Most US organizations not adapting to climate change
New Haven, Conn.-Organizations in the United States that are at the highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures, according to a Yale report.
"Despite a half century of climate change that has already significantly affected temperature and precipitation patterns and has already had widespread ecological and hydrological impacts, and despite a near certainty that the United States will experience at least as much
Read more... For instance, does Mr. O know that global oil production appears to have peaked at around 85 million barrels a day, with poor prospects of ever getting beyond that? This single naked fact has broad ramifications, above all, whether we can continue to think in terms of industrial "growth" as the benchmark for economic health. There are many interpretations of the current financial fiasco. Some of them are Read more
See the full statement from Rachel Smolker
First-hand Account of Environmental Defense Occupation
Washington, DC - As the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened today in Poznan, Poland, grassroots climate activists took over the Washington DC office of Environmental Defense. The activists stated that they had targeted ED, one of the largest environmental organizations
Read moreYes, the name Pomona comes from the Roman goddess of fruit, a reminder of the days four decades ago when apple orchards and farms dotted the countryside at the foot of the Ramapo Mountains in Rockland County.
But in a suburban county where the number of farms has gone from 900 in the 1920s to 406 in 1950 to - depending on which ones you care to count - about a half dozen now, it's a little hard at first to imagine why anyone would have seen much point in forming the Rockland Farm Alliance last year.
To be honest, the effort
Read moreBut how successful have we been in that pursuit? And now that the global finance system is imploding, how likely is it that we'll be happy in the coming months and years?
Can't Buy Love
Since roughly the 1970s, Americans have been buying things madly, whether we could afford them or not. We were promised that a bigger car, a more trendy purse, or a flat-screen television would bring us happiness, Read more
Organic Transitions Coming to Baltimore Schools
Driving on U.S. 40, shoving along with the traffic past strip malls, gas stations and drive-through restaurants, there's no apparent reason to give Nuwood Road, landmarked by an auto supply store, a second glance.
But if one did turn in and hang a quick right, he or she would see what could soon become the linchpin for bringing wholesome eating to Baltimore City schools.
Tony Geraci, the system's new food service director, plans to turn the 33 surprisingly rural
Read moreFor Brooklyn real-estate agent Maria Mackin, the obsession started five years ago, on a trip to Pennsylvania Amish country. She, her husband and three children - now 17, 13 and 11 - sat down for brunch at a local bed-and-breakfast, and suddenly the chef realized she'd run out of eggs. "She said, 'Oh goodness! I'll have to go out to the garden and get some more'," Mackin recalls. "She cooked them up and they were delicious." Mackin and her husband, Declan Walsh, looked at each other, and it didn't take long for the idea to register: Could we have chickens too? They finished their brunch and
Read moreWhile Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson performs a mysterious magic act in which he shows us what a deregulated bailout looks like, some of us are trying to imagine what President-elect Barack Obama can do to turn our country away from the disastrous and corrupt ways that have gotten us in this nice big mess.
This bailout is so lacking in oversight that almost half of the $700 billion disappeared with no explanation. The rest? Well, there's a new plan for that money, it seems. It also seems that what must be figured out are ways in which fresh directions can be profitable and
Read morePresident-elect Obama has promised to grow the economy from the bottom up. That would be a substantial improvement over growing the top at the expense of the Read more
Suppose you give me a million dollars with the instructions, "Invest this profitably, and I'll pay you well." I'm a sharp dresser -- why not? So I go out onto the street and hand out stacks of bills to random passers-by. Ten thousand dollars each. In return, each scribbles out an IOU for $20,000, payable in five years. I come back to you and say, "Look at these IOUs! I have generated a 20% annual return on your investment." You are very pleased, and pay me an enormous commission.
Now I've got a big stack of IOUs, so I use these "assets" as collateral to borrow even more money,
Read more