Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Nuclear rule American energy policy along with an even larger posse of corporate plutocrats who exercise far too much influence inside the Beltway. None of them seem inclined to give up their hold on Washington. Nor are they troubled by operating free from accountability to the American people. Their henchmen in Congress appear unbothered by this, … [Read more...]
Why you can’t fight climate change without peak oil
Publishers of books on climate change seem to be competing to ratchet up the doom factor in their titles. Pretty soon you can expect to see "Dr Kevorkian's Rx to Save Yourself from Climate Hell" or "Praying for Pol Pot: Genocide May Be the Only Answer." The title Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change helped draw me to Australian activist Clive … [Read more...]
Mindfulness in the midst of chaos
At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, 2,500 years ago, the early Buddhist community that gathered around him was highly sustainable, ecologically aware, and self-consciously so. In many ways it can be seen as a perfect model of how to live contentedly with very little and in harmony with nature. The monks and nuns recycled cast-aside rags to make robes. They ate with … [Read more...]
Tune in, turn off, hang up
In 1988, as an eighth grader in Mr. Cedric A. S. Paine’s Introductory to Physical Science class, I tried to create the greenhouse effect in a two-liter Coke bottle. It kind of worked, but more importantly, the project made a powerful impact on me that remains to this day. In 1989, a writer from the Adirondacks published The End of Nature. It was the first book for a popular … [Read more...]
Do shoot the messenger
If the right message is delivered by the wrong messenger, it probably won't get through. Even worse, the wrong messenger can make people who were neutral on an issue into hostile critics. Using the wrong messenger may be worse than using no messenger at all. That's the finding of a study on the Golden Rule done in October at the University of Virginia. For Christians, … [Read more...]