Categories
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Recent Posts
- Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
- Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
- The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
- Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
- What percent of Americans are rational?
- Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
- Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
- Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
- Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
- Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
- What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?
- Where to be? Links to Superfund, hazardous waste and other toxic sites in U.S.
- Why methanol cannot replace petroleum in shipping
- Why is everyone afraid of AI taking over? It makes stuff up!
- Do you want to eat, drink, or fly?
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Mass Extinction in Oceans is happening NOW
ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — Life in the world’s oceans faces far greater change and risk of large-scale extinctions than at any previous time in human history, a team of the world’s leading marine scientists has warned. The researchers compared … Continue reading
Posted in Extinction, Mass Extinction, Oceans
Tagged ecosystem collapse, marine extinction, ocean extinction
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Permafrost melting destabilizes infrastructure
In addition to methane releases adding to the runaway greenhouse effect, continued thawing of permafrost threatens to destabilize transportation, building, and energy extraction infrastructure in Russia’s colder regions. Permafrost, or soil that is permanently frozen, covers about 63 percent of … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Infrastructure & Collapse
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One Child Per Woman — or NONE
Many ecologists and scientists see one, or even no children at all, as the only option to avoid a die-off in the usual unpleasant ways — genocide, war, starvation, and disease. I’ve said one-child per woman for many years, but … Continue reading
Posted in Population, What to do
Tagged one child per woman, tragedy of the commons
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Huge releases of arctic methane
Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. At the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco, Dr Semiletov announced he’d found an unprecedented amount of methane bubbling up from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (which … Continue reading
Posted in Extinction, Runaway Greenhouse
Tagged extinction, methane, methane hydrate, runaway greenhouse
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Drought affects Survival in many ways
Christian Parenti calls multiple crises “The Catastrophic Convergence” in “Tropic of Chaos, Climate change and the new geography of Violence”. The problem isn’t that calamities happen simultaneously, it’s that they compound and amplify one another. Obviously drought reduces agricultural production. … Continue reading
Climate Change: unprecedented RATE species can’t adapt to
5 Dec 2011. Climate Changes Faster Than Species Can Adapt, Rattlesnake Study Finds. ScienceDaily. The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Extinction
Tagged climate change, rate of change, unprecedented
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Chemicals
Mercury Nationally most mercury in all of our waterways, restriciting how much fish can be eaten in the lower 48 states, comes from coal power plants. California Gold Mining. California has gotten rid of coal plants and won’t buy electricity … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Chemicals
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Infrastructure
Transportation Infrastructure 2009. The economic impact of current Investment Trends in surface Transportation Infrastructure. American Society of Civil Engineers. Highways, bridges, railroads, and transit systems are vital to America’s economic system. But the nation’s surface transportation infrastructure has been … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Infrastructure & Collapse
Tagged bridges, highway, railroad
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Water depletion and pollution
Water Depletion Michael Specter. October 23, 2006. The Last Drop. Confronting the possibility of global catastrophe. The New Yorker. Cyanobacteria Brookes, J., et al. 7 Oct 2011. Resilience to Blooms. Science. Explosive cyanobacterial blooms cause disease in humans and livestock, … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Peak Water, Water
Tagged cyanobacteria, depletion, groundwater
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Disease
Bird Flu H5N1 MacKenzie, D. 31 Aug 2011. Bird flu flies back into the news. NewScientist. Cholera 18 Aug 2011. Famine-struck Somalia faces cholera outbreak. New Scientist. 9 Feb 2011 Detecting Cholera Rampaging in 40 countries. ScienceDaily. Tick borne Illnesses … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Disease
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