Faced with climate change on the one hand and the material demands of new energy infrastructure on the other, humanity had better figure out how to reuse the resources it has already dug up. Illustration by Laura Edelbacher

Not to rain on the parade of the candy and costumes fun of October 31, but to heighten the mood of the day with some sobering truths facing all of us, our thanks as always to Elizabeth Kolbert for getting our attention pointed where it needs to go:

The Real Cost of Plundering the Planet’s Resources

Our accelerating rates of extraction come with immense ecological and social consequences.

The town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, doesn’t have a lot to say for itself. Its Web site, which features a photo of a flowering tree next to a rusty bridge, notes that the town is “conveniently located between Asheville and Boone.” According to the latest census data, it has 2,332 residents and a population density of 498.1 per square mile. A recent story in the local newspaper concerned the closing of the Hardee’s on Highway 19E; this followed an incident, back in May, when a fourteen-year-old boy who’d eaten a biscuit at the restaurant began to hallucinate and had to be taken to the hospital. Without Spruce Pine, though, the global economy might well unravel. Continue reading →