Category: Miscellaneous

Here’s How America Uses Its Land | Bloomberg

Source: Here’s How America Uses Its Land | Bloomberg, by Dave Merrill and Lauren Leatherby

The 1.9 billion acres of the lower 48 U.S. states categorized into pasture, forest, cropland, special use (including wilderness, parks, and military bases), miscellaneous (including rural residential, wetlands, deserts, and golf courses), and urban areas, at 250,000 acres per square.

 

What would this map infographic look like if the U.S. produced its power entirely from renewable energy sources?

The Earth’s carrying capacity for human life is not fixed | Aeon Ideas

Source: The Earth’s carrying capacity for human life is not fixed | Aeon Ideas, by Ted Nordhaus

Ultimately, one need not advocate the imposition of pseudo-scientific limits on human societies to believe that many of us would be better off consuming less. Nor must one posit the collapse of human societies to worry deeply that growing human consumption might have terrible consequences for the rest of creation.

But threats of societal collapse, claims that carrying capacity is fixed, and demands for sweeping restrictions on human aspiration are neither scientific nor just. We are not fruit flies, programmed to reproduce until our population collapses. Nor are we cattle, whose numbers must be managed. To understand the human experience on the planet is to understand that we have remade the planet again and again to serve our needs and our dreams. Today, the aspirations of billions depend upon continuing to do just that. May it be so.

Satellites see big fishing’s footprint on the high seas | The Baltimore Sun

Source: Satellites see big fishing’s footprint on the high seas | The Baltimore Sun, by Seth Borenstein (Associated Press)

Also/Alternative: Satellite images show big fishing’s footprint across the globe, by Seth Borenstein (Associated Press)

Five countries — China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea — were responsible for 85 percent of high seas fishing.