The Right To Privacy by Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis. Climate change: Red alert in the Anthropocene. It is fitting that “Anthropocene”, the term coined just more than ten years ago by Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, denotes the new ecological period, following the end of the Holocene, when humans became the principal force driving changes in the planetary system.
I say this because the Holocene (“New Whole”), or stable geological period of about 12 000 years between ice ages, came to an end around the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s, which is exactly the time when humans moved into the position where they are capable of affecting life on earth as we know it. Unfortunately the Anthropocene may turn out, if scientists working in the area of the geo-sciences are correct in their assessment of what are now called “planetary boundaries”, to be a mere flicker in terms of geological time.
For example, the pre-industrial value of climate change was 280 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration. CDM: CDM-Home. About Vinay Gupta. Head over to Re.silience.com.
It’s a much better starting point than here! Click through to Re.silience.com. (if you are interested in my professional work, try here) I am trying to keep you alive. <em>To Everything, Tern, Tern, Tern</em>: Explore.org's Live Cams Present the Birth of Worldly Birds. Consider the planet.
This planet. I love sci-fi more than many, but I relegate terraforming to hopeful speculative fiction for at least the next few centuries. This planet, this Gaia, she's what we've got, she's where we belong, she's big and beautiful, and she needs our attention. Happily, in addition to the myriad ways anyone can appreciate life on Earth, we have a website fully devoted to this planet, its people, and its many creatures -- in real time, in hi-def, and if you can read this post you can check it out. It's explore.org, an appropriately defined "portal into the soul humanity" where human rights meet animal rights meet ways of sustaining life on the aforementioned very nice planet. TED talks. Openness. Wiser Soc Net.
WikiLeaks fLick. The annotated transcript 19:00 GMT, May 23, 2013 Introduction.
Circular econ. "Amusing.." book review. Huxley, Orwell & Television Below is the foreword of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business.
His book, written in 1985, warned that entertainment values corrupt the way Americans think about news, politics, education, and religion, and that these values are transmitted and validated by television. "Television," Postman writes, "has little tolerance for argument, hypothesis, or explanation: it demands a performing art. " Mr. Postman died in October 2003. Radical collaboration. To solve the crises we face - especially the pressing issues of climate change, poverty and human trafficking - radical collaboration is essential.
This means collaboration between organizations, between individuals, across political lines and between for-profit and non-profit organizations. It means putting aside our self-interests when they stand in the way of a greater good. The American Anti-Corruption Act. Blindspotting. Join MAHB. Article: Precycling premiums and the possibility of continuing growth. Economic growth is taking us to the cliff edge.
Opposing economic growth isn't turning us around. Paul Gilding. I think it’s time to call it.
Renewables and associated storage, transport and digital technologies are so rapidly disrupting whole industries’ business models they are pushing the fossil fuel industry towards inevitable collapse. Some of you will struggle with that statement. Most people accept the idea that fossil fuels are all powerful – that the industry controls governments and it will take many decades to force them out of our economy. Fortunately, the fossil fuel industry suffers the same delusion. In fact, probably the main benefit of the US shale gas and oil “revolution” is that it’s keeping the fossil fuel industry and it’s cheer squad distracted while renewables, electric cars and associated technologies build the momentum needed to make their takeover unstoppable – even by the most powerful industry in the world.
Deep Change. Dark Mountain Project. Image credit: The Dark Mountain Project.
Op-ed: CO2. Atmospheric CO2 is approaching 400 parts per million for the first time in about 15 million years.
That's more than a 40 percent increase since the 19th century. It's currently increasing at least 10 times faster than during the previous record high, which by strange coincidence was set right before the end-Permian extinction, 250 million years ago. A mountain of evidence has convinced the overwhelming majority of scientists that our skyrocketing CO2 emissions have very likely caused most of the global warming since 1950. What does this mean for Southern California? The National Academies recently projected about 1 to 5 feet of sea level rise along the Southern California coast by 2100. The increased chance of extreme heat waves increases drought severity and frequency, such as those in 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon, and 2011 in Texas and the Midwest. John Lennon Gave A Secret Interview 40 Years Ago. This Is The Recording.
Earth Tipping Point. Dymaxion. Go here for info. Xiha. Wikipedia Redefined. Monsanto & GMOs. Science Pope. Why permaculture needs to expand systems thinking to handle natural disasters. Climate change may ultimately force us to live in more resilient, ecocity-like settlements. What are the chances that the New Jersey shoreline hit by Hurricane Sandy gets rebuilt along your design ideas? Cogitations.