These are the CASSE blog articles on the environment.
Benzie County lies at the base of the pinky on the “Mitt,” as Michiganders say, referring to their left hand as a convenient “map” of their state. The county is blessed with one of the largest deepwater harbors on Lake Michigan, Betsie Bay. It has long provided mariners with safe refuge from the fierce gales of Lake Michigan. Jetties protect the bay’s inlet, where a historic lighthouse has guided ships for over a century.
The U.S. nonprofit sector is a $1.4 trillion industry. If it were a country, it would be one of the world’s largest economies. Wealthy individual donors, foundations, and corporations are the three largest sources of nonprofit funding. As such, these entities have tremendous influence over what kind of social, economic, and political change thrives or dies. Many large foundations and major donors have amassed wealth thanks to the very economic system that is pushing the world toward ecological collapse.
The Northeast Megaregion, also referred to as BosWash, extends from Boston to Washington, DC, and is populated by more than 55 million people. It is the largest contiguous urban area in the United States. BosWash has the largest population of the eleven U.S. megaregions, which together hold over 76 percent of the nation’s population. BosWash has the highest GDP of any megaregion in the world at some $3.75 trillion.
Okeechobee County is located in Florida’s Heartland Region, within the 3000-square mile Kissimmee River Basin. The Heartland stretches from Orlando in the north to the intertidal coast of mangrove forests to the south, forming an area commonly referred to as the “River of Grass.” Water flowed hundreds of miles through this enormous network of marshlands, helping to shape an ecosystem of unrivalled subtropical biodiversity.
Today,
The idea that 2⁰C is a safe guardrail against global heating was a guesstimate by an economist almost fifty years ago, and it had a sketchy scientific basis even at that time. In November 2023, a consortium comprised of many of the top glaciologists and climate scientists in the world published a report entitled “The State of the Cryosphere 2023—Two Degrees is Too High.” (See also the review on Carbon Brief.) The only hope of preventing catastrophic sea-level rise,
Social psychologists tell us it takes about 66 days to form a new habit. In my experience that’s only half true. Sixty-six days to form a good habit, yes, but about 66 hours to form a bad one. If I reach for a donut at breakfast, then do the same the next two days, I seal the deal and establish a habit of bad eating.
The daily news regularly features commentary about the outrageous and growing income inequality in the USA. The data support the outrage:
The transition to a steady state economy—in which humans, their operations, and their artifacts are nested harmoniously within the economy of nature—is fundamentally about reconciling human needs with the needs of nature. Leaving space for habitat and the functioning of natural systems is critical to our survival and the survival of myriad other organisms.
Natural and traditional agricultural ecosystems are autotrophic (‘self-feeding’), meaning they are capable of regenerating resources and assimilating wastes.
Think about the county where you live. Picture your favorite streets, event spaces, scenery, or terrain. If you’ve lived there awhile, chances are you know what makes it great: the natural, cultural, and commercial places whose characteristics make your community special to you and your neighbors.
Your connection to them becomes part of your sense of place. You delight in taking visiting family and friends to these special sites and you lament changes that threaten or despoil them.
The speed of economic growth hinges to a large extent on the supply of fossil fuel, especially of oil and gas, which depends in turn on pipeline capacity. Thus, if we are to turn the tide against economic growth, pipelines are a good strategic place to start. In what follows I focus on the fight against one pipeline in particular.
Spiderwebs of pipelines hold six continents in thrall to climate-wrecking,