The Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota has symbolically acted as a forward operating base for the latest industrial invasion of Indian Treaty Lands, bringing with it corruption, pollution and violence, not unlike the time when gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota during the 1800s.
It's not looking good for the global fossil fuel industry. Although the world remains heavily dependent on oil, coal and natural gas -- which today supply around 80 percent of our primary energy needs -- the industry is rapidly crumbling.
This is not merely a temporary blip, but a symptom of a deeper, long-term process related to global capitalism's escalating overconsumption of planetary... Read more
For two weeks this May, organizers across 12 countries will participate in Break Free 2016, an open-source invitation to encourage "more action to keep fossil fuels in the ground and an acceleration in the just transition to 100 percent renewable energy." Many of the month's events -- pulled together by 350.org and a slew of groups around the world -- are set to take place within ongoing... Read more
This past Earth Day at the United Nations, leaders from around the world signed what is being called a "landmark agreement" to address the climate crisis. Without a doubt, it is a positive step forward and can help create the political momentum to address what is arguably the defining issue of this century. But as Coral Davenport noted in the New York Times when the accord was hammered out in... Read more
In Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Andreas Malm seeks to determine how and why coal came to uphold “our commerce and our state.” This is not merely an academic exercise: Malm hopes the early days of fossil power might provide some clues as to how the coal industry became the destructive behemoth it is today. If we know how the fossil economy came into... Read more
Think the days of Europe exploiting the U.S. as a resource colony are behind us? Welcome back to the 18th century.
A July Biomass Magazine and Pellet Mill Magazine webinar series, “Satisfying Europe’s Growing Appetite for American Wood Pellets,” lays out the biomass industry’s disturbing plans to convert North American forests into wood pellets to fuel European biomass incinerators—further... Read more