The EU is requiring improved efficiency from electric appliances, and right-wing media are trying to make a scandal out of it.

A judge rejected release of photos of Mohammed al-Qahtani, because seeing how he was tortured might make people angry at the US.

Wouldn't all criminals love to be able to use that argument.

Five questions North Carolina thugs must answer about the two teenagers they framed for murder.

Tasmania has permitted logging in 1500 square miles of currently protected forests.

They claim that this is justified by "creating jobs", which is standard bullshit for right-wing governments that decide to loot the environment. (The same has been said to argue for the Keystone XL pipeline.) Of course, the same right-wing governments destroy far more jobs through austerity. Take away a lot, give back a little while screwing you, and say you should be grateful.

I do not consider trees sacred. If most of the Earth's wild forests were still here, it would make sense to cut parts of them, just not too much. But we've already come close to wiping out many ecosystems, and now it is time to stop.

As we get closer to catastrophe, the money pressure attacking every protected area or possible resource will grow. The plutocrats who hope to profit will promise trickle-down to some of the masses they have made desperate, so as to get them to support the looting. By the time civilization can no longer support the sort of trade that makes it profitable to cut down forests and ship the wood across the world, we may have wiped out every last bit of forest in the final frenzy.

Mining threatens to poison the Scandinavian Arctic.

40 years later, data vindicate the Limits to Growth study, suggesting that civilization is nearing the start of a collapse into global poverty.