Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Poverty itself, the absence of money to spare, is not the enemy, Paul Goodman told us. We should be more precise and define the problem as economic insecurity, the threat of utter destitution, the constant specter of misery and ruin.
I’m sure we all have our own pet scenarios, and many experts have excellent and credible reasons for believing one of those is more likely than others. I would argue that as a movement, however, peak-oil activists do better to focus on the common outcomes of high, low or fluctuating oil prices, than to try to predict which path energy prices will take. The end-results matter most.
It’s not the apocalypse. And it’s certainly not the Death Star or the planet Tatooine. But The Windup Girl is a compelling vision of our industrial world as it could be in a low-energy future. Paolo Bacigalupi’s techno-political thriller imagines how, in the time after peak oil and economic collapse, global trade could return via airships and GMOs.
Filmmaker Jon Cooksey is one funny guy, even while presenting the most serious problems facing humanity. In this fast-paced conversation, he gallops all over the map with five big problems, five big solutions, and a playful and heartfelt approach. Wacky, sobering, full of animations, with Jon in dozens of personas, “How to Boil a Frog” is a film to view and discuss with friends.
– OPEC pumping at near maximum
– Jack Gerard, head of API, on peak oil
– Tverberg: Problems with corn ethanol
– Hidden Pitfalls of Increasing U.S. Dependence On Canadian Oil Sands
– Naomi Klein: The Search for BP’s Oil
– ‘Aflockalypse’: Here’s Why We Should Really Be Concerned About the Huge Bird and Fish Die-off
– The History and Frightening Future of Forests
– Goose Strike! Humans and the Sky
– Storytelling as Organizing
– Words Matter: How Media Can Build Civility or Destroy It
– Healthy Village Model Improves Community Health and Builds Local Green Economy
– It’s Time to Return to a Robust Urbanism
– Why does health care in Cuba cost 96% less than in the US?
– Tunisia: People Power Succeeds Without Western Backing
– The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
– How Tunisian Facebookers Will Change Newsrooms
– Timing, success and meaning of the Tunisian uprising
– Tunisia’s military putting boot on ‘Jasmine Revolution’
– Jordanians march against inflation
If you write about, speak about, or talk with your family, friends and co-workers about peak oil, you’ve almost certainly been asked: “Well, who else is saying what you’re saying?”
This is the essence of the frontier economy and the culture of monotony. It exists wherever a landscape is reduced from native ecological complexity to the artificial simplicity of commodity monoculture. In short, the frontier economy and the culture of monotony replace the native intelligence embodied in these intact ecologies with the ignorance of the idiot.
Could this be a popular revolution to topple the regime? … One thing is sure: there is a political awareness being created now among the Tunisian people and especially among the youth — a sense of historic possibility that what was deemed impossible may actually be within reach.
Across the Arab world, peoples are experiencing hope, and the regimes are afraid: all the Arab people and all the Arab regimes.
– Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali forced to flee Tunisia as protesters claim victory
– This Is The Wikileak That Sparked The Tunisian Crisis
– What’s Happening In Tunisia, Explained
