the recycling lie

the poorer nations of the world have never stopped being receptacles for the West’s ever-proliferating rubbish. The situation now is, in many respects, worse than it was in the 1980s. Then, there was widespread recognition that waste export was immoral. Today, most waste travels under the guise of being recyclable, cloaked in the language of planetary salvation. For the past two years I’ve been traveling the globe — from the plains of Romania to the slums of Tanzania — in an attempt to understand the world trash is making. What I saw was terrifying.

are you recycling properly?

This quiz will help you sort it out

8 billion people

We never know precisely how many of us are alive at any one time, but this Tuesday is the United Nations’ best estimate on when we’ll reach 8 billion human beings.

Eight billion. It’s a number too big to imagine but think of it this way: In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, the world’s population grew by around 20 people.

While the Earth’s population is growing quickly, the growth rate is starting to slow down. Eventually, it will start falling and our societies will shrink.

Humanity is changing day by day in ways we can’t perceive over short periods, but in ways that will reshape our world over the coming century.

We’ve come a long way, fast  

Homo sapiens have roamed the Earth for roughly 300,000 years, give or take (no one left a diary back then). 

We evolved to have big brains and long legs, but our population grew relatively slowly at first.

There were perhaps 230 million of us on Earth at around the time of Cleopatra’s death, as the ancient Egyptian civilisation came to an end.

The population had more than doubled by the Renaissance in 1500 and doubled again by 1805 when the ancient Egyptian civilisation was being rediscovered with the help of the Rosetta Stone.

These are all pretty rough estimates — we didn’t have comprehensive censuses in the Middle Ages – but the human population has been on a slow burn, until recent centuries, when it has boomed.

The 2 billion mark was reached just before the Great Depression in 1925, and it took just 35 years from there to get to the third billion. 

Since then, the population has been rising by another billion every 10 to 15 years.

Where are we going?

The world is likely to have a couple more billion mouths to feed in just a few decades.

The UN’s latest projections, released earlier this year, suggest the world will house about 9.7 billion humans in 2050.

“Demographic projections are highly accurate, and it has to do with the fact that most of the people who will be alive in 30 years have already been born,” the UN’s population division director, John Willmoth, says.

“But when you start getting 70, 80 years down the road, there’s much more uncertainty.”

Under its most likely scenario, the UN projects the world population will reach about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

From there, it’s set to plateau for a couple of decades, before falling around the turn of the 22nd century.

But the range of reasonable possibilities in 2100 is considerably wider, between 8.9 and 12.4 billion.

extincton vs. jobs

we prefer your extinction to the loss of our job

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2022/07/31

how's the weather

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Only 200 miles separate Michael Tilden and Miranda Garcia in rain-soaked Iowa. But they are worlds apart when it comes to their opinion of the weather.

Garcia, a 38-year-old former journalist and Democrat from Des Moines, thinks flooding has been getting worse in the state, which just came out of its wettest 12-months on record. Tilden, a 44-year-old math teacher and Republican from Sioux City, thinks otherwise: “I’ve noticed essentially the same weather pattern every single year,” he said.

Their different takes underscore a broader truth about the way Americans perceive extreme weather: Democrats are far more likely to believe droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes and tropical storms have become more frequent or intense where they live in the last decade, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The divergence shows how years of political squabbling over global warming - including disputes over its existence - have grown deep roots, distorting the way Americans view the world around them. The divide will play into the 2020 election as Democratic hopefuls seek to sell aggressive proposals to reduce or even end fossil fuel consumption by drawing links between climate change and recent floods, storms and wildfires.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats believe severe thunderstorms and floods have become more frequent, compared to 42% and 50% of Republicans, respectively, according to the poll.

saving gas: the 10 second rule

Follow the 10-second rule.

Whether you’re picking up a slowpoke or waiting at the drive-through, turn off the engine if your wait is longer than 10 seconds. Idling drains your tank by a quarter- to a half-gallon of fuel per hour, whereas restarting only sips 10 seconds worth of gas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Even in winter, there’s no need to sit in your driveway “warming up” the engine. Most manufacturers recommend driving off gently after half a minute.

what to wear?

The capsule wardrobe movement is far from mainstream. But, elevated in the social consciousness by some high-profile personalities, more and more people are applying minimalist principles to their fashion.

Many people outside the movement remain skeptical. They wonder why anybody would intentionally choose to wear the same outfit every day—especially when financial resources are not in question.


Evaluating my personal experience with a minimal wardrobe and studying recent profiles in various publications, I have created this list of reasons.

[Yeah, I guess so.  But the reason I've worn the same shorts every day for three months is because I'm lazy.  And I like the shorts.  I do change my tee-shirt though.  And my underpants -- most of the time...]

Here, there is no trash!

As I open, then walk through the gates, it feels like I’m going back to the time of our kupuna. Here, there is no trash! Here there are no dirt bikes, ATVs or trucks. I see the m l , flying freely over the cliffs and the ocean. The koa’e kea squawk and call out to each other while they search for caves to build their nests.

As I look along the beach, I see four ‘ lioholoikauaua (including one pup) sprawled out across the beach. Watching the monk seals makes me tired, and I drift off to sleep in the shade of the naupaka.


I dream of many wa’a off-shore. They are paddling back to land with mahimahi and ulua to share with their people. There is no plastic floating in the ocean. On land, there are no roads, only footpaths. The air is filled with the sounds of ancient oli, thanking the gods for providing food for the day.

It’s here in her essay that Kate wakes from her dream.

But — was it a dream? Kate, who wants to be a writer, marine biologist or environmental scientist, figures it was a message from a land crying for her help.

-- Jade Moon, MidWeek. 7/9/14

saving water

One bathroom fact you might not be aware of is that the biggest water user in the home is the toilet.  Toilets account for about 30% of an average home's indoor water consumption according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - even more for older toilets.

-- Costco Connection, February 2010

Jim Bohlen, founder of Greenpeace

Jim Bohlen, whose snap decision to sail to Amchitka Island, Alaska, to protest an underground nuclear test led to the creation of the environmental organization Greenpeace, died Monday in Comox, British Columbia. He was 84 and lived in Courtenay, British Columbia. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his daughter, Margot Bradley, said.

Mr. Bohlen was a founder of the Don’t Make a Wave Committee, a group of Sierra Club members determined to oppose nuclear testing at Amchitka Island in the Aleutians, which had begun in 1969.

With a test scheduled for fall 1971, little more than a year away, Mr. Bohlen complained to his wife, Marie, that the committee was deliberating too slowly.

As she offhandedly suggested that they sail a boat to the test site, a reporter for The Vancouver Sun called to check in on the committee’s deliberations. Mr. Bohlen, caught off guard, said, “We hope to sail a boat to Amchitka to confront the bomb,” a remark that appeared in the newspaper the next day.

The committee made good on Mr. Bohlen’s pledge. After Irving Stowe, a core member, organized a fund-raising concert in Vancouver with Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Phil Ochs and the Canadian rock band Chilliwack, the committee leased the halibut fishing vessel Phyllis Cormack, and, after renaming it Greenpeace, sailed to Alaska.

Although the boat was intercepted by the Coast Guard, public outcry caused a delay in the test. The program was later abandoned, and Amchitka Island was turned into a bird sanctuary.

Today Greenpeace is an international organization with more than three million members that carries out environmental campaigns through its offices in 40 countries.