Alternative energy depends heavily on engineered equipment and infrastructure for capture or conversion. However, the full supply chain for alternative energy, from raw materials to manufacturing, is still very dependent on fossil fuel energy. The various obstacles to alternative energy compound the fundamental challenge of how to supplant a fossil fuel–based supply chain with one […]
Our mismanaged world economy today has many of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme takes payments from a broad base of investors and uses these to pay off returns. It creates the illusion that it is providing a highly attractive rate of return on investment as a result of savvy investment decisions […]
Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet. The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil – fuel emissions over the next few decades. A moratorium […]
The main cause of global climate change is growth: unrelenting economic growth and a swelling human population. Most proposals for reducing climate change take this growth for granted and focus exclusively on technical means for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. An economic system dedicated to generating ever more wealth and consumption for ever more people must […]
We envision a bold leap toward a future energy economy that fosters beauty and health; that is resilient because it emphasizes renewable, community-scale energy generation; that supports durable economies, not growth; and that is informed by nature’s wisdom. Recognizing that all human economic activity is a subset of nature’s economy and must not degrade its […]
Today, energy policy is everybody’s business, and everyone should understand the policy choices and trade-offs under discussion. Which energy sources cause the most damage to natural habitats and which produce the most greenhouse gas pollution? What are the health and economic ramifications of mountaintop-removal coal mining? Will new technology and renewables solve all our energy […]
There are few routes for tar sands oil to travel from the point of extraction in central Canada to the ports that are gateways to global markets. One is the controversial Keystone pipeline, heading south to the Gulf of Mexico. Another is the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would travel west from Alberta through British […]
A new, global rush to embrace biofuels—for transport, heat, and electricity—is a growing threat to ecosystems, wildlife, human health, and the climate. The trend poses the danger of increased commodification of forests, greater competition between food and energy markets, and even more pressure on the world’s rural poor that depend upon local biomass for their […]
Protecting areas from resource extraction is the one sure way to address the paradox that energy production and consumption are both powering and destroying our civilization. At least half of planet Earth’s land and surface waters should be in protected areas dedicated to nature conservation to conserve biological diversity and stabilize the climate. Securing “Nature’s […]
Despite increasingly worrying scientific evidence, worsening extreme weather disasters, and years of advocacy by the major environmental groups, political leaders in the United States have not acted seriously on climate change. Because efforts to push climate change action through regular political channels have clearly failed, a mass movement of grassroots citizen activism is necessary. This […]