Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
One of the world’s foremost educators on Peak Oil, Richard Heinberg, in an exclusive interview for MMNews: “We are currently seeing the end of economic growth as we have known it.” Further on, he talks about the financial / economic crisis, monetary changes vis-à-vis a shrinking energy supply, and the Century of Declines: “Peak Everything.”
This is a case study in which you are invited to answer the question, “What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?”
At a recent Saturday market, Mary Curley sat at her table, displaying at least two dozen varieties of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. At 70, Mary is the oldest of these African American farmers, and has the smallest farm among them, a quarter-acre. A beatific smile lights up her face as she recites the names of her organic offerings, urging customers to sniff and taste each one: Japanese orange, Thai basil, lemon grass, Cuban oregano, pineapple sage, and serrano, habanera, and banana peppers.
-The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household
-Energy trumps the environment, poll finds
-Study: health tends to improve during recessions
– The Pentagon also expects an imminent oil shock
– Peak oil man [Colin Campbell] shifts focus to peak price, demand
– DECC start to ‘get’ peak oil… or maybe not
– Saudi Arabia’s crucial role in the crude price outlook
Economic history compressed into one sentence: "As societies have grown more complex, larger, more far-flung and diverse, the tribe-based gift economy has shrunk in importance, while the trade economy has grown to dominate nearly every aspect of people’s lives, and has expanded in scope to encompass the entire planet." As society dramatically simplifies itself in the wake of fossil fuel depletion, will we revert to some form of gift economy? Or will we catch and steady ourselves on some intermediate rung on the ladder of economic development?
I was very struck by a piece by Steve Randy Waldmann at Interfluidity yesterday, entitled Capital Can’t be Measured. He is basically arguing that modern financial institutions are sufficiently complex that the concept of their “capital” is subject to measurement errors of the same order of magnitude as the capital itself. This rang true to me, and put into words something that had nagged at me in reading about financial reforms, but had not come clearly to the surface of mind.
Most of the participants in this case study reported that wood energy provides a “deeper experience” that enhances quality of life and possibilities for learning. Using wood energy results in a number of personal benefits that offer some insight into requirements for generating wider citizen interest in energy sustainability.
-Is Africa underpopulated?
-Zambia’s farming revolution poster boy
-Africa’s banking laws shut out the poor: Yunus
-Alex Steffen’s Optimistic Environmentalism: The Bright Green City
-Looting Main Street
-Walled In
For all those dismayed by scenes of looting in disaster-struck zones, whether Haiti or Chile or elsewhere, take heart: Good acts – acts of kindness, generosity and cooperation – spread just as easily as bad. And it takes only a handful of individuals to really make a difference.
In Europe and North America, eating fresh perishable produce out of season usually means hauling it in refrigerated containers from regions where it’s in season, or growing it locally in heated greenhouses…Although these greenhouses boast extremely high yields, the amount of fuel needed to heat them generally far exceeds the amount that would be needed to haul an equivalent amount of produce from a region where it’s in season.
