“See that silver shine” Arcade Fire’s debut album Funeral ends with the soothing image of a backseat nap. “I like the peace in the backseat / I don’t have to drive, I don’t have to speak / I can watch the countryside, I can fall asleep.” But where Funeral is driven by the urge to… Continue reading Neon Bible
Tag: energy
Green Marshall Plan
At a Glance Some of the most well respected names in American climate policy (Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Henn, and Data for Progress) have been calling for a Green Marshall Plan: an expansion upon the postwar program of United States financial aid to countries in Europe. The context for the recent calls is the… Continue reading Green Marshall Plan
Commodity vs Reality
First GlanceLast week BBC Radio 4’s podcast Farming Today ran a story on the rising price of cooking oil, triggered by the abandonment of Ukrainian sunflower crops and wartime trade disruption. In the piece, agricultural commodity expert Dr. James Fry explains that pressures on Ukraine are only one factor in a network of events that… Continue reading Commodity vs Reality
Beyond the Sea
At first glance, Google Maps’ bathymetric imagery is pretty fantastic. Unlike the satellite images that Google uses for overland maps, the world’s oceans are shown by their depth. The black spot where the Pacific Plate subducts beneath Asia looks almost like it could be the shadow cast by the Filipino Plate on the ocean floor… Continue reading Beyond the Sea
The Edges of Extraction
First GlanceGreetings from the weird part of Dublin Airport that is actually America. The path to the pre-clearance line is marked by a long series of American flags, and the security line is all faux-fancy wood paneling. It’s 10:00 AM here and the person behind me in line ordered a croissant and a last pint… Continue reading The Edges of Extraction
Domestic Energy
I was at a social science history conference last week in Gothenburg, where one of the talks was about women as mediators of energy transitions. For example: from gas heat to electric refrigeration or from telephone switchboard operators to rotary dials. The importance of this history, as explained by panelist Ruth Sandwell, is that stories… Continue reading Domestic Energy
The Nitrogen Cycle
This is a collection of three pieces on nitrogen, legumes, and soy originally written for the Digestable newsletter: Nitrogen Last Tuesday, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in a waterfront warehouse in Beirut exploded, killing over 160 people, injuring thousands more, and leaving 300,000 people without homes. There’s been some great reporting tying this explosion to previous… Continue reading The Nitrogen Cycle