Solutions & sustainability – September 8

Love, Schmove – Just tell me how to build community with the guy who mows his lawn in his speedo!
Oil prices, technology, and the cost of ignorance
Meet the greenshifters
It never hurts to be prepared for Armageddon: Be to go-to gal
Is it better to lease, hire or borrow than to buy?

Responding to various critiques of Transition

[In] much of the alternative/protest movement… we take up a position outside of mainstream culture, use language, dress codes, behaviour and forms of protest which at best bewilder and at worst enrage mainstream society, yet we expect them to see the error of their ways and the validity of ours and embark on a radical decarbonisation. What failed to come through in [these approaches] was any sense of humility, any sense that the answers might be found anywhere other than in their fondly held beliefs.

Beyond voting: guerrilla gardeners, outlaw bicyclists & pirate programmers

This US election year an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete. But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year? Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond voting in Nowtopia, a new book about modern day rebels who, in his words, “aren’t waiting for an institutional change from on-high but are getting on with building the new world in the shell of the old.”

Why civility matters in the transition

It seems to me that the world is growing steadily ruder. As we grow more and more stressed and less connected to those around us, we increasingly, it seems, have less time for civility. (Review of Talk to the Hand: the utterly bloody rudeness of everyday life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door).)

Off the grid in Colorado

Brick making in the Western world is scientific—you test the soil, establish a recipe, take notes and generally control everything, but Jo preferred the easy Thai way. He just looked at how the ground cracked where it had been soaked. He picked up a handful and squeezed it in his hand and played with it. If it’s sticky it’s good, he told us.

Review: The Long Descent by John Michael Greer

The Internet writings of John Michael Greer—beyond any doubt the greatest peak oil historian in the English language—have finally made their way into print. Greer’s searingly perceptive blog entries on peak oil, which for the past several years have enjoyed a robust online following, have now been incorporated into a single bound volume from New Society Publishers titled The Long Descent.