MetaFilter posts tagged with environmentalism

Happy Earth Day!

Cookiebastard — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:07:24 -0800

Today is Earth Day! Google has a special Earth Day Doodle up. 350.org is encouraging people to speak out against the Keystone XL Pipeline. President Barack Obama has posted a proclamation, and people from all around the Earth are recognizing Earth Day in many different ways! What are you doing to celebrate?

Over 12 years, 8 million children died from vitamin A deficieny

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 19:56:32 -0800

A Golden Rice Opportunity is an article about how genetically modified 'golden rice' may save millions of children, at least according to Skeptical Environmentalist author Dr. Bjorn Lomborg.

Subspecies Extinction Alert

Scientist — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:47:03 -0800

DNA analysis has confirmed the death, by poaching, of the last Javan rhino in Vietnam. This marks the official extinction of the Vietnamese subspecies of Javan rhinoceros. The entire species is now represented by just 35 individuals from the Indonesian subspecies, all of whom reside in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia.

Blue Sky Mine

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:16:32 -0800

An environmental group's hoax e-mail dropped the more than $300 million from share price of Australian mining company Whitehaven Coal. The Australian Greens party has supported the economically destructive attack, drawing ire from the conservative Coalition party.

Protect the Peaks

Scientist — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:46:10 -0800

Environmental and Native American activists in Flagstaff, AZ face federal charges for allegedly "interfering with a forest officer" after a protest action in which they "quarantined" the Coconino National Forest Service lobby to protest a decision permitting the expansion of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort onto the San Fransisco Peaks – a site regarded as sacred by the Navajo, Hopi, and Havasupai people. The proposed expansion entails the use of treated sewage effluent, aka reclaimed wastewater for snowmaking operations. These events occurred on the same day that the USDA and Forest Service issued a final report (pdf) which outlines recommendations for working more closely with Native representatives surrounding sacred sites issues.

"The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." ~ Rachel Carson

Fizz — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 05:44:23 -0800

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: "Widely considered the most important environmental book of the 20th century, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring has been reissued after 50 years. Margaret Atwood considers its impact and legacy."

Shake & Fold

schmod — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:20:41 -0800

Here's a 4-minute TEDx talk that demonstrates the correct method for drying your hands with a single paper towel.

Confessions Of A Recovering Environmentalist

jhandey — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:34:59 -0800

Confessions Of A Recovering Environmentalist. We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called “sustainability.” What does this curious, plastic word mean? It does not mean defending the nonhuman world from the ever-expanding empire of Homo sapiens sapiens, though some of its adherents like to pretend it does, even to themselves. It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level that the world’s rich people—us—feel is their right, without destroying the “natural capital” or the “resource base” that is needed to do so. Paul Kingsnorth (most recently of the Dark Mountain Project) in Orion Magazine on environmentalism, sustainability, and hope. ...I don’t have any answers, if by answers we mean political systems, better machines, means of engineering some grand shift in consciousness. All I have is a personal conviction built on those feelings, those responses, that goes back to the moors of northern England and the rivers of southern Borneo—that something big is being missed. That we are both hollow men and stuffed men, and that we will keep stuffing ourselves until the food runs out, and if outside the dining room door we have made a wasteland and called it necessity, then at least we will know we were not to blame, because we are never to blame, because we are the humans. What am I to do with feelings like these? Useless feelings in a world in which everything must be made useful. Sensibilities in a world of utility. Feelings like this provide no “solutions.” They build no new eco-homes, remove no carbon from the atmosphere. This is head-in-the-clouds stuff, as relevant to our busy, modern lives as the new moon or the date of the harvest. Easy to ignore, easy to dismiss, like the places that inspire the feelings, like the world outside the bubble, like the people who have seen it, if only in brief flashes beyond the ridge of some dark line of hills. But this is fine—the dismissal, the platitudes, the brusque moving-on of the grown-ups. It’s all fine. I withdraw, you see. I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching, I withdraw from the arguing and the talked-up necessity and all of the false assumptions. I withdraw from the words. I am leaving. I am going to go out walking. Also see Wen Stephenson's exchange with Kingsnorth at the Thoreau Farm Trust: Hope in the Age of Collapse, Part 2, and Part 3.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

zarq — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:40:32 -0800

In 1984, The Voyage of the Mimi set sail on PBS, exploring the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts to study humpback whales. The educational series was made up of thirteen episodes intended to teach middle schoolers about science and math. The first fifteen minutes of each episode were a fictional adventure starring a young Ben Affleck. The second 15 minutes were an "expedition documentary" that would explore the scientific concepts behind the show's plot points. A sequel with the same format, The Second Voyage of the Mimi aired in 1988, and featured the crew of the Mimi exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico. The links above are to the playlists for both shows. 13 episodes for the first. 12 for the second. Individual episode links: The Voyage of the Mimi 1. All Aboard / Planet Ocean 2. Setting Sail / Whale Watch 3. On the Shoals / Mapping the Blue Part 4. Counting Whales / Whale Bones 5. Going Fishing / Scraping the Bottom 6. Home Movies / Songs in the Sea 7. Fastening On / Hands Full of Words 8. Tracking the Whale / World's Worst Weather 9. Shipwrecked / Goose Bumps 10. Making Dew / Water, Water, Everywhere 11. The Feast / A New Alchemy 12. Rolling Home / Boat Shop 13. Separate Ways / A Sailor and a Scientist The Second Voyage of the Mimi 1. A Charter To the Past / If I Can Do This! 2. A Tomb In the Jungle / Sweating It Out... 3. A Light In the Dark / As the Earth Turns... 4. The Underworld / The Incredible Shrinking Head! 5. A Stone Puzzle / Feeling The Pressure 6. Cracking the Code / Written in Stone 7. The Quest Begins / The Ancient Farm 8. A Road To Danger / Venom: A Scorpion Tale 9. A Friendly Village / Curandera 10. Discoveries / Up a Tree 11. Found and Lost / In the Canopy 12. The Fate of a King / One Stone at a Time Wikipedia on The Voyage of the Mimi / The Second Voyage of the Mimi. Here are summaries of each episode. Oceanographer Kim Kasten discusses her time on the show, and asks: Was "Voyage of the Mimi" effective? Apparently, it's still being used as a foundation for curriculum in at least one school. Here's a quote from Affleck on the show. The final documentary of the first season mentions that the ship used in both seasons really was called the Mimi. Wikipedia has its history. Last year, boston.com covered the sad, Last Voyage of the Mimi, in East Boston.

Lucky Act 13

gerryblog — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:46:15 -0800

Pennsylvania has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients. This American Life on fracking in Pennsylvania. Fracking: Anatomy of a Free Market Failure. Previously in Pennsylvania. Earlier this month: “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth,” Ohio oil and gas regulators said today. From Guernica in December: As a Fortune 500 company’s fracking activities in rural West Virginia leave a polluted and drastically altered landscape, locals are fighting back.

"There's no way to argue with that, except with explosives"

Burhanistan — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:12:57 -0800

END:CIV [full 75 minute movie] "If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?" Based on the book Endgame by Derrick Jensen. Movie site (includes MP4 download)

Dermot O'Connor's "There's No Tomorrow"

Trurl — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:47:40 -0800

"There's No Tomorrow" is a half-hour animated documentary that deals with resource depletion, energy, and growth. The original idea for the film was to be a pastiche of the pro-capitalist propaganda cartoons of the 1940s and 50s. These works are all in the public domain, making them an invaluable resource: "Going Places" (1948), "Meet King Joe" (1949), "Why Play Leapfrog" (1949), "What Makes Us Tick" (1952), "It's Everybodys Business" (1954) and "Destination Earth" (1956).

If they've got you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

lalochezia — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:05:07 -0800

Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot

Against civilization.

edguardo — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:50:14 -0800

"Primitivism is the pursuit of ways of life running counter to the development of technology, its alienating antecedents, and the ensemble of changes wrought by both. This site is an exploration into primitivist theory, as well as various works that contribute to an understanding of the tendency." Anarcho-primitivism, championed by aspiring noble savages such as John Zerzan, Derrick Jensen, and Ted Kaczynski, is an ideology with a perhaps-surprising number of online essays and adherents, many accessible through the first link above. Here cases are made against science and technology, against mass society, and even against art.

Frozen Planet decides not to air episode in U.S.

deathpanels — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:36:31 -0800

BBC's "Frozen Planet" series will not be airing an episode about climate change in the United States.

Bidder #70

Trurl — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:24:24 -0800

Lauded as a civil disobedience symbol agitating for urgent reaction to climate change, Timothy DeChristopher was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Huber argued... that DeChristopher isn’t sorry for hijacking the auction and deserves a harsh sentence. He cited a spate of media interviews DeChristopher gave after his conviction, including a speech on the courthouse steps in which DeChristopher told a throng of reporters that “if we are to achieve our vision, many after me will have to join me [in prison] as well.”

Baez/Yudkowsky

escabeche — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 20:43:41 -0800

John Baez (mathematical physicist and master popularizer, former operator of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics, current promoter of the idea that physicists should start pitching in on saving the world) interviews Eliezer Yudkowsky (singularitarian, author of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality," promoter of the idea that human life faces a near-term existential threat from unfriendly artificial intelligence, and that people can live better lives by evading their cognitive biases) about the future, academia, rationality, altruism, expected utility, self-improvement by humans and machines, and the relative merit of battling climate change and developing friendly AIs that will forstall our otherwise inevitable doom. Part I. Part II. Part III. To give the flavor, here's Yudkowsky: "My long-term goals are the same as ever: I’d like human-originating intelligent life in the Solar System to survive, thrive, and not lose its values in the process. And I still think the best means is self-improving AI. But that’s a bit of a large project for one person, and after a few years of beating my head against the wall trying to get other people involved, I realized that I really did have to go back to the beginning, start over, and explain all the basics that people needed to know before they could follow the advanced arguments. Saving the world via AI research simply can’t compete against the Society for Treating Rare Diseases in Cute Kittens unless your audience knows about things like scope insensitivity and the affect heuristic and the concept of marginal expected utility, so they can see why the intuitively more appealing option is the wrong one."

The Easy-Bake Oven

Joe Beese — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:33:58 -0800

The Easy-Bake Oven has inspired some children and mutilated others en route to being immortalized in The National Toy Hall of Fame. But with 100-watt incandescent light bulbs effectively prohibited from manufacture starting in 2012, the suprisingly versatile cooking instrument is being retired in favor of an "Ultimate" model powered by a non-bulb heating element.

The Moral Crusade Against Foodies...and against people who have a moral crusade against foodies

melissam — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:49:16 -0800

BR Myers thinks foodies are obsessed with food at the expense of morals. Rancher and writer thinks it's a shallow and warped attack on people trying to make the food system better.. Food critic Robert Sietsema calls out Myers' own bias. Salon Writer Francis Lam doesn't like foodies, but doesn't think Myers' rant contributes much.. Vegan.com loves the rant., as does vegansaurus.

Captain Planet would be proud.

Lovecraft In Brooklyn — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:55:34 -0800

Japan has suspended its whale hunt after pressure from world governments and harassment by eco-vigilante group Sea Shepherd. Previously.

Genghis Khan: history's greenest conqueror?

Stagger Lee — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:43:42 -0800

Previously on metafilter, it was suggested that opinions on Genghis Khan might sway with political sentiment. Well apparently he's now being hailed by some as history's greenest conqueror. Discuss.

Don't Baby Don't

gerryblog — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:06:14 -0800

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as part of the next five-year drilling plan, reversing two key policy changes President Obama announced in late March. Drilling will continue in other parts of the Gulf of Mexico under new safeguards. Previously.

[OilyDuckFilter] Another flock of ducks in another Syncrude tailings pond.

Stagger Lee — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:00:33 -0800

Previously on metafilter, a flock of ducks died in a Syncrude tailings pond in Northern Alberta. Last week Syncrude was fined 3 million dollars. Now, another flocks of ducks has landed in another Syncrude tailing pond. Meanwhile, the Council of Canadians is warning that Alberta may be on the road to privatising water rights, something that ducks have previously been using for free. [/tongue in cheek.]

Meet the Denialists

gerryblog — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:46:46 -0800

A handful of US scientists have made names for themselves by casting doubt on global warming research. In the past, the same people have also downplayed the dangers of passive smoking, acid rain and the ozone hole. In all cases, the tactics are the same: Spread doubt and claim it's too soon to take action.

No Pressure

thescientificmethhead — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:40:06 -0800

Sorry. Today we put up a mini-movie about 10:10 and climate change called 'No Pressure’. Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended. As a result of these concerns we've taken it off our website. We won't be making any attempt to censor or remove other versions currently in circulation on the internet.