The Green Hand Reskilling Initiative

I admit it: in the days of mobile internet and GPS, the concept of posting physical signs as a way of generating community may seem “retro” and outmoded. However, signs are all about locality. Finding resources in the course of our normal daily movements is direct, efficient, and full of the possibilities inherent in the manifold layers of existence that engage when we interact with our living immediate environment.

Unsung bedrock of prosperity (phosphorus)

Modern agriculture would be inconceivable without phosphate fertilisers – and it needs more and more of them. Experts warn of an imminent phosphorus shortage. But not Roland Scholz from the Institute of Environmental Decisions. For him, the main problems are the open phosphorus cycle and non-sustainable resource management. Scholz considers the ecological and social costs of the unsustainable use of the resource to be more problematic than the peak: ‘The environmental damage caused by the extraction and use of phosphorus is still greatly underestimated.’

Economic Resilience #2. Expect Contraction

How do you do all this and still conduct a “normal” life? That’s exactly the point: You don’t. At some time within the next few months or years, circumstances will be such that you will relinquish the feeble attempts to hang onto that gluttonous consumption, compete-with-the-Jones’s (or “keep the kids competitive” with the Jones’s kids), go-go-go life rhythm. You’ll begin to get real.

Japan, oil and the fragility of globalization

Japan’s oil addiction and nuclear woes have shown the world what the energy status quo doesn’t want ordinary people to see: the social limits of growing energy consumption. Japan is now running on empty. Imported oil not only grows more costly by the day but also buys diminishing economic returns. To pay for imported oil or fund its anointed substitute, nuclear energy, Japan now cultivates a hellish debt load that analysts call a ticking time bomb. Unlike many oil-driven cultures though the Japanese will now fall back on traditions of resilience.

Knowledge that grows on the fields: Bottom-up approaches for agricultural research

Knowledge stands at the beginning of everything purposefully created. It takes knowledge to build farms and machines, to build firearms, or to steward the land. Having knowledge often means having power. Inequalities in access to knowledge often lead to power-inequalities.

“Saudi’s slash oil output” … or did physics?

Does the Saudi oil minister’s statement that the oil market is oversupplied make any sense? Saudi production goes down in the face of rising demand, and prices skyrocket, and that shows the market is oversupplied? Wouldn’t prices have dropped drastically during that period if the market had been oversupplied?