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Weak economy prompts Canadians to change way of life
Derek Abma, Financial Post via Vancouver Sun
The economic downturn has prompted Canadians to make long-term changes to the way they live and spend money, according to survey results released Thursday.
A poll done by Pollara Strategic Insights, and commissioned by the Economic Club of Canada, showed 62 per cent of Canadians are adjusting their lifestyles and spending habits because they feel, even after the economy recovers, their standards of living will never be the same.
“There seems to be a unique perception from Canadians that there is more than just a recession underway,” Economic Club president Mark Adler said in statement. “The possibility exists of a more longer-lasting, fundamental attitudinal shift of consumer values and habits than ever before experienced.
“We may indeed look back upon this period as a turning point in our perceptions and our behaviours.”
(30 April 2009)
Fred Astaire in the White House
Michael Brownstein, Culture Change
This is not so much an attack on President Obama but a compelling plea to admit to our deeper problems as a culture.
– Culture Change editor
“You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place.” –Gurdjieff
This is an appeal, an open letter, a cry in the night: no matter how cranky it may make us to brush the stardust from our eyes, no matter how many friends we think we’ll lose by looking long and hard at what’s going on around us, let’s try to stay awake. Let’s not lose touch with what we really want for ourselves. Let’s not forget what we know about the nature of consumer capitalism: it is unsustainable and unworkable because it depends on infinite expansion in a finite world. It can only survive by a violent takeover of what belongs to others. Let’s not settle for halfway measures.
And let’s not wait for deliverance from on high.
Because the president we elected — out of so much hope for a definitive break with what came before — is not who he seems. It’s true that unlike the previous inhabitant of the White House (remember him?), Barack Obama is sane, intelligent, and mature. He’s responsive to what others think. He hopes to institute real change in education, health care, the environment.
But even with his great charisma and silver tongue, he’s a proper soldier for the system which is ravishing the planet. As he said in his inauguration speech in January, already aware of the huge financial mess he was inheriting, “We will not apologize for our way of life.”
What do these words mean? They mean that the mall-i-zation of the planet will continue. They mean that the commercialization of all of life will not stop. They mean that our massive so-called footprint will never be substantially downsized.
And they mean that the force which has erased indigenous cultures and plant and animal species, which has sullied our air and soil and water, will essentially not be called into question, no matter how many of its most glaring excesses may be curbed.
(2 May 2009)
U.S. lawmakers discuss more government power over grid
Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
The United States must develop policy allowing the federal government to lead the expansion of the electricity grid to meet any new renewable energy mandates, a key lawmaker said on Thursday.
“We can not and will not maximize the production of renewable energy in this country unless we fix the transmission problem,” Democrat Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee meeting.
President Barack Obama has pledged to double renewable energy production in three years. Obama also wants to generate 10 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.
To meet these goals, the U.S. grid must be upgraded and expanded to deliver power generated from wind turbines and solar panels from remote locations to urban populations.
(30 April 2009)
EB contributor John Gear runs for transit board in Salem, Oregon
John Gear, Keizer Times
Candidate Profiles:
John Gear
Salem Mass Transit Subdistrict 3
Occupation: Attorney (Oregon State Bar pro bono member)
Occupational Background: Submarine officer, engineer, consultant, research
attorney, regulatory affairs attorney, national resource specialist.
Educational Background: Cooley Law School, JD; Washington State University, MS Engineering Management; University of Wisconsin, BS Nuclear Engineering.
Prior Governmental Experience: None
1. Why do you want to be on the transit board?
I want to serve on the Salem-Keizer Transit board to reverse the “death spiral” that the system has fallen into: inadequate fares and funding leads to poor service offerings leads to poor community support leads to levy failures, which makes the funding even more inadequate and the cycle repeats, worse each time.
Now that the world has or will soon reach “Peak Oil” – the moment of highest oil-production flow rates – we are seeing the last days of abundant cheap oil. Last summer’s brief price runup brought our economy to its knees. And this wasn’t a one-time thing – we are going to see increasing energy price volatility, as prices oscillate between rapid price hikes whenever demand climbs and price collapses as rising energy prices stop economic activity. This is going to hammer people, jobs, and communities. We need a functioning, full-service transit system, and we need it soon. Trying to restore services will be hard now – but it will be even harder if we wait until our economy is even more shattered.
(1 May 2009)
John Gear has been a contributor to Energy Bulletin and other sites. -BA
