Pollution Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Challenging Land Use and Abuse in Allamakee County

October 31, 2024/0 Comments/in Conservation, Dave Rollo, Food and Agriculture, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Pollution, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Water /by Helene Langlamet

by Dave Rollo

Allamakee County lies in the northeast corner of Iowa, bordering Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is part of a three-state region that, unlike most of the upper United States and Canada, escaped glaciation during past ice ages. This geological oddity is immediately obvious to visitors by the dramatic terrain of bluffs, hills, and valleys. Expansive plains characterize most of the rest of Iowa, where miles-thick glaciers moved over the land like a bulldozer,

Maybe We Should Be the Ones Grokking: Thoughts on Elon Musk’s xAI Super-Polluting Supercomputer

September 26, 2024/7 Comments/in Corporate Reform, Democracy, Helene Langlamet, Ideology, Materials use, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Technology /by Helene Langlamet

by Helene Langlamet

Is it just our filter bubbles? Or is an understanding of the environmental impact of artificial intelligence (AI) slowly making its way into the mainstream? Recently, a spate of news stories have highlighted the hefty environmental footprint of AI. Take for instance this recent article by the Washington Post on the hidden water footprint of using AI chatbots. Or this article by The Guardian on how the greenhouse gas emissions of data centers may be almost eight times higher than large technology companies like Google or Microsoft will acknowledge.

The Olympic Spirit: Friendly Competition or Unsustainable Growth?

August 15, 2024/0 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Growth, Pollution, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Wellbeing /by Helene Langlamet

by Mark Cramer

Every four years, the Summer Olympics present a rare opportunity for friendly competition and collaboration among nations. The public has an opportunity to witness a myriad of sports that otherwise never make the headlines. Talented athletes get a rare chance to display their skills before an international audience.

The Olympics offer a venue for peaceful, international solidarity. Yet they also present a seemingly insurmountable ecological challenge. To begin with,

The Fracking Free-Market Fallacy

August 8, 2024/9 Comments/in Energy, Helene Langlamet, Herman Daly, Ideology, Pollution, Steady State Herald, Water /by Helene Langlamet

by Helene Langlamet

In 2007, the Marcellus Shale Play was opened for production in Pennsylvania. The fracking of the shale unlocked massive fossil fuel reserves previously considered inaccessible. But it also unleashed an especially expensive and wasteful extraction process that involved flushing hundreds of millions of tons of highly toxic chemicals a mile deep into the ground and into the water table. And it brought up natural gas contaminated with unprecedented levels of radioactivity.

A Trophic Perspective on Fossil Fuels

August 1, 2024/8 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Food and Agriculture, Fossil Fuels, Limits to Growth, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Helene Langlamet

by Alix Underwood

Like the economy of nature, the human economy has a “trophic” structure. In nature, nutrition and energy flow from plants to herbivores to carnivores, with each of these comprising a trophic level of the ecosystem. In the human economy, materials and energy flow from agriculture and other extractive activities to heavy manufacturing to light manufacturing. Both economies include service providers, such as pollinators in nature and the transportation sector in the human economy.

Okeechobee County: Kept Great with Conservation

July 25, 2024/2 Comments/in Conservation, Dave Rollo, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Governance, Pollution, Steady State Herald /by Helene Langlamet

by Dave Rollo

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,

Tompkins County, the Finger Lakes Hub of Sustainability

June 20, 2024/2 Comments/in Dave Rollo, Governance, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Water /by Gary Gardner

by Dave Rollo

The Finger Lakes region of western New York State is distinguished by a series of long and narrow glacial valleys, dammed by moraine, that now contain lakes. Glacial scouring created some of the deepest lakes in North America, including Seneca, Cayuga, and Skaneateles lakes. These spectacular natural features give the region its identity.

The region features ample farmland and forest and a relatively sparse population. Tompkins County,

How to Take out a Pipeline

September 21, 2023/2 Comments/in Economic Growth, Energy, Environment, Governance, Greg Mikkelson, Politics, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

Gregory M. Mikkelson

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,

Work Less, Study More, and Forget About GDP

August 24, 2023/8 Comments/in Economic Growth, Greg Mikkelson, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wellbeing /by Gary Gardner

by Gregory M. Mikkelson

Trends in human health have recently decoupled from GDP growth throughout the world. In other words, health improvement no longer tracks economic expansion. Meanwhile, environmental degradation remains firmly coupled to economic growth. As damages from economic growth mount globally, and as benefits fade, the case against further growth is stronger every day.

Within the USA, the case against economic growth is especially compelling, and not just because of the country’s massively disproportionate contribution to global ecological breakdown.

Which Future?

August 10, 2023/21 Comments/in Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Gary Gardner, Materials use, Pollution, Postgrowth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology, Wellbeing /by Gary Gardner

by Gary Gardner

One of the more puzzling features of modern life is the starkly contrasting visions of humanity’s near-term future. Watch thirty minutes of commercial-filled TV and you get a cheery sense that all is well in the world. A BMW, an anti-depressant, or a Caribbean vacation—these will ensure ever greater happiness.

At the same time, a 2021 poll in ten countries found that four in ten young people are hesitant to have children because of the climate crisis.