TECH RECKONING: A Green Whitewash
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Jim Thomas
Written for The Ecologist- December/January 2009
The extreme climate technologists behind monochrome schemes to slow global warming are one colour short of a palette
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Jim Thomas
Written for The Ecologist- December/January 2009
The extreme climate technologists behind monochrome schemes to slow global warming are one colour short of a palette
Submitted by ETC Staff on
ETC Group released a 48-page report, "Who Owns Nature?" on corporate concentration in commercial food, farming, health and the strategic push to commodify the planet's remaining natural resources.
In a world where market research is becoming increasingly proprietary and pricey, ETC Group's report names names, discloses market share and provides top 10 industry rankings up and down the corporate food chain. Not all the corporations identified in ETC Group's new report are household names, but collectively they control a staggering share of the commercial products found on industrial farms, in our refrigerators and medicine cabinets.
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Jim Thomas
Written for The Ecologist - November 2008
Don’t be fooled by The Cloud – the world of the internet seems weightless, but it is leaving an increasingly heavy footprint behind it
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Written for The Ecologist 01/10/2008
Available online at http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1978
If there is a video gamer in your life, chances are that you have heard of Spore, the latest creation from the super successful inventor of ‘The Sims’.
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Apparently in some places they call Hong Kong "Disneyland". What better place than among the sci-fitowers of this gotham-city landscape for the brave new pioneers of Synthetic Biology to gather, plan and celebrate the next stage of artificial life. For the next few days Synthetic Biology 4.0, the fourth global congress of syn bio leaders, will be meeting at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology to discuss synthetic organisms, whole genome construction, next generation biofuels and all manner of biohackery.
Submitted by ETC Staff on
Synthetic biologists, a brave new breed of science entrepreneurs who engineer life-forms from scratch, will hold their largest-ever global gathering in Hong Kong, October 10-12 2008, known as "Synthetic Biology 4.0." Although most people have never heard of synthetic biology, it's moving full speed ahead fueled by giant agribusiness, energy and chemical corporations with little debate about who will control the technology, how it will be regulated (or not) and despite grave concerns surrounding the safety and security risks of designer organisms. Corporate investors/partners include BP, Chevron, Shell, Virgin Fuels, DuPont, Microsoft, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Henry Ford dreamed of making plastic cars out of soy. Now Dow, DuPont and other chemical giants are also dreaming of a ‘green’ future. But, as Jim Thomas argues, bioplastic is not the eco-solution it’s cracked up to be.
Article from New Internationalist Magazine September 2008 issue - available online here
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Can science save the planet or should we avoid putting our faith in high-tech fixes to deliver us from the ecological mess we‘ve made? Jim Thomas and Paul Fitzgerald push each other’s buttons.
Read the debate here in the latest issue of New Internationalist Magazine: http://www.newint.org/features/special/2008/08/01/technofixes/
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Mapmaking and conquest has a disturbingly close history. As indigenous people learned, the innocuous mapmaker may be followed by weapons, property claims and exploitation. So too for the recent rash of science projects using mapping
Submitted by Charlie on
Written for The Ecologist - 20/06/2008
As to global annihilation, I’m stumped. Most of us wouldn’t recognise a strangelet if it casually devoured us in the street
Find out more about ETC Group, or contact us.