By Nick Turse13 October 2016 (The Intercept) – The year is 2030. Forget about the flying cars, robot maids, and moving sidewalks we were promised. They’re not happening. But that doesn’t mean the future is a total unknown. According to a startling Pentagon video obtained by The Intercept, the future of global cities will be […]
By Josh Haner, Edward Wong, Derek Watkins, and Jeremy White24 October 2014 In the Tengger Desert, China (The New York Times) – This desert, called the Tengger, lies on the southern edge of the massive Gobi Desert, not far from major cities like Beijing. The Tengger is growing. For years, China’s deserts spread at an […]
18 October 2016 (UN) – The head of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification told delegations gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to assess the treaty’s implementation, the impacts of land degradation affect the sustainability of the entire world, so a global effort is needed to tackle it, including through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable […]
By Gail Zawacki25 September 2016 (Wit’s End) – My last post here at Wit’s End received some thoughtful queries which deserved an answer in kind, a response I have assiduously procrastinated making – an avoidance which was made easier by a ten day trip with minimal access to the internet. Most of the photos in […]
By Travis N. Rieder11 September 2016 (The Conversation) – Earlier this summer, I found myself in the middle of a lively debate because of my work on climate change and the ethics of having children. NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having […]
COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, 31 August 2016 (UMD) – Following the arrival of early agricultural crops from southwest Asia, ancient European societies experienced a series of population booms followed by a collapse that historical scientists are still working to explain. New research from the University of Maryland published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of […]
29 August 2016 (AFP) – The human impact on Earth’s chemistry and climate has cut short the 11,700-year-old geological epoch known as the Holocene and ushered in a new one, scientists said Monday. The Anthropocene, or “new age of man,” would start from the mid-20th century if their recommendation—submitted Monday to the International Geological Congress […]
By Anuradha Nagaraj18 August 2016 CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than a quarter of India’s land is turning to desert and the rate of degradation of agricultural areas is increasing, according to new analysis of satellite images. A report [pdf] from the Indian Space Research Organization says land degradation – broadly defined as […]
By Jennifer Ludden18 August 2016 (NPR) – Standing before several dozen students in a college classroom, Travis Rieder tries to convince them not to have children. Or at least not too many. He’s at James Madison University in southwest Virginia to talk about a “small-family ethic” — to question the assumptions of a society that […]
[cf. MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030 – ‘We are not on a sustainable trajectory’ and The Limits to Growth at forty: Is collapse now inevitable?] By Nafeez Ahmed19 April 2016 (Insurge Intelligence) – A report commissioned on behalf of a cross-party group of British MPs authored by a former UK government advisor, […]
