Transition & solutions – Feb 27

– 350.org: Implementing local solutions, one neighborhood at a time.
– Totnes: Britain’s town of the future
– One on One: Jane McGonigal, (Peak Oil) Game Designe
– Will Carbon Nation succeed where An Inconvenient Truth failed?
– Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (RSA video)

The backyard frontier

This then represents the end of the historical epoch I have chosen to call the Age of Frontiers, which we can date from 1492 to 2006. Although there are still other, smaller frontiers that will continue to be exploited, none is large enough or expanding quickly enough to offset the effects of the closing of the oil frontier. We are in a new age now, one for which we don’t have a map or blueprint, and for which the assumptions about how the world works that we have taken for granted all our lives will be inadequate.

ODAC Newsletter – Feb 25

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s threat to fight to the death rather than cede power set off a rising tide of violence this week which has seen hundreds, maybe thousands killed. The future of the regime and the country still hangs in the balance. The growing chaos has also spread to Libya’s oil industry as companies shut down production and foreign workers flee.

Promoting biodiversity stewardship in Darjeeling

Local communities that depend on Darjeeling’s delicate but rich natural environment will either benefit from its preservation or suffer from its degradation. Conservation efforts that ignore economic realities and the role of community institutions miss opportunities to provide incentives for environmental preservation.