Category Archives: Climate Change

Nitrogen fertilizer poses significant threats to humans and the environment

Posted on August 11, 2017 by

NRC. 2015. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System. National Research Council, National Academies Press. 19 pages.   Nitrogen (N) is essential for agricultural productivity, but in its more reactive forms, it can pose significant threats to humans … Continue reading →

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Interdependencies of Energy Infrastructure, Water, and Climate Change GAO 2014

Posted on May 28, 2017 by

[ This report shows the interdependencies of Climate Change and the nation’s energy infrastructure, which is especially vulnerable because it’s so old and falling apart already. Another GAO report discusses the energy-water nexus.  Interdependent systems are more vulnerable – climate … Continue reading →

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Climate change effects on conflict, social unrest, health, mass migration, food, and national security

Posted on May 14, 2017 by

[ Since oil shortages from exponential decline rates of conventional oil will affect every aspect of civilization from farming to electricity to supply chains far harder and sooner than sea-level rise and other climate change problems, think “energy shortage” whenever … Continue reading →

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Climate change effects on hydropower in California

Posted on May 11, 2017 by

[ The main impact is on hydropower, the largest source of renewable electric power in California, and besides natural gas, the only other way to balance wind and solar power, (unless utility-scale energy storage batteries become available).  But hydropower is often … Continue reading →

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Climate change is already collapsing nations

Posted on May 9, 2017 by

  Ahmed, Nafeez. 2017. Failing States, Collapsing Systems BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence. Springer. “The last half century has seen a dramatic increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events in the form of droughts, wildfires, extreme rainfall, … Continue reading →

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Jeff Masters: Nations that Collapsed because of Drought

Posted on May 8, 2017 by

[ Will the American Southwest be the next civilization to collapse?  Lynn Ingram, a professor at U.C. Berkeley discusses this in her 2013 book: The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us about Tomorrow. … Continue reading →

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Climate change may corrode concrete even faster

Posted on May 2, 2017 by

[ I’ve paraphrased and shortened this article about how climate change will corrode concrete faster in the future from increasing carbon dioxide levels, and in coastal cities, from the chloride ions in sea spray. After that is the introduction section … Continue reading →

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Because we’ve stuffed staggering numbers of cows on factory farms we live in a cow toilet

Posted on April 11, 2017 by

[ Book review of “Cowed: The hidden impactof 93 million cows” by Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer] Hayes, Denis and Gail. 2015. Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, Biodiversity Loss, CO2 and Methane, Pollution, Soil | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Book review of Failing states, collapsing systems biophysical triggers of political violence by Nafeez Ahmed

Posted on January 31, 2017 by

[ In this post I summarize the sections of Nafeez’s book about the biophysical factors that bring nations down (i.e. climate change drought & water scarcity, declining revenues after peak oil, etc.) The Media tend to focus exclusively on economic … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Cascading Failure, Caused by Scarce Resources, Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsing, Drought, Drought, Exports decline to ZERO, Interdependencies, Limits To Growth, Middle East, Net Energy Cliff, Other Experts, Over Oil, Overpopulation, Peak Oil, Violence, War & Violence | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Millions of Americans have tropical diseases they’re unaware of

Posted on November 11, 2016 by

MacKenzie, D. December 14, 2013. America’s hidden epidemic. NewScientist. Increasing climate change and poverty are likely to increase the numbers of people with these diseases. An estimated 330,000 US citizens, and possibly as many as a million, carry the parasite … Continue reading →

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