Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Although one yearns for global warming to indeed not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (or less, as African countries demand), the take-home message from the Copenhagen COP meeting is that polluters and growth mongers, large and small, will not let up.
-Copenhagen: a look back at the most striking narratives
-If you want to know who’s to blame for Copenhagen, look to the US Senate
-There is a way ahead after Copenhagen
-Copenhagen: Things Fall Apart and an Uncertain Future Looms
-All over the map: Rounding up editorial reax to Copenhagen
-No One Is Going To Save You Fools
-Copenhagen – Historic failure that will live in infamy
-Terminator 2009
-A Climate Con: Analysis of the Copenhagen “Accord”
Former truck driver Bill Wilson tells an insightful story about the energy packed in a gallon of gas — which we won’t always have in cheap abundance. Now a permaculture educator, he sees permaculture as a viable, realistic way to use nature to provide the abundance we really need — harvesting sunlight, food, wind, water and more. Can you guess what the magic stuff is that we all can’t live without? (No, it’s not oil.)
This afternoon I sit near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, reveling in the brilliant sunshine which pierces the dry, nippy air, knowing that in less than three hours, it will be dark. I count the hours until the shortest day and the longest night of the year signal that magnificent turning point of light and time when the days slowly become longer and the nights shorter.
By now, you’ve likely heard conflicting reports on what was or was not accomplished in Copenhagen these past two weeks. Whatever you’ve been told, I can tell you with conviction you need only know this: The U.N. convention on climate change in Copenhagen resulted in zero meaningful progress on global emissions reductions. Feel free to read the spin, but please, don’t get caught up in its spokes.
A few years ago, when the Local Agenda-21 group for Copenhagen (Agenda 21 was the name of the sustainable development plan the UN launched at the Earth Summit in Rio) started to look at what kind of changes might be needed to place the city on a more sustainable path through the challenges of the coming century, they requested a guided tour of Christiania.
As many have now written, the Cop15 conference, which is focussed on creating a treaty that will prevent our climate from undergoing a systems state change and re-establishing itself in a new stable state that much less conductive to human survival, seems certain to fall far short of what is needed or fail completely.
The economic troubles and energy concerns of the present invite comparison with the 1970s, the last time industrial civilization had to deal with the limits to growth. The abandonment of the initiatives of those years offers a troubling cautionary tale for the present, in this second part of a three-part series.
-Unplugging from the world’s power lines
-How Effective Are Renewables, Really?
-Bringing Hope to Copenhagen With a Novel Investment Idea
-Fairness, Personal Action and Al Gore’s House
-Do Panels Dispense Advice or Rationales?
-Unschooling & Unworking: Confessions of a stay-at-home family (Part 2)
-COP15: Climate ‘scepticism’ and questions about sex
-Can Obama Stop America’s Gas-Guzzling Ways?
Right now, on two different fronts, political progressives face a horrible choice: Accept a severely compromised political agreement or stick to their guns and run the risk of getting nothing. Sure, this is a recurring question for activists and advocates of all stripes but—unlike the so-called “death tax”—in these two cases the question really is a matter of life or death.
Kris Holstrom’s off-grid permaculture farm at 9000 feet high is living proof that food can be grown nearly anywhere. Managing with a very short growing season and water constraints, she and her interns have created magic. Tour the sun-warmed, insulated greenhouse where greens are grown year-round.
