» 2009 » August

Dave Hughes’s guide to the end of the fossil fuel age

Dave Hughes is driving north on Highway 2. Headed out of Calgary, where he worked for thirty-two years at the Geological Survey of Canada, mapping the nation’s coal reserves. Bound for Edmonton, where he grew up and earned two degrees in geology. It’s not yet dawn, the sky deep black and the windows of his pickup truck like mirrors, the southbound lanes a line of smeared headlights as long-haul commuters make the trek the other way into the capital of the oil patch. Hughes sips coffee from a reusable mug, fighting back sleepiness. Just another commuter trailing a cloud of burnt dinosaur bones on his way to work.

Dave had to start out fifteen minutes earlier than the requisite ungodly hour so he could pick you up at your house. So you wouldn’t drive yourself. Save a few hydrocarbons, he’d joked. He’s a coal man, a geologist, and he always refers to the holy trinity of fossil fuels whose flames have stoked the past 200 years of industrial growth — coal, natural gas, and especially oil — in that same semi-technical way: hydrocarbons. Dave Hughes has a lot to say about hydrocarbons, mainly how there’s no possible way to keep running the engine of a modern global economy for much longer at the pace we’re burning them. Which is why you felt compelled to join him in the black chill of this late-autumn morning. Because that seems like a pretty big deal.

Source: www.walrusmagazine.com/…

LS » What if the oil era really did end in 10 years before we have time to make a significant change from hydrocarbon powered energy to alternative and sustainable energy? Given how reliant we are on hydrocarbons this is basically an apocalyptic thought.

Memo to Obama: To hell with health care and that ridiculously partisan quagmire, you have bigger fish to fry, time to start a massive deployment for R&D on alternative energy options.

Will bluefin tuna survive our insatiable appetite for status and taste?

This environmental crisis has everything: world-renowned chefs and Hollywood celebrities in an intercontinental food fight over the fate of one of the world’s great predators, the bluefin tuna.

Pound-for-pound, bluefin is the most valuable fish in the world, prized as a delicacy at the finest sushi bars. But after decades of overfishing, this magnificent fish, which can grow to weigh three-quarters of a ton, has been so severely depleted that it swims on the brink of oblivion. Yet its prized buttery flesh is still on the menu at Nobu, the celebrated high-end sushi chain, which is co-owned by Robert De Niro, and has 24 restaurants in 13 countries.

With demand for the rare tuna showing no signs of abating, the market for it has grown more feverish. At the highest level of bluefin mania, a single fish that weighed 444 pounds was sold at auction for $174,000 in 2001. Since the tuna jackpot can be so huge, it’s no surprise that the weak regulations that exist to curb overfishing have been flouted by greedy constituents of the fishing industry, which put short-term profits over long-term sustainability.

But now conservationists, with help from Hollywood, are trying to transform bluefin from a status symbol to an environmental mark of Cain. In June, inspired by the muckraking documentary “The End of the Line,” Sting, Elle Macpherson, Alicia Silverstone, Sienna Miller and Charlize Theron signed a letter, pleading with chef Nobu Matsuhisa to stop serving the fish.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » When it comes to making money versus sustainability the money is always going to win so we can’t rely on the fishing industry and their regulatory associations to stop the fishing of bluefin tuna until the last bluefin has been caught, gutted and served. The only thing that can be done is to educate the public so that they stop buying and eating bluefin tuna and to make those that do eat a bluefin feel like a selfish asshole. Ultimately only peer pressure can trump the money.

Investigating the dangerous new wave of pollutants entering our waterways and drinking water - and who’s responsible.

Watch Video: www.pbs.org/…

LS » This documentary video will make you think twice the next time you go and grab a glass of water. Luckily the solutions are there, it is just a matter of accepting liability and forking over the cash, albeit a lot of cash, but what choice do we have.