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Category Archive for 'Environment'

The Shame of Recycling

We need not recount here the very simple economics required to determine whether recycling makes sense. The reality of the recycling world is that most of the “valuable” stuff out there is already being recycled and reused, and the question on residential recycling is about how we deal with low-value or even value-less trash in […]

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It is obviously extremely hard to pin down a solid figure for how many people are going to be displaced due to the challenges posed by a warming planet. But virtually every publication I have read on the challenges of global warming rank the issue of “climate refugees” as both a serious political and economic […]

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If you look at the major risks to human health and well-being around the world, you will quickly come to realize that climate change ranks nowhere near the top of the list. For example, the WHO and various other estimates show that something like 10 million people per year die from easily curable infectious diseases […]

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Not So Great

Here in the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the Great Smoky National Park we see: I love that there is a nearly empty collection box. The park tries to collect small amounts of fees by selling trail maps and wildflower and wildlife guides, but at $1 a pop that is probably barely enough to cover the […]

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I just finished reading Peter Brannen’s interesting book on the five previous major mass extinctions that have struck planet Earth. It is, of course, a book that is very much intended to warn us that we are on our way to the sixth if we do not keep carbon dioxide levels low (CO2 ramp ups […]

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The Social Science Fermi Paradox

In the 1950s, Enrico Fermi famously asked, “Where Are They?” And that question spurred a great deal of thought and interest in the idea of whether extra-terrestrial life exists, and if it does exist why hasn’t it reached us yet, and the implications for our civilization if in fact it has not. I just finished […]

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In an otherwise very good and very important article on the threats to migratory shorebirds, the entire point is diminished by the obligatory implication of climate change. Now, of course, climate change is going to change the location and content of marshes, estuaries, shorelines, and more. And climate change will slowly change the timing of […]

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Yes, I am now becoming an internet meme where basically anything and everything can be tied into climate change. I’d like to make a few short observations today. What happened to the climate change discussion? It really does seem to be low-level background noise. My advice to those people who are posting regularly about the […]

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Go Green!

Solar powered picnic tables? Check. Solar powered trash cans? Check. Dedicated green blog? Check. Recycling cans everywhere? Check. Water bottle filling stations? Check. Stopping our snowblowers from leaking gas/oil all over the sidewalks and into our waterways? Ummmm …

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A quote: When it comes to the environment, we are asking how we can maintain a healthy environment with our continuing human activity? Emissions projections U.S. Energy Information Administration predict that we will likely continue to pollute at an exponentially increasing rate as the years go on.  But hey, it’s an actual link to the US government, so it […]

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