A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Showing posts with label sustainable actions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sustainable actions. Show all posts
Why does America have a toxic sea… and how did it get there?
The Salton Sea was once one of California’s most vibrant tourist hotspots, a beach teeming with visitors and wildlife. Today it’s a shrinking, toxic lake at the center of a water crisis impacting 40 million people across the Southwest. What happened?
Shane Campbell-Staton visits the Imperial Valley to examine how a desert transformed into America’s vegetable garden, but at serious environmental and social costs. He meets Alex Jack, a third-generation farmer pioneering water-saving techniques to sustain his family’s farm, and Luis Olmedo, a community advocate fighting for the health and rights of migrant workers who harvest the valley’s crops.
The story of the Salton Sea reveals the harsh realities of scarce water, toxic pollution, and a system that doesn’t protect everyone equally. As new water regulations for the Colorado River loom in 2026, this pivotal moment demands a fresh approach to who controls this precious resource, and how it can be allocated more fairly.
I'm old enough to remember when the Salton Sea was the aquatic playground shown in the video and I find it sad that it is now too polluted to still be that. It's now become a place that fits what I wrote in John Oliver examines the UK elections: "One ofmy favorite sayings that I tell my students is 'no one, or in this case, no place, is completely useless; it can always be used as a bad example.'" It also serves as an example of three of Commoner's Laws, "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)" for agricultural runoff, "There is no free lunch" for growing winter vegetables, and "Everything is connected to everything else" for water use. "Nature knows best?" We should be so lucky.
Follow over the jump for most read posts featuring clips from Human Footprint during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Happy one-monthiversary of the Iran war! With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, Jon Stewart examines how global shortages are hitting everything from grain to helium to pickleballs. Meanwhile, Americans flood the streets for the No Kings protests while CPAC throws Trump his own Yassss Kings rally. Plus, the U.S. finally has a detailed explanation of the president's objectives and exit strategy... for the White House ballroom.
In a Yahoo News essay, Leerhsen describes the Trump he worked with from 1988 to 1990 as mostly "bored out of his mind," a "failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he'd held the all-important press conference."
Trump was making huge, outrageously leveraged, financially ruinous deals, but day-to-day, he spent "surprisingly large" amounts of time "looking at fabric swatches," Leerhsen writes. "Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation," and "some days he would do it for hours," probably because fabric swatches "were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn't."
Leerhsen elaborated Thursday evening on CNN. "At this time, like, things were really going to hell in his business," but "in the center of that was this quiet office where he was going through fabric swatches most of the day, and in the middle of all this Sturm und Drang, he was oblivious to it," he told Erin Burnett.
Nearly 40 years later, he hasn't changed, except to get older and more set in his ways
Over eight million people marched in the third "No Kings" protest, President Trump appears to be making up his Iran war strategy on-the-fly, and the war is causing global economic pain and shortages of resources like helium.
The contradictory announcements for the war remind me of something else I wrote early this month.
Twenty-five years ago, one of my reactions to 9-11 was to look at Bush the Younger's administration and be reassured that at least these people, particularly Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell, knew how to fight a war, no matter what my other opinions were of them. It took me two years, after it became obvious they were botching the occupation of Iraq, to figure out that they didn't really have a plan for an occupied Iraq beyond shock doctrine. I have no such illusions about Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump and Pete Hegseth; it's obvious from the get-go that they don't have a plan at all beyond being so intimidating that Iran just backs down. That's not happening. Once again, the voices Trump listens to, both inside and outside his head, are not reliable sources.
We are experiencing a global water crisis: 2.1 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water. Despite decades of progress, girls and women are still the hardest hit.
Gender-based inequalities related to the access, use, management and governance of water resources have hindered progress towards fulfilling the human right to water and most Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Titled Water for All People: Equal Rights and Opportunities, the 2026 edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report offers a comprehensive, evidence-based examination of the linkages between, and progress towards, water and gender equality.
Although tangible progress in the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services has been made, significant disparities persist. The poorest and most vulnerable of the world’s population remain the most affected, where women and girls still bear most of the responsibility for securing water to households. This leads to physical and mental stress, limiting their time and opportunities for education, productive work, and social activities.
The UN World Water Development Report 2026, Water for all people: Equal rights and opportunities, emphasizes available data and actionable solutions to promote gender equality throughout the water sector.
I think it's a good idea to combine World Water Day with Women's History Month, even if that wasn't the United Nations' intention. It's a good example of one of Commoner's Laws, "Everything is connected to everything else." The opportunity cost to women and girls who have to spend time fetching water and other water-related tasks also serves as an example of another of Commoner's Laws, "There is no free lunch." This may be the last year I teach environmental science, but it's never too late to learn new facts and ideas I can pass along to students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a brief educational entry tomorrow I can share next month.
Is this how civilizations end? As climate disasters intensify, some cities survive — and others collapse. So what makes the difference?
In this episode of Weathered, host Maiya May investigates what history reveals about system collapse, failed cities, and civilizations that didn’t survive climate shocks. Were they doomed? Or did they miss warning signs we’re seeing today?
With climate disasters and global warming accelerating, researchers Luke Kemp and strategic climate risk expert Laurie Laybourn break down the common patterns behind civilization collapse — and the 5 strategies that can help modern societies avoid the same fate.
If you’ve ever wondered:
Is it the end of the world?
When do systems collapse?
Can cities survive climate change?
How do we prevent total societal collapse?
This episode explores what history teaches us — and why it’s not too late to change course.
Because collapse isn’t inevitable. But survival isn’t automatic either.
When I created this blog, I called it "A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it." I've shifted away from that, making this more "A blog about sustainability with a science fiction slant and a Detroit perspective," as it says on the Crazy Eddie's Motie News Facebook page (if you're still on Facebook, please follow), but I've never changed the description here after 15 years. That's because, deep down, I still believe in the mission I set for myself in March 2011.
On that note, here are the five strategies Maiya May and her guests propose to avoid collapse: situational awareness, adaptation, speed, democracy, and storytelling. On this blog, I'm sharing and telling stories to make people more aware of the situation, get prepared for the future, and encourage speedy responses and democracy. The last two seem like contradictions, as democracy is not known for rapid decisions, but I agree with May and her guests that both are necessary, if not easy. I hope my readers and I are up for the task.
On the third Monday in February, the United States celebrates the federal holiday known as Presidents Day. The day takes place during the birth month of the country's two most prominent presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. While the day once only honored President George Washington on his birthday, February 22nd, the day now never lands on a single president's birthday.
Across the country, most Americans know the day as Presidents Day. More and more of the population celebrates the day to honor all of the past United States Presidents who have served the country. Throughout the country, organizations and communities celebrate the day with public ceremonies.
Marlo Anderson celebrated all the Presidents' pets, which reminded me that Hoover Harding Cleveland is in fairly sparse company. As Wikipedia notes, "Only James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Donald Trump did not have any presidential pets while in office" — something else Hoover Harding Cleveland has in common with Andrew Johnson besides having a majority of Senators vote to convict him after being impeached!
For decades, rising carbon emissions have accelerated climate change, but this year marked a critical turning point that could finally reverse that trend. Renewable energy has now graduated beyond the need for subsidies and incentives, emerging as a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels in many countries. News Editor Tim Appenzeller and policy expert Li Shuo describe the economic forces behind this shift, and the obstacles that remain to the continued rise of green energy.
...
1:15 The graph has mislabeled trend lines. "Other renewables" generate more energy than hydropower alone.
[C]onvincing people to be less wasteful, particularly creating less food waste and eating less meat, especially beef, would be helpful. [One] could consider that to be a technology. So is renewable energy. Between the two, it would move Earth Overshoot Day back more than a month. Progress!
Yes, it is, and it's good news I can share with my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Science Magazine's video is shorter and more focused than PBS Terra's, so it's one I'm more likely to show to my students. Again, welcome to blogging as professional development.
Custom gene editing shows promise for ultrarare diseases
New weapons against a sexual scourge
Neurons make a deadly donation to cancer cells
An all-seeing eye on the sky
Face to face with a Denisovan
Large language models do science
Triumph of calculation helps resolve particle mystery
Xenotransplants set new records
Rice that beats the heat
Including the "winner," that's four health stories, two computer science stories, one of which is also a physics story, an astronomy story, an evolution story, a genetics story that touches on climate change, and an energy story that also touches on climate change. Six of these are biology in some form, so these selections please me as a biologist. One of them is also paleontology, so I'm doubly pleased as a paleontologist. All of that is on top of the good sustainability news.
Not all of 2025's science stories were good. Follow over the jump for the bad news this year.
Ahead of Giving Tuesday, Nakia Mills from the Better Business Bureau advises donors to verify charities before donating to ensure their money is used as intended. The BBB recommends checking the accreditation and financial practices of charities on their website as a precautionary measure.
Good advice, the kind I would given about security if I had celebrated Cyber Monday yesterday instead of World AIDS Day.
On Giving Tuesday, donations will be collected for THAW, the Heat and Warmth Fund, to assist people in crisis with utility bills during winter. THAW offers more than just bill assistance, including energy-efficient home improvements as experienced by beneficiary Byron Spivey. Serving families with children, seniors, and veterans, THAW helped 11,000 homes with $10 million last year, with over 80% of donations going directly to services. The organization aims to enhance the long-term health and financial security of Michigan neighborhoods with additional support like home assessments and appliances.
Not only does THAW pay people's utility bills, it pays for energy conservation upgrades. I approve.
Learn more about the mental health benefits of giving ahead of Giving Tuesday. (Dec. 1, 2025)
I used to be a director of a nonprofit. I can tell you that a physical quarter in a Salvation Army kettle will probably be a net benefit, but any online donation less than a dollar will likely cost the charity money in processing fees.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for comedy tomorrow.
Small businesses feed our communities. They keep our main streets thriving and employ nearly half of the American workforce. Supporting small businesses means you're supporting your local economy, local business, tax base, schools, and infrastructure. Your holiday shopping will put food on the tables of people you know.
You will be doing your community some good, and you will also be finding quality gifts. Small businesses take pride in their work. They've worked hard for their dream, and it shows in their craftsmanship.
Small Business Saturday a great day to shop small — business owners say 20% of their annual revenue will come from this year's event. However, it's important to shop small businesses all year long. NBC Select reporter Zoe Malin stopped by @NBCNews Now to talk all things supporting small.
Big businesses like At Home, Kohl's, Joann, Claire's, and Target aren't the only ones affected by tariffs; small businesses might be even more affected by them. This makes tariffs a sustainability issue, since I count shopping small and local as a sustainable action.
Small Business Saturday is an annual shopping day that encourages consumers to support local businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. NBC’s Brian Cheung joins Saturday TODAY to share tips for shopping local, how to find small businesses and more.
In addition to reinforcing the points about the importance of Small Business Saturday to small businesses, Brian Cheung and the TODAY panel previewed Cyber Monday. I'm glad they did, because I'm not observing it this year. That's because it falls on December 1st, World AIDS Day. Since the Trump Administration canceled funding for World AIDS Day commemorations after 37 years, effectively meaning it won't celebrate the day officially, I'm going to celebrate it here all the more. Priorities.
That's a wrap for both today and the string of holiday posts. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature to close out September.
Today's evergreen educational video is Vox explaining The salmon dilemma.
Earth’s population is growing. We’re expected to have 2 billion more mouths to feed by 2050. But how can we feed all those people in a way that is still sustainable and ethical? Many have argued that aquaculture (or fish farming) is one of the most sustainable ways we can consume animal protein, since it requires less land use. It’s currently the quickest-growing form of food production in the world. But how exactly does it work? And is it really the best path forward?
To find out more, Vox video producer Nate Krieger went down the rabbit hole on salmon aquaculture. Salmon is currently the most popular fish in the US: The average American consumes 3.2 pounds of salmon annually. And over 70% of that salmon comes from farms, totalling 3 million tons of salmon a year.
To understand the impact that the salmon industry is having on our planet and our future, and on the salmon themselves, we spoke to industry insiders, marine biologists, and fish welfare experts.
This is a complicated issue, full of lots of caveats and trade-offs. But the more we know about the food we eat and where it comes from, the more responsible we can be.
Many of the commenters on this video called it superficial and too slanted in favor of salmon aquaculture. Maybe, but I know exactly where in my environmental science course to show it, so this is blogging as professional development about one of the stories I tell my students. The video also applies to one of the questions I ask in 'Food, Inc. 2' worksheet for National Food Day.
28. Why is Bren Smith raising kelp and oysters instead of fish? What are their advantages? Answer both questions.
Fish farming disgusted him. The fish had sea lice and looked miserable and stupid. Also, it was like raising pigs and cattle in a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation). He decide to raise organisms that didn't need to be kept in pens and would improve the environment.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned to see if I post another evergreen entry tomorrow or go full holiday for the rest of the week.
Scientists just released the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report. And they say we’ve already crossed our first major tipping point, but it’s not what you think.
From melting ice sheets to collapsing ocean currents, these sudden, irreversible changes could reshape the planet in ways we can’t undo. But what does it really mean to cross a tipping point? How do we know we’ve crossed one? And how close are we to triggering others?
In this episode of Weathered, Maiya May talks with scientist Tim Lenton, who helped popularize the term “tipping point” in a landmark 2008 paper, to uncover which Earth systems are at risk, why they’re so hard to predict, and what crossing a tipping point means for our future.
[C]onvincing people to be less wasteful, particularly creating less food waste and eating less meat, especially beef, would be helpful. [One] could consider that to be a technology. So is renewable energy. Between the two, it would move Earth Overshoot Day back more than a month. Progress!
Yes, it is, and it's good news I can share with my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for World Toilet Day tomorrow. I have something planned from PBS Eons. Yes, really.
The value of a dime doesn’t stretch as far as it did in 1976 when the state's bottle deposit law was initiated, but for many Michiganders, returning beverage containers to get their 10 cents back sure adds up.
The anchor said "just over 70% of bottles and cans were returned" last year. To be precise, it was 70.4%, as this graph from Axios Detroit shows.
Tessa Kresch examined how the deposit isn't as much of an incentive as it used to be because of inflation but found a counter-example in Mildred Griffin, who still redeems her deposits. Kresh also examined possible reforms, from streamlining the process to expanding it. What she ignored was the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retailers stopped accepting can and bottle returns in 2020. As a result, many cans and bottles were thrown away, recycled at curbside, or stashed for future redeeming when conditions returned to normal. I still have cans and bottles to recycle from 2020 in my garage, which I've gradually been returning. One of the reasons is the lack of universal redemption; I can only return cans and bottles to outlets that sell them, so it's inconvenient to redeem store brands or brands only carried at a few chains. Most of the cans and bottles still in my garage fit in those categories.
I'm adding lower can and bottle return rates to the list of behavior changes in 'The Pandemic Made People Worse Drivers,' a driving update. A lot of people just got out of the habit and never got back in. I can't entirely blame the pandemic; the Axios graph shows that return rates had been slipping throughout the 2010s from the mid 90s to ~89 in 2019 before dropping like a rock to the low 70s in 2020, never to recover. As I first wrote in April 2020, the pandemic accelerated existing trends, including this one. A few of the bad behaviors are returning to pre-pandemic levels; I hope bottle returns do, too.
That's a wrap for today's sustainabilityholiday. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature, when I plan on examining GRAMMY nominees.
I'm pleased that this year's nominees for feature film, Jurassic World Rebirth, Wicked, and The Wild Robot, are all speculative fiction, one each from science fiction, fantasy, and animation, although The Wild Robot earned two nominations as science fiction in this year's Critics Choice Super Awards. This demonstrates once again that genre entertainment can convey serious messages in the middle of all the escapism. Speaking of serious messages, a combination of environmental content and star power decides these awards and that makes me think that Jurassic World Rebirth is the favorite. Its theme of the importance of biodiversity as natural capital is as strong as the respect for nature in The Wild Robot and stronger as an environmental theme than the animal rights subplot in Wicked. Jurassic World Rebirth also has as much star power as Wicked, although previous host Jeff Goldblum plays the Wizard of Oz, which might tip the balance, and more than The Wild Robot. Sorry, I don't think Lupita Nyong'o in a voice-acting role is enough.
I guess the EMA thought the environmental message in The Wild Robot was enough to overcome its lesser star power — it won. Surprise!
Now for the nominees I can recommend to my students as extra credit. My pick is Emmy winner Octopus! on the basis of environmental content and star power. I predicted I would see it nominated at the EMA Awards and I was right. The Last Rhinos: A New Hope and Yanuni have as stong environmental themes, but no other awards nominations and no Hollywood stars. However, Yanuni has a compelling personal story, which might be enough for it to upset Octopus!
It was. Congratulations to Yanuni!
Now for the television winners.
I'm glad to see two genre series among the nominees, Alien: Earth and Paradise. I fully expect to see the former nominated at the Saturn Awards and mused about suggesting the latter as an action/thriller or action/adventure nominee. I'm also pleasantly surprised Grey's Anatomy earned a nomination. That's a show I associate with the People'sChoice and Teen Choice Awards. My pick is Yellowstone, which is a previous winner. That written, I'm thrilled to see four nominees. It beats the years when The Blacklist would win by default.
Surprise! Grey's Anatomy won. Twenty-two seasons in, it still has the ability to cover new ground and win awards.
Oh, look, three Emmy nominees, Common Side Effects and The Simpsons for Outstanding Animated Program and Abbott Elementary for Outstanding Comedy Series. I'm glad to see animation, which qualifies as speculative fiction, be treated equally with live-action comedy. That written, I'm not expecting either Common Side Effects or The Simpsons to be nominated at the Saturn Awards and I'm not going to suggest either of them, either. Also, Abbott Elementary is a previous winner, so it's my pick to win.
Surprise, Common Side Effects won. Congratulations!
Follow over the jump for the rest of the television winners.
One of the world’s most beloved and influential primatologists and conservationists has died. Jane Goodall spent more than half a century studying chimpanzees and advocating for animal rights and environmental protection. As Jeffrey Brown reports, Goodall helped change the way we look at animals and their behavior.
Watching Dame Jane on television growing up was one of the influences that made me an environmentalist. She continued to have that effect on young people right up to her death. ABC7 in Los Angeles showed that in Crowd waiting for Jane Goodall 'shocked' to learn of death.
"Shock" is the word that kept coming up after news broke of Jane Goodall's death. What was meant to be a celebration of new life planting trees for the future turned into a moment of gratitude and honor for the legacy Goodall left behind.
Yes, her passing is sad and a loss to the world, but the best way to honor her is to plant those trees, both literally and metaphorically.
You might think rabbits are cute and harmless… After all, they’re the beloved protagonists of some of our most cherished children’s stories! But when 13 of them were released in Australia in 1859, they triggered one of the most destructive biological invasions in history. Within just 50 years, rabbits had overrun two-thirds of the continent, stripping ecosystems bare and threatening native species.
In this episode of Human Footprint, Shane Campbell-Staton meets historian Martha Sear to uncover the astonishing story of Australia’s rabbit invasion and the ecological nightmare it created. From the first release of the deadly Myxoma virus in the 1950s to more recent outbreaks, Shane explores how researchers used biological weapons against the rabbit plague… and why the struggle continues today, more than 160 years after rabbits arrived in Australia. Wildlife manager Ian Lenon and CSIRO scientist Tanja Strive help Shane understand how today’s experts are tracking rabbits and developing new biocontrol tools, and what the future might hold for Australia’s ecosystems.
This is the first story of biological control I remember reading and it's probably one I read about the same time as the first story of invasive species I can remember, the introduction and spread of European Starlings, which I covered in 'The Shakespeare Enthusiast Who Introduced An Invasive Species,' a story I tell my students. Like that story and the discoveryof insulin, I learned new things from this video, like myxomatosis being caused by a virus in the smallpox family and being spread by mosquitoes. The video also reinforced something I knew, which is that a pathogen can be too virulent for optimal spread. The hosts can die before they transmit the pathogens to the next host. That's a flaw in a lot of plague-caused apocalypses in fiction, although the readers and viewers generally don't mind; they're in it for the horror, not the science. Just the same, it's a good day when I learn something new. Also, I've already told my students this story and the cane toad tale, so this counts towards blogging as professional development.
That's a wrap for today's post. Now stay tuned for my planned Emmy entry tomorrow.
For generations, we’ve been pumping water out of the ground assuming it would last forever. But, it’s running out. And a new study shows how global “peak water” could be just around the corner. In this episode, we’ll find out WHEN and WHERE peak water is expected to hit.
Groundwater depletion is only one of the effects May describes and I list as a result of over-pumping groundwater. So are subsidence, saltwater contamination, contamination from other surface sources, and decreased recharge of surface water from groundwater, which results in loss of riparian (streamside) vegetation, among other undesirable things. That makes this video one of the stories I tell my students. It also means that, if I show it to them, this entry becomes another instance of blogging as professional development.
I close by noting that I had heard that Indonesia was building a new capital city, but I didn't know why until I watched this video — subsidence exacerbated by sea level rise. That means I learned something new, and it's always a good day when that happens.
That's a wrap for today's post. Stay tuned for tomorrow's educational entry, which will be a CityNerd video about drivers and a drivingupdate, since Pearl will pass 70,000 miles today.
There's a strange bee called the alkali bee. And in one small valley in Washington, it's worth its weight in gold.
In Walla Walla Valley, farmers depend on alkali bees, a native species essential to one of the country’s most overlooked crops: alfalfa seed. In fact, the work of these tiny pollinators generates millions of dollars in agricultural revenue. Unlike honey bees, alkali bees take a pollen-packed smack to the face without hesitation, powering through millions of flowers with speed and precision. But alkali bees can’t be boxed, transported, or bought. They nest in the ground, require salt-crusted soil, precise irrigation, and near-perfect conditions to thrive.
In this episode of Human Footprint, Shane Campbell-Staton visits the only place on Earth where solitary, ground-nesting bees are managed for large-scale agriculture. He meets third-generation farmer Mark Wagoner and entomologist Doug Walsh, who’ve each played a role in transforming this agricultural landscape into a living partnership with native pollinators.
Shane uncovers the extraordinary steps to keep these bees alive: building salt-encrusted bee beds, spraying pesticides late at night, and even rerouting a state highway. But supporting alkali bees is more than just innovative farming, it’s a glimpse into what it might take to protect WILD pollinators in a world built for honey bees.
This video ties into Vox explains 'What we get wrong about saving the bees' for World Honey Bee Day. According to the video description, "There are 20,000 other species of bees in the world — over 4,000 in the United States. They’re incredibly diverse, unique, and also important for pollination." Alkali bees fit that description perfectly. They also serve as an example of one of Commoner's Laws, "Nature knows best." That's a law I would like to cite more often.
Anand Varma shakes things up in his photography by studying the life of a honey bee and creating a story that most humans have never seen before!
I'm a zoologist and I've never seen honey bee metamorphosis before, so I'm sure most humans haven't seen it, either. File this under "It's a good day when I learn something new."
This episode of Photographer was nominated for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards, but didn't win, although another episode won Outstanding Nature Documentary. Follow over the jump for the winner of Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary.
Today marks what one NGO calls 'Earth Overshoot Day'. The Global Footprint Network says that's the day that humans have used more of Earth's resources than the planet can regenerate in a year. Scientists say the date is getting earlier every year. So what can we do to try live within the planet’s limits?
It pleases me to see India used as a good example. It's one of the reasons I show my students Chasing Ice instead of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power; I didn't like Al Gore bullying the Indian delegation to the Paris Accord negotiations, even though it worked. Go bother the Chinese!
One of the points Beatrice Christofaro makes is about the A in I=P*A*T, "where I is impact, P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology. It's the A and inefficient T that is multiplying the impact of the effect of the relatively small P in the developed world, especially in North America." Deliberately making people less affluent isn't a viable solution; people don't like being poorer and will object. On the other hand, convincing people to be less wasteful, particularly creating less food waste and eating less meat, especially beef, would be helpful. Once could consider that to be a technology. So is renewable energy. Between the two, it would move Earth Overshoot Day back more than a month. Progress!
Earth has never experienced anything like us: a single species dominating and transforming the planet. Biologist Shane Campbell-Staton travels the globe to explore our Human Footprint and to discover how the things we do reveal who we truly are.
PBS’ Human Footprint makes a stop at Omega Mart for its “Shelf Life” episode. We talk to Omega Mart about the experience and the ways the exhibit highlights modern consumerism.
That was wild and even weirder than it looked in the "Shelf Life" episode of Human Footprint. I can now say there there is an intelligent attraction in Las Vegas beyond the sheer spectacle the city is known for.
The supermarket is one of the strangest and most powerful inventions in human history.
Grocery shopping is often perceived as a simple, mundane activity. And for many, access to food has never been more effortless. But supermarkets hold far more power than we realize. The journey our groceries take to reach the shelves touches every part of our lives – from our health, to our culture, to the environment.
In this episode of Human Footprint, Shane Campbell-Staton embarks on a global investigation into the supermarket’s origins, revealing how they transformed the world and grappling with what the future may bring. He explores how innovations in food production, packaging, transportation, advertising, and retail design revolutionized how we buy our food.
Today, supermarkets offer endless choices and low prices, but behind the shelves lies a darker truth. In pursuit of efficiency, we’ve surrendered control of our food system to vast corporations, promoted global supply chains that hide labor and environmental abuses, and flooded our diets with ultra-processed foods.
Shane travels from surreal supermarket art installations to apple orchards, commercial film sets, shrimp farms, urban food co-ops, and beyond, connecting with people whose lives are intertwined with this system. What he uncovers is a complex story of the modern grocery store, the true cost of convenience, and the urgent need to reimagine the way we feed ourselves[.]
I first encountered the story of the supermarket in Stuffed and Starved, one of the textbooks my co-instructor and I chose for Global Politics of Food, the course we taught when I started this blog. Here's what I wrote then.
[T]here is a lot wrong with the international food system, some of which is contributing to global collapse and much of which won't survive collapse, either, such as the long supply lines and heavy use of fossil fuels. In this book, Raj Patel gives a piercing critique of the way global capitalism shapes what humans grow and eat, exposing many of the flaws in the food system that contribute to collapse and what can be done about it. It's also an entertaining and informative read and Raj Patel is a charming and compelling person who knows his gin.
Yes, I know Raj Patel, and I was pleased to see that Shane Campbell-Staton interviewed him for this episode. It really wouldn't have been complete without him.
I'm also pleased that this episode told the backstory to the rivalry between Kellogg's and Post satirized in Emmy nominee and double Razzie winnerUnfrosted. That movie wasn't as stupid as it first seemed.
The most appalling thing I learned from this video was about shrimp. The TED-Ed video I embedded as the second video in Whales and fish, two stories I tell my students mentioned the environmental effects of shrimp farming on mangrove swamps and other coastlines, but it didn't include how shrimp farming contributed to depleting other fisheries and resulted in enslaved fishing crews. I know I write that "it's always a good day when I learn something new," and both of those were new to me when I first watched this, but both of them are terrible facts to learn about farm-raised shrimp, enough to make me not want to eat "America's most popular seafood." The problem is that it's not just shrimp, it's throughout the supply chains of dozens of foodstuffs, including coffee. It looks like Trafficked:UnderworldswithMariana van Zeller has lots of material still to cover.*
All of the above serve as examples of two of Commoner's Laws: "There is no free lunch" and "Everything is connected to everything else." Maybe the rest of the episode goes into the waste created by the food system as an example of "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)," the emphasis of the last time I referenced Commoner's Laws. Instead, Dr. Campbell-Staton concludes with an example of "Nature knows best" in the Detroit People's Food Co-op. I'm glad to see a happy ending from Detroit.
Join us in celebrating World Giraffe Day with Africam! From their towering grace to their quirky drinking stances, giraffes are some of the most iconic animals of the African bush.
Watch as these gentle giants visit the waterhole, interact with other wildlife, and remind us why giraffe conservation matters.
In Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, Rothschild’s giraffes, one of the rarest giraffe subspecies, move quietly across the landscape. Classified as endangered, these giraffes are a vital part of Uganda’s natural heritage. Poaching snares, set to catch smaller animals, often trap unintended victims, including giraffes.
Despite their size, giraffes are particularly vulnerable to poaching snares and their injuries can be life-threatening if left untreated. That’s where our Elephant and Wildlife Rescue Unit steps in. Working alongside our partners at the Uganda Conservation Foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the veterinary team responds rapidly to wildlife in distress, treating their injuries and stabilizing them for safe release. In the first five months of 2025, the unit has already rescued 28 giraffes, giving each one a second chance at life in the wild.
That's giraffe conservation in the wild. Most of my readers do not live in countries where giraffes live free. Instead, they would only encounter giraffes in the flesh in zoos. Conservation goes on there, as the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows in last year's Happy World Giraffe Day!
Today, on the longest day of the year, we are celebrating the longest-necked animal: the giraffe!
In celebrating World Giraffe Day, we are also celebrating the almost two-year anniversary of the International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe. Established in 2022, The Giraffe Center is a concentrated effort by CMZoo to consolidate resources and expand educational programs in order to improve and enrich the lives of giraffe in human care worldwide. One of the ways they achieve this is through in-person and virtual workshops. These workshops include lecture-style presentations, group discussions, role-playing and actual practice focused on giraffe nutrition, natural behaviors, hoof anatomy and care, and positive reinforcement training. Since 2022, The Giraffe Center has helped organizations in 28 different countries and has had hundreds of requests for information and assistance with giraffe care.
Learn more about the International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe at cmzoo.org/giraffecenter.
Zoos play a part in conservation, too!
I am extending the streak of holidays one more day because tomorrow is WorldRainforestDay. Stay tuned to see how I combine celebrating that day with the Sunday entertainment feature, which may still be coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards. It can be done!
Directed by Emmy-winning writer and filmmaker Nic Stacey, Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy pulls back the curtain on the world’s top brands, exposing the hidden tactics and covert strategies used to keep all of us locked in an endless cycle of buying—no matter the cost.
I've found yet another documentary I can recommend to my students. I can see applications of three of Commoner's Laws: "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)," "There is no free lunch," and "Everything is connected to everything else." "Nature knows best?" Sorry, no. Still, welcome to blogging as professional development. That will turn out to be a major theme of today's post.
Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy is the only nominee in this category with a second nomination, in this case for Graphic Design – Documentary, and the outstanding animation and special effects are all over this trailer. Also, other outlets have been paying attention to this documentary. YouTube's recommendation algorithm is showing me videos by CNN, CBS News, WGN News, and KCAL, and that's before I search for news reports on it. The TV news people are certainly aware of this nominee, and I'm taking that as a factor in favor of it winning. Remember, electorates matter and television journalists are part of the electorate for these awards. Between that and the 2,051,802 views plus 1,695 comments on the trailer, I'm considering Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy to be the favorite.
The first nominee in alphabetical order with only one nomination for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary is Bitconned | Official Trailer | Netflix.
Ray Trapani had always wanted to be a criminal, even as a young boy. In 2017, amidst the economic frenzy of the Bitcoin boom, there was no better place for scammers than cryptocurrency. So when Ray's friend approached him with the idea of creating a debit card for crypto, Trapani jumped at the chance. There was only one problem: he had no idea how to do that. But thanks to fake LinkedIn profiles, paid celebrity endorsements, and the online community’s insatiable desire to "get rich quick," Centra Tech was soon raking in millions of dollars a day. Was it real? No. But did it work? Maybe. In this fast-paced, debaucherous documentary from director Bryan Storkel (Producer of The Legend of Cocaine Island + Director of The Pez Outlaw), Ray himself guides viewers through the ups and downs of his dramatic journey, alongside his family, former friends, and the journalist who exposed Centra Tech as the first high-profile fraud case of the crypto era.
This reminds me of McMillion$, an examination of an elaborate scam and the scammers behind it. It also shows the fine line between business and the economy on one side and crime and justice on the other. I'm not surprised the two intersected at cryptocurrency.
The story of the iconic trailblazer known by her initials DVF worldwide. Child of a Holocaust survivor, Princess by marriage, and founder of a fashion brand. Featuring interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Marc Jacobs, Hillary Rodham Clinton and more. Watch Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge on Hulu!
This looks fun and inspiring and is about glamorous and famous people. Those qualities would give it a leg up at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, where the voters would look at Diane von Furstenberg and say "she's one of us." I'm not sure it will have the same effect on the journalists and documentarians here. Again, electorates matter.
#MoviePassMovieCrash goes behind the scenes to reveal the meteoric rise and stranger-than-fiction implosion of the theatrical movie subscription app. The @HBO Original Documentary premieres May 29 on @StreamOnMax.
If MoviePass were a retail company with brick-and-mortar locations, it would be a good subject for a Retail Apocalypse entry. It still makes for an engaging story of failure snatched from the jaws of success.
Liberty City, Miami, was home to one of the oldest segregated public housing projects in the U.S. Now with rising sea levels, the neighborhood’s higher ground has become something else: real estate gold. Wealthy property owners push inland to higher ground, creating a speculators’ market in the historically Black neighborhood previously ignored by developers and policy-makers alike.
Welcome to climate gentrification, which is having its strongest effect in Miami. This is another documentary I can recommend to my students for extra credit. Again, welcome to blogging as professional development.
Follow over the jump to see the trailers for the nominees competing against Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy for Outstanding Graphic Design – Documentary, a category I haven't covered until now.
