Links with Info to Save The Planet

Please consider bookmarking this page to use for your own research and return to it from time to time for fresh content.

Part I

A few suggestions:

As I have stated previously on this website, the environmental crisis is just not showing up on our radar screen. Sure we see reporting on the various crises, here and there. But consider this. Even the very prestigious New York Times, on the one hand, yes, they do report on the seriousness of the climate crisis, but simultaneously, while they’re doing that, they’ll run full page ads trying to get you to book flights with them, for excursions to places all around the world. So on the one hand, they’re saying “Oh my God, the glaciers are melting at an extraordinary rate!” But then on the other hand, they’re also saying, “Come book a flight with us and we’ll take you there and show you the glaciers melting. You can take a selfie. Just you, and the melting glaciers.” This is absolutely insane. Real solutions just aren’t being discussed.

So I strongly encourage you to do your own independent research. Arm yourself with the best information. It’s not easy. I know. But here are some suggestions:

1. Besides Google, there’s also Google Scholar and Google ‘Advanced Search.’ Near the top of that ‘Advanced Search’ page, there are four fields in which to plug in words or phrases. Here is one example of how you might customize a search:

All: biodiversity pollution waste anthropocentric

Exact phrase: “paradigm shift” “carrying capacity” “saving the planet” “deep ecology”

At least one: global (warming) ozone (depletion) acid rain, sustainability self-sufficiency ecocentric

Without: God (or you can leave this field blank)

In using this search feature, you can add to, delete, or rearrange these, in any number of ways.

Here are some examples of words and phrases you might wish to include:

Anthropogenic climate change, global warming, rising sea level, intensifying storms, ocean acidification, overpopulation, overfishing, overgrazing, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, waste accumulation, landfills, illegal dumping, toxic waste, hazardous waste, chemical pollution, pesticides, pesticide runoff effects, groundwater contamination, groundwater depletion, saltwater intrusion, anthropogenic subsidence, acid rain, dephosphorization of lakes, nitrogen loading, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, loss of keystone species, food web disruptions, change in timing of seasonal life cycle events, range shifts, buffer and thresher effects, eutrophication, agricultural runoff, raw sewage discharge, coal burning power plants, the Haber-Bosch process, fracking, mountaintop removal mining, deep sea drilling, deep sea bottom trawling, deep sea mining, negative feedback effects, tipping points, collapse, Seneca effect, overshoot, trajectory, forest dieback, ghost forest, slowing or shutting down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, West Antarctic ice sheet disintegration, Amazon rainforest dieback, West African monsoon shift, thawing permafrost and methane hydrates, coral reef die-offs and coral bleaching, Indian monsoon shift, Greenland ice sheet disintegration, loss of permafrost, ocean gyre disruption, Boreal forest dieback, the Wilkes Basin (East Antarctica) ice sheet disintegration, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, transgenic engineering, biological weapons research, nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear waste storage and disposal, nuclear waste accumulation, Hubbert’s peak, problems with dams, soil degradation and retrogression, soil erosion, monoculture planting, habitat loss, habitat degradation, environmental degradation, invasive species, bioinvasion, the problem of the commons, climate migration, mass migration, carrying capacity, water scarcity, longtermism, precautionary principle, conservation, rewilding, Half-Earth Project, zero waste, “leave it in the ground,” degrowth, post-growth, “Simple living” (see Wikipedia article), change agents, eco-socialism, carbon tax, solar and wind power, redefining progress, real solutions, forest bathing (shinrin-yoku), the wilderness effect, the “overview effect,” biophilia, deep ecology, deep versus shallow environmentalism, lazy environmentalism, conspicuous conservation, conspicuous consumption, throw-away society, planned obsolescence, ecological footprint, affluence, obsessive focus on perpetual economic growth, surveillance capitalism, consumerism, hyper-consumerism, econogenic harm, urban sprawl, rampant overdevelopment, Belt and Road Initiative, BRICS, techno-optimism, wishful thinking, magical thinking, confirmation bias, belief perseverance (the backfire effect), denialism, cognitive dissonance, tribalism, culture wars, nativist panic, populism, political gridlock, paradigm paralysis, cronyism, nepotism, gerrymandering, “nature deficit disorder,” greenwashing, dark money, pronatalism, Anthropocene boosters, neo-greens, geoengineering, “future shock,” space tourism, mining the moon, transhumanism, “hurry sickness,” information overload, Amusing Ourselves to Death, wet-bulb effect, Giddens’ paradox, “Be fruitful and multiply (…) fill the earth and subdue it (…) have dominion over (…) every living thing that moves on the earth,” dominionism, speciesism, charismatic species, evolutionary psychology, cognitive neuroscience, soundscape ecology, technosphere, biosphere, Anthropocene, ozone depletion, ecocide, investigative journalism, green philanthropy, innovative philanthropy, eco-philanthropy, eco-philosophy, ecoethics, eco-psychology, eco-anxiety, secular, gadfly, real solutions,

Glenn A. Albrecht, a retired Professor of Sustainability and author of Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World, has coined numerous words, some of which I will include here. Albrecht is perhaps best known for the neologism solastalgia, which he defines as “the lived experience of negative environmental change. It is the homesickness you have when you are still at home.” Some other words he’s coined include: eutierria, sumbiocracy, Symbiocene, tierraphilia, tierratrauma, psychoterratic, soliphilia, topaversion, mermosity, meteoranxiety, terrafuric, tierracide and sumbiophilia. Albrecht maintains an active blog on his website. You can find it here: Psychoterratica.

2. Here is another suggestion. Using the Google search box, type in: rain forests, disappearing acres per. And see what you get. Since different estimates might use different terms — hectares instead of acres, for instance, or square miles instead of acres, “per (minute, hour, day, year)” — you can try varying your search terms accordingly.

3. Also, here is another suggestion. Though probably not as useful for finding the best quality information, this might be a good way to illustrate how oblivious we are to the environmental holocaust that’s unfolding. In the Google search box, type in “the biggest problem in the world is” (with the quotation marks). When I did this myself — this was some time prior to 2014 — I jotted down the first 16 items that came up; and only three (the 2nd, 14th and 15th), touched upon environmentalism in any way. The first item that came up was “(Bill) Gates abysmal poverty,” number five was “racism,” twelve was “intolerance,” thirteen was “hunger,” sixteen was “poor communication, both in conveying ideas and in the understanding part.” The fifteenth, stated that the biggest problem in the world “is air and water pollution that is also caused by rapidly developing technology.”

Alternatively, for example, you could search for “the three biggest problems in the world,” or ten.

You can also fine-tune these “biggest problem in the world” searches. For example, using the “advanced search” feature, you can use the “Without” field to filter out certain terms.

In many ways, the internet continues to change and evolve. But I haven’t been able to keep up with all of these changes. So there may be other ways to tailor your searches that I’m unfamiliar with. For example, information in certain venues, might not be searchable using Google.

Once I have sufficient capital to move forward, everything will change — and I will be able to hire people to assist me with this type of work (using the internet as a valuable search/research tool).

But if you are a wealthy philanthropist, you don’t have to wait, you can start right now, and immediately benefit from taking the time to do searches such as the ones I have described above. I think you might find it enlightening. Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

I would also recommend reading Paul Kingsnorth’s “Rise of the Neo-Greens” — which is the first chapter in Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth (edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist and Tom Butler). This book was published in 2014.

Part II

Here is something else worth including. (This is new. This wasn’t on my original Links page.)

Sandy Irvine, a political activist based in the UK, has put together an in-depth suggested reading list, which he posted online. Here’s the link: “The Deeply Green reading guide.” One of my pet peeves is when I see something posted online without a date. That is the case here. So I don’t know what year this was written. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to include the link, and some of the information contained therein, because this pertains to the ecological crises we’re up against, and the dispiriting trajectory we’re on. Below, I have listed Irvine’s “Top Twenty” books. This is without the full scope and context Irvine provides. Irvine mentions many other books besides these. I encourage you to click on the link above and read what Irvine has written.

By the way, I’ve listened to an abridged, recorded version of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (one of the books listed below), but truthfully, I found that experience excruciating — I had to force myself to soldier on just to complete it. In fairness to Leopold, that abridged version left out the meat of the book — the part where he shares his thoughts concerning “thinking like a mountain.” I’ve since learned there are at least two recorded versions. The other might be unabridged.

Here are Sandy Irvine’s Top Twenty:

State of the World, Lester Brown, et. al. (there is an annual edition)
It’s Matter of Survival, Anita Gordon, David Suzuki (1991)
A Green History of the World, Clive Ponting (1991)
Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1996)
Elephants in the Volkswagen: Facing the Tough Questions About Our Overcrowded Country, Lindsey Grant (1992)
Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy or Tyrant?, edited by John Zerzan Alice Carnes (1988)
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman (1985)
Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, edited by George Sessions (1995)
A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River, Aldo Leopold (Oxford Press,1987 edition)
Naked Emperors: Essays of a Taboo-Stalker, Garrett Hardin (1982)
Blueprint for Survival, Edward Goldsmith (1972)
Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited: The Unraveling of the American Dream, William Ophuls (1992)
Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run, David Brower (1996)
Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices, Saral Sarkar (1999)
Steady-State Economics, Herman E. Daly (1997)
The Conserver Society: Alternatives for Sustainability, Ted Trainer (1995)
Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World, David Orr, et. al. (1992)
Green Architecture: Design for a Sustainable Future, Brenda and Robert Vale (1991)
Ecoforestry: The Art and Science of Sustainable Forest Use, edited by Alan Drengson and Duncan Taylor (1997)
Cascadia Wild: Protecting an International Ecosystem, edited by Mitch Friedman and Paul Lindholdt (1993)

Perhaps some day I’ll have the time to enhance this list. All of the books appearing on Irvine’s ‘book guide’ were initially published prior to 2000. I would like to include more recent books.

Also, for your perusal, I’ve added, below, most of the other books mentioned in Sandy Irvine’s ‘Book Guide.’ I’ve included them here in the same order in which they appear. Refer to that page for context (it places each of these within the framework of a particular category). Again, I encourage you to click on the link and read what Irvine has written. There are typos and grammatical errors that I hope will someday be smoothed over, but factually — and that’s what counts — this is good information. I’ve also fact-checked each one of these and made any necessary changes concerning correcting spellings of authors names and such. I’ve also, in most instances, added these books’ subtitles. Here they are:

Beyond the Limits, Donella & Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers (1992);
The Cassandra Conference, edited by Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren (1987);
The Age of Insecurity, Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson (1998);
The Case Against the Global Economy: and for a Turn Toward the Local, edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (1996);
Economic Horror, Viviane Forrester (1999);
False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, John Gray (1999);
The Cost of Living, Arundhati Roy (1999);
Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement, Andrew Rowell (1996);
Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, Sharon Beder (1997);
Downsize This!, Michael Moore (1996);
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century, John R. McNeill (2000);
The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi (Octagon, 1980) — originally published 1944, Farrar & Rinehart;
Nature’s Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth, Peter Marshall — this book’s original subtitle, under Simon & Schuster (1992), was: An Exploration of Ecological Thinking;
Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication, John Livingston (1994);
Living in the Environment, G. Tyler Miller (new editions appear regularly);
Ecology and Our Endangered Life-Support Systems, Eugene Odum (1989);
The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson (1992);
A Primer for Environmental Literacy, Frank B. Golley (1998);
The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter, Fritjof Capra (Flamingo, 1997);
The Population Explosion, Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1990);
World War III: Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium, Michael Tobias (Continuum, 1998);
Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families, Bill McKibben (1998);
The Technological Bluff, Jacques Ellul (1990);
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman (1993);
In the Absence of the Sacred, Jerry Mander (1992);
Overskill: The Decline of Technology in Modern Civilization, Eugene S. Schwartz (1971);
Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture, edited by K. Washington and J. Thornton (1996);
The Culture of Complaint, Robert Hughes (1993);
The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett (1998);
The Westernization of the World: Significance, Scope and Limits of the Drive Towards Global Uniformity, Serge Latouche (1996 English translation, originally published in France, 1989);
The McDonaldization of Society, George Ritzer (1996);
Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World, Carl Hiaasen (1998);
Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape, John Miller (1997);
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Naomi Klein (2000);
Commodify Your Dissent, edited by Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (1997);
Deep Ecology: Living As If Nature Mattered, Bill Devall and George Sessions 1985);
Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Arne Naess (translated and edited by David Rothenberg);
The Arrogance of Humanism, David Ehrenfeld (1978);
Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Post-Industrial Society, Theodore Roszak (1972);
The Death of Industrial Civilization, Joel Jay Kassiola (1990);
Intellectual Impostures, Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont (1997);
The Way: An Ecological World-View, Edward Goldsmith (1992);
The Great U-Turn: Deindustrializing Society, Edward Goldsmith (1988);
Home Place, Stan Rowe (1990);
Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology, Andrew McLaughlin (1993);
For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings (of Aldo Leopold), edited by J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle (1999);
The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries, edited by Curt Meine and Richard L. Knight (1999);
Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics and Population Taboos, Garrett Hardin (1993);
Requiem for Modern Politics: The Tragedy of the Enlightenment and the Challenge of the New Millenium, William Ophuls (1997);
Biosphere Politics: A Cultural Odyssey from the Middle Ages to the New Age, Jeremy Rifkin (1992);
Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, Christopher Lasch (1980);
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, Christopher Lasch (1994);
The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics, Christopher Lasch (1991);
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, Edward Abbey (1968);
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Wendell Berry (1977);
Gary Snyder: Dimensions of a Life, edited by Jon Halper (1991);
The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971),
The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet, Richard Douthwaite (1990);
Human Scale, Kirkpatrick Sale 1980);
Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel (1996),
Sharing the World: Sustainable Living and Global Equity in the 21st Century, Michael Carley and Phillipe Spapens (1998);
Turtle Talk: Voices for a Sustainable Future, Christopher and Judith Plant (1980);
Putting Power in its Place: Create Community Control!, Judith and Christopher Plant (1991);
Futures By Design: The Practice of Ecological Planning, edited by Doug Aberley (1994);
Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies: The Potential for EcoNeighbourhoods, edited by Hugh Barton (1999);
Simple in Means, Rich in Ends: Practicing Deep Ecology, Bill Devall (1988);
Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, Helena Norberg-Hodge (1991);
Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, David W. Orr (1994);
Critical Essays on Education, Modernity, and the Recovery of the Ecological Imperative, Chet A Bowers (1993);
Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability, Chet A. Bowers (2000);
Reshaping the Built Environment: Ecology, Ethics, and Economics, edited by Charles J. Kibert (1999);
Earth to Spirit: In Search of Natural Architecture, David Pearson (1994);
Living Spaces: Ecological Building and Design, Loren Abraham and Thomas Fisher edited this book originally published in Germany by Thomas Schmitz-Gunther (1999, English edition);
Simply Build Green: Technical Guide to the Ecological Houses at the Findhorn Foundation, John L. Talbott (1993);
Resettling America: Energy, Ecology and Community, edited by Gary J. Coates (1981);
Design With Nature, Ian L. McHarg (1969);
Forestopia: A Practical Guide to the New Forest Economy, Michael M’Gonigle and Ben Parfitt (1994);
Forest Farming: Towards a Solution to Problems of World Hunger and Conservation, J. Sholto and Robert A. de J. Hart (1978);
New Roots for Agriculture, Wes Jackson (1980);
Helping Nature Heal, edited by Richard Nilsen (1991);
In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land, Stephanie Mills (1995);
Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity, Reed F. Noss and Allen Cooperrider (1994).

In most cases, I’ve noted the original year of publication. Much newer editions are often available. Human Scale, for example, was published in 1980. But thirty-seven years later, Human Scale Revisited, made its debut in bookstores. It’s an entirely new book. By the same author. Just something to keep in mind. Also, since some of these I’m not at all familiar with, don’t deem my mentioning of them as necessarily a stamp of approval on my part. Concerning one of these in particular, I had to wrestle with the decision of whether or not to include it. As soon as I saw the author’s name, I thought “Hey, wait a minute! That’s the author of that book Jill Sobule references (in an unfavorable light) in her song ‘Letting Go of God.’ ” Nevertheless, I decided to include it, since I’ve not personally read it and don’t know enough about it.

Some of the other authors Irvine mentions in a favorable light, include: Clarence James Glacken, Roderick Frazier Nash, Max Oelschlaeger, Alfred W. Crosby, Jared Mason Diamond, Stanlely Diamond, J. Donald Hughes, Marshall Sahlins, Donald Worster, Farley McGill Mowat, Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, William Vogt, Paul Bigelow Sears, Frank Fraser Darling, Rachel Carson, Lewis Mumford, Ezra J. Mishan, Victor Papanek, John and Nancy Todd, David Wann, Sim Van Der Ryn and Bill Mollison.

There’s also a section near the end, subtitled “Rogue’s Gallery,” in which Irvine states “Fairness demands mention of the other side.” By “the other side,” he gets more specific: “The ranks of corporate apologists, economic boomsters, snake oil sellers, technofreaks and cornucopean fantasists are numerous but past and present prominent figures include” and then he goes on to name names, which include Julian Simons, Matt Ridley, Dixie Lee Ray, and Rush Limbaugh. Some of the people Irvine mentions in this “Rogue’s Gallery,” I’m not at all familiar with. Perhaps that’s because a wall of water, some 3,000 miles thick, separates our two countries.

I agree it’s important to know thy enemy, and to hear opposing views. But truthfully, I’m probably more familiar with “the other side” than I care to admit. Growing up, my father frequently had Bob Grant tuned in on the radio. (I personally couldn’t stand listening to that show.) And all throughout my years as a security officer, I’ve had ample opportunity to hear many shows and many hosts. Ironically, while I live in a region of the U.S. that’s considered quite “liberal” (politically speaking), you wouldn’t think that to be the case, based on what you hear surfing the radio dial. These airwaves have long been dominated by conservative radio hosts. Even Air America couldn’t last six full years. So I am indeed quite familiar with how “the other side” thinks. Even if it never ceases to amaze me. To Irvine’s list, I would also add Fox News, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. There are many other names I can also mention, but fairness to posterity perhaps demands that I not.

Incidentally, Sandy Irvine also has a website on which he maintains an active blog. You can find it here: Sandy Irvine’s green blog.

Part III

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any websites out there devoted to ‘saving the planet’ (for lack of a better way to phrase it) — that I am adequately familiar with — that I can enthusiastically give a big thumbs up to. Even my own website — the website you are now on — doesn’t really meet my high standards. It’s just a shadow of what it could be — if I had sufficient funding.

Usually, what I tend to notice is vitally important information is too sparse or too scattered about, and too many vitally important things which should have been included are left out. Other things I take into account are: how long have they been around, how much funding have they taken in, and what have they actually accomplished? And do they have a plan of action? One that is all-inclusive and that might actually work, if enacted? These are some of the key things I look for.

Perhaps another reason I’m reluctant to include other environmentally-themed websites here is because people might construe that as an endorsement — and therefor, if that person or group believes “x,” it might then be assumed that I hold that view as well. But I might hold a different view. Isn’t that why you so often see disassociation statements in Twitter profiles (e.g., “RTs aren’t endorsements”)? Those disassociations have become so widely ubiquitous that I once noticed someone simply wrote “The usual disclaimer,” and didn’t need to elaborate any further.

Particularly where ‘saving the planet’ is concerned, this is no minor detail. There is so much wrong thinking of every stripe and every variety out there already, I don’t want to risk adding to or contributing to that in any way whatsoever. To give an example, I like a lot of the things George Monbiot has said and done, but I also disagree with him on some things and some of those disagreements aren’t minor.

If I had funding, I wouldn’t be as concerned about stuff like that. Because I would be expressing my views and sharing my ideas on a consistent enough basis that people would see where I stand on all the relevant issues. But as things stand now, there’s only one day per week, where I’m not either coming from work or going to work — and that leaves me with virtually no free time at all.

Anyhow, in the meantime, here are some other links worth sharing:

www.cia.gov Here the US Central Intelligence Agency gives a country by country listing of what it regards as each nation’s “most pressing and important environmental problems.”
www.theguardian.com/us Perhaps my favorite news source.
www.theguardian.com/books/series/big-idea The Guardian publishes a new “The Big Idea” piece usually once a week. They describe it as “Writers and thinkers tackle the burning questions of our times.” This always includes a “Further reading” section at the end.
www.ecoideaman.com/bookmark-this-page This page of my website includes, among other things, links to a wide variety of different podcasts.
www.meetup.com As Wikipedia states, this is a popular “platform for hosting and organizing in-person and virtual activities, gatherings, and events for people and communities of similar interests, hobbies, and professions.”
www.archive.org/web This “Wayback Machine” (as it’s called) is very useful. It’s a way of seeing how a website looked in the past, even if it no longer exists. (See example immediately below.) You can use this to view previous versions of my website. The Afterword page, for example, has been considerably streamlined.
www.kimberleycalling.org This website appears to be now defunct. But through the magic of the “Wayback Machine” (mentioned above) you can find this and hear a beautiful 5 minute song — “Kimberley Calling” — that once played on it. Was this land lost to development? Or did they manage to save it? I don’t know.
www.alternativeradio.org Perhaps someday a philanthropist will buy the rights to Helen Caldicott’s “Saving the Planet” speech outright and allow anyone to listen to it free of charge. But in the meantime, you can purchase it here. In the “SELECT AN ARCHIVED PROGRAM” drop down box, scroll down to “Saving the Planet,” for CD, transcript or MP3 purchase information.
www.the-brights.com Rarely will you find a neologism as simple as this. One syllable. Virtually impossible to mispronounce. A “bright” is someone whose worldview is naturalistic.
www.ffrf.org The website of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
thebricktestament.com/home.html An alternative way to read the Bible. (See also thebrickbible.com)
ItGetsBetter.Org Sex columnist Dan Savage stated in a column after the suicide of Billy Lucas, a gay Indiana teenager: “I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes … I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.” That’s the basic idea behind the creation of It Gets Better. “When things like that happen,” Alex Eichler wrote in an article published in The Atlantic, “it’s at least partially because we’re failing to help bring about a world that ‘all of us have the responsibility to create.’ ” I would argue that’s also the case concerning ‘saving the planet’ — when bad things happen, it’s because we’ve abdicated our responsibility to protect the planet.
suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html Throughout the world, according to the World Health Organization, over 800,000 people commit suicide every year. That’s more people than you will see, hear or meet throughout an entire year (not just in person, but on film, television, radio, over the phone, through photos in newspapers or magazines, etc.), combined.
www.worldometers.info Very interesting.
www.4hiroshimas.com Global Warming at 4 Hiroshima Atomic Bombs Per Second.
www.4imn.com (World Newspapers Web Rankings & Reviews / News search engine and directory of world newspapers.) According to this website, rankings “are based upon an algorithm including three unbiased and independent web metrics extracted from three different search engines,” including “Google Page Rank” and “Alexa Traffic Rank.” Scroll down and click on “Top 100 Newspapers in North America” for a hyperlinked list. Or click on the continents on their world map to find lists of newspapers for those continents
www.hymne-national.com/en/motto-list Here are the lyrics to all the world’s national anthems, along with (on this page) every nation’s motto.
www.refdesk.com Lots of links! (For example, under the yellow highlighted “NEWS SOURCES” you have the “Top 10 U.S. Newspapers.”)
www.drudgereport.com A news aggregator. Matt’s father, Bob Drudge, created Refdesk.com (above), in 1995.
www.ttsreader.com Use this to copy, paste & play text (articles, blog posts, whatever) as speech. Nothing to download or install. It’s easy. But I do recommend using a faster speech setting.
www.colinmcginn.net Colin McGinn is a top-notch philosopher and maintains an interesting blog. I learned of McGinn years ago while googling “anti-theist” — a term I sometimes used to describe myself. I was happy to discover I was in such good company. This search led me to YouTube videos related to The Atheist Tapes, a 2004 BBC television documentary series presented by Jonathan Miller. Miller interviews five atheists (including McGinn) and one theologian on the subject of atheism.
www.harleysfoodart.com/foodartwork I learned of Harley Langberg years ago. There was an article in Newsday (a local newspaper) about him, which including stunning examples of his work.
www.quoteinvestigator.com “Garson O’Toole has a doctorate from Yale University,” this website states, “and exploring quotations is one of his avocations.” (Note: over the years I’ve sent queries but have never received back a response. So it’s possible O’Toole no longer maintains this site.)
www.sciencenews.org I’m not too familiar with the website, but I’ve been receiving the magazine for many years.
www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes According to Wikipedia, 60 Minutes (which debuted in 1968) pioneered many investigative journalism techniques; and The New York Times has called the show “one of the most esteemed news magazines on American television.”
www.flightradar24.com Flight tracking in real-time. This is just insane. (Global warming. Hello?)
web.randi.org/home/jref-status Though their “Million Dollar Challenge” (“to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence, of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event”) has since been terminated, I’m leaving this link up, since I so loved the idea. Unfortunately, they were getting crushed by a veritable avalanche of false claims. I find it astonishing — and frightening — how many people have such beliefs (just listen to George Noory’s syndicated radio talk show Coast to Coast on occasion and you’ll see what I mean). Note: while they no longer accept applications for the challenge “from the general public,” their website states that certain individuals may still contact them by email “to be tested directly (preferably with an independent, third party TV crew).”

Note: From time to time, I receive email requests to include a link on this page to organization ‘x’, ‘y’ or ‘z’. Please be advised that going forward I don’t plan to add anything additional to this page which doesn’t directly pertain to saving the planet. Thank you for your understanding.