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Henry Miller’s “Air Conditioned Nightmare:” Battle Cry Against The Coming Nuclear Order

December 18, 2014 By Dennis Riches 2 Comments

When Henry Miller (1891-1980) returned from France to America in 1939, he was quick to identify air conditioning as both a metaphor and a real cause of a lamentable degradation of life. His first writing upon his return, published as “The Air Conditioned Nightmare” in 1945, was based on his road trip across America in 1939.

Looking at this book from the 21st century, it is surprising to read his tirades against Americans’ submission to technology. We have come to think of the 1930s as an economically depressed time when industry regressed and people were forced back to agrarian self-reliance. The contemporary perception is that the reaction to the excesses of materialism didn’t become apparent until the 1960s when baby boomers rebelled against the affluence and suburban culture of the 1950s.

But in every crisis there is transformation, and Miller was able to notice the changes going on in spite of the Depression. In the same way that iPhones became an embedded item in our economy regardless of the crash of 2008, there were similar changes in the 1930s.

Filed Under: Media & Culture, National News Tagged With: 1987 Montreal protocol, Air Conditioning, Arthur Miller, automobile, Before Air Conditioning, Black Spring, carbon, carbon emissions, Climate change, communism, Corporate America, democracy, Democratic Party, Denmark, economy, energy, fascism, France, Germany, Henry Miller, Hiroshima, history, How Air Conditioning Remade Modern America, Institutional Thinking, Jack Kerouac, Japan, Kentucky, Manhattan, Manhattan Project, materialism, Naomi Klein, New York Times, nuclear, nuclear bomb, nuclear energy, nuclear war, Occupy, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, ozone depletion, Paducah, Republican Party, Salon, Scientific American, smartphones, Southern China, Taiwan, technology, Thailand, The Air Conditioned Nightmare, the American South, The Great Depression, The New Yorker, Thorium, Tokyo, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, uranium, Vietnam, War, World War II, WWII

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Where There’s Oil, You’re Bound To Find A Bush

December 3, 2014 By Kate Lanier 1 Comment

Selections from the world’s energy news including:

Peru: “A lush expanse of Amazon rainforest known as the [Madre de Dios or] “Mother of God” is steadily being destroyed in Peru, as mercury-filled tailing ponds from gold extraction grow. Sounds nightmarish with “tens of thousands of desperate fortune-hunters” operating “improvised mines” 24/7. 125,000 acres of rainforest destroyed by the illegal gold miners already, 30 – 40 tons of mercury dumped into rivers. 

Congo: “Loi Obama” or Obama’s Law requires US companies to ensure they don’t use “‘conflict minerals’—particularly gold, coltan, tin and tungsten … controlled by Congo’s murderous militias.” Disruption ensued as the government began a snail-paced effort to ensure the audits. Result: 11 of 900 mines in South Kivu certified so far. People unable to earn a living, increasingly miserable, thrown into the militias as a result of the well-intentioned Loi Obama.

USA: Did Walmart really pledge “to shift to 100 percent renewable energy … [and] to reduce its climate emissions as quickly as possible” almost 10 years ago? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance says so, but reports that, instead, “Walmart remains as deeply committed as ever to the dirtiest fuels, especially coal.” Only 3% of its US electricity consumption is from renewable energy sources.

Filed Under: Environment, Foreign Affairs, National News Tagged With: Amazon rainforest, American Exploration and Mining Association, Ancient Rome, Anglo American mining, Arizona, Australia, Austria, British Columbia, Brunei, BSG Resources, California, Canada, Canadian Pacific, Chile, China, Climate change, coal, coltan, Congo, Copper, Copper mining, Denton, Denton Taxpayers for a Strong Economy, Don Blankenship, El Salvador, Enderlin, energy, Energy Resources of Australia, first Nations, fracking, freedom of speech, Friends of Public Broadcasting, gas, geoengineering, George P. Bush, gold, Grand Canyon, Guinea, history, hydraulic fracking, indigenous, Indonesia, iron, Israel, Ivanhoe Mines, Kakadu National Park, Kentucky, Lansana Conte, Loi Obama, Los Bronces, Lukoil, Malaysia, Massey Mines, mercury, mining, Minnesota, Mirarr, National Mining Association, National Public Radio, North Dakota, nuclear, nuclear energy, Ohio, oil, oil trains, OPEC, Pacific Rim mining, palladium, Peru, Philippines, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, platinum, pollution, PolyMet, Pritchard Mining Company, rhodium, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, South Africa, South China Sea, Taiwan, tarsands, Texas, Texas Land General Office, The Associated Press, The Charleston Gazette, The Wall Street Journal, tin, tungsten, University of Minnesota, uranium mining, US Dept of Transportation, Vancouver, Vietnam, Walmart, West Virginia, wind power

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