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Recent Posts
- ‘The oil we eat’. Following the food chain back to iraq
- Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
- Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
- The Green New Deal is not a solution for the real problem: Overshoot
- A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens
- Electrifying freight trains in the U.S. is a bad idea
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
Category Archives: Pollution
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, 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 Agriculture, Disease, Pesticides, Society, 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, CO2 and Methane, Pollution, Soil
Tagged antibiotic resistance, cattle, cows
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Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014
Preface. At last, many years after I first published “Peak soil: Why biofuels destroy ecosystems and civilizations” in 2007, Congress had a hearing to educate House members on why preserving topsoil is so essential for food production for future generations. … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Peak Topsoil, Pesticides, Soil, U.S. Congress Infrastructure, Water Pollution
Tagged agriculture, cover crop, erosion, no-till, peak soil, soil health, U.S. House of representatives
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Chemicals banned in cosmetics
The environmental working group has this to say about cosmetics: “American families assume personal care products on the market today have been tested by the federal government. Unfortunately, the personal care products industry remains largely unregulated. The FDA does not … Continue reading
Posted in Chemicals
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