News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
Our planet’s resources are finite; through overpopulation and exploitation, our species has done an excellent job of burning through them at a devastating rate. Clean water is increasingly scarce, our atmosphere is quickly degrading, and our oceans are turning into acid. Many scientists now believe that our species, as well as thousands of others, may be teetering on the precipice of another global mass extinction. Is the collapse of life as we know it now inevitable?
One of the more pernicious and deceptive propositions on California’s ballot this November is Prop 23. The proposition would suspend AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act), the landmark greenhouse emission reduction law that was passed by the legislature and signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. The Orwellian name given to it by oil-slick proponents is “California Jobs Initiative”; but opponents have dubbed it the “Dirty Energy Proposition”, both because it is being bankrolled by Texas Oil companies and because it would stall clean energy investments and green jobs creation.
We were just in beautiful Portland, Oregon this week to meet up with Zachary Shahan, another editor in the Important Media network. After walking around sunny downtown, admiring the city’s progressive urban planning, and pouring over books at Powell’s, we visited a local bakery, Voodoo Doughnut. Becky Striepe, the editor over at eatdrinkbetter.com, had suggested the place, effusing that the vegan donuts totally blew her mind.
