Year: 2011

Review: Localisation and Resilience by Rob Hopkins

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The dissertation is a case study of the first official Transition Town, the English market town of Totnes, long a popular tourist destination known for its alternative culture. Using interviews, focus groups, questionnaire surveys and other social science research methods, the study examines the degree to which the Transition ideals of localization and resilience have become a reality in Totnes. (Transitioners endorse a number of upbeat definitions of a resilient community, a popular one being “[a] culture based on its ability to function indefinitely and to live within its own limits, and able to thrive for having done so.”*)

Food & agriculture – Feb 7

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– Mark Bittman in NYT: A Food Manifesto for the Future
– ‘The Soil Solution’ Film Preview
– Global Food Prices Hit New Record High
– Obesity Has Nearly Doubled Worldwide Since 1980: Report
– Oysters disappearing worldwide: study
– Peak cocoa

Egypt and the thirst for oil – Feb 7

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– “Walk like an Egyptian” – the Egyptian Revolution: Jan 25, 2011 (video)
– Oil falls on unfounded Egypt report, profit-taking
– Civil unrest in Middle East, concern among investors
– We All Helped Suppress the Egyptians. So How Do We Change?
– Clinton rings alarm bells about Middle East – oil reserves running out
– Egypt and the Global Oil Market: Geopolitics Is Back
– Jan Lundberg: Arab World’s Turmoil May Spell Sudden Petrocollapse

Small is beautiful. Big is necessary.

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To Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of BRAC—formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee—“Small is beautiful, but big is necessary.” It is a reference to the book Small is Beautiful by economist E.F. Schumacher, which criticizes western economics and hails small, local economies that empower people and their communities.

Climate – Feb 7

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– NASA climate chief: Labor’s targets a ‘recipe for disaster’ (Australia)
– David Spratt: A carbon tax … and then?
– Mass Tree Deaths Prompt Fears of Amazon ‘Climate Tipping Point’
– Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth
– Climate Communications and Behavior Change
– Reckless practices in the banking and oil industries

Gas frackers attack fiery documentary

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In a world where tap water is catching fire near hydrofracking sites from Colorado to New York State, natural gas drillers say it’s not their fault. And when the provocative documentary GASLAND got an Oscar nod in January, the drillers were livid. But whether you believe the film is inspired expose or a putrid pile of propaganda, it may be a villain who doesn’t even make an appearance in the story — resource depletion — that winds up bursting today’s gas bubble.

Obama steps onto slippery slope

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He’s finally done it. Barack Obama has taken the tantalizing trail to a notoriously slippery slope. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last week, the President promised, “federal agencies (will) ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth.” In other words, we will have our cake (the environment) and eat it too (for economic growth), and federal agencies will be there to dish it all up.

Willi Paul interviews Craig Mackintosh – Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) launches!

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Is there a global permaculture revolution rising now? Well, there better be. The other kinds of revolution aren’t pretty. Revolution, I believe, is going to become an increasingly popular word. But often revolutions merely pull things down, without offering meaningful replacements. Over the last few years the level of interest in permaculture has skyrocketed. People are increasingly realizing the world is running out of options, but many are also realizing that this is exactly what permaculture gives to the world – options.

A patch of somewhere else

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When people list history’s most world-changing inventions, they usually include fire, or guns, or computers. Rarely do people mention something so ubiquitous to us that it has become, literally, invisible – glass and transparent plastic. In the Renaissance, though, when glass began to be sheeted and shaped in quantity and with skill, it created a boom in civilisation; microscopes and telescopes opened up the breadth of the world to science, spectacles doubled men’s intellectual lifetime, and windows allowed for the creation of the first greenhouses.