Monthly Archives: July 2010

TED Talk: Matt Ridley – “When ideas have sex”

I recently finished Matt Ridley’s book, The Rational Optimist. As I wrote here, ‘Molly Ivins said, “It’s hard to argue against cynics–they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side,” but she never met Matt Ridley, the Rational Optimist. He has evidence that says we need to keep goingContinue reading “TED Talk: Matt Ridley – “When ideas have sex””

Deforestation: causes and cures

Cute, clever, incorrect. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations’s Forest Resource Assessment for 2005 uses the word “alarming” 20 times to describe the trend lines for deforestation. And, a commonplace inference is that forests are rapidly disappearing due to logging. Yet deforestation is not necessarily the result of logging (illegal orContinue reading “Deforestation: causes and cures”

The Plundered Planet

Writing on NetGreen News, Paul Mackie, formerly of the World Resources Institute, provides a book review of Paul Collier‘s latest book, The Plundered Planet: Why We Must–and How We Can–Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. In general, he agrees with Oxford Economics Professor Collier’s assertion: “The romantics (environmentalists) are right that we are seriously mismanaging natureContinue reading “The Plundered Planet”

1.4 earths: sustainability and overshoot, or 6 earths and the moon for dessert

I like to think of myself as a good person of the Boy Scout variety–trustworthy, brave, kind, helpful, etc.–except without the homophobia. You probably like to think the same (of yourself, not me). Well, according to the Global Footprint Network’s “Footprint Calculator” it would take six earths if all 6.7 billion of us lived aContinue reading “1.4 earths: sustainability and overshoot, or 6 earths and the moon for dessert”

Comment on a HuffPo column

Here’s a comment I posted on an opinion piece written by Richard Stuebi, The Petroleum Industry: Past the Tipping Point? Interestingly, where it’s the minerals and non-renewable resources that should run out: oil, gold, aluminum, etc.; it’s been the renewable stuff that’s proven to be exhaustible: mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, cedars of Lebanon, gorillas. The paradoxContinue reading “Comment on a HuffPo column”