Back in October, there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding NASA’s project of crashing a LCROSS satellite into the moon to determine if there is in fact water on the moon. While it was initially believed by spectators and researchers alike that the mission was a big failure, since there was no visible lunar dust or any other substances that resulted immediately from the cash; NASA says today that it actually was a success, indicating that the moon has a substantial water supply.
By Daniel Hohler •
July 26, 2009
July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike. 40 years later none of us, besides the most avid space fanatic, would likely to be able to name one astronaut in service today.
Despite the tragedies of Space Shuttle Challenger, and later Columbia, where the world is shocked into being reminded of the inherit dangers of sitting on 1 million gallons of rocket fuel, or re-entering the earth’s atmosphere at 1,870 miles per hour. We all see space flight as mundane because the vast majority of space flights since Apollo 11, have been mostly conducting seemingly routine scientific experiments. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in the importance of science in space, but these experiments don’t exactly inspire awe in the general population like, oh say, a manned mission to Mars would. We also don’t have the fever of beating those damned Ruskies because they might go to space and blow us all up, which we had during the height of the cold war when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar Sea of Tranquility.
The Department of the Interior is proposing to cut the number of snowmobiles allowed per day into Yellowstone National Park by more than half.
By Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,” in which he challenged the view that the sun revolved around the earth, arguing instead that the earth revolved around the sun. With his new model of the solar system, he began a wide-ranging debate among scientists, theologians, and others. His alternative to the earlier Ptolemaic model, which had the earth at the center of the universe, led to a revolution in thinking, to a new worldview.
Today we need a similar shift in our worldview, in how we think about the relationship between the earth and the economy. The issue now is not which celestial sphere revolves around the other but whether the environment is part of the economy or the economy is part of the environment. Economists see the environment as a subset of the economy. Ecologists, on the other hand, see the economy as a subset of the environment.
Like Ptolemy’s view of the solar system, the economists’ view is confusing efforts to understand our modern world. It has created an economy that is out of sync with the ecosystem on which it depends.
Ontario is planning on updating its 136 year old mining law to reflect current values and conditions. Preventing wildcat staking of personal and aboriginal property is one of its highest priorities.
By Amiel Blajchman •
March 27, 2009
Russia’s Security Council has authorized the creation of an Arctic special forces military to be deployed by the year 2020 to protect their interests in the Far North as new sources of natural resources become more available due to the decrease in ice cover.
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/presentation.htm
Earth Policy Institute (EPI) has created a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes Lester Brown’s latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. It quickly reviews the book’s key concepts using data, facts, and figures, including the Plan B blueprint for reducing net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 80 percent by 2020 to stabilize climate.
All are welcome to use this presentation and modify it to suit their needs. It is designed to be shared, so feel free to pass along the link to others who might be interested. We ask only that users appropriately credit EPI and the photographers, notably Yann Arthus-Bertrand, eminent French photographer and friend of EPI, whose works appear within.
By Alex Felsinger •
February 20, 2009
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released a study this week concluding that the solar industry could use many cheaper and more abundant alternatives to silicon, including iron pyrite — most commonly known as fool’s gold.
In total, the researchers found 23 alternative semiconductors, but only 12 are more easily found than silicon. Iron pyrite was named the most probable solution among those 12. Solar producers have often faced shortages of silicon, so even one new material would be a welcome jolt for the industry.
By Amy Bell •
February 18, 2009
Most people are aware of at least a few of the problems associated with factory farming.
Anyone who has ever had the unfortunate experience of even being near one will tell you the smell alone is enough to make you instantly nauseated.
Aside from that, what are some of the other hazards of raising animals this way?
Here is a interesting list I’ve compiled of various pieces of information about this vile practice, and the impact it has on us and the environment:
By Lester R. Brown
As land and water become scarce, competition for these vital resources intensifies within societies, particularly between the wealthy and those who are poor and dispossessed. The shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person that comes with population growth is threatening to drop the living standards of millions of people below the survival level, leading to potentially unmanageable social tensions.
Access to land is a prime source of social tension. Expanding world population has cut the grainland per person in half, from 0.23 hectares in 1950 to 0.10 hectares in 2007. One tenth of a hectare is half of a building lot in an affluent U.S. suburb. This ongoing shrinkage of grainland per person makes it difficult for the world’s farmers to feed the 70 million people added to world population each year. The shrinkage in cropland per person not only threatens livelihoods; in largely subsistence societies, it threatens survival itself. Tensions within communities begin to build as landholdings shrink below that needed for survival.
The Sahelian zone of Africa, with one of the world’s fastest-growing populations, is an area of spreading conflict. In troubled Sudan, 2 million people have died and over 4 million have been displaced in the long-standing conflict of more than 20 years between the Muslim north and the Christian south. The more recent conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan that began in 2003 illustrates the mounting tensions between two Muslim groups–camel herders and subsistence farmers. Government troops are backing Arab militias, who are engaging in the wholesale slaughter of black Sudanese in an effort to drive them off their land, sending them into refugee camps in neighboring Chad. At least some 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 250,000 have died of hunger and disease in the refugee camps.
By Levi Novey •
February 6, 2009
With growing speculation that electric cars and other energy efficient vehicles will soon dominate markets worldwide, Bolivia is a nation that perhaps stands to benefit (or suffer) more than any other from the energy revolution.
Most electric cars will be powered by lithium batteries, and Bolivia has more lithium than any other nation worldwide. How this development will affect Bolivia is unknown, but will squarely place the South American country at an intriguing and crucial crossroads.
