choose now: a “depopulation explosion” or a doubling of earth’s population by 2040
There’s a very worthy front-page story in today’s Washington Post (“Simplicity Becomes a Selling Point“) about the current scramble among mass-produced food companies to slant their advertising campaigns to cater to the swelling public desire for greater simplicity and “naturalness” in food products, and also the desire for more locally produced foods. Near the end…
Thomas Friedman: The game is up, the ‘Great Disruption’ is at hand
Who would have believed it? Two days ago in Saturday’s (March 7) edition of The New York Times, Mr. Economic Globalization himself — Thomas Friedman, author of the monumentally influential tome The World Is Flat, which argues that individuals and nations must recognize and adapt to the reality of a level global economic “playing field”…
Food spikes, foreclosures, and cultural freefall
Has it really been three weeks since my last post? A glance at the date stamp on that previous post indicates the answer is yes. I’m now four weeks back into my teaching job, and this, in conjunction with a couple of extra-job responsibilities, is eating up nearly all of my time. Alas, the blog…