Author: Jack

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Environment

The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene

Hurricane Florence Viewed from the Space Station
Hurricane Florence Viewed from the Space Station

I’m currently reading Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene. In the first couple of chapters, the authors lay down some history of the human interpretation of climate change. I find it mind-blowing that we understood our ability to affect this planet’s climate through our activities, and that we were discussing it, more than 200 years ago. Geologists like Thomas Jenkyn and enlightenment giant, George-Louis Leclerc (better known as the Comte de Buffon) both wrote and gave lectures on the topic.

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Development

Delivering WordPress in 7KB

Over the past six months, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of web sustainability. The carbon footprint of the Internet was not something I used to give much thought to, which is surprising considering my interest in environmental issues and the fact that my profession is web-based.

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Environment

Reason to be cheerful: Denmark gets a new national park today

Today marks the opening of the Kongernes Nordsjælland (Kings of North Zealand) National Park, comprising 5,000sq km of forest and 60sq km of lakes as well as a number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

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Photos

Concentric, eccentric by Felice Varini

I was very happy to finally make it to Carcassonne last week. It has been on my list since reading Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth over a decade ago. As we got our first glimpse of the spectacular citadel, we noticed something a bit odd! Gaudy yellow stripes streaked across the city walls and towers.

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Aside

Every Google search results in CO2 emissions. This real-time data viz shows how much

Read the post on Quartz.

Categories
Opinions

How sustainable is the Internet?

“Please think about the environment before printing this email.” It’s a request many of us are probably familiar with. It seems reasonable, but it also implies that an email, and by association the web, is a green medium. Sadly, this isn’t exactly true. What if I told you that the Internet is the largest coal-fired machine in the world?

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Development

Offline First

I’ve received the link to download my copy of Jeremy Keith’s Going Offline, very much looking forward to getting stuck in!

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Aside

Jeremy Hardy nails it on Syrian airstrikes

Found via Yanis Varoufakis’ blog.

Categories
Opinions

Rolling your own carbon offset scheme

Before going any further here, I want to make it clear that I’m well aware of the shortcomings of carbon offsetting, wonderfully satirised by the folks behind Cheat Neutral. However, carbon offsetting is undeniably better than doing nothing. And as sustainable as you might try to be, it probably isn’t enough. The World Resources Institute have calculated that we should be aiming for a maximum limit of two tons of CO₂ emissions per person, per year. And yet it is calculated that the average EU citizen incurs 9.1 tons of CO₂ emissions. The average US citizen emits about twice as much as this.

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Aside

Alexander Lees on the Lake District and the National Trust

‘[The Laked District is] desolate, and devoid of bird life. I think it is an environmental crime. We need to look at it as a wounded landscape. It has been changed over millennia by lots of different forces, and we are not letting it bounce back to the exciting wildlife-filled area it could be. Sheep moors or grouse-shooting estates are just like eucalyptus and cattle pastures.

‘They are analogous. There has been a huge amount of indoctrination over 100 years, convincing people that this is what landscape looks like.

‘But look at anywhere else in the world, this is a crime against nature. The National Trust has helped to rubber-stamp this vision as to how we should see the countryside.’

– Alexander Lees, Ecologist and Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University

Source: National Trust should be radical, says Hilary McGrady on BBC News