Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Goodies and baddies
-Humanitarian intervention: whom to protect, whom to abandon
-The theory and practice of humanitarian intervention and the interest of western powers: Liberia, Darfur, Rwanda, Iraq, and Libya
Midday begins a week of daily programming devoted to one of the most urgent matters facing people of Maryland, the United States and planet Earth — our energy problems and solutions. The week begins with a look at energy consumption and sustainability. Our guests include Alan Knuckman, Agora Financial’s broad-market analyst, Malcolm Woolf, director, Maryland Energy Administration and Laura Schaefer, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Center for Energy, University of Pittsburgh.
We discuss the state of the economy in Detroit, “ground zero” for the economic downturn in the United States, with civil rights activist and author, Grace Lee Boggs. “I think it’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t live in Detroit to say you can look at a vacant lot and, instead of seeing devastation, see hope,” says Boggs, “see the opportunity to grow your own food, see an opportunity to give young people a sense of process, that’s very difficult in the city, that the vacant lot represents the possibilities for a cultural revolution.”
– Wendell Berry, Tim DeChristopher, and Teri Blanton discuss principled activism
– Bristol burns once more in protests against new Tesco supermarket
– Watch out! You’re leading a movement!
– Act now on peak oil or curtail mobility, says European Commission
– The Mother Of All Price Signals Is Upon Us, Says Investor Jeremy Grantham
– Big oil price swings are here to stay (video)
– Russia halts petrol exports
The key question is, "Where in our current educational system is it possible to develop an institutionalize the kinds of education needed to prepare people for work in the post-carbon economy-and to do so relatively quickly?"
Greens are portrayed in the media as profits of doom, as though a fascination with the negative impacts of our lifestyle might be some sort of psychological flaw. My own view is that we are closer to reality than the vast majority of the population, who are trapped in denial about the ecological crisis, but none the less I think it is worth re-evaluating the extraordinary achivements of the 200-year oil bloom.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Fuel and power shortages
The 9th ASPO conference is the only international conference exclusively dedicated to fossil fuel depletion and its economic and social consequences. The (currently available) links to ASPO 9 Conference Presentation slides + video’s can be found in PDF format in the program table below.
The world’s demographers this week increased their estimates of the world’s population through the coming century. We are now on track to hit 10 billion people by 2100. Today, humanity produces enough food to feed everyone but, because of the way we distribute it, there are still a billion hungry. One doesn’t need to be a frothing Malthusian to worry about how we’ll all get to eat tomorrow. Current predictions place most of the world’s people in Asia, the highest levels of consumption in Europe and North America, and the highest population growth rates in Africa — where the population could triple over the next 90 years.
Take stock of your conversation skills. Our competitiveness has bled into our conversation. We compete for attention, trying to turn the conversation to ourselves rather than listening to the other person. Some dominate, hogging most of the air space. Others argue, wanting to impress, rather than just connecting as friends and equals.
We must not work or think on a heroic scale. In our age of global industrialism, heroes too likely risk the lives of places and things they do not see. We must work on a scale proper to our limited abilities. We must not break things we cannot fix. There is no justification ever for permanent ecological damage. If this imposes the verdict of guilt upon us all, so be it.
