Serendipities Of A Nomad's Life

Why Consumerism is Doomed (part 2 of 2) (go to part one) We have brainwashed ourselves into the superstitious belief that endless growth, endless increases in the consumption of natural resources, is actually possible. On the basis of that break from reality, consumer civilization can’t have much longer. Even the term “consumer civilization” is an [...]

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Why Consumerism is Doomed (part 1 of 2) Whatever object you’re looking at right now is proof that the “Age of Consumerism” is going to end sooner rather than later – like the “Age of Faith” and the “Age of Enlightenment” before it. You may want to comfort yourself by thinking I am exaggerating. But, [...]

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In Case You Missed It: Canadian Goverment Muzzles its scientists People who know the Harper government will not be surpruised by accusations that his government is muzzling government scientists – whose work is paid for by the people of Canada -  in order to control the message about controversial subjects such as oil sands, climate [...]

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How would you respond if a major oil spill contaminated miles of your favourite landscape or seascape, and destroyed wildlife and the livelihoods of local people? What would be your reaction is your wife,  partner or someone you loved was so enraged by the negligence of the corporation and the useless blather of politicians that he [...]

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The seas were teeming with wildlife – fish, birds, seals, whales – when Europeans first arrived off the eastern seaboard of North America. Yet within a few generations, that wealth of life had been destroyed, species that once were counted in hundreds of millions are extinct, and the whole biosphere of life degraded to the [...]

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I’ve read or perused quite a few “doom and gloom” books over the last couple of years.  Almost all of them follow the same outline; first the doom, then the gloom and then everlasting hope – how our world will not end tomorrow if we take small steps today. It might be called “doom porn’ [...]

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Slideshow: Fullscreen: Download: What do you call a multitude of icebergs? A school of icebergs? A gathering?  (Enjoy the photos and see my suggestion further down the story.)  Last week I was privileged to travel with friend Nelson Pilgrim among one of the most impressive parades of icebergs every seen outside the Arctic or Antarctic [...]

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At the danger of confirming my new nickname as  “doom and gloom Dennison” with which a friend recently hailed me, I’m posting this summary of a feature by Lester R Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, about global food. Many of us may want to keep our heads stuck in the sand, but even [...]

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If you think we have environmental and energy problems now, take a look at what modest annual economic growth of 4.4% could do to this planet by 2027. National economies around the world are expected to grow in 2011 by an average of 4.4% – much more in China, India and the rest of Asia, [...]

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I wrote recently about the amazing amount of our plastics now floating about in the oceans.  A new story by Victoria Gill of the BBC highlights the situation in the North Atlantic where researchers have found a massive garbage zone. The maximum density of plastic trash was 200,000 pieces per square kilometre! The tiny pieces [...]

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