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Five Years After Katrina, An Important Lesson Goes Unlearned

Sandra Postel    Aug 30, 2010   

[Excerpt] It's getting harder and harder to blame Mother Nature for the disasters that befall humanity. While hurricanes, floods, droughts and storm surges are natural events, to be sure, the … >>

Veils, Boomerangs, and Goldilocks

Asher Miller    Aug 28, 2010   3 comments

There's a lot to digest in Michael Lewis' The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine but I was particularly struck by a passage at the very end of the book, which I think aptly describes one of … >>

Beyond Oil: Activism and Politics

Bill McKibben    Aug 26, 2010   

[Excerpt] On May 6, a little more than two weeks after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, the first oil washed ashore. It was found on the beaches of the Chandeleur Islands … >>

Save it for the combine

Jason Bradford    Aug 24, 2010   

I have been visiting A2R Farms outside of Corvallis Oregon all year. They are a former conventional grass seed farm transitioning to organic seed crops, primarily for local distribution. I … >>

Community Economic Laboratories (CELs)

Richard Heinberg    Aug 23, 2010   4 comments

As America adjusts to the New Reality of tight credit, chronically less-affordable energy, high unemployment rates, rising levels of homelessness, and steeply declining tax revenues, new … >>

American Lifestyle Costs Nearly 2000 Gallons of Water Each Day

Sandra Postel    Aug 18, 2010   

[Excerpt] If there's going to be sufficient water to meet everyone's needs--and those of rivers and fish and birds and mussels, too--we're going to need to shrink our footprints and share … >>

Peak Everything: Preface to the Paperback Edition

Richard Heinberg    Aug 18, 2010   2 comments

Note: Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines will be released in paperback this month (September) by New Society Publishers.   In titling this book “Peak … >>

Embodied Energy: An Alternative Approach to Understanding Urban Energy Use

David Fridley    Aug 12, 2010   

Everyone knows that it takes energy to produce anything. The energy used in mining, transport, processing, manufacturing, delivery, and disposal is “embodied” in every product we … >>

Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

Richard Heinberg    Aug 11, 2010   14 comments

This is an updated version of an article which was originally published in August 2009.   Everyone agrees: our economy is sick. The inescapable symptoms include declines in consumer … >>

The NCSL’s Energy Summit – The good, the bad, the missing.

Tom Whipple    Aug 10, 2010   

Every year the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) holds an annual conference where legislators from all over the US gather for updates on major public policy issues facing the nation. … >>