1. 11 February 2007

    Heat

    George Monbiot

    572 days ago

    A take on what will need to be done in the next 50 years to dissuade catastrophic change in the earth’s climate.

    Monbiot lays out how badly we1 indeed are frakking the world:

    The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent. 22

    In his book Perverse Subsidies, published in 2001, Professor Norman Meyers adds the direct payments US corporations recieve from the government to the wider costs they oblige society to carry, and arrives at an annual figure of $2.6 trillion. This is roughly five times as much as the profits they were making at the time his book was written. As well as the annual $362 billion the thirty richest governments were paying their farmers when Perverse Subsidies was published, they were spending some $71 billion on fossil fuels and nuclear power and a staggering $1.1 trillion on road transport. Worldwide, governments pay companies $25 billion a year to wreck forests. 55

    He makes the comparison between now with the problem of climate change and WW2 with the problem of brutal fascism/genocide 98. In 60 odd years will people be as quick to vilify our hedonistic, carbon-gulping, wealthy nations as we now do the Nazi party? I’m sure someone witty could clone First they came... to apply here.

    Unfortunately for us:

    Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money. Cree Indian saying, 170

    Monbiot outlines possible solutions he feels could cut back our production of greenhouse gasses significantly enough to sustain a global temperature within +2º (celsius I assume, him being a brit), a point where the oceans will not rise over-dramatically and the world shouldn’t come to an end. But at the last page doesn’t leave me with much more than slight hope. In any case, t’s looking like I’ll be lucky enough to live through some fun times.

    1 We here is used to indicate the first world nations. A very small percentage of the world population is responsible for nearly all activities forbearing our current predicament. I am part of this sliver, and the fact that you’ve the leisure time to be wasting your time reading this gains you entrance to the club.

  2. 31 January 2007

    The Earth Manual

    Malcolm Margolin

    583 days ago

    How to work with nature to preserve, restore, and enjoy wild land – without taming it.

    I got this book with a different thing in mind, thinking it would be about growing/harvesting on a smaller scale. It’s more maintenance, preventing erosion, trimming trees in a natural way. Good nonetheless. My family has a little cabin on a nice big parcel in central minnesota, I’ve always wanted to try my hand living up there for a time: this makes it seem all the more worthwhile.

  3. 05 May 2006

    854 days ago

    Visible Earth: The Blue Marble

    Amazing images of earth from NASA.

    via Kjell Olsen854 days ago

  4. 29 April 2006

    860 days ago

    Oil Poster

    Peak Oil, illustrated:

    As this poster makes abundantly clear, we

    via Kjell Olsen860 days ago

  5. 21 April 2006

    Leaking

    868 days ago

    Our society is a program running under the operating space of earth, and it’s always had a memory leak. We’re leaving cycles open; allocating resources and never returning them to the pool. We’ve already taken all the RAM; for the past 300 years we’ve been eating more and more virtual memory. We’re finally getting to the point where there isn’t any more disk space to spool out. We’ve got to figure out our garbage collection, or the server running humanity and everything else will come tumbling to its knees.

  6. 31 March 2006

    889 days ago

    BLDGBLOG: Super Reef

    In other words, locked into the rocks of Europe is the largest musical instrument ever made: awaiting a million more years of wind and rain and even war to carve that reef into a flute, a buried saxophone, made of fossilized glass, pocketed with caves and indentations, reflecting the black light of uncountable eclipses until the earth gives out.

    via Kjell Olsen889 days ago

  7. 07 October 2005

    1064 days ago

    Earth Photograph

    It’s the only one we’ve got.

    Virtually every picture showing the full Earth derives from one photograph taken in 1972. Yet hardly anybody notices this.

    via Kjell Olsen1064 days ago

  8. 18 August 2005

    A Short History of Nearly Everything

    Bill Bryson

    1114 days ago

    A delightful trek through the development of the world we live on. A broad and deep look at science from a non scientists point of view.

  9. 04 June 2005

    1189 days ago

    BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Changing planet revealed in atlas

    A coffetable book comparing satellite images from the past with corresponding new ones to show what kind of devestation we are forcing upon the earth. Tomorrow is the UN’s World Environment day.

    Among the transformations highlighted in the atlas are the huge growth of greenhouses in southern Spain, the rapid rise of shrimp farming in Asia and Latin America and the emergence of a giant, shadow puppet-shaped peninsula at the mouth of the Yellow River that has built up through transportation of sediment in the waters.

    Kjell Olsen1189 days ago

  10. 31 May 2005

    1193 days ago

    Google Keyhole = Google Earth | newrecruit

    Looks impressive, but I hope it’s not windows only software.

    via Kjell Olsen1193 days ago

  11. 02 May 2005

    1222 days ago

    Earth Sheltered Technology, Inc. - 25 Reasons Why You Should Consider EarthSheltered Living

    I already knew all of this, it’s pretty bs – but I’m just reminding myself how sweet the house I want to build up at my cabin is going to be when I get around to it. It’s going to be the sweetest!

    via Kjell Olsen1222 days ago

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