sustainability

Sebastopol, California — Sonoma County, Northern California, used to be spoken of as part of the natural “Redwood Empire.” Then the bloated wine industry re-named it as the commercial “Wine Country.” A growing number of locals have had it with the expanding wine industry in both Sonoma County and the neighboring Napa County and are beginning to challenge their over-expansion.
A moral person would not buy “blood diamonds.” It is time to consider the various environmental, climate change, and human factors when one buys Sonoma or Napa County wines.

While the fossil fuel industry merrily hums along with blessings from the world’s body politic, especially in America, climate scientists ponder the question: Can global warming be solved… in enough time?
This hand-wringing conundrum has been swirling around for years but nobody has stepped forward with one really good idea that has gained traction — none whatsoever!

Every so often a nonfiction book comes along that, because of its objective, comprehensive coverage of a hot topic, should be carefully read with a highlighter in hand by everyone.  That new book is Unprecedented by David Ray Griffin.  Be warned, this book will probably bum you out.  It presents the most readable treatment of the global warming and climate change issue that anyone could wish for.  It is not an emotional rant, but rather a carefully organized and detailed discussion.  Most significantly, wit

Sleepless nights bring on drowsy days, and for those experiencing this disorder because of heightened concerns about global warming, awakening in the middle of the night, screaming, there is a remedy.  Read Gaia Vince’s Adventures in the Anthropocene –A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, Milkweed Editions, 2014.

Is abrupt climate change already here?
There are some serious scientists who believe it is already here. If their analysis is correct, the world could turn nearly uninhabitable within current lifetimes.

Last week, climate researchers at both NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2014 was the planet’s warmest year in the modern record, going all the way back to 1880. The ten warmest years have now occurred since 2000, with the sole exception of 1998 when there was a strong El Niño warming event in the Pacific Ocean.

Is the climate movement at a political tipping point? Could right now, 2015, this moment in history, be something akin to the 1964-1965 period for the civil rights movement? Those were the years that two major pieces of legislation, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, ended legal segregation in the South and opened the way for a whole series of positive social, cultural, and political changes in the USA in the years since.

Who will remember what this age was like? And how will it be remembered? For the abyss of silence at the center of all the noise? The fierce shadow cast by all the blazing lights that never went off, that shone night and day?

The Global Warming Bubble is prodigious and growing exponentially. It makes the 2007-08 Financial Bubble look like child’s play. And, here’s the basic issue: Bubbles are not recognized until after they pop. Then, it’s too late, witness the U.S. Financial Panic of 2007-08.
When compared to other bubble phenomena, the Global Warming Bubble is one of the most obscure events in human history because it happens where nobody sees it. This article sees it.
Enigmatic Bubbles

Every time a frigid blast of Arctic air, or an extraordinarily heavy snowfall, or a devastating ice storm hits the Northern Hemisphere, especially off season, all sorts of commentators, principally in America, hit the news wires and blogs with: Uh-Oh! Global Warming?