A year ago, I had a good job as a producer at a digital marketing firm. Like many people I was aware of climate change, but it was just another issue in a long list of troubling issues facing the world. Then I saw this TED talk, by Paul Gilding. With most TED talks, the audience is awed by the depth of human ingenuity and filled with positive visions of the future. … [Read more...]
The rust-bucket reactors start to fall
The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped "nuclear renaissance" is now definitively headed in reverse. The announcement that Wisconsin's Kewaunee will shut next year will be remembered as a critical dam break. Opened in 1974, Kewaunee has fallen victim to low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and … [Read more...]
Growth in global oil market slows
Global oil consumption increased by 0.7 percent in 2011 to reach an all-time high of 88.03 million barrels per day, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online service. This rate of increase was considerably slower than in 2010, when oil consumption rose by 3.3 percent following a decline of 1.3 percent in 2009 due to the global … [Read more...]
Denial, anger and acceptance while circling the drain
I remember the exact time when I knew for sure that my dad’s cancer was entering the late stages. After his six hour brain surgery he had a hemorrhagic stroke that destroyed his ability to speak and swallow. I knew that he and my mom wouldn't be rescheduling their trip to Europe. Dad would be lucky to get out of the hospital and spend a few peaceful weeks or months at home … [Read more...]
Tired of waiting for the barbarians
Ever since the dawn of the Nuclear Age, Hollywood has fed movie audiences on a steady diet of end-of-the-world thrillers. And from The Time Machine and The Planet of the Apes to The Road and The Hunger Games, for half a century moviegoers have hungrily gobbled up this fare like so many baskets of greasy apocalpytic curly fries. It may seem that people always and everywhere … [Read more...]