Update Aug 25th: Brilliant talk by Hans Rosling, in which he explains “Child survival is the new Green”. Book review PeopleQuake by Fred Pearce Eden Project Books 2010 Pbck; 342pp There is a scary book I have a half-share in with a neo-Malthusian friend which contains graphs of the exponential growth curves in population for [...]
The second edition of the new SkeptEco podcast is up! This week the SkeptEco team- Eoghain, Christina, Michael and myself talk about why we started the podcasts, the relationship between science, rationality and the environmental movement, and what other topics we might cover in later episodes. http://skepteco.wordpress.com/
Book Review: Whole Earth Discipline An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand Atlantic Books 2009 316pp “Civilization is at risk, but civilization is the problem”. Stewart Brand is one of the iconic founders of the environmental movement, an original old hippy whose influence on the boomer generation should not be understated. With his latest book Whole [...]
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Book Review: The Living Landscape: How to Read and Understand it Patrick Whitefield Permanent Publications 2009 334pp 48 color photos When I first saw in the recent Permaculture Magazine that Patrick Whitefield had written a book on reading the landscape I became very excited and thought, “That’s probably a book David Holmgren would have liked [...]
A new biological control is being considered as a way of controlling one of Britain and Ireland’s most pernicious weeds, Japanese Knotweed, according to this story in The Guardian. a species of jumping plant lice, aphalara itadori, could bring down the mighty knotweed by guzzling its sap. If released to do its worst, it would [...]
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Update Aug 10th: Thanks to Robbie for sending me the link to Dominic Lawson’s piece on the FSA report and responses from the organic movement in the Times. Lawson quotes research suggesting farmers may have lower cancer rates possibly because pesticide use may protect against cancer! Now that has just got to be corporate spin… [...]
The Eden Project in Cornwall was established 7 years ago and has become a world famous visitor attraction with its iconic huge bubble-wrap domes providing the closest you’ll get to an experience of the rain-forest this side of the Amazon. I was visiting my sister this week, who lives nearby in Bodmin, and got the [...]
Human’s effect on the planet has now reached geological proportions and as a species we are having a more significant effect on the Earth’s climate, geology, biodiversity and, hence, even evolution than any other single factor. We are now officially in the Anthropocene, according to the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London. This [...]
The new issue of Sustainability is out with a focus on food security and also bringing world-class articles and reports on: -the economic crisis -global food security -horse power -bringing back a canal and rail system to Ireland -renovating an old cottage -Irish transition Initiatives and much more. Available from your local newsagent/wholefood store or [...]
[Update: See John Feeney's excellent response to Monbiot here.] A few people have pointed me to George Monbiot’s recent article on population in the Guardian. While it is welcome that Monbiot addresses the issue I wanted to reply because I found it really disappointing, failing to join the dots and in some ways misleading. The [...]