Why has there been a 30% reduction of North America’s bird population since the 1970s?
No one knows. Of course, there are obvious suspects: loss of habitat, toxins that affect life span and/or fertility, climate change, and reductions in food supply, faster cars, more plate glass windows, the expanding population of house cats–even wind turbines, though that effect is small and extremely well studied. (more…)
To my shame, I’ve never attended a Bioneers conference, but as suggested in this pic I just took, that’s about to change.
Founded in 1990, Bioneers is a nonprofit organization that promotes practical and innovative solutions to global environmental and bio-cultural challenges, and is also widely recognized for producing innovative media covering subjects such as environmentalism, rights of nature, social justice, sustainability and permaculture.
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You know you’re on thin moral ice when you want to remove a piece of environmental regulation that the industry itself believes is a good idea. (more…)
More good news about electrifying large vehicles. Anheuser-Busch, the beer company behind popular brands like Budweiser and Stella Artois, is launching the largest fleet of Class 8 electric trucks in North America. (more…)
A reader notes: Re: Trump, it comes down to whether a president can keep us out of war. And you know? So far, that dog hasn’t barked. And Trump has had plenty of pressure to go to war. And Tulsi is an amazingly smart person, the only democratic candidate who is 100% anti war. I say let it ride. I don’t deny Trumps many faults, but in the topic of war, so far so good.
I respond: (more…)
A reader offers this interesting but fairly cynical viewpoint on the impeachment proceedings currently taking place in the U.S.
Golden Hamster
Here’s an article in which the author demonstrates the folly of replacing the nuclear power plants in the UK with wind and solar.
Was anyone suggesting that this would be a good idea? We could power the country with hamsters running on wheels, too. With a power output of 0.4 Watts per hamster, you would need 68 billion hamsters to generate the U.K.’s 34 GW. But let’s be more realistic and admit that they can only do 8-hour shifts, thus 204 billion would be required.
Here more on the controversy surrounding the ill-effects of the consumption of red meat.
Not the biggest deal in the world either way, IMO. Now that the Impossible Burger is so widely available, there is no reason to eat beef hamburgers; today’s plant-based meat, as I see it anyway, is totally indistinguishable from beef. (more…)
There are so many features of American life I’ve just never been able to understand. The popularity of NASCAR and professional wrestling. Now it’s the death threats against 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg.
She’s just a girl with a devotion to environmental responsibility that should be shared by all. OK, suppose you don’t share it. Do you really want to kill her? Can’t you just go back to watching cars with big engines zooming around a racetrack?
It appears that Rick Perry will be stepping down as U.S. Secretary of Energy, perhaps related to his being swept up in the Ukrainian outrage. In all fairness, Perry has had a fairly scandal-free tenure at the DoE, though his allegiance to the fossil fuel industry and his total lack of qualifications for the position in the first place will not stand him in good stead when it comes to history’s evaluation of his term in office. (more…)
