These are a few stories we found this week that may be of interest to institute regulars. If you have a news tip, please send it to lowtechinstitute@gmail.com.
Low Tech News
No Work Chicken Gardening – Natural Building Blog
‘There’s Something Wrong With the Bees’: On Sun Hives and Crisis Houses – Dark Mountain
Margaret Atwood says we need another Reformation, this time for plastics – TH
City of Tomorrow from 1923 has a great green roof – TH
Guardian predicts “Street Wars 2035” between cyclists and driverless cars – TH
10 yummy ways to use leftover rice – TH
Gardening as Therapy: A moving memoir – E
A Lost Art in the Arctic: Igloo Making – NYT
Student’s zero-waste architecture is grown with ‘mushroom sausages’ – TH
Environmental News
Ethiopia’s Coffee Farmers Are ‘On The Front Lines Of Climate Change’ – NPR
Energy Department Closes Office Working on Climate Change Abroad – NYT
Pipeline to the Classroom: How Big Oil Promotes Fossil Fuels to America’s Children – Earth First!
The unsustainable whiteness of green – G
How to talk to kids about climate change – TH
Here’s How California’s Bounce Back From Drought Looked From Space – VM
Conservationists Try To Thwart Climate Change By Planting In Cold Spots – NPR
U.S. gets 10 percent of energy from wind and solar for first time – TH
Germany Shows it’s Worth Fighting for Energy Democracy – Resilience
Rebellious cities team up to post climate data taken down by the EPA – G
Research News
Billions to face ‘deadly threshold’ of heat extremes by 2100, finds study – Carbon Brief
UK wind power can help meet peak winter demand, study says – Carbon Brief
After 3 hot years, reefs can finally chill a little – G
Great Plains wildfires used to be rare. Not anymore – G
California’s a climate leader — if we’re grading on a curve – G
I Asked Geologists If the Anthropocene Is Real – VM
Killer Whales are Stalking Boats and Stealing Their Fish – Earth First!
Forget coal, solar will soon be cheaper than natural gas power – Think Progress
Op-Ed¹
Technological Utopianism – Why bad ideas cause very real environmental problems – Deep Green Permaculture
If cities really want to fight climate change, they have to fight cars – G
Ecologist Special Report: EU must back up its words with action on deforestation – E
Ground Up – The Great Change
How California’s Greenhouse Gas Laws can Benefit Disadvantaged Communities – Ensia
Energy And Civilization: a review – An Outside Chance
Using Energy to extract energy – the dynamics of depletion – Credo
Government action isn’t enough for climate change. The private sector can cut billions of tons of carbon – The Conversation
Source Abbreviations
E – The Ecologist
G – Grist
MJ – Mother Jones
NPR – National Public Radio
NYT – New York Times
TH – TreeHugger
V – Vice
VM – Vice: Motherboard
Disclaimer: The news stories and posts linked above are not meant as an endorsement of the information presented. They are provided as they may be of interest to our readers and further our aims of solutions for a post-fossil-fuel world. We strive to provide fact-based information. If you feel that political views are being presented in a partisan fashion, we are happy to provide equal time to opposing view points as long as they are derived from verifiable data and facts.
¹Opinion pieces represent the independent thought of their authors and may or may not represent the position of the Low Technology Institute.