Monthly Archives: March 2014

Mercury pollution

August 9, 2014. Missing mercury pollution is enough for mass poisoning. NewScientist. New data suggests that we still don’t know where our emissions of toxic mercury end up. Somewhere out there are tens of thousands of tons of missing mercury. … Continue reading

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Writing on the wall for prime farmland. Years of irrigation have taken toll on San Joaquin Valley.

Carolyn Lochhead. March 24, 2014. Writing on the wall for prime farmland. Years of irrigation have taken toll on San Joaquin Valley. San Francisco Chronicle. Decades of irrigation have leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil [in the San … Continue reading

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Rot in the Banking culture

Questions are asked of Rot in Banking Culture Peter Eavis. March 13, 2014. New York Times. Money laundering, market rigging, tax dodging, selling faulty financial products, trampling homeowner rights and rampant risk-taking — these are some of the sins that … Continue reading

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James Hansen : Sea level could rise in decades, not centuries or millenia

James Hansen explains how sea level could rise in decades, not centuries or millenia At the bottom is a more recent article that backs Hansen up. Below are excerpts from:  Climate change and trace gases. James Hansen, Makiko Sato, et … Continue reading

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If Greenland Ice Sheets melt, sea level will rise 23 feet

Greenland Ice Sheet Destabilizing, Threatening Greater Sea-Level Rise March 2014   (James Hansen makes the case that sea level could rise over decades) [My comment: 90% of global trade (much of it food and oil) is carried by container ships and … Continue reading

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Lessons From the Little Ice Age

Lessons From the Little Ice Age Geoffrey Parker, March 22, 2014, New York Times Climatologists call it the Little Ice Age; historians, the General Crisis. During the 17th century, longer winters and cooler summers disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests … Continue reading

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Without a Trace ‘The Sixth Extinction,’ by Elizabeth Kolbert

Review by Al Gore Feb 10, 2014. New York Times. Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our very best science writers. She has developed a distinctive and eloquent voice of conscience on issues arising … Continue reading

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University of Minnesota syllabus for HSEM 2624H “Sustainability or Collapse? An Interdisciplinary Overview of the Human Predicament”

HSEM 2624H  –  (PROVISIONAL) SYLLABUS “Sustainability or Collapse? An Interdisciplinary Overview of the Human Predicament”  —or–  “Humans, Our Environment and the Future: A Survey of Opportunities and Constraints” Instructors: Dr. Nathan John Hagens, Dr. Kathryn Draeger This class will provide … Continue reading

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What Happens When Weed Killers Stop Killing?

Robert F. Service. September 20, 2013. What Happens When Weed Killers Stop Killing?  Science (341):1329 “U.S. farmers are heading for a crisis,” says Stephen Powles of the University of Western Australia, Crawley. Powles is an expert on herbicide resistance, a … Continue reading

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Dmitry Orlov Definancialisation, deglobalisation and relocalisation

Definancialisation, deglobalisation and relocalisation by Dmitry Orlov. Sep 2, 2011. Fleeing Vesuvius. Some excerpts: Collapse without preparation is a defeat. Collapse with preparation is an eccentricity. I concede that the choice is a difficult one: either we wait for circumstances … Continue reading

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