Resilience

Peak oil - May 17

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:50:00 GMT

•Supply shock from North American oil rippling through global markets •The IEA Says Peak Oil Is Dead. That’s Bad News for Climate Policy •Saudis welcome US shale boom •China Seen Boosting Emergency Oil-Storage Capacity, IEA Says •Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict •Avoiding the 'Energy Abyss' •Shell Targeted With BP in EU Price Fixing Probe for Oil

Mundraub.org: Sharing our common fruit

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:16:00 GMT

In a rural area in the former East Germany, late summer 2009: Shimmering heat, the intense odor of fermenting fruits is in the air. A tree covered with hundreds of juicy pears, and a foot-high layer of rotting fruit on the ground. A stone’s throw away – plums, mirabelles, elder bushes and every now and then an apple tree along the path, maybe of an old, rare variety. An abundance of fresh fruit – in normal seasons, much more than needed to feed birds, insects and other animals – forgotten, abandoned, unused.

A Desire Named Streetcar

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:13:00 GMT

Twentysomethings are eschewing their cars in never-before-seen numbers for alternate forms of transit...

'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?

Deep Green Jobs

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:18:00 GMT

America's green jobs movement parades as many green hues as our national parks, ranging from deep green work to pale green employment.

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.

Peak oil notes - May 16

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:58:00 GMT

A mid-week update. While oil prices are little changed this week, there has been considerable news concerning the energy markets. Bad economic reports from Europe, the US, and China have helped keep pressure on the markets and raised fears of lower demand for oil in the months ahead. The worse-than-expected economic news, however, pushed the S and P to a new high Wednesday on the hope that Federal Reserve will continue quantitative easing. The increase in equities helped oil prices to recover from losses earlier in the week. At the close, NY oil was $94.30 a barrel while London had climbed to $103.68 thereby widening the WTI-London spread to $9.38 from Monday’s close of $7.65.

Counting the Calories and calories

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:54:00 GMT

As soon as we step out of our homes in pursuit of food, we cross an energy threshold that is worth considering.

What if there is Peak Oil?

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:16:00 GMT

So here is the dirty little secret of our civilization: It runs...energy per unit time...In other words, having one billion dollars in your checking account does not help you with purchasing a Rolls Royce with cash if your daily withdrawal limit is 100 dollars.

The Corporate Enclosure of Seeds Intensifies

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:09:00 GMT

If you think that a farmer ought to be able to use the seeds from one crop in the next season, you are entertaining illegal ideas.

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.

The Pleasures of Extinction

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:08:00 GMT

The latest apocalyptic fad is near-term human extinction, or NTE for short: the claim that humanity, along with most other life on Earth, will inevitably be extinct by 2030 at the latest.

"What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About The Next American Revolution"

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:07:56 GMT

Gar Alperovitz's keynote speech at "The Summit" at Appalachian State in Boone, NC April 2013.

"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!

Sail Transport for New York City Takes Shape

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:18:00 GMT

The idea for the Harbor and River Vessel Transport Company (HARVEST) came from a discussion I had a few years ago with Christina Sun an artist who blogs about things maritime at Bowsprite, and Will Van Dorp who photographs everything about New York Harbor. Will blogs at Tugster. I shared a presentation I had given on sail freighters at a Working Waterfront Conference in Maine with them, and I believe Christina came up with the acronym. I also became aware of two government-supported Hudson River "foodway" projects and the idea clicked. Learning about Erik's Vermont Sail Freight Project provided the inspiration to develop the "business plan" for HARVEST, and the blog post that has gotten some traction.

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.

Conventional Wisdom About Clean Energy Is Still Way Out of Date

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:36:00 GMT

“We’re fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables,” said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. “It’s not 1990 anymore.”

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?