CrosbyMacDonald’s Recent Comments

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  No question resources are central to conflict..

  whether or not climate change will exacerbate conflict through increased resource scarcity can't be predicted with certainty, but it seems likely.  

  At the least, depletion of fresh water supplies in particular and degradation of forests and other natural resources will force people to adapt and cope with less.  Thomas Homer-Dixon has written extensively on this and puts forth some pretty interesting analysis to show a strong link between environment and conflict.

  The most solid point in the article comes at the end, and lends some credibility to earlier assertions: "How governments respond to the challenge is at least as important as climate change itself, if not more so."  Jared Diamond's Collapse supports this assertion generally.  It IS important what we do, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the climate factor and try to mitigate it.

  Still, you're right to point out that linking climate change to increasing conflicts lets corrupt regimes "off the hook" is a bit ridiculous - no one pushing the climate-conflict link is saying that.  Citing a decrease in number of conflicts along with warming is also fairly misleading; we haven't seen very many severe warming impacts yet, and a multitude of other forces are also at work, as was noted above.

  Whether or not drought was a root cause of Darfur's conflict, no doubt it has exacerbated the situation by making agriculture inviable.  

  Climate change will only worsen what is already a trend - ongoing depletion of natural resources by humanity.  Dealing with this challenge in general will be the defining struggle of this century, I believe, and climate change will make it more difficult.On Not really posted 2 years, 2 months ago 7 Responses

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  I wish I'd seen you there!

  I was at Sasquatch, and had a great time, but also was sad and disappointed to find no recycling facilities anywhere (obviously I missed you!).  So many bottles and cans went into the trash, and while we packed some out, it's shocking that such an event didn't consider recycling important...

  The event was supposed to be carbon neutral through a group that buys credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, so that's a start and the CCX is probably much better than some other iffy offset schemes, but a more holistic approach would help the organizers maintain some credibility.  I hope they bought their electricity from the nearby wind farms...

  On another note, it's kind of funny how a festival like sasquatch is sometimes associated with progressive social action, just because some hippy -types gather and listen to musicians that generally are very liberal.  Definitely someone like Michael Franti is inspiring, but sitting around listening to music is not exactly a substitute..  (for you South Park fans, "Wait until the corporations hear these crunchy grooves man!")On The Girls of Grist do Sasquatch posted 2 years, 5 months ago 6 Responses

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  those tricky tricking tricksters...

  How is it "a trick" or "an excuse" to say that nuclear power is one possible solution to reduce greenhouse gases and oil imports?

  It seems like a fairly reasonable assertion to me.  About as reasonable as objecting to nuclear power on the grounds that it creates radioactive waste and has high capital costs.  

  So, we have a debate now: is nuclear part of a clean energy future?On Using high gas prices to push for a rebirth posted 2 years, 5 months ago 74 Responses

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  A company is doing this..

  Magenn Power has a device called M.A.R.S. Wind Power Anywhere generator which is a helium-lofted wind turbine able to produce 4 kw of energy by virtue of the high altitudes so accessed.  See www.magenn.com.

  The 4.0 kW unit will enter production this year, with another 7 more models in the pipeline which will be released within the next four years.

  They're pretty cool looking, and according to the company, they are "less expensive per unit of actual electrical energy output than competing wind power systems."

  Interesting anyways...
  On Neat posted 2 years, 5 months ago 31 Responses

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  Green Globes is...

  from GreenGlobes.com:

  "Green Globes Canada was developed in Canada with support of federal and provincial ministries and public utilities and in the UK, by the RICS foundation and Faber Maunsell.  Green Globes is the newest addition to the BREEAM/Green Leaf suite of environmental assessment tools."On LEED competition posted 2 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses