Only Less Will Do
When I’m not writing books or essays on environmental issues, or sleeping or eating, you’re likely to find me playing the violin. This has been an obsessive activity for me since I was a boy, and seems to deliver...
Winds of Urban Change
A conversation with Warren Karlenzig From the planned rewilding of London’s Upper Lea Valley to performance indicator software designed to manage 663 of China’s largest cities, Warren Karlenzig knows what he’s talking about when it comes to urban sustainability...
Post Carbon Institute’s Top 10 Initiatives in Our First 10 Years
• The Energy Reality Campaign (2013) Nation-wide campaign to increase energy literacy by providing free educational resources to activists (including the book ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, free online essays,...
Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals Linked to Fracking Found in Colorado River
The Colorado River flows through the town of Rifle in Garfield County, Colorado. This week, more evidence came in that hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) poses potentially serious risks to drinking water quality and human health. A team of researchers...
Annie Leonard on stuff, “citizen muscle”, and what she’s giving this Christmas
What better way to close our month’s theme than to talk to Annie Leonard, creator of the ‘Story of Stuff’ series of videos, who has done more than anyone to popularise...
The Peak Oil Crisis: So, Why is Gasoline So Cheap?
There are many zigs and zags, twists and turns, and unintended consequences along the path to higher priced and scarce oil. Only three months ago it seemed we were headed towards an aerial bombardment of Syria’s armed forces which...
More Water Stress than Meets the Eye
In nearly 1 in 10 U.S. watersheds, water use exceeds the natural water supply. Water stress worsens as colors trend from green to yellow to orange to red. Map courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental...
Ask a Food Lawyer: Breaking Down Legal Barriers for Small-Scale Local Food
This is an interview by Michele Simon from Eat Drink Politics, with Janelle Orsi, executive director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center Janelle Orsi is an attorney in Oakland, California who practices “sharing law.” In addition to her law...
Chandeliers, the President of France, and the future of economic growth: a report
Last week I attended an extraordinary occasion in Paris, which felt momentus and historic, but in the somewhat confused and mixed way these things often do. Hosted in the incredible, palatial National Assembly, with its statues, chandeliers and gold...
A Red List for Ecosystems: Will it Aid Conservation?
The Aral Sea in Central Asia, in 1989 (L) and 2008 (R). Images courtesy of NASA. The most devastated ecosystem I’ve ever seen is the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the Aral spanned an area...