We are not talking about how much energy or resources we must use to sustain current ways of living. The whole caboodle is up for grabs. We are talking about: how we should live, how much we should work, how free we should be. We are re-imagining our lives and renegotiating what it means to be human.
2000+ events. 180+ countries. A single day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels. 350.org’s 2011 day of action, Moving Planet, brought together Moving Together.
Amoral individuals driven by greed have been handed unfathomable extra wealth and the unsustainable economy has been given fresh gas to splutter forward for a few years longer. In contrast, Bill Mckibben, who has the knowledge, skills and experience to shift the country decisively towards a healthy, sustainable future in which citizens can flourish has been locked up. He has been languishing alone in a tiny cell. Talk about arresting the wrong guy!
Richard Heinberg propose a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.
Can the environmental crisis become the next big market for the military machine?
The Japanese have a new word in their lexicon. Flyjins are those foreigners who have fled Japan. The people left behind are anxiously watching which way the wind is going to blow the giant nuclear plume.
This is also a time to reflect on the risks posed by nuclear power generation and to ask if we should continue with this massive investment. Might our money be better spent on renewable energy?
All the eyes of the world are turned to the beaches of the most dominant nation of our times. The world is watching closely as this pivotal culture wrestles with this unprecedented environmental catastrophe. Will Obama use this as his movement to make a clean break and fundamentally restructure the energy infrastructure in the same way that 9/11 was used as the catalyst to restructure US foreign policy?
It is time to wake up and freak the fuck out. BP and the American government want you to sit tight and imagine that this environmental catastrophe is being fixed by responsible people. Don’t worry. Keep calm and carry on. Do not adjust your television. Go back to sleep.
These belching behemoths are cooling towers. In the UK’s creaking, outdated power stations coal is burnt to heat water to steam. The steam is sent through turbines at high speed generating electricity. Once through the turbine a huge amount of energy remains in the hot water. For some reason the geniuses who designed these power plants decided that instead of using this heat for something useful like… er… heating they would call it ‘waste heat’ and fart it into the sky. Some power stations also fart the heat into rivers killing fish. Great move guys!
