Slapdash

Small things thrown together.

Jeff Masters: “The extent of Arctic sea ice loss in the summer July - August - September period in 2007 was about 1.4 million square miles greater than in 1980… equal to an area about 44% of the size of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe.” (via Skeptical Science)

Jeff Masters: “The extent of Arctic sea ice loss in the summer July - August - September period in 2007 was about 1.4 million square miles greater than in 1980… equal to an area about 44% of the size of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe.”
(via Skeptical Science)

16 / ∞
At Last, Nations Agree to Landmark Climate Deal

When I was copying NPR’s headline, my phone decided I meant “At Least,” and that’s not so wrong. As far as I can tell, this is another “we agree that we will agree on something, later” deal. It’s not enough to avert catastrophe, but it’s more than anyone thought we would get this year. So, merry Christmas!

7 / ∞
We’re not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history.
Bill McKibben, “The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium”
∞
Global CO2 emissions rising faster than worst-case scenarios

“Worse than worst-case” is not a headline you like to see.

168 / ∞
New Technologies Redraw the World’s Energy Picture

Advances in technology are giving entirely new populations the opportunity to be exploited for the sake of sustaining a globally toxic fuel economy. Congratulations!

11 / ∞

You reduce, reuse and recycle. You turn down plastic and paper. You avoid out-of-season grapes. You do all the right things.

Good.

Just know that it won’t save the tuna, protect the rain forest or stop global warming. The changes necessary are so large and profound that they are beyond the reach of individual action.

Gernot Wagner, “Going Green but Getting Nowhere”

Candidate Obama knew this: “So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective.’”

3 / ∞

(via SkS Weekly Digest #12)

(via SkS Weekly Digest #12)

9 / ∞
Triassic Extinction Caused by Methane Gas From Seafloor, Research Finds

Sindya N. Banhoo: “Two hundred million years ago, at the end of the Triassic period, a mass extinction, often attributed to major volcanic activity, wiped out half of all marine life on Earth. But new research published in the journal Science suggests that the extinction was more likely to have been caused by the release of at least 12,000 gigatons of methane from the seafloor into the atmosphere.”

∞
Climate change is still spoken of here as something that if you care about your grandchildren, you care about climate change. That is not the way climate change is being spoken of in Africa. This is a now issue.
Naomi Klein, interviewed by Amy Goodman

(Source: democracynow.org)

5 / ∞
Until the end of the 1990s, Republicans could be counted on to join bipartisan solutions to environmental problems. Now they’ve disappeared in a fog of disinformation, an entire political party parroting the Cheney line.
The New York Times
3 / ∞

My name is Erik. I make music and web sites. I don't post much about those things here. Here are some things I post about:

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