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Recent Posts
- Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef
- The Biblical Revelations, critical thinking, and how this affects us today
- Why the U.S. is ignoring nuclear winter in nuclear policies & strategies
- Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
- Nuclear weapons must be reduced or we risk nuclear winter
- Fusion is already running out of fuel
- Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
- Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
- 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
Category Archives: Pollution
Toxic textiles: the lethal history of Rayon
Preface. This is a book review from Science magazine of Paul David Blanc’s 2016 book “Fake Silk The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon”, Yale University Press. I’ve shortened the review and changed some of the text. This book exposes how … Continue reading
Posted in Chemicals
Tagged carbon disulfide, rayon, viscose
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U.S. Industrial farming destroys future food production for centuries
Preface. Below are excerpts from a devastating critique of current farming practices by the National research council who show the myriad ways that industrial farming is harming the land and future food production.
Toxic algae slime spreading quickly across the earth
2017-8-19. Ocean Slime Spreading Quickly Across the Earth. Craig Welch, National Geographic. Toxic algae blooms, perhaps accelerated by ocean warming and other climate shifts, are spreading, poisoning marine life and people. When sea lions suffered seizures and birds and porpoises … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Fisheries, Oceans, Water Pollution
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Threats to America’s drinking and sewage treatment infrastructure
[ Here are a few of the points made in this 170 page document about improving the nation’s water system security (excerpts follow): There are many potential threats to water infrastructure, including terrorism, failure of aging infrastructure, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, … Continue reading
Posted in CyberAttacks, Disease, Terrorism, Water Infrastructure, Water Pollution
Tagged disease, infrastructure, terrorism, water
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Tackling mine wastes
Preface. This barely scratches the problems of mining wastes, but for what it’s worth, here are a few of the articles I’ve run across on this topic. Like burying nuclear waste deep underground while we still have cheap energy and … Continue reading
Book review of “1493 Uncovering the new world Columbus Created”
[ This book will be included in the “must read” category of my giant booklist when I get around to updating it. This book isn’t just about the past, the implications reverberate into the postcarbon future. Will slavery return without … Continue reading
Posted in 2) Collapse, Agriculture, Disease, Pesticides, Soil
Tagged ecology, Famine, pesticides, potatoes, rubber, slavery
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Nitrogen fertilizer poses significant threats to humans and the environment
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
Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Groundwater, Planetary Boundaries, Pollution, Soil
Tagged agriculture, fertilizer, nitrogen, runoff
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Because we’ve stuffed staggering numbers of cows on factory farms we live in a cow toilet
[ 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 antibiotic resistance, cattle, cows
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Chemical industrial farming is unsustainable. Why poison ourselves when pesticides don’t save more of our crops than in the past?
Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil and ecosystems. Yet a third of crops are lost to pests just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals Preface. This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, and … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity Loss, Chemicals, Overshoot, Peak Food, Pesticides, Soil
Tagged agriculture, chemical, ecosystem, herbicide, insecticide, peak food, pesticide, soil, unsustainable
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