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The Long Emergency
''The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century'' is a book by James Howard Kunstler (Grove/Atlantic Inc., Grove/Atlantic, 2005) exploring the consequences of a world peak oil, oil production peak, coinciding with the forces of climate change, resurgent diseases, water scarcity, global economic instability and warfare to cause major trouble for future generations. The book's principal theme explores the effects of a peak in oil extraction on American society as well as the rest of the world. In both this book and in his other writings, Kunstler argues that Implications of peak oil, the economic upheavals caused by peak oil will force Americans to live in more localized, self-sufficient communities. It was followed by two other books, ''Too Much Magic'' (2012) and ''Living in the Long Emergency'' (2020). Synopsis Kunstler's premise is that "cheap, plentiful" and easy-to-find petroleum, oil is the foundation of industrial society and the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2005 In The Environment
This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 2005. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues. Events *The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is released. It is an international synthesis by over 1000 of the world's leading biological scientists that analyses the state of the Earth’s ecosystems and provides summaries and guidelines for decision-makers. It concludes that human activity is having a significant and escalating impact on the biodiversity of world ecosystems, reducing both their resilience and biocapacity. *The Singapore Green Plan 2012 was reviewed and was adopted the following year. February *The Kyoto Protocol comes into force. May *The Multi-effect Protocol, also known as the Gothenburg Protocol, comes into force. It is a multi-pollutant protocol designed to reduce acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone. June *An International Whaling Commission meeting was held in Ulsan, South Korea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2005 Non-fiction Books
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on each hand. In mathematics 5 is the third smallest prime number, and the second super-prime. It is the first safe prime, the first good prime, the first balanced prime, and the first of three known Wilson primes. Five is the second Fermat prime and the third Mersenne prime exponent, as well as the third Catalan number, and the third Sophie Germain prime. Notably, 5 is equal to the sum of the ''only'' consecutive primes, 2 + 3, and is the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes, ( 3, 5) and (5, 7). It is also a sexy prime with the fifth prime number and first prime repunit, 11. Five is the third factorial prime, an alternating factorial, and an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Parker (historian)
Noel Geoffrey Parker (born 25 December 1943) is an English historian specialising in the history of Western Europe, Spain, and warfare during the early modern era. His best known book is ''The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800'', first published by Cambridge University Press in 1988. He holds his BA, MA, PhD, and LittD degrees from Cambridge University where he studied under the historian Sir John Elliott. Parker has taught at the University of Illinois, the University of St Andrews, and Yale University. He is currently the Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at the Ohio State University. Parker was a consultant and main contributor on the BBC series, ''Armada: 12 Days to Save England''. Western way of warfare Parker argues that what distinguishes the “Western way of war” accounts for its extraordinary success in conquering most of the world after 1500: The Western way of war rests upon five principal foundations: technology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban Agriculture
Urban agriculture, urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. It encompasses a complex and diverse mix of food production activities, including fisheries and forestry, in cities in both developed and developing countries. The term also applies to urban area activities of animal husbandry, aquaculture, beekeeping, and horticulture. These activities occur in peri-urban areas as well, although peri-urban agriculture may have different characteristics. Urban agriculture can reflect varying levels of economic and social development. It may be a social movement for sustainable communities, where organic growers, "foodies", and "locavores" form social networks founded on a shared ethos of nature and community holism. These networks can evolve when receiving formal institutional support, becoming integrated into local town planning as a "transition town" movement for sustainable urban development. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate political entity. The name describes an area which is not as densely populated as an inner city, yet more densely populated than a rural area in the countryside. In many metropolitan areas, suburbs exist as separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city (cf "bedroom suburb".) Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdiction, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, ''suburb'' has become largely synonymous with what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food Production
The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labor-intensive, to large, capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries depend almost entirely on local agriculture, produce, or fishing. It is challenging to find an inclusive way to cover all aspects of food production and sale. The UK Food Standards Agency describes it as "the whole food industry – from farming and food production, packaging and distribution, to retail and catering." The Economic Research Service of the USDA uses the term ''food system'' to describe the same thing, stating: "The U.S. food system is a complex network of farmers and the industries that link to them. Those links include makers of farm equipment and chemicals as well as firms th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations. Transport infrastructure consists of both fixed installations, including roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, and pipelines, and terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, warehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots (including fueling docks and fuel stations), and seaports. Terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance. Means of transport are any of the different kinds of transport facilities used to carry people or cargo. They may include vehicles, riding animals, and pack animals. Vehicl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and highly combustible. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matter.However, most of the universe's mass is not in the form of baryons or chemical elements. See dark matter and dark energy. Stars such as the Sun are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. Most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water and organic compounds. For the most common isotope of hydrogen (symbol 1H) each atom has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. In the early universe, the formation of protons, the nuclei of hydrogen, occurred during the first second after the Big Bang. The emergence of neutral hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 370,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind Power
Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wind power, impact on the environment than burning fossil fuels. Historically, wind power has been used in sails, windmills and windpumps but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. Wind farms consist of many individual wind turbines, which are connected to the electric power transmission Electrical grid, network. New Onshore wind farm, onshore (on-land) wind farms are cheaper than new Coal-fired power station, coal or Gas-fired power plant, gas plants, but expansion of wind power is being hindered by fossil fuel subsidies. Onshore wind farms have a greater visual #Impact on environment and landscape, impact on the landscape than some other power stations. Small onshore wind farms can feed some energy into the grid or provide power t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Energy
Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essential source of renewable energy, and its technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on how they capture and distribute solar energy or convert it into solar power. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic systems, concentrated solar power, and solar water heating to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light-dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. The large magnitude of solar energy available makes it a highly appealing source of electricity. In 2020 solar energy has been the cheapest source of Electricity. In Saudi Arabia a power purchase agreemen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
