Spring Break Links 2016

It has been a very busy past few months, and my links have suffered. But spring break has provided some lovely, unencumbered time, so here are many, many links (futilely) attempting to catch up with what’s been happening in the world. (In the interest of space, I’ve also passed over some of the more visible recent stories.)

 

Nuclear and Environmental

Paul Krugman, “Republicans’ Climate Change Denial Denial.”

Democracy Now, “Naomi Klein on Paris Summit: Leaders’ Inaction on Climate Crisis Is ‘Violence” Against the Planet.”

Adrienne LaFrance, “The Chilling Regularity of Mass Extinctions.”

Isabelle Stengers, In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism.

Sebastian Anthony, “Scientists Discover an Ocean 400 Miles Beneath Our Feet that Could Fill Our Oceans Three Times Over.”

Kylie Mohr, “Apocalypse Chow: We Tried Televangelist Jim Bakker’s ‘Survival Food.'”

Alex Trembath, “Are You and Upwinger or a Downwinger?”

Eric Bradner, “Newly Released Documents Reveal US Cold War Nuclear Target List.”

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September 2015 Links

These links are coming a day late, but as anticipated, it has been a very busy semester.

 

Nuclear and Environmental

Lizzie Wade, “Earth in 10,000 Years.”

John Metcalfe, “Imagining the Most Catastrophic Climate Future Ever.”

Steven Vogel, “Environmental Ethics in a Postnatural World.”

Chris Mooney, “Why Some Scientists Are Worried About a Surprisingly Cold ‘Blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean.”

Laurence Topham , Alok Jha and Will Franklin, “Building the Bomb.”

Ross Andersen, “Watching Nuclear War From Across the Galaxy.”

And a letter from Governor Jerry Brown.

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February Links

It’s that time of year when I’m busy busy with all sorts of things. Combined with the miserable weather (it got down to -11° Fahrenheit in Pittsburgh last night), some links have been piling up.

 

Environment, Science, International, Disaster

Rebecca Solnit, “The Age of Capitalism Is Over.”

Noam Chomsky, “The World of Our Grandchildren.”

Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants.”

Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, “Climate Hacking Is Barking Mad.”

Sam Kriss, “Manifesto of the Committee to Abolish Outer Space.”

Cari Romm, “How Three People Can Make a Baby.”

Alan Taylor, “What Record-Breaking Snow Really Looks Like.”

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The Trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Adaptation of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and Other Links

Life has been quite busy, so I don’t even have that big of a backlog of links, but there’s been some interesting things afoot and I’m way behind on some of this stuff. So, without further ado. . . .

The trailer to Paul Thomas Anderson’s forthcoming adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (2009) should be required viewing:

 

Logan Hill, “Pynchon’s Cameo, and Other Surrealities: Paul Thomas Anderson Films Inherent Vice.”

And a reflection on the trailer from some of the people at Grantland.

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Many September Links

As predicted, I have been quite busy indeed and have not had a chance to post anything over the past couple of weeks. A bunch of fascinating stuff has been happening, a bunch of interesting books are coming out, etc., so I’m sad that I’ve been remiss in my duties. Hopefully this large batch of links will make up for that.

 

Apocalypse and After

George Dvorsky, “Have Humans Already Conquered the Threat of Extinction?”

Or not. Graham Turner and Cathy Alexander, “Limits to Growth Was Right: New Research Shows We’re Nearing Collapse.”

One of the first reviews of Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.

Jessica Corbett and Ethan Corey, “5 Crucial Lessons for the Left from Naomi Klein’s New Book.”

Eric Holthaus, “New Study Links Polar Vortex to Climate Change.”

Eugene Thacker on Radiolab.

And who knows where to put this one: Alison Flood, “Margaret Atwood’s New Work Will Remain Unseen for a Century.”

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Beginning of the Semester Links, Fall 2014

Tomorrow I return to the classroom at the University of Pittsburgh for another semester. As I imagine that this will also mean I’m about to be considerably busier, and that this will mean a bit less posting on the ole blog (links or otherwise), some links to mark the occasion.

Disaster and Environmental 

Daniel Politi, “Napa Valley Earthquake Is the Strongest to Hit the Bay Area Since 1989.”

Ferguson

Douglas Williams, “Love Me, Ferguson, I’m a Liberal.”

Alexandra Schwartz, “On Being Seen: An Interview with Claudia Rankine from Ferguson.”

Matt Apuzo and Michael S. Schmidt, “In Washington, Second Thoughts on Arming the Police.” Continue reading

More from Ferguson, the Earth Is Doomed in 2880, and Other Links

Nuclear and Environmental

Nick Blackborn, “How to Hide a Nuclear Missile.”

Paul Rogers, “California Drought: 17 Communities Could Run Out of Water in 60 to 120 Days, State Says.”

Seth Borenstein, “Recent Glacial Melt Mostly Caused By Man-Made Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Study Finds.”

Jeff Spross, “Meet the First Pacific Island Town to Relocate Thanks to Climate Change.”

Katie Valentine, “The Longest River in the US Is Being Altered by Climate Change.”

Isobel Markham, “Huge Asteroid Set to Wipe Out Life on Earth — in 2880.” Continue reading

“Literally” Two-Thousand Fourteen Links

Nuclear and Environment

US War Department’s Archival Footage of the Bombing of Hiroshima.

 

H. Bruce Franklin, “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, American Militarism,” a review of Paul Ham‘s Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath.

Mark Strauss, “Federal Employee Gets Fired After Writing an Article Criticizing Nukes.”

Lindsay Abrams, “Researchers: Warming Responsible for Siberia’s Mysterious Hole.”

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Atomurbia and Other Links

Environment

Bill McKibben, “Climate: Will We Lose the Endgame?”

Paul Krugman, “The Big Green Test: Conservatives and Climate Change.”

 

Science

What I’ve been speculating about for years now: physicists are saying consciousness is a state of matter.

The Hubble has seen a star eat another star.

 

Economics

Benjamin Kunkel’s long review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

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