Cement is at the heart of increasing global warming emissions. It's production releases large amounts of CO2 -- both from the chemical process that creates it and the energy consumed in manufacturing. China alone makes 45% of the world's cement, and globally the industry is booming.

That's why two promising new developments related to the production of cement - an ancient and mundane material -- are drawing attention. Reducing CO2 from making cement isn't as sexy as electric cars, but it's the third largest US CO2 producer so there’s an opportunity to make a real contribution.

Being a Futurama fan, I've always wanted to say this but could not find the propitious moment. Writing about water scarcity & food shortages is taxing and angers me at times particularly when I come across disheartening news caused by blatant greed and callous disregard for our planet.

However, a huge dose of human ingenuity, human creativity and human toil will right the wrongs. I have great faith in humanity and this diary is dedicated to the good folks out there bursting their synapses coming up with novel ways of making the world less dependent on fossil fuels, working out solutions to feed the planet and generally trying to make this earth a better place (if you look at the human brain from say, 150,000 years ago, you will not see much difference when compared with today's brains. Yet the drive to learn, as well as our ability to communicate and work collectively, has lifted our human potential to unimaginable levels.)

This is an attempt, by using the Eight Stages of Genocide by Gregory H. Stanton, to show how climate change is a human rights issue in our own backyard.

Since I was having Marvin L. Zimmerman, the author of The Ovum Factor, on my radio show (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/liberalpro you can hear the podcast of the interview there), it meant that I was obliged to peruse the novel that was sent to me by his publicist. The Ovum Factor arrived at my home, and before I got a chance to look through it, my wife picked it up first and wouldn’t let go of it for three days. During that time my dinner was late, I had to do the vacuuming (the dogs are shedding), and I had no real conversation with her as her head was behind the novel. When she finished it, she just looked at me and said “Wow”. That meant only one thing… I had to read it.

Americans aren’t stupid. I have come to the conclusion that we are either in a state of perpetual denial or in a fog of permanent confusion. Whatever the case, we are overlooking some pretty important ideas that contribute to the current environmental crisis.

There was an interesting piece in the Fashion section of the NYTimes this Sunday that is a little weird but it gets into some pretty fun stuff. The piece follows a kid from Brooklyn who is hell bent on becoming an organic farmer. Trucker hats, Carhartts, and Pabst were the fashion but now some are putting the heart behind the fashion and finding the funk in farming.

As an interested observer, it appears that volcanic activity is working it's way around the "Ring of Fire." Seismic activity is also on the rise, and I believe it's safe to speculate that the entire area is adjusting itself to compensate for the recent changes which occurred during Indonesia's great quake and tsunami. No one can predict earthquakes and volcanoes yet, however, we can identify patterns - and it seems to me one is developing.

I recently read a Mallard Fillmore comic strip that bothered me. If you don’t know Mallard Fillmore, he is a conservative duck that makes Rush Limbaugh type outrageous remarks on the comic pages of many newspapers.

As our elected officials sell us further down the river for their own naked greed and interminable stupidity, I have to disconnect, retreat, and reflect on the nature of things or go insane, I think.

In that spirit, I have this to offer today. A current story on the internet about some research into animal intelligence has a lot of both "warm fuzzy" appeal as well as great food for thought regarding how we see ourselves.

Humans habitually consider themselves the smartest critters to ever live, and there is fair reason to think so, but this new research is suggesting that we grossly misunderestimate the intelligence and awareness of our animal brethern. And it is our collective best interest to attempt to understand better.

Part I is about the nature of animal intelligence. Part II is about how human consciousness evolved.

As I read the headline on CNN this morning, I was amazed to see them referring to Yellowstone's ancient (?) Volcano - which is an oversimplification of the facts, if not grossly misleading. Yellowstone IS NOT the location of an "ancient volcano", but the site of one of the world's largest "Super-Volcanoes" which if it ever erupted in our lifetimes, would spell disaster not only for the United States - but could easily be labeled as an extinction level event, and that's far more serious than CNN's article would lead anyone to believe:

There is no doubt that America, and the world, are changing the way things are done. Oil prices approaching $100 a barrel is part of the reason, but the concerns about availability of water and the potential for climate change are also foremost on consumer’s-and Government’s-minds.

The solution has been to “green up” in a thousand ways-everything from compact fluorescent lamps to “toilet bricks” have been offered as solutions; and they are becoming more and more an accepted part of our daily lives-and our future.

With that in mind, I come before you today to offer some ideas that can help “green up” an often overlooked area of Government operations-torture.

The Spanish toy company Imaginarium has stores in Europe, Asia, and South and Central America.  They are now offering a set of renewable energy toys:

Looking toward mankind's relationship with and use of natural resources (whether fossil fuels, water, air, or otherwise), one serious question we all must ask is whether humanity has overshot. Whether

Mankind has exceeded the carrying capacity of its habitat and will have to face some sort of adjustment to go back into balance with it.

Was Malthus right? Are there, simply, limits beyond which we can't go beyond in a sustainable fashion? And, if we've exceeded those limits -- if we've facing Overshoot -- what can we do about it?

(The following entry constitutes the second part of a short three-part series on evolution. Part one can be read here)

Fundamentalists and other denialists of the process of evolution are fond of arguing that it is an invalid science, seeking to undermine it with either theological, ideological or philosophical (non)arguments (three examples among so many here, here and here), or outright non-science, pseudo-science and quackery - like intelligent design or creationism science.