World Population To Hit 8 Bn This Year

The world’s population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, the UN forecast Monday in a report that said India will surpass China as the most populous country on earth in 2023. That overall population milestone “is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect […]

The Benefits of World Hunger

We sometimes talk about hunger in the world as if it were a scourge that all of us want to see abolished, viewing it as comparable with the plague or aids. But that naïve view prevents us from coming to grips with what causes and sustains hunger. Hunger has great positive value to many people. […]

Biochar from Bamboo

“How fast can the climate of earlier centuries be restored?“   In an Hawaiian origin legend, the Polynesian creator god Kāne brought forth light from endless blackness while Lono created sound and Kü created substance. The first man was molded in clay by the three deities in the image of Kāne. Aloha, the traditional greeting, […]

‘Warning of Easter Island’ is one that humanity must not ignore amid our population explosion

Nervous youths waited for the cue to throw themselves headlong into the ocean. In those next few moments, they would risk drowning, shark attacks, or falling to their deaths. Before them were small, near-inaccessible islets teeming with seabirds returning to nest. Somewhere out there, more than a mile across treacherous seas, was the prize – […]

Amplification Loops on Fault Lines

“We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology — E.O. Wilson”     Last week I began untangling a string about how we as a species have evolved in the past two centuries into behaviors that run counter to our own survival. I described how modern public relations magicians had been able to capture […]

Limits to Growth: Where We Stand Today

Sometime in the 1960’s a group of prominent businessmen in Europe decided it was time to face up to the contra di ction that l ies at the heart of mode rn capitalism: it is a system based on infinite growth in a world with finite limits to growth: in input (resources, including food), throughput (population), output (pollution), and a likely collapse if any […]

Flying insect numbers have plunged by 60% since 2004, GB survey finds

The number of flying insects in Great Britain has plunged by almost 60% since 2004, according to a survey that counted splats on car registration plates. The scientists behind the survey said the drop was “terrifying”, as life on Earth depends on insects. The results from many thousands of journeys by members of the public […]

Ocean animals face a mass extinction

Not since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs — along with at least half of all other beings on Earth — has life in the ocean been so at risk. Warming waters are cooking creatures in their own habitats. Many species are slowly suffocating as oxygen leaches out of the seas. Even populations that have […]

After 53 Earth Days, Society Still Hasn’t Collapsed

Cassandra in Greek mythology was the Trojan priestess who was cursed to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. Ideological environmentalism features a cohort of reverse Cassandras: They make false prophecies that are widely believed. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 classic, The Population Bomb, prophesied, “The battle to feed all of humanity is […]

‘Too many people, not enough food’ isn’t the cause of hunger

Nearly one in three people in the world did not have access to enough food in 2020. That’s an increase of almost 320 million people in one year and it’s expected to get worse with rising food prices and the war trapping wheat, barley and corn in Ukraine and Russia. Climate change related floods, fires […]

What if We Blotted Out the Sun to Fight Global Warming?

We like to think we cover the Big Stories around here, so today’s newsletter is leading with the one question on everyone’s mind: What is Tom Brady going to do in retirement? What can be done to stop or slow climate change? One of the great hopes is something called solar geoengineering, notes Clara Ferreira […]

The Unmanageable Futureby John Michael Greer

Explorers into unknown territory face plenty of risks. One that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves is the possibility that they know less about the country ahead than they think. Inaccurate maps, jumbled records, travelers’ tales that got garbled in transmission or were made up in the first place:  all these and more have […]

Declining births: is civilisation going to crumble?

The richest man in the world wants us to have more babies, said Sam Shead on CNBC. Speaking at a corporate event last week, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk lamented that too many “good, smart people” were worried about the global population growing out of control. The real problem, he insisted, was quite the […]

Why having more children will save the world

He has a history of saying the unsayable; thinking the unthinkable; doing the undoable. But that is why we are all enthralled by Elon Musk – the entrepreneur-contrarian who has defied naysayers, short-sellers and tech-sceptics to buck trends and realise vast dreams, from clean cars to rocket ships. Now, though, he seems to have grasped […]

U.S. Is World’s Biggest Producer of Plastic Waste

The United States is the world’s leader in the generation of plastic waste, nearly all from fossil fuels, and must develop a plan to curb its destructive impacts on the health of oceans and marine wildlife, concludes a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The first recommendation of the committee […]

‘Peak virgin plastics’ and climate change

The concept of peak oil has been widely debated. Now we may start to talk about the idea of “peak virgin plastic.” The Ellen MacArthur Foundation put the idea out there this week, that at least among major consumer product companies and retailers and their packaging, they’ve peaked on their use of virgin plastic. Are […]

Capitalism is killing the planet

There is a myth about human beings that withstands all evidence. It’s that we always put our survival first. This is true of other species. When confronted by an impending threat, such as winter, they invest great resources into avoiding or withstanding it: migrating or hibernating, for example. Humans are a different matter. When faced […]

‘Code red for humanity’

As the COP26 climate change conference gets under way in Glasgow on Sunday, world leaders will likely have their last chance to curtail the deadliest consequences of human-induced planetary warming.Time is of the essence for unified global action as studies suggest as little as nine years remain before the most catastrophic effects of climate change […]

Massive oil spill off Orange County coast

The final day of a popular air show in Huntington Beach has been canceled because of a massive oil spill off the Orange County coast. © Provided by The LA Times A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey banks over the Huntington Beach Pier during the Pacific Airshow on Friday. (Brian van der Brug / Los […]

Why and how they plan to kill seven billion

<span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span> Dr. Vernon Coleman explains why it is important to see the big picture rather than to concentrate on small issues, and why we are now all in the “killing fields”. He discusses Sustainable Development Goals, genocide, the various ways governments are killing people, and […]

A 1,000 Year Drought is Hitting the West

The United States and many other parts of the world are reeling under the impacts of severe drought. One possible solution is the desalination of seawater, but is it a silver bullet? The Western United States is currently experiencing what one paleoclimatologist called “potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years.” The region has had many […]

IPCC report is ‘code red for humanity’

Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways, a major UN scientific report has said. The landmark study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. The report “is a code red for humanity”, says the UN chief. But […]

Welcome to the Climate Apocalypse. (It will get worse.)

Maybe it was the unprecedented floods in Europe and China that did it. Perhaps it was the deathly heat dome in the Pacific Northwest, or the massive wildfires stretching across more than a million acres of the West. Or maybe it was closer to home — the record-hot June; the rain-soaked July; the smoke-tinged skies […]

India, China most vulnerable to joint risks of climate change, air pollution

India and China are among the world’s top five countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and air pollution with the capacity to deal with the risks, a first of its kind research assessing the combined risks of air pollution and climate change, said on Thursday. The world’s two fastest developing economies with 2.5 […]

Oil and gas holds key to cleaner environment

Mike Sommers promised straight talk to his audience in the heart of the nation’s energy exporting, refining and petrochemicals industry. Remotely addressing the Houston Economics Club on Wednesday, Sommers, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, offered what he called straight talk about the world’s energy needs as debate swirls around just […]

‘Ocean on fire’: Flames erupt in Gulf of Mexico after gas pipeline ruptures

A fire on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico erupted after a gas leak from an underwater pipeline sparked a blaze, according to Mexico’s state-owned Pemex petrol company.

Everyone Wants to Sell the Last Barrel of Oil

A final victory last week over the Keystone XL pipeline is a reminder that fighting particular fossil-fuel projects is a necessary strategy if the climate is to be saved. The defeat of Keystone XL doesn’t mean that Canada’s vast tar-sands project, which is generally regarded as the largest industrial project in the world, is over, […]

Why the Earth needs a course correction now

The massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and economies underscores that our collective survival and well-being hinges on our willingness to confront environmental threats that have global consequences. Key to protecting lives and making communities more resilient to such threats will be an emphasis on proactive, science-based decision-making at all levels of society. […]

China Insists Taishan Nuclear Plant Radiation Levels Normal

Beijing says the safety of its nuclear power plant in southern China is “guaranteed,” following alarming reports about a fission gas leak in recent weeks. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters on Tuesday that the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province met all technical requirements. “No abnormalities in radiation levels […]

U.N. declares decade of ecosystem restoration to ‘make peace with nature’

The U.N. has declared the coming decade a time for ecosystem restoration, highlighting in a new report the importance of preventing, halting and reversing ecosystem degradation worldwide. It calls on the world to restore at least 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of degraded land in the next decade — an area larger than China […]

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LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

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