Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Developing a sustainable agriculture is a necessary part of creating a sustainable society. The root of the word sustainable is the verb, to sustain, which means to nourish and prolong. In social and environmental contexts we say something is sustainable when we believe it can persist indefinitely without exhausting resources or causing lasting damage.
In July 2009, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband unveiled the government’s UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, a bold and powerful statement of intent for a low-carbon economy in the UK…There is, though, a key flaw in the document, which also appears in much of the wider societal thinking about climate change. This flaw is the attempt to address the issue of climate change without also addressing a second, equally important issue: that of resilience.
-Conservationists rip water policy, quit state panel
-Finding Water from Outer Space
-Melting Himalayan ice prompts conflict fear
-How Can Bright Green Cities Thrive Without Capital?
-A Blueprint for Restoring the World’s Oceans to Health
-Nudging Recycling From Less Waste to None
-The Second Wave of Mining
Social critics have pointed out with some justice that today’s industrial states are troubled, corrupt, and dysfunctional. It’s too often remembered, though, that as the pressures of resource depletion come to bear, what replaces them need not be an improvement.
Yesterday was World Food Day, and the media dutifully paid a tiny bit of attention to the 1 billion plus people who suffer from chronic hunger. All the usual problems were trotted out, including multiple quotations in many media from the Australian National Science Director Megan Clark’s observation that to feed a growing population, we will have to produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in all of human history.
-The ecocidal moment
-“All will be done again as it was in far-off times”
-(Re)Imperializing Anthropology and Decolonizing Knowledge Production
-Do Increased Energy Costs Offer Opportunities for a New Agriculture?
…A technic society, by contrast, relies primarily on nonfood energy. Modern industrial civilization is simply a form of technic society that gets its nonfood energy from fossil fuels and maximizes production of goods and services in the usual R-selected way at the cost of vast inefficiency. At the other end of the spectrum is the climax community, the ecotechnic society, which gets its nonfood energy from renewable sources and maximizes the efficiency of its energy and resource use in the usual K-selected way at the cost of more restricted access to goods and services.
I mourn because the solution is right in front of us, yet we run from it. We fail to recognize our salvation for what it is, believing it to be dystopia instead of utopia. Are we waiting for the last human on the planet to start the crusade?
-Pulling CO2 from the Air: Promising Idea, Big Price Tag
-U.S. headed for massive decline in carbon emissions
-Catch Me If You Can: Does the IEA’s Carbon Capture Plan Make Any Sense?
-Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation
-Organizing The Biggest Day Of Action The World Has Ever Seen
During the past twelve months, it has been reassuring to see vast numbers of individuals in the United States awaken to the reality that life on this planet has profoundly shifted and will never be the same. Many have radically altered their career goals, spending and saving patterns, and their long-term priorities. When I witness such changes in human behavior, I am encouraged, and I become cautiously optimistic about our ability to read the signals and respond wisely.
I’m happy to have the opportunity to spend the next few minutes sharing some personal thoughts on the subjects that bring us together for this excellent event—thoughts based on my experience, during the past few years, of trying to get the message of Peak Oil out to an ever-wider audience.
