Gross National Happiness – our part as individuals
We need public policies that help people become happier — things like national health care, social security, and shorter work hours. But we also need to discover things we can do as individuals
Society
Crisis of democracy
From the Enron debacle to the BP catastrophe, the principal architects of our society have abused the trust they enjoy because of their specialized knowledge. It’s time, on the world stage, for the emergence of ‘omni-competent citizens’
Mac and Jack: roughing it in the Sandwich Islands
Mac and Jack, shared with bright, articulate people willing and able to discuss important issues of the day and intermixed with daily physical activity. Is there a better way to live? If so, where can I find it?
A pathless land
As peak oil moves from the fringes toward the mainstream, the dream of shaping a mass movement around it has caught the imaginations of a growing number of peak oil activists. Is creating a mass movement toward sustainability the best hope we have, or a blind alley that could negate any hope of managing the challenges ahead of us?
Introducing the “Post Carbon Reader”
In 2009, Post Carbon Institute recruited 29 of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers to answer one fundamental question: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world? Like us, our Fellows see five key truths:
- We have hit the “limits to growth.”
- No issue can be addressed in isolation.
- We must focus on responses, not just solutions.
- We must prepare for uncertainty.
- We can do something.
Defining the mountain
UNCIVILISATION already seems as if it happened several years ago. Looked at from another angle, it seems as if it happened yesterday. The fallout from the festival has given us a lot to digest. It’s been fascinating and fun digesting most of it, but it does take time.
The doomer’s curse
This is the Doomer’s Curse: to wallow in despair, to sneer at the happiness of others, to revel in schadenfreude and to believe that he has humanity’s best interests at heart. The Doomer honestly thinks that a universal depression (in the emotional sense) would lay the foundation for a better world, but this belief is rooted in his own selfishness, not in a rational socioeconomic analysis.
Deep thought – June 28
-Gulf oil spill: A hole in the world
-The Dead Hand of Ronald Reagan Rises in the Gulf
-Here’s another fine mess
-The Journey from Anger to Anguish, responding to eco-cide
-Rio plus 20
Deep thought – June 17
-A Warning From Noam Chomsky on the Threat of Elites
-Grow up or die, but how?
-Neurobiological Cause of Intergroup Conflict: ‘Bonding Hormone’ Drives Aggression Towards Competing out-Groups
Global scenarios for the century ahead: searching for sustainability
Building on earlier work of the Global Scenario Group and the Stockholm Environment Institute – Boston, this paper presents four updated and contrasting global scenarios for the twenty-first Century created with the PoleStar modeling system. These scenarios feature brief narratives and integrated quantifications across numerous economic, social, resource, and environmental dimensions.
Vision of the future : Dune
Science-fiction tells us more about the dreams, hopes, and fears of a time than about any actual form the future could take. It may, however, sometimes offer us a glimpse through a glass, darkly, of how this future might come to be. That is why Kunstler’s The World Made by Hand and Greer’s Star’s Reach are so interesting to read. They are not the only novels on this subject, however. Other science-fiction classics, not necessarily of the post-apocalyptic sub-genre, may help us to grasp what the fundamentals of a post-peak society could be. Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of those.
Peak water?
In the last few years, scientists have begun to look at whether consumption of renewable resources follows Hubbert’s model. So how useful is the concept of “peak water”?
