Topic: Less of What We Don’t Need
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Confronting “Policy Murder” and the Rising Violence of the Right
On Juneteenth weekend, tens of thousands of people walked up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the U.S. Capitol as part of the epically titled Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. (Priti Gulati Cox and I traveled via Amtrak from Kansas to join in.) Although we were following the…
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The digital world’s real-world impact on the environment
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Cryptocurrency mining is often characterized as an act of solving a set of complex equations, evoking images of a Red Bull-guzzling genius hunched over a calculator searching for the Bitcoin-creation formula. But actually it’s less about calculation than it is about trial and error — making guesses in hopes of landing on a random, 64-digit…
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The Greenest Dollar Is the One Not Spent
Actions come from thoughts and thoughts from feelings. “The greenest dollar is the one not spent.” 1 Imagine ! Spending more is what Growth economics is all about. Humanity is already stretching planetary limits, yet governments almost everywhere encourage more Growth. Growth that would double—and more—human impacts on our already stressed planet. It has…
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Cuba’s Post-Revolution Architecture Offers a Blueprint for How to Build More With Less
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Around the world, there’s a conjoined crisis of climate change and housing shortages … Construction and buildings account for more than one-quarter of global greenhose gas emissions. Tile vaulting is a technique that flourished in the eastern Mediterranean after the 10th century. It involves constructing arched ceilings made of multiple layers of lightweight terra cotta…
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Why the Internet Itself Is a Major Environmental Problem
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“If the internet were a country, it would now rank sixth in the world for its electricity demand,” Meanwhile, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic leading to people working remotely from their homes and increasingly relying on at-home entertainment, some countries reported a 20 percent increase in “internet traffic” … the “increased internet use alone would…
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What record warm winters mean for glaciers in the Everest region
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A new study suggests that Himalayan glaciers may be melting even during winter, when they were previously believed to remain stable. In late winter 2020, glaciologist Sudip Thakuri visited Kalinchowk, a peak in the Himalayas around 144 km west of Kathmandu. He was surprised by what he saw. The destination, popular among Kathmandu residents seeking…
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US Plastics Industry Will Have More Emissions Than Coal by 2030, New Report Says
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With dozens of new plastics manufacturing and recycling facilities in the works, the U.S. plastics industry will release more greenhouse gas emissions than coal-fired power plants by 2030, say the authors of a new report. Emissions from the plastics sector equaled that of 116 coal-fired power plants last year, according to the report out Thursday from Bennington…
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Be Careful What Energy You Wish For
[This is the second part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz for ZNet. The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout here and here. The third portion will be a short rejoinder by Pollin to this article. The final portion will be a short closing statement…
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Restless and Relentless Minds: Thinking as a “Species out of Context”
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Today we face multiple, cascading ecological crises, including but not limited to rapid climate destabilization, accelerated species extinction and loss of biodiversity, chemical contamination of land and water, and soil erosion and degradation. These realities will require our species to down-power, either consciously through rational planning or as a result of larger forces beyond our…
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ON CONTACT: MAINSTREAM ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT LIES
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On the show today, Chris Hedges discusses the lies and fantasies told by the mainstream environmental movement about how to solve the climate crisis with authors and activists Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith. [To see movie, click here or copy this link into your browser: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/533294-mainstream-environmental-movement-lies/ ] A new book shows how technology will not…
