AFTER A CENTURY OF CRUDE, IT’S TIME TO REFINE OUR VISION: The 20th Century can be viewed through any of the three great trends of our time — economic growth, social progress, and environmental damage. But a fourth trend — growing energy use —underlies each of these, literally fueling the incredible journey we’ve been on in the last 100 years. And changes in the landscape of energy may well trigger a whole new journey for humanity. The legendary actor and narrator Peter Coyote tells the story of our oil journey.
Daniel Suelo lives in caves in the canyonlands of Utah. He survives by harvesting wild foods and eating roadkill.
He has no job, no bank account and does not accept government welfare. In fact, Suelo has no money at all.
Suelo may have shunned all the trappings of modern American life, but he is not an isolationist.
Since abandoning money in 2000, the former cook from Moab, Utah has remained an active member of his community and avid blogger.
Mark Sundeen, author of The Man Who Quit Money, admits many people would regard Suelo’s alternative lifestyle as bizarre. But the 2008 financial crash has led many to question the value of money. He explains some of the lessons found in Suelo’s philosophy.
Next Great Depression? MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030
A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from “global economic collapse” and “precipitous population decline” if people continue to consume the world’s resources at the current pace.
Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says “the world is on track for disaster” and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, “The Limits to Growth.”
“There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” Turner said. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”
Our world, mid-century. Who needs water, anyway?
Severe drought (or Dust-Bowlification) “is the most pressing problem caused by climate change.” As I wrote in the journal Nature last year, “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”
The harrowing history is recorded in mud samples millions of years old, taken from the sea floor near Antarctica: It reveals a mass extinction of single-celled organisms that no doubt caromed far up the food chain. A similar effect today could kill off coral, plankton and mollusks, constricting the diets of a range of fauna that rely on them, including salmon — and humans.
Assuming similar results now, ocean acidification’s most extreme possible effects might not occur for many years. Yet today’s rate of acidification is 10 times that of the most comparable surge in atmospheric carbon in the last 300 million years, Barbel Honisch, a scientist involved in the study, tentatively estimates.
Soaring drilling in the U.S. hasn’t lowered gas prices
Crossing the line as civilization implodes
The media continues to reduce coverage of the story of the century — “Silence of the Lambs 2: Media Herd’s Coverage of Climate Change Drops Sharply — Again. The three network news stations broadcast 14 climate change stories with a total air time of 32.5 minutes in 2011, down from 32 stories and 90.5 minutes last year and well below the 2007 peak of 147 segments totaling 386 minutes. This is a stunning collective lapse in judgment by editors and producers. But the media — in a classic act of circular benchmarking — sees everyone else in the media doing it, so the inconceivable becomes an accepted norm.
