Most Recent Campaign Headlines
April 13, 2009
News
It's the great taboo, I hear many environmentalists say. Population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, but we are afraid to discuss it.
It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument - "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts?
It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument - "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts?
News
There is still much debate about the basic nature of the current energy transition, driven most notably by climate change and peak oil.1 Most of that debate focuses on the immediate future of the next few decades, though I think it is essential to see these changes first on a larger temporal scale of centuries if not millennia. I have set the scene by characterizing the debate about the future as primarily one about whether energy available to human systems will rise or fall.
Four Energy Futures
April 10, 2009
News
A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount - say, 95 cents for $1 value - and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount - say, 95 cents for $1 value - and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
April 11, 2009
News
This winter, as Congress was scrambling to pass the stimulus package, the bottom fell out of the renewable energy sector -- the very industry that lawmakers have held out as our best hope of salvaging the economy. Trade groups like the American Wind Energy Association, which as recently as December was forecasting "another record-shattering year of growth," began predicting that new installations would plunge by 30 to 50 percent. Solar panel manufacturers that had been blazing a trail of growth announced a wave of layoffs.
March 30, 2009
News
In the past, Venetians have looked upon algae as their scumbag enemy, but now they're hoping to tame the plants to satisfy the historic Italian seaport's energy needs. Will algae provide the ultimate in green power, or is the scheme merely a green pipe dream?
March 31, 2009
News
There is a broad consensus across the political spectrum that we need to reduce carbon emissions. We finally agreed on this basic first step. Now, if we could only get past the next big hurdle soon enough, we might just have a chance of stopping the current trajectory: business as usual, which is driving full steam ahead into climate disaster. While the need to reduce emissions is accepted in mainstream opinion, we still lack the momentum and the political will to take action and make the necessary changes.
March 26, 2009
News
We can make over 25,000 things with it. Farmers love it. Environmentalists love it. You can't get high from it. So why is it still illegal?
While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.
But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.
While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.
But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.
March 29, 2009
News
THE country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just pouring money into shovel-ready projects, regardless of how they might boost the economy. Windmills won't do it either. We long for a bold urban vision.
March 16, 2009
News
LONG BEACH, Calif. - With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots - literally - cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.
