Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
-Bus Powered by French-fry Fat Reaches Asia
-Video Guide to New Bike Lanes in New York City
-Off the Rails
In this interview, Didi Pershouse of the Center for Sustainable Medicine is interviewed by Dan Bednarz of Health After Oil about the Cuban health care system, peak oil, free medical schools, community acupuncture, cholesterol myths, and how working-class values and owning-class values play out in different models of health care. It is a continuation of a conversation titled “Peak Oil and Sustainable Medicine, Part One…
How much timber must be cut and how much ore must be mined to provide the building materials necessary to rebuild a wiped out city or town after an earthquake, wildfire or typhoon? As storms and other events become more prolific and more powerful and wildfires consume more residences, how much timber is going to be felled to rebuild them? Related to this question is where we allow these structures to be situated and what kind of building codes will we put in place to minimize future destruction, and by extension, future extraction.
Kate Magruder feels that “Opinions make walls. Stories make bridges.” Using narrative, music and images, Placement Project participants create short stories that not only empower the tellers, but also elicit respect, admiration and tenderness from listeners. Kate hopes that telling our stories can build an honest sense of community in her town of Ukiah and beyond.
-What Have We Done to Democracy
-Planetary Boundaries and The Failure of Environmentalism
-Will modern-day flaneurs help rebuild fragmented communities?
While walking the boardwalk at Pattaya, that weekend, I noticed a sign posted in a police sentry box, urging people not to throw garbage or cigarette butts on the beach. The sign was in Thai and English and the words “Keep it clean for the King,” caught my eye. Underneath in smaller type was added “and safe for children and wildlife”. Suddenly it came to me. The King was not coming to the beach anytime soon. He was a symbol representing the commons. He supported the interests of the people so the people returned the favor and called themselves supporters of the King because he supported them. Didn’t anybody get it? Did the West even have a symbol of the commons?
The troubled future of industrial society has become tangled up in our collective imagination with a dizzying array of hopes and fears. Will the end of our age bring more meaningful and fulfilling lives to the survivors, as some people insist nowadays, or have daydreams of destruction become an inkblot onto which too many people project fantasies of redemption?
It’s pre-election time in France. Next year, we will renew regional councils – the rough equivalent of State assemblies albeit with far less power – and, of course, all political parties are busy negotiating and jockeying for places and positions…Yet, the old left-right divide stays surprisingly effective…It reveals, however, older, deeper divisions, and asks a question all peak-oil activists should reflect upon : how can one be a progressive, without progress.
It’s getting more and more onerous for me to interface with the dominant culture. Delusion is the water in which we swim. You can see it everywhere and anywhere and elsewhere and right here, well-documented and critiqued in Guy McPherson’s recent blog, Scale, and in Keith Farnish’s latest at Culture Change, Time to Decide What Matters. The depths of our cultural insanity astound.
But that’s the easy part, seeing the delusion around us.
Keith’s book is a reader challenge: the reader is tasked with developing a survivable future for her progeny. Very carefully and delicately, with many references to academic research and a rich bibliography, Keith lays out the case that extinction is the default choice – unless you, dear reader of such books, along with a few other people, people like Keith, who would like to help you, come up with a better plan.
As a social scientist with a primary focus on environmental attitudes, values, and behaviors, I have long been interested in the concept of vested interests and how powerful of a motivator and behavioral driver it can be. While this post has languished for quite some time in the dustbin of my hard drive, several writers (e.g. Kunstler, Astyk) have reminded me that the concept of vested interests or, as it’s sometimes referred to, “psychology of previous investment”, needs much further discussion and enlightenment as a prime motivator and key obstacle to substantial and necessary culture change.
