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- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
An aerial/telephoto exploration of the Canadian Oil Sands operations. Two trillion barrels of oil in the ground. Pyramids of sulfur and coke. Lakes of oil stretching to the horizon. At $200k/yr, it's easy to understand how one might get roped in, gold rush style. - Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak.
- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
Twitterfeed
- Incredible photo essay on the Athabasca Tar Sands operations: businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-s… 4 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 1 week ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 1 week ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 4 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: food
Michael Pollan on Deep Agriculture
I can’t believe how much I enjoy the Long Now talks. Thoughtful and intelligent people, usually talking about things I happen to think are important, and interesting. I almost feel like it’s a re-invention of the oratory form. I’m glad … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, food, green, light, longnow, personal, policy, politics, public, reviews, sustainability, talks
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Shared Links for May 24th
Math and the City – The same scaling laws seem to apply to both cities and organisms: infrastructure requirements per capita (or per unit body mass) go down as population (size) go up. Not so surprising, since both cities and … Continue reading
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Tagged africa, agriculture, art, bicycle, biology, china, cities, design, economics, food, gardening, infrastructure, nasa, policy, politics, space, sustainability, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, trade, transportation
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Shared Links for May 12th
Forecast: On Climate Change, Cooler Temperatures Bring Hotter Air – Augh, we are prisoners to so many perceptual fallacies. Recency and narration loom large among them. It turns out that the average temperature of the last 12 months is a … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, architecture, bicycles, cities, climate, design, economics, fallacy, food, gardening, germany, government, green, parking, philosophy, policy, politics, popper, potatoes, propaganda, science, society, statistics, sustainability, taxes, transportation, visualization, wealth
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Shared Links for May 11th
Where can you get Cheap Natural Fertilizers and Soil Amendments? – A nice concise list of natural sources for garden nutrients, when your compost pile just isn't quite enough. (tagged: gardening food organic fertlizer compost biology ) Pinko bastion spawns … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, art, berkeley, biology, biotech, bonds, boulder, capitalism, cars, cities, compost, concrete, construction, debate, design, efficiency, energy, engineering, fertlizer, finance, food, future, gardening, genetics, green, investing, longnow, organic, parking, planning, science, sculpture, solar, sustainability, technology, transportation
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Shared Links for Apr 6th
Sing a dirge for the unused adipic acid – An essay on the unpleasantries of being lab safety officer, and the sentimental attachment that scientists have to their expired reagents. (tagged: science chemistry lab safety ) Does carbon-eating cement deserve … Continue reading
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Tagged academia, antarctica, breastfeeding, carbon, cement, chemistry, children, cities, climate, education, environment, food, gardening, health, ice, lab, safety, science, society, sustainability, technology
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Shared Links for Apr 3rd
Stealing Commodities – Our infrastructure is (unwittingly) built around the assumption that the materials it is composed of are, and will remain, cheap, and not worth the trouble of stealing. If this assumption breaks down, copper power lines start disappearing … Continue reading
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Tagged argentina, cars, china, climate, commodities, economics, food, infrastructure, local, money, oregon, policy, politics, privacy, propaganda, science, security, sustainability, taxes, technology, transportation, vmt
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Shared Links for Mar 26th
Postopolis LA – Presentations, films, talks slideshows, discussions and parties, centered around architecture, design, and the future of cities. Wish I knew someone who was going… (tagged: losangeles architecture design urban ) Seville Orange Marmalade Recipe – Going to get … Continue reading
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Tagged AIG, architecture, astrology, bailout, canning, cities, cooking, copyright, creativecommons, design, education, food, funny, losangeles, marmalade, nytimes, open, openaccess, orange, politics, pseudoscience, recipe, science, seville, skeptic
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Have you seen the light?
As animals, and especially visual animals at that, we have a particular experience of the light. For us it is illumination, information about our surroundings. For that purpose moonlight or even starlight will do. And for tens of millions of … Continue reading
Shared Links for Mar 14th
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable – A good epitaph for the newspaper, by Clay Shirky. Now if only Elsevier would go bankrupt too. (tagged: technology economy history internet copyright publishing newspapers ) Will Banks Start to Walk Their Talk? Don't … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, antibiotics, auction, bailout, banks, carbon, citi, climate, copyright, crisis, economics, economy, energy, evolution, farms, finance, food, health, history, internet, investing, livestock, mrsa, newspapers, obama, policy, politics, publishing, technology
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How important is local food?
From a purely climatic point of view. Assuming the following: For each calorie of food you consume, the equivalent of 9 additional calories worth of gas were burned to get the food to your plate (this is industrial food production). … Continue reading