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.
Markets to offset carbon emissions are now worth about $2 billion annually, and supporters say they're a key tool to address climate change. But carbon credits have also been criticized for being opaque and not reducing emissions nearly enough. Stephanie Sy reports on an effort to boost the integrity of carbon markets and open them up to small landowners. It’s part of our series, Tipping Point.
Carbon offset markets that actually are effective and include a major carbon reservoir — good news!
More than half of the continental U.S. is facing drought conditions. But other parts of the country are facing the opposite problem. Extreme weather conditions can have major impacts on farmers and their crops at a time when they're already facing high production costs. Paul Solman recently traveled to southern Georgia to hear from some of those farmers. It's for our series, Tipping Point.
And the "Godzilla" El Niño is likely to make the situation even worse, if it isn't already.
That's a wrap for today's brief educational entry. Stay tuned for more Emmy Awards coverage tomorrow.
The El Niño event that is developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest in living memory, the Met Office has warned.
The powerful natural climate phenomenon pushes up global temperatures and can increase the risks of extreme weather.
Added to the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office is warning that it is "very likely" to mean 2027 is the hottest year on record globally.
There is growing evidence that weather patterns around the world.
Hearing about all the effects El Niño is having on food supply and food prices reminds me of two of Commoner's Laws, "There is no free lunch" and "Everything is connected to everything else." I'll try to remember this when I teach Environmental Science one last time beginning next month.
Speaking of stories I tell my students, looking at the graph showing the effects of El Niño and La Niña on global temperature also reminds me of a question I ask in the worksheet for Chasing Ice, "How is increasing greenhouse gases like using performance-enhancing steroids?" They make extreme events more frequent and stronger. While climatechange doesn't make El Niño more frequent, it is making the naturaldisasters it causes more frequent. Also, climate change is making El Niño at least appear stronger and El Niño is definitely increasing temperatures.
The UK's Met Office says this year's El Nino could unleash extreme weather, the likes of which the world has not seen in a century. The results could be record-breaking global temperatures in 2027 and a raft of natural disasters. DW's Sarah Kelly talks about the weather phenomenon with Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society in the UK and President of the European Meteorological Society.
The graph shows that the Pacific sea surface temperatures are already 2oC above normal and could reach between 3 and 4oC higher than average by the end of the year. Will that be stronger than 1877? Maybe.
With El Niño officially here, and predicted to get stronger, let's see how it's going to affect our snow forecast for this winter! Weathered host Maiya May breaks it down.
The pattern predicts less snow here in Michigan and more snow in the mountains of California and the arid Southwest. That's good news for both places, so not everything about El Niño is bad.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for another brief evergreen educational entry tomorrow.
PBS NewsHour has another segment on how scientists are fighting the effects of climatechange. Stay tuned to see if I feature it or return to Emmy Awards coverage tomorrow.
At a time when the impact of climate change is undeniable, some researchers suggest we need to start work on far more ambitious approaches for tackling these problems. These proposals are often referred to as geoengineering. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien looks at one such concept to deal with the melting of glaciers and sea ice. It's for our series, Tipping Point.
As for building an underwater barrier to keep out the warm water to slow the melting of Thwaites Glacier to melt it from below, that also strikes me as overly ambitious and impractical, although I think it would have less potential for unintended side effects than other geoengineeringprojects. I've been worried about those since Greenfinger, which I wrote on January 2, 2013. Coincidentally, that's World Science Fiction Day. Sometimes, I stumble over a holiday long before I know about it!
This year is becoming one of the worst for U.S. wildfires in at least a decade. There have been more fires and more acreage burned at this point in the year compared to any in the last ten. With fire seasons growing longer, early detection is critical. Special correspondent Ben Tracy of Climate Central reports on how AI is being used to spot fires faster. It's part of our series, Tipping Point.
Oh, good, a story about how technology in general and AI in particular are helping fight fires and other weather-related disasters! Not everything about AI is bad!
As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, rising seas and coastal erosion are putting some of America’s most historic places at risk. For our ongoing series, Tipping Point, special correspondent Ben Tracy with Climate Central reports from Jamestown, Virginia, where archaeologists are racing to uncover America’s past before it’s washed away.
I've mentionedseveraltimes that "I worked as a Park Naturalist (the type of Ranger most visitors see) at Channel Islands National Park during the summer of 1986," now 40 years ago, so this story hits close to home. Here's to preserving or at least salvaging as much of our country's natural and historic heritage as we can before it sinks beneath the waves.
PBS NewsHour has more, but I'm stopping here to eat lunch and grade papers. It's final exam time, so stay tuned for more relatively brief entries until next Wednesday.
Mosquitoes impact public health on a global scale and are considered the deadliest creatures on earth due to their spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus, dengue, Zika, and malaria.
It doesn't have sharp teeth or claws, but the mosquito kills more people than any other animal on Earth. As the climate warms, mosquito season is lasting longer, giving them more time to spread dangerous diseases. Ben Tracy with Climate Central reports on why the insects are thriving, and the surprising way scientists are fighting back.
I'm recycling what I wrote last year for my reaction.
"Using one parasite that doesn't affect humans to reduce the ability of an insect to spread a parasite harmful to humans — clever! It's also not forever in the same way genetic modification is. Fine by me"...I think infecting them with Wolbachia is an example of a third law, "Nature knows best."
The technology has advanced so that it runs by mail order. Progress (and convenient, too).
That's a wrap for today's biodiversityholiday. PBS NewsHour has another segment on how scientists are fighting the effects of climatechange. Stay tuned to see if I feature it or return to Emmy Awards coverage tomorrow.
The 2026 El Niño could be the strongest we’ve ever seen. And to understand its potential impacts, we’ll take a trip back in time to 1877. That El Niño triggered one of the most devastating natural disasters in human history. What could this one do?
Yikes! This is the first I've learned about the famines of 1877 and 1878, so it shocks me that they were so deadly. That the British Empire made things worse was the least surprising part of the story; Infidel753 and I had the following exchange in the comments to SciShow warns 'The Potato Famine Could Happen Again'.
Infidel753: Obviously any threat to the world's third-largest food crop is a serious concern, but this video hugely understates how much the Irish potato famine was exacerbated by politics. "Unhelpful policies adopted by their neighbors in the UK" doesn't begin to cover it. At that time Ireland was completely under British rule (part of the British Empire), a colonial possession under the heel of a government the Irish had no say in. The conservative British government at the time refused to provide any help at all to the starving Irish, partly motivated by racism (Celtic people were thought of as a different race at the time) and partly by a pull-yourselves-up-by-your-bootstraps Ayn-Rand-like mentality which was common in the ruling class at the time (this was later applied during a famine in British-ruled India, with equally disastrous results).
If the colonial government had merely provided the normal level of food aid typical of what governments do in such situations, most of the deaths would have been prevented. If such potato crop failures were to occur today, presumably modern governments would do their job and provide help to the affected people.
Me: Thanks for adding the needed context to the video. Yes, the British/English made things much worse by continuing to use Ireland as a resource colony throughout the famine, including making the Irish pay their rent in wheat and Ireland being a net exporter of food. They also exported those policies to the rest of the British Empire, as you pointed out. What they did in India, they did it in Ireland first.
[P]rocesses that happened in the past are likely to repeat in the future, so understanding the past is essential for preparation. This is a key takeaway from uniformitarianism, the concept that everything we see in nature is the result of everyday processes occurring over sufficient time, which is boiled down to "the present is the key to the past." It also means that the past is the key to the future.
File all the above under "it's a always a good day when I learn something new."
On June 11, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued an El Niño advisory after temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean remained higher than average for several months. Declaring an El Niño isn’t out of the ordinary, as they happen in cycles every two to seven years. But this one could be extraordinary.
Some are calling it a “Super” or “Godzilla” El Niño, and the NOAA predicts an 81 percent chance that it could develop to a “very strong” level, rivaling the historic and devastating El Niños of 1982-1983 and 1997-1998. Experts are predicting it will likely reach its peak this winter and into 2027, bringing heat, rainfall, and other potential extreme weather events.
But even with that foresight and climate models that can confidently predict what might be in store, we still face a test of what could potentially be the strongest El Niño ever recorded and the wild weather that comes with it. We spoke with atmospheric scientists and meteorologists to find out how a Super El Niño forms, why it changes global climate, and what we should expect in the coming months.
Sean talks with journalist David Wallace-Wells about a looming climate event that could make 2027 one of the hottest years ever recorded. They discuss the return of El Niño, why some scientists are calling it a “Godzilla El Niño,” and what it could reveal about the future of global warming. They also explore climate adaptation, political complacency, extreme weather, technological progress, and whether humanity is prepared for the world it’s creating.
It's getting hot in here… can we survive it?
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I pushed my body to the edge in a climate & sports research lab to discover what extreme heat really does to us. Why humidity, not just temperature, can make heat deadly, and how climate change and city design are making dangerous heat more common.
I guessed...that the dark secret was the heat...[My] guess was dead on. That's no surprise, as I blogged about Phoenix being the hottest city in the U.S. in 2021 and mentioned its record heat in 2023twice. What is surprising is that heat waves don't count as federal natural disasters covered by FEMA. The commenters found the reason dismaying: "You don't get disaster declarations for mortality. You only do it for economics." Ecurewitz responded "That’s the most American statement ever." RandomAngle9 commented "The fact that heat doesn't 'qualify' as a disaster because it doesn't destroy buildings, only people, says everything about how we value human life in policy."
This part is something I can show to my environmental science students. The other part is the physiology of disposing of excess heat. That would be useful to Human Structure and Function students. Unfortunately, I don't plan on teaching that class ever again. So much for blogging as professional development, just personal development. Just the same, I hope my readers find it as interesting as I did.
That's a wrap for today's brief educational entry I can share in August. Stay tuned for another post I can share next month tomorrow.
Kohl's rose to its peak as a department store in the 2000s, with a focus on a strong in-store experience, coupons and rewards. Now, after years of stagnant sales and a rough patch on Wall Street, Kohl's is trying to get back to what made it a household name.
In 2022, Retail Archaeology asked Kohl's: Who Would Want To Buy This? In that same post, I embedded a CNBC video from 2020 asking "Can Kohl's survive?" Last year, Company Man asked Kohl's - The Rise and Fall? Now CNBC has answered that question in the affirmative. If nothing else, Kohl's stock price, which is what CNBC really cares about, has fallen. The chain is also shrinking, as evidenced by my wife going to the closest store and finding that it has closed, apparently one of 27 stores that closed last year. Kohl's also has no plans to expand.
In addition to the identity and management issues both CNBC and Company Man reported, The Street article I linked to above cited competition.
Like many traditional department stores, Kohl’s is navigating intensifying competition from both digital and value-focused retailers. E-commerce rivals such as Amazon, Temu, and Shein continue to capture online shopping demand, while off-price chains including Ross Stores and TJMaxx attract budget-conscious consumers with lower pricing.
At the same time, macroeconomic uncertainty has reshaped consumer behavior, with shoppers increasingly prioritizing value and limiting discretionary spending.
If private equity doesn't appear in the story, Amazon probably will.
We probably won't be Kohl's shoppers in the future, as the nearest store is now nearly seven miles away instead of two. We'll go that far for Costco, but not for a department store. If so, there are better stores that distance, like a Macy's, and a Target closer.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a climate post tomorrow.
66 million years ago a giant space rock crashed into our planet and killed the dinosaurs. In the span of just four decades, we’ve gone from not knowing there was a space rock at all to knowing exactly where that planet-killer came from.
I've been following this story for as long as I've been a geologist, but I still learned new things from this video, or at least was reminded of things I'd forgotten, like Luis Alvarez having earned a Nobel Prize in Physics. I will say I was skeptical at first, but by the time I earned my M.S., I was convinced.
A giant asteroid impact ended the age of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. How did this mass extinction play out, moment by moment? In this video we meet a geologist who has explored the asteroid crater and learn what the rocks tell us about the last days of the dinosaurs. It was pretty bad!
Not only did Dr. Joe Hanson and Sean Gulick describe the details of what we now know about the Chicxulub impact and its effects, Joe concluded with a "so what" message. Unlike the dinosaurs, we have a choice.
That's a wrap for June's blogging. Stay tuned for Canada Day to begin July.
Food, fuel or inflation? What breaks first? This is possibly the most important podcast we have done to date. I know its a long one and a departure from our normal format, but this is definitely worth your time and we'd love to hear yourt thoughts and ideas...
I first predicted "I fully expect Peak Oil, economic decline, and social upheaval to end the national touring model, which has been around since 1971, by 2020" on this blog in 2012. I came to that conclusion four years earlier, as "I started mourning in 2008, when I quit writing for Drum Corps World and stopped going to shows." I even warned a corps director about it.
Well, the 2020 drum corps season has been cancelled, so the national touring model is in a coma, not dead, but Peak Oil had nothing to do with it. Instead, it was the pandemic that drove what passes for economic decline and social upheaval and that caused there to be no competitive drum corps this year.
The national touring model was still unconscious in 2021, as there were no competitive shows and no national tour, just DCI Celebration, three nights of exhibitions in Indianapolis. The national touring model didn't get out of the hospital until 2022. I was right for the wrong reason, but I'll still claim a successful prediction.
That written, the current situation the panelists at Marching Arts Network are describing is more what I was envisioning beginning in 2008, an oil shortage, although because of war, not Peak Oil directly, and economic disruption and even people in the activity who are not doomers see the national touring model as the problem. I think its return in 2022 will turn out to be a temporary triumph of business as usual once the pandemic receded enough to reinstitute what the activity was doing in 2019 and is still doomed, although I'm not predicting the year of its demise today. I think what I wrote on Christmas 2012 will extend the existances of both drum corps and the national touring model for years after the latter should have ended: "As for drum corps' hopes, they rest on the one thing that makes Americans act, messing with their entertainment. Americans want their entertainment, and will do just about anything to keep it going." So far, that observation has remained true.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned to see if I celebrate Paul Bunyan Day or the Sunday entertainment feature early or if I post a compilation of last night's monologues to share next month, which begins Wednesday, Tuesday night according to Greenwich Mean Time.
When you look at Federally declared disasters across the U.S., there’s a surprising blank spot in the Southwest region. What’s up with that? Is the Southwest really a safe haven from natural disasters? Or is there a more sinister explanation for this giant hole in the map? On this episode of Weathered, we talk to the folks who made this map, and some of the world’s leading experts on climate risk to find out what’s really going on.
My wife and I watched this video together on the big-screen TV in our bedroom. I guessed the lack of natural disasters in the American Southwest was because there aren't a lot of people there and that the dark secret was the heat. The first guess wasn't true; the Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ MSA has an estimated population of 5,228,938 while the Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas, NV MSA has an estimated population of 2,407,226.
The second guess was dead on. That's no surprise, as I blogged about Phoenix being the hottest city in the U.S. in 2021 and mentioned its record heat in 2023twice. What is surprising is that heat waves don't count as federal natural disasters covered by FEMA. The commenters found the reason dismaying: "You don't get disaster declarations for mortality. You only do it for economics." Ecurewitz responded "That’s the most American statement ever." RandomAngle9 commented "The fact that heat doesn't 'qualify' as a disaster because it doesn't destroy buildings, only people, says everything about how we value human life in policy." Speaking of policy, Florida banning municipalities from protecting workers from heat shows that DeSantis wasn't only bad on COVID-19. He and the rest of the Republicans on Florida are bad on climate and weather, too.
While most of the planet warms, a patch of ocean south of Greenland—often called the “cold blob” or “North Atlantic warming hole”—is not warming. In fact, depending on which years you look at, it has actually cooled since industrialization. In this video we investigate this odd phenomenon which has implications for the future of our climate and the stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is a system of currents that transports heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic, regulating weather patterns across Northwestern Europe and beyond. However, recent evidence suggests this vital system may be weakening. Could human-induced climate change, specifically the warming of the ocean and the influx of freshwater from melting ice, be pushing this circulation toward a tipping point? We take a journey through centuries of oceanographic discovery to understand the overturning circulation, the urgency of research on the AMOC, and what the potential collapse of this system could mean for the stable world we built our civilizations on.
Yes, this exercise in explaining how we know what we know is about the AMOC, which I covered most recently in USA Today warns 'The Atlantic current is weakening and possibly headed for collapse'. Howtown's video now makes two entries where an outlet other than PBS Terra covered the AMOC. The potential catastrophe is once again penetrating beyond the outlet that specializes in Climatechange and other naturaldisasters. I suppose that's good news. It also includes Camp Century, the subject of The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice. If I had heard of Camp Century before that documentary, it hadn't stuck, at least under that name. Now I've blogged about it twice in a week!
I haven't changed my plan for the second half of today's post, a retrospective of top shares about holidays on Bluesky and Twitter/X during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Follow over the jump.
We investigated one of the world’s largest AI data centers, using thermal drone footage to reveal the hidden pollution powering the AI boom. As companies race to build the future of artificial intelligence, residents and experts warn that fossil fuels, secrecy, and weak regulation may be putting communities at risk.
This award is as much about technology as it is about economics. May it mean that AI be a net benefit for the economy. Right now, it looks like it's doing more destruction than creation.
If the projections are correct, it will be doing both, with 20% of people losing their current jobs while quintupling GDP. Yikes! That's an outcome the residents of Richistan would approve of. As for the rest of us, I'll repeat what I wrote a dozen years ago in Robots are coming for our jobs, "the loss of jobs to robots will be the major effect of the Singularity, not everyone becoming cyborgs or the machines enslaving or killing off humanity." It's not like we weren't warned.
That would be an end result. Joe Hanson is showing that getting there is already a risk in terms of increased consumption of land, water, materials to make the data centers and the power plants to run them, and natural gas, as well as increased production of waste in the form of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. It reminds me of an equation I teach my environmental science students to describe environmental impact: "I=P*A*T, where I is impact, P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology." A.I., or at least the data centers to support it, are becoming an example of a technology that supports affluence but increases the impact of the population on the environment. I prefer technology that decreases the impact of an affluent population by being more efficient. Data centers aren't that, not until they use sustainable energy.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is fueling its data centers with unpermitted gas turbines, according to a Floodlight visual investigation. Thermal drone footage captured in late January 2026 shows xAI running the unpermitted turbines at its custom-built power plant in Southaven, Miss., nearly two weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency reiterated that doing so requires a state permit in advance. The ad hoc gas plant's sole task is to power the data center behind Grok and an example of AI's growing reliance on fossil fuels. Investigative Producer Evan Simon breaks down the investigation and what the findings could mean for the AI buildout occurring across the country.
**UPDATE** Mississippi regulators approved xAI's permit application to run 41 gas powered turbines at its Southaven gas plant on 3/10/26. The decision comes despite heavy pushback from local community members and will result in the creation of one of Mississippi's largest fossil fuel power plants.
This got me to subscribe to the Floodlight News YouTube channel, "The only U.S. newsroom with the specific mission to investigate climate polluters." Expect to see more from them.
Another lesson I teach my students is about the principles for environmental policy. Two of them are human rights, in this case the right to clean air and an environment not permeated by harmful noise, and public participation. The United States is supposed to be a democracy within a republic, where the people decide and the government represents the people. The Floodlight News video shows that the way data centers are being installed and operated respects neither. That's also the point of yesterday's MS NOW video, Erin Brockovich on AI data centers: 'People aren't being heard'.
Americans on both sides of the aisle have found common ground opposing construction of AI data centers in their communities. In Texas, one lifelong conservative voter told MSNOW reporter Josh Einiger that the issue could flip the Senate. And longtime consumer advocate Erin Brockovich joins to lay out what she's learned since she started tracking the issue.
I'm surprised I've never mentioned Erin Brockovich in 15+ years of blogging. It's about time I did.
That's a wrap for today. I'm sure I'll have more to say on the matter. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature.
Slight change of plans from yesterday, when I wrote, "I'll probably examine Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time tomorrow." I decided to highlight the other nominee about Hurricane Katrina, Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which leads the nominees for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary with three nominations, including Outstanding Direction: Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary in addition to Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. It's followed by The Ride Ahead with two nominations, then Born Poor, Enigma, and Searching for Amani with just this one category nomination. I'm sharing the trailers in that order, beginning with Katrina: Come Hell and High Water | Official Trailer | Netflix.
This is the story of a brutal coastal hurricane turned cataclysmic through human error and neglect. Over the course of a gripping and emotional three episodes, the people of New Orleans recount their past, extoll their present and lean into the future of what they and their beloved city survived and have become 20 years later. The series sets the stage for a tragedy - whose man-made elements expose the systemic governmental neglect that led to the city being defenseless in the face of the storm - and Katrina’s devastating impact that changed New Orleans irreparably. Detailed, harrowing and triumphant first-person accounts and never before seen archive illustrate the magnitude of Katrina, the aftermath of the levees breaking and the bungled recovery.
Katrina was a foreseeable disaster. I remember listening to an NPR story a year or more before Katrina hit explaining how New Orleans' levees were only built to withstand a category three hurricane, so they would fail under a category four or five storm, and describing what would likely happen if — when — one struck. It did. It also mentioned in passing that, while being poor is hard, New Orleans was probably the easiest city to be poor in. Katrina took that away. I've been recommending Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time to my students. Now I can recommend Katrina: Come Hell and High Water to them, too. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
What does adulthood look like when the world isn’t built for your body?
In THE RIDE AHEAD, Samuel Habib is ready for independence as he turns 21—but every rite of passage is complicated by ableist systems and physical barriers. Facing seizures, inaccessible housing, and degrading encounters, he sets out to find community and answers.
With humor, honesty, and a deep commitment to disability justice, Samuel travels across the U.S. to meet activists and role models who help him reimagine what freedom, adulthood, and love can look like.
A coming-of-age story rooted in interdependence, dignity, and the power of community.
As soon as I read the video description, I thought of Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Sure enough, the trailer advertises that the co-director of Crip Camp is involved, as is Judith Heumann, who won Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. The trailer also features some of the animation in the movie, which shows me it deserves its second nomination for Outstanding Graphic Design: Documentary.
Meet Brittany, Johnny and Kaylie, whose journeys — filmed across 14 years — are at the heart of the new documentary "Born Poor." Watch the prologue now.
This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: https://www.pbs.org/donate
The 90-minute documentary "Born Poor" premieres Tues., Oct. 7, 2025 on @frontline's YouTube channel, in the PBS App, at pbs.org/frontline and on PBS stations. The film follows these three kids from three families across three chapters of their lives — from childhood through the teen years to young adulthood — and offers a powerful, personal and longitudinal look at the realities of growing up in poverty in the U.S.
“Born Poor” is a FRONTLINE production with True Vision Productions. The director is Jezza Neumann. The producers are Jezza Neumann and Lauren Mucciolo. The senior producer is Frank Koughan. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
This looked familiar, but I probably am misremembering FRONTLINE's "Two American Families: 1991-2024," nominated in this category last year. FRONTLINE does good work examining poverty and society.
A thirteen-year-old aspiring journalist investigates his father’s mysterious murder within the boundaries of one of Kenya’s largest wildlife conservancies. As a ravaging drought encroaches, his quest to find the killer shifts and an activist is born as the collateral damage of a warming world is revealed.
Looks like I found another movie I can recommend to my students. Again, welcome to blogging as professional development, even if I'm only planning on teaching one more semester, which begins Monday.
Now to examine the other nominations for Katrina: Come Hell and High Water and The Ride Ahead.
Outstanding Editing: Documentary
Cover-Up Netflix [Plan B | Netflix | Praxis Films] Folktales Loki Films [Fifth Season | Impact Partners | Topic Studios] Katrina: Come Hell and High Water Netflix [Netflix | Message Pictures] Life After Multitude Films | PBS [ITVS] Love + War Little Monster Films [National Geographic] 2000 Meters to Andriivka FRONTLINE FEATURES | PBS [Associated Press] Thoughts & Prayers HBO Documentary Films [Tony Tina] The White House Effect Actual Films | Netflix [Netflix | The Department of Motion Pictures]
I think 2000 Meters to Andriivka is the favorite, if only because it's the only nominee also nominated for Best Editing at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and I suspect 2000 Meters to Andriivka might sweep its categories.
Sally should just be happy to be nominated in this category. 2000 Meters to Andriivka has six nominations, including Best Documentary. Life After has four, also including Best Documentary, as does The Stringer. Katrina: Come Hell and High Water and Vietnam: The War That Changed America both tied Sally with three. Apocalypse in the Tropics and Music Box: It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley have just this one. Out of this field, 2000 Meters to Andriivka is my provisional favorite.
Outstanding Graphic Design: Documentary
Antidote/Kill List
FRONTLINE FEATURES | PBS [Passion Pictures | Bellingcat] The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets
Texas Crew Productions [Peacock Original | New York Post Entertainment | G Unit Film & Television, Inc.] The Ride Ahead
LikeRightNow Films Titanic: The Digital Resurrection
Atlantic Productions [National Geographic] Underdogs
Wildstar Films [Maximum Effort | National Geographic] In Waves and War
Studio AKA [Netflix | Actual Films]
This is likely to be Underdogs' best shot to win, but it faces a tough competitor in Titanic: The Digital Resurrection. Either way, National Geographic would win.
The Ride Ahead's animation looks impressive and fun and it advances the narrative well, so I wouldn't count it out.
I found an entry about Hurricane Katrina among the most read during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, so I'm featuring it and another from the back catalog at the intersection of entertainment, climatechange and extremeweather over the jump.
A large-scale and delicate system of ocean currents that has been active for millions of years and that’s responsible for our warm climate is in danger of collapse due to climate change. This is according to a new study published in April in the journal Science Advances. Shane Elipot, a physical oceanographer at the University of Miami and one of the authors of the study, joins The Excerpt to share his findings.
It turns out that's not as new as I first thought. It's that the YouTube algorithm finally began presenting me with USA Today's videos on the topic. Actually looking for the climate change on USA Today's channel retrieved Climate change: How US cities are already feeling the effects | JUST THE FAQS from 2022.
Wildfires, hurricanes and floods: Climate change already hitting US, according to new UN study...
A new United Nations study shows climate change is no longer a hypothetical of the future. Here's how it's already affecting regions across the country and what you can do to prepare.
I'm lecturing on climate change today, and I might just replace one of my videos with this one. If so, welcome to blogging as professional development.
That's a wrap for today's entry. I have some music planned for Tuneful Tuesday, so stay tuned to see if I follow through.
In this episode of Retail Archaeology we take a look at Target.
I found the AI summary more informative.
Retail Archaeology explores the history of the Target Corporation, from its roots as the Dayton Company to modern retail shifts. The video examines store operations, grocery section changes, the partnership with CVS, and the evolving presence of boutique departments like Ulta Beauty within Target locations.
Erik actually did a better job at researching and presenting the history of the Dayton Company and its transition to Target Corporation than Company Man. I don't think I've ever seen Erik being a better historian than Company Man Mike before. I've also never seen him delve into politics as deeply as in this video, which the AI summary missed. I'm being a good environmentalist and recycling what I wrote on Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day for my reaction.
[T]his is the first time I've seen Company Man Mike list DEI initiatives, or rather their abandonment, as contributing to a company's problems. I'm not surprised, as my wife and I shifted our shopping from Target to Costco because the former abandoned DEI. We did the same for Amazon: "My wife and I have decided to cut back on our Amazon purchases and will re-evaluate our Amazon Prime membership when it expires this summer. Jeff Bezos rolling over for Hoover Cleveland pissed us off."* Our disappointment extended to Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon. Target should have realized that knuckling under to Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump would have had a major effect because of their customer base, the people like me who call the company "Tar-zhey" and declare "between Walmart and KMart, I shop at Target." Now I'm shopping at none of them.
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*This is the mirror image of "Losing Identity, Alienating Core Customers, [and] Negative Publicity" in Company Man wonders 'Cracker Barrel - The Rise and Fall?' A tale of the Retail Apocalypse and consumer pressure, all of which upset conservatives.
Erik agrees that Target made a dumb move by abandoning DEI. He also passed along that the boycott seems to be winding down because of the new CEO. Good. I've only shopped at Target once since Black Friday. That was because my wife was unable to physically shop at Costco for three months and she has the membership card, so I went there when I was in the neighborhood. Listening to Erik listing the lost sales revenue and stock value makes me think that Target has been punished enough and has learned its lesson. I certainly hope so.
Today's brief evergreen educational entry features the latest episode in Bright Sun Films series Bankrupt - Sbarro.
Since it started in New York in the 1950's, the Sbarro fast food chain had grown to well over 1,000 locations, many of which inside of shopping malls. The chain became a staple in casual, Italian food and was one of the most recognizable shopping mall institutions in America. However, by the 2010's, the brand would ultimately declare bankruptcy... twice. Join me to find out why.
Jake Williams of Bright Sun Films concentrated on the 2007 sale of the company to a private equity firm, followed by the Great Recession and the general decline of malls. As I wrote six years ago, "Sbarro's dependence on malls was helpful until the Great Recession but is hurting the chain now, as more than half of their stores have closed since the company's peak." Private equity taking over the company the first time couldn't have come under worse circumstances. On the other hand, the current private equity ownership has been good for the company so far, expanding it out of American malls to other countries and into other locations. Good news.
On the other hand, Jake had very little to say about the rest of Company Man Mike's list, mentioning ingredient costs first and briefly. He had very little bad to say about the food itself, confining his stale remark to the brand, and only briefly citing consumer comments about the product. For critiques of the food, I plan on turning to Weird History Food, which I featured in The rise and fall of Boston Market, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse for Flashback Friday, but not today. I'm running late because of the field trip I ran, so I'm going to be a good environmentalist by conserving that resource to use later.
Over the last decade, malls were left for dead, casualties of e-commerce and shifting consumer habits, with the pandemic seemingly sealing their fate. Gen Z, however, is bringing malls back, reviving them as social hubs and retail meccas.
Teens Sick of Their iPhones Are ‘Mallmaxxing’...
The mall is cool again, with stores like Edikted and Princess Polly luring a new generation that is eager to shop in real life and show off hauls online.
Against all odds, the mall is winning over American teens: they’re getting their ears pierced; they’re buying jewelry; they’re trying on outfits that make their parents shudder; they’re even learning to stand in line and hang out IRL.
After all the "Millennials are killing" some institution, cultural activity, food or other product I've been reading since before the pandemic, I shouldn't be surprised that news media and popular culture would discover a contrasting feature about Gen Z to report. Gen Z reversing the trend by saving malls certainly fits.
Since the video mentioned the role of social media in getting today's youth generation to revive malls, I'm sharing the most active links to last year's posts about the Retail Apocalypse on social media. Follow over the jump.
Happy Flashback Friday! Today's retrospective covers the most read entries about the RetailApocalypse during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Before I recap those, I'm sharing two videos about a restaurant chain I should have covered five or six years ago, Boston Market. I begin with the more recent, The Disastrous Downfall Of Boston Market, which Weird History Food uploaded last month.
Before meal kits, DoorDash, and cheap grocery store rotisserie chickens, Boston Market was a real presence. It promised comfort food classics, like Thanksgiving dinner any day of the week, without the cooking, cleanup, or family drama! At its peak, this fast-casual chain was booming, redefining how Americans ate homestyle meals on the go. But almost as quickly as it rose, Boston Market began to collapse.
So what went wrong? On this episode of Weird History Food, we're taking a look at the strange rise and fall of one of America’s most iconic comfort food chains.
Did you ever eat there? What was your favorite dish? Let Us Know in the comments!
Of course private equity played an important role in this story, especially at the end, but it wasn't what started the chain's decline nearly 30 years ago. Too rapid expansion when the company was publicly traded did. Company Man detailed that when he asked The Decline of Boston Market...What Happened?
In 1997, Boston Market was among the fastest growing fast food chains in the country. By 1998 they filed for bankruptcy and have yet to make much of a comeback from it. This video attempts to find reasons behind what happened.
When my wife and I moved to Royal Oak, there was a recently closed Boston Market within walking distance. We would have brought home meals from there if it had been open. Instead, the nearby pizza place and Coney island got our business. Like Company Man Mike, who missed their cinnamon apples, I missed their food and wondered what had happened to the chain. Now that I've watched both Weird History Food's and Company Man's videos, I know.
Follow over the jump for the most read entries about the Retail Apocalypse last year.
Something unexpected and potentially irreversible is changing Antarctica and scientists finally know why.
Over the past few decades, researchers have tracked the mysterious growth and sharp decline in sea ice in Antarctica. But a few years ago a troubling discovery was made that could upend global ocean circulation, push one species of penguin to extinction, and change our planet’s climate forever.
In this episode of Weathered, Maiya May looks into the role sea ice plays in our global climate, and the threat that its disappearance poses to our natural world.
From emperor penguins, to sea level rise, to the slowing of the AMOC, these seemingly inconsequential chunks of floating ice could hold the key to our survival. And their loss could be a sign that we’ve crossed a tipping point in an already delicate region of our planet.
Climate scientists and oceanographers have been so concerned about the AMOCweakening and collapsing because of the Greenland ice sheet melting that we've ignored the threat to the Global Conveyor Belt current from melting in Antarctica. We can't do that anymore, not once the Antarctic sea ice began to shrink the same way that Arctic sea ice had been for decades. At least Antarctic sea ice growing will no longer be a viable climate change denial talking point. Small favors.
Follow over the jump for the most read and active posts about climate change and extreme weather during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
I first wrote "the dessert bananas people eat are threatened by fungus because of the unintended effects of growing monocultures of clones" ten years ago, and I haven't stopped warning my students about it since. It's right up there with bees as a story I tell my students, although I write about bees a lot more here than bananas. The last time was 2021 and the time before that was 2014. The latter was an audition for a video to show my students instead of "The Top Banana" trailer, and it failed. They decided that they liked the more fun teaser for a documentary that never happened than the more informative Seeker video. I didn't even try the Business Insider video. I'm planning on trying again with Bananapocalypse: Why Bananas May Go Extinct by Vice News.
I think I showed the Vice News video once three years ago and it didn't get nearly the reaction that "The Top Banana" regularly gets, so the latter stayed in my lectures on biodiversity as natural capital. I plan on trying one more time with Vox explaining why The banana is under threat.
Bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruits. They’re a staple crop in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the US, the average person eats more than 25 pounds of bananas per year.
The banana found in nearly every lunch bag, smoothie, and cereal is likely a Cavendish banana (a single variety that accounts for 99 percent of global exports), despite there being over 1,000 different species of bananas. This kind of uniformity is what allows the beloved banana to be cheap, durable, and ubiquitous.
It also makes them extremely vulnerable.
A variant of Panama disease, a soil fungus that once wiped out the world’s most commercial banana, the Gros Michel, in the 1950s, is back. And this time, there’s no obvious replacement for it waiting around the corner. So what will it take to save one of the world’s most beloved fruits?
This video explores how monocropping became both a blessing and a curse in the search for the most commercially viable banana, how this assumed ubiquity could lead to the end of the banana as we know it, and what scientists are doing to prevent the extinction of the Cavendish.
Between giving up the Cavendish for other varieties of bananas or accepting genetically modified Cavendish bananas, I'd bet on Americans accepting GMO Cavendish bananas first. We already eat a lot of GMOs in our corn and especially soybeans and have for years.
The rest of the world may not be so accepting and might be persuaded to expand the diversity of the bananas they eat.
This video reminds me of another Vox video I show to my students right after "The Top Banana" trailer, The race to save endangered foods.
Wild animals aren’t the only ones facing extinction.
...
We’re letting foods we’ve eaten for thousands of years disappear from farmers’ fields, and from our plates. Saving them isn’t just a matter of cultural preservation. In the next 30 years, we’re going to need to learn how to feed more people on a hotter planet, and the more genetic varieties we lose, the harder it’ll be to adapt.
To learn more about the foods facing extinction in the US and around the world, check out the Ark of Taste, a project of Slow Food USA.
Journalist Mark Shapiro’s book, Seeds of Resistance, goes into much more detail about the risk that genetic homogeneity poses to our food supply. He also profiles some of the efforts, many led by indigenous communities, to preserve older seed varieties.
For more on seed relabeling, check out the Farmers Business Network’s 2018 Seed Relabeling Report.
The chart on declining global yields for corn, wheat, and rice comes from an article in the academic journal Disasters and Climate Change Economics from agricultural economists Mekbib G. Haile, Tesfamicheal Wossen, Kindie Tesfaye, and Joachim von Braun. Their prediction model takes into account both climate change and price volatility, which is why their estimates are higher than those of some other researchers.
Special thanks to Marie Haga of Global Crop Diversity Trust, and Marleni Ramírez of Bioversity International for sharing their knowledge with me.
The students like this one, too, which I play right after "The Top Banana," but I wonder whether two Vox videos back-to-back will have the same impact.
I've spread the myth about banana flavoring being based on the taste of the Gros Michel before I watched this video. Now I say that banana flavoring is more like the smell of Gros Michel. That made watching this video worth it to learn that fact alone and correct my teaching. As I've written before and hope to write again, any day I learn something new is a good day.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
