Andrew Revkin asks on his blog, Dot Earth, ‘Would the world benefit from a set of millennium development goals for the “top billion”?’ Michael Schesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, among other things, wrote, “Perhaps humanity and the Earth can survive with 9 billion people in 2050, but what type of world willContinue reading “Should there be a new way of living for the top one billion? – The iPat edition”
Category Archives: environment
Should there be a new way of living for the top one billion?
Andrew Revkin asks on his blog, Dot Earth: “Would the world benefit from a set of millennium development goals for the ‘top billion’?” He notes: There’s a set of Millennium Development Goals for the poorest of the poor — a cohort of humanity sometimes described as the “ bottom billion.” But, as yet, there’s noContinue reading “Should there be a new way of living for the top one billion?”
Book Review: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Let me recommend a startling book to you, because whether you read a book a week or you haven’t picked one up since you discovered the wonders of the internet, this one deserves your attention. The book is The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (438 pages) written by Matt Ridley and published by HarperCollins ($26.99).Continue reading “Book Review: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”
Postcards from 1938-1939
In 1938, Walter C. Lowdermilk, Vice-Director of the Soil Conservation Service, was dispatched by then Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, on a world tour to learn of soil conservation successes and failures. Lowdermilk called the enterprise, “agricultural archaeology.” Lowdermilk packed the family Buick with provisions and his wife, son and daughter, niece, and his ownContinue reading “Postcards from 1938-1939”
Liberal professor unlikely AGW skeptic
“I have great distrust for it [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming]. It is not driven and motivated by true concern for social justice and the environment; it can only be about powerful financiers…Someone is going to make a lot of money from these schemes.” – Dr. Denis Rancourt
‘Environmentalism’ doesn’t need to address climate change
Dave Roberts wonders on Grist.org (motto: “A beacon in the smog”), “Can we survive in conditions [caused by global warming] that humanity has literally never faced?” Oh I think so. In fact,our species have faced such occurrences. Notable warm periods occurred from 230 B.C.E. to C.E. 140 and C.E. 640 to 760 (Report: “Two millenniaContinue reading “‘Environmentalism’ doesn’t need to address climate change”
Letter to UC Berkeley’s “Daily Californian”
Here’s a letter I sent off to the Daily Californian: On the Daily Californian’s opinion page on July 26, 2010 (Berkeley-BP Deal Only Looks Worse Post-Spill), Miguel Altieri writes, “This Berkeley-BP deal was signed without wide consultation with the faculty and despite warnings from a great number of faculty…” At the nub of it, hisContinue reading “Letter to UC Berkeley’s “Daily Californian””
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 Emperor’s New Power Grid
If you have not yet read Robert Bryce‘s excellent books, Power Hungry and Gusher of Lies, you must. He takes down the fallacies of “energy independence” and “renewable energy” with physics and simple math.
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”
Nullius in Verba 