Category: Biodiversity / Biodevastation
-
The Truth About IPCC Reports
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in many respects is a Delphic institution whose reports are a function of political discretion as it provides justification for nation-state policies that are seldom fulfilled, e.g., only a handful of the 193 signatory nations to Paris ’15 have met commitments. This scandalous outright failure at a dicey…
-
Climate Breakdown
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its direst warning of all-time: “Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly.” Additionally, they readily admit to overly conservative predictions: “Many impacts will be more severe than originally predicted.” (Source: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report, 2022) The crowning blow of this…
-
On the Dialectics of Technology: Past and Present
Since the heyday of technological determinism in the 1960s, many authors have written eloquently about how developments in technology are more typically the outcome of particular social and economic arrangements. Some contributions that have significantly shaped my own thinking include: • Lewis Mumford’s observation that inventions like glass and steam engines were first developed for…
-
Scenario 2050
No one knows what the world will be like in 2050 as a result of the worsening climate. My scenario suggests that the worst effects will not be directly caused by climate change but by human-created conditions that make our supposedly mighty civilization fragile. These conditions include excessive extraction, production, consumption and waste from a…
-
15 Nuclear Reactors in the Midst of Battle
Russian forces have captured Chernobyl, a 1,000 square mile radioactive exclusion zone. But more significantly, what about Ukraine’s nuclear reactors smack dab in the middle of a theatre of war? A complicating/dangerous aspect of Russia’s invasion is the status of Chernobyl’s sister reactors, 15 reactors at four nuclear power plants exposed in a war zone…
-
Ocean Heat Killing Spree
The oceans of the world are undergoing a dangerous and damaging upheaval that manifests throughout scientific studies of late. Whether it’s the fisheries of the Bering Strait or coral reefs of the Mediterranean Sea or emaciated Gray Whales along the Pacific coastline, study after study after study describes sudden, sharp downturns in all categories of…
-
The Oceans Are Overheating
The world’s oceans in 2021 witnessed the hottest temperatures in recorded history. (Source: Lijing Cheng, et al, Another Record: Ocean Warming Continues Through 2021 Despite La Niña Conditions, Advanced in Atmospheric Sciences, January 11, 2022)According to the Ocean Conservancy: “From the beginning of industrialization until today, the ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of…
-
Warnings from the Far North
“Forces profound and alarming are reshaping the upper reaches of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, breaking the food chain that supports billions of creatures and one of the world’s most important fisheries.”(Source: Susanne Rust, Unprecedented Die-offs, Melting Ice: Climate Change is Wreaking Havoc in the Arctic and Beyond, Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2021)…
-
Japan’s Upcoming Nuclear Waste Dump
Nuclear waste is an interminable curse that eternally haunts the future of civilization for hundreds/thousands of years. “The challenge of making nuclear power safer doesn’t end after the power has been generated. Nuclear fuel remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years after it is no longer useful in a commercial reactor.” (Source: Nuclear Waste, Union…
-
Review of “Climate Justice and Community Renewal”
Climate Justice and Community Renewal, edited by Brian Tokar and Tamra Gilbertson, New York, Routledge, 2020. Review by Bob Spivey The COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland must be added to a long series of failures of UN-convened international meetings to meet the urgent social and ecological needs of a world threatened by catastrophic climate change.…
