“Coal was a meaningless rock 500 years ago. Then coal was the basis for an industrial revolution. One day, coal — whatever’s left not combusted — will be a meaningless rock again.”
Andy Revkin said that, in an interview snippet he included in a recent blog post.
The post’s message is a relative (likely a long lost relative) of Bob Thurman’s assertion that compassion is more fun.
linkMonsanto Hires Algal Fuel Company To Do Genetic Research
Sapphire Energy’s CEO on the partnership:
By leveraging our algae platform and tools to improve crop yield and enhance crop performance, Sapphire will be able to accelerate our ability to produce a renewable crude oil replacement and reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil.
Can’t blame Sapphire for wanting a little income as they work on producing their fuels at scale. But it’s hard not to fear Monsanto’s quiet power.
link(THE CEMENT CITY)
Fascinating species, those ants.
Terrifying species, we humans.
(I just read Ender’s Game, so I’m more attuned than ever to the needless destruction of insect civilizations.)
linkSeth Godin on People That Resist Evidence
Here’s the key moment:
What would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds. When people who are respected in a social or professional circle clearly and loudly proclaim that they’ve changed their minds, a ripple effect starts.
Makes me wonder about former climate skeptics. Who are they? Who are they talking to now? What are they saying? Are they changing minds?
(THE SAME QUESTIONS, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN)
It’s unfair to let one well-intentioned but failed activist experiment stand for the whole climate change conflict, let alone all conflicts of all kinds, but…
Maybe we ask too many questions the answers to which we already know. And maybe we ask too few questions the answers to which we actually want to find out.
link“Like plants we need to recycle. On a cosmic scale we are no more mobile than plants. Until this point in history we have modeled our more successful economic systems on animal predation. Animals can potentially move on to another resource when they exhaust the one at hand. Since they can move to new food sources, they potentially have unlimited resources. Plants are fixed. They cannot easily move to richer nutrients, or leave an area if they foul or deplete it. They must recycle well.”
Terence McKenna wrote that, in an essay called Plan, Plant, Planet.
It’s radical, beautiful, inspiring, and, for at least one sentence, unintentionally hilarious (in my opinion at least).
linkThe Dervaeses are amazing farmers and fascinating people. But claiming to own the words “urban homestead” is greedy, paranoid behavior.
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(IS THIS MAP SCARY?)
To Americans? Europeans? East Asians? We who enjoy our comfortable lives in the “developed world?”
What if sunlight becomes the next oil? What if we figure out how to store and ship it inexpensively? Who will get rich? Who will get jealous? Who will exploit whom?
Or might the difference between red and blue on that map be the difference between Cliff Lee’s paycheck and Roy Halladay’s? Might that sunlight truly be abundant?
I hope we find out soon.
(Already posted that map on J440. Couldn’t resist doing it again.)
linkBeen hanging out with Larry Pryor and his environmental journalism students at USC Annenberg.
A few days ago, we launched this little blog. While J440 is a content-focused journalism course - its primary goal is to give students a solid understanding of some of the most covered and most coverage-worthy environmental issues of the moment - Larry also wants the students to understand the challenges that environmental reporters face and the ways reporters meet those challenges. The blog, we hope, will extend class discussion onto the internets and thus capture some thoughts and stories that memories might otherwise let fade.
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(BEAUTIFUL POLLUTION)
J Henry Fair exposes ugliness by making it look good.
Maybe that helps us remember it.
Fair took that photo from a plane flying over an oil sands facility in Alberta, Canada. The red is molten sulphur, a byproduct of the processes that squeeze oil out of the sand.
You can find a more of Fair’s pics here and here.
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