The latest target of the unconventional oil craze is California hydraulic fracturing (fracking) the Monterey Shale in the central and southern parts of the state. With wildly optimistic predictions of an economic bonanza, the oil is carbon-intensive, requires massive amounts of fresh water, creates industrial pollution and seismic risk, and is impossible to regulate effectively because of significant scientific unknowns.
Month: January 2014
Small Architecture: On Glass Houses Built Over Stone
In 2012, Nick Olson and Lilah Horwitz quit their jobs for a time to build a West Virginia mountain hideaway cabin, a tiny summer house made with recycled windows. This is the result.
Jorge Luis Borges: On Literary Magic and Garden Labyrinths
Jorge Luis Borges forged into the realm of literary magic, he led his readers down through the Garden of Forking Paths, wandering the red and tranquil labyrinths in Elegy, growing old in so many mirrors, seeking in vain the marble gaze of statues, compiling regrets of a fantastic nature. Watch the BBC profile on him as an elder of strange destiny who had seen nothing, or almost nothing, but the face of a girl from Buenos Aires, a face that does not want you to remember it.
Dominican Republic: Modern Day Sugarcane Slavery
On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Watch the documentary film, “The Price of Sugar.”
Great March for Climate Action: Kick-Off in Los Angeles – March 1st
The time for climate action is now! On Saturday, March 1, the SoCal Climate Action Coalition 350 and its regional partners will rally in the shadow of a Port of Los Angeles oil refinery, sending marchers off on a 17.5-mile trek through the streets until they reach downtown Los Angeles. Hundreds of marchers will then continue their journey for 3,000 miles towards Washington D.C., reaching out to everyday citizens along the way on how they can fight climate change in their daily lives.
Colorado River: Dams and Drought, the Folly of Taming Nature
How two bitter opponents, Barry Goldwater and David Brower, came to realize the folly of dam building and desert over-development in the arid Southwest United States. It is time to open the floodgates of Glen Canyon Dam.
Political Science vs. Science Science – By Peter Nichols
Peter Nichols: My generation is being condemned to a planet beyond fixing because political science takes precedence over science science. If world governments don’t come together and act in concert to do something to stabilize the climate, and soon, we will make sure they are no longer governments.