Resilience

'Follow the Money': How Rainforest Action Network Is Beating the Corporate Giants

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:44:00 GMT

We’ve arrived at a dangerous milestone. For the first time in human history, as Amy Goodman reported this week, "the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 400 parts per million."

Don't Trust Your Stone Age Brain: It's Unsustainable

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:37:00 GMT

Humans have evolved to feel a single sense of self, but our emotional brain is encouraging us to pursue perceived self-interest even if it means trashing the planet, leaving our rational brain to try and justify our actions. Why are our intuitions so poor, and how might we engage rational thinking?

Why I haven’t been flying (much)

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:43:00 GMT

Over three decades I have received many requests to travel across Australia and across the world to speak at a conference, teach a course or participate in some worthy event related to permaculture. My reluctance to travel long distances for short stays has meant I have had to turned down many of these invitations. In more recent years the reactions of invitees has moved from incredulity to understanding, and even admiration, as a small but growing list of public figures are choosing not to travel by air to highlight the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Unburnable: Risky Fossil Fuel Investments & Climate Crisis

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:40:00 GMT

Two new reports say climate change could cause the next financial crisis. From London, Bob Ward, LSE lead author of "Unburnable: Carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets." Australia's Climate Institute, John Connor on coal's risky future. Plus Nancy LaPlaca: why sunny Arizona burns coal.

Why I’m marking passing 400 ppm by getting back on an aeroplane

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:47:00 GMT

I refuse to accept that the lurch to 500ppm, 600ppm, 800ppm is an inevitability. I refuse to accept, as Nigel Lawson tried to argue in his debate with the remarkably patient Kevin Anderson on Jeremy Vine’s radio show recently, that doing anything about climate change would impact on economic growth so we shouldn’t bother. I refuse to agree with Peter Lilley that the only way to preserve our economy is to allow unfettered gas fracking anywhere the gas industry decides it wants to drill because “there are simply no affordable renewable technologies available to replace fossil fuels”. I refuse to accept that we can’t do any better than what we have now, and that communities have only a passive role to play in doing something about this with the real work being done by governments and business. I refuse to give up while there’s still a chance.

Lawns Of Purple and Gold

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:50:00 GMT

We burn 800 million gallons of gas mowing lawns, and statisticians say that we spill 17 million gallons every year just refilling our lawn machines. If so, that beats the Exxon Valdez spill of 10 million gallons.

"Apocalyptic Journalism" and Why We Need Reporters to Face the Reality of Our Crumbling Society

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:06:00 GMT

We have no choice but to deal with the collapse of journalism, but we also should recognize the need for a journalism of collapse.

Reexamining Rationing

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:23:00 GMT

Recent interviews with Stan Cox author of Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing and book excerpt.

The NR35 Dead-Hedgers Society

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:46:00 GMT

It just so happened that the five of us who turned up at Richard’s on Wednesday morning in Bungay to learn how to do dead-hedging with Paul were all over 50, and so the ad hoc name we came up with for that morning’s grouping was the NR35 Dead-Hedgers Society - the Over 50s Contingent!

The Economy of Wastefulness: The Biology of the Commons

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:02:00 GMT

There is an all-enclosing commons-economy which has been successful for billions of years: the biosphere. Its ecology is the terrestrial household of energy, matter, beings, relationships and meanings which contains any manmade economy and only allows for it to exist. Sunlight, oxygen, drinking water, climate, soil and energy – the products and processes of this household – also nourish the Homo economicus of our time who, despite all his technological and economical progress, still feeds on products of the biosphere.

Climate change’s ‘evil twin’: Ocean acidification

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:40:00 GMT

A three-year assessment from a team of international scientists will detail how the phenomenon dubbed “climate change’s evil twin” is shaping up to be a global problem. The rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean will have widespread impacts to be felt for “tens of thousands of years” even if we stop emissions now, say the scientists.

Organic No-Till

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:01:00 GMT

Many farmers consider organic no-till the ‘holy grail’ of regenerative agriculture because it combines the best of both worlds: reduced soil disturbance and no chemicals. Its development, however, came about as innovations so often do: by accident.

Governance in the Long Emergency

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:25:00 GMT

It is time to talk about important things. Why have we come so close to the brink of extinction so carelessly and casually?

Water - May 14

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:48:00 GMT

•Water increasingly crucial in energy policies, experts say •Acidification: the latest unknown for stressed Arctic ecosystem •Rivers Carry Away Waste Heat Form Power Plants at a Cost to the Environment •Safe drinking water disappearing fast in Bangladesh •Land O' Lakes: Melting Glaciers Transform Alpine Landscape •Our Earth Hangout: Clean Water for All

South African Anti-Fracking Activist Calls for Global Alliance

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:14:00 GMT

With no prior experience in grassroots organizing, Deal orchestrated a campaign against fracking in South Africa to protect the Karoo, a semi-desert region of the eastern Cape that he had come to know and love.

True Nature: Revising Ideas On What is Pristine and Wild

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:12:00 GMT

New research shows that humans have been transforming the earth and its ecosystems for millenniums — far longer than previously believed. These findings call into question our notions about what is unspoiled nature and what should be preserved.

Moronic Oxymorons in the Age of Climate Change

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:28:00 GMT

At 400 parts per million, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a menacing milestone. We’ve failed to get a handle on our addiction to fossil fuel, and now we’re in desperate need of solutions for preventing runaway climate change. There is no magic pill for curing the climate threat — real solutions involve the difficult work of changing the way we run the economy. It’s time to make a transition to a renewable-energy economy that respects the waste-absorption capabilities of the atmosphere.

The Obama Administration's Natural Gas Policy Is Tragically Misguided

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:19:00 GMT

The Obama administration has come out in support of the idea of exporting U.S. natural gas. This stance is counterproductive and shortsighted, and if followed, it will prove harmful to domestic manufacturing (i.e., value generation) and to future generations of Americans.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes and the risks of activism

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:47:00 GMT

Even if it is hardly a priority, I suspect that a significant minority of my readers have heard about the Notre-Dame-des-Landes question. For those who haven’t, I will summarize it. Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Our Lady of the Moors in English) is a rather unremarkable village in the southern Breton countryside, which happens to have been chosen as the location of a future airport. Locals have predictably been upset about that choice and saying that the project has met with some resistance is the mother of all understatements. Things have turned even more messy when Jean-Marc Ayrault, mayor of nearby Nantes, has been appointed as Prime Minister of France with clashes between protesters and the anti-riot police making the headlines of the national papers.

How Mussel Farming Could Help to Clean Fouled Waters

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:16:00 GMT

Along the shores of New York Harbor, scientists are investigating whether this ubiquitous bivalve can be grown in urban areas as a way of cleansing coastal waters of sewage, fertilizers, and other pollutants.

The hockey stick is real!

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:25:00 GMT

Evidence that you are doing something right in the climate change debate often comes from the denial reaction. Most of the times, messages on climate change are simply ignored but, occasionally, the reaction is strong; sometimes rabid. Then, you must have hit a sensitive point!

How anti-coal campaigners are protecting Australia’s economy

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:32:00 GMT

Irony doesn’t get any better than this. Environmentalists and farmers fighting the expansion of coal mining and coal seam gas across Australia are protecting the economy. If they are successful in slowing down or reversing these sectors in Australia, future governments will be spared an economic mess, Australian workers will have much improved employment prospects and our big banks will be spared major losses.

Natural gas & fracking

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:57:00 GMT

•Fracking is draining water resources, especially in the West •Whatever you think of fracking, this isn't the way forward •Are Methane Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics? •California Fracking Rules Plan Stirs Trade Secrets Fight

VIDEO: The Great Laws of Nature: Indigenous Organic Agriculture Documentary

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:45:53 GMT

Let's reconnect with our relatives in nature... The plant beings. Here's how: A group of First Nations People in Saskatchewan Canada are reclaiming their Indigenous organic and natural agricultural heritage, reconnecting with Nature, learning and observing her natural laws, and getting back on the road to self-reliance.

Tar Sands, Pipelines and the Threat to First Nations

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:13:00 GMT

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, would travel straight through sensitive watersheds, temperate rainforests, and millennia-old communities of First Nations peoples.