How Smarter Irrigation Might Save Rare Mussels and Ease a Water War
Casey Cox, who hails from a family with five generations of farming history along the Flint River in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia, never expected to come back home. She’d graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville...
Fracking and health: What we know from Pennsylvania’s natural gas boom
Flaring at a fracked well in northwestern Pennsylvania. One potential cause of health problems, such as asthma, in communities with fracking is higher rates of air pollution. wcn247/flickr, CC BY-NC By Sara G. Rasmussen, Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Health...
Homeownership is Dead! Long Live the Permanent Real Estate Cooperative!
Imagine that a group of people works hard to fill their neighborhood with urban farms, bike lanes, parks, murals, community services, and education programs. Next, imagine that those same people are forced to move away. Ouch, that bites. Sadly,...
In Conversation: Communications and Technology After Fossil Fuels
Modern communications systems send information across vast distances in massive quantities at breathtaking speeds. Every sector of the economy depends on the capture, access, and rapid transmission of information: from stock market quotes to weather forecasts; from orders for...
The Shift Away from Fossil Fuels
The following interview with Richard Heinberg was originally posted at InfrastructureUSA.org. Transitioning to Electric Transportation Our most recent efforts have been to identify how the process of transitioning to 100% renewable energy will impact society. And we look not just...
Asher Miller on the Sustainability & Resilience of Our Food System
Over the past eight years Asher Miller has served as Executive Director of Post Carbon Institute (PCI). Read on to learn what three things led Asher into the sustainability field, what he sees as the biggest barriers to bringing about...
Is the Oil Industry Dying?
Talking about “peak oil” can feel very last decade. In fact, the question is still current. Petroleum markets are so glutted and prices are so low that most industry commenters think any worry about future oil supplies is pointless....
“You Can’t Handle the Truth!”
Movie buffs will recognize this title as the most memorable line from “A Few Good Men” (1992), spoken by the character Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson (“You can’t handle the truth!” is #29 in the American Film Institute’s...
In Conversation: Communities and Infrastructure in a 100% Renewable World
Daniel Lerch Hillary Brown Warren Karlenzig
Transportation accounts for over 40% of U.S. energy end use, and over 95% of that transportation runs on oil. Lighting, heating and cooling buildings also consumes an enormous amount of energy, much (but not all) of it powered by...
Guilt by association not enough to discredit new study showing links between asthma and fracking
Earlier this week, findings of an important new study were published in JAMA Internal Medicine showing that risk of asthma attacks was more likely for people in Pennsylvania who lived closer to shale gas (“fracked”) wells. According to a...