Year: 2011

Teaching peak oil to preteens

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What will our cities look like from a preteen’s perspective in the not-too-distant future when peak oil pushes gas and food prices to new heights? No rides to the mall? No eating out? City-wide blackouts? Catastrophic! It was to Luz and her friends at first, but through a little bit of creativity and preteen gumption they discover the hidden potentials of an abandoned lot in their neighbourhood. Claudia Dávila’s debut graphic novel, “Luz Sees the Light,” sets Luz and her friends on a path to transform their fossil-fueled world.

No two garden years alike

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I see that in the comments to my post August Glut, Russ observed a “phenomenon” (how I love that word when I want to sound important) that we noticed too. Our first string beans just never did grow quite like usual and although the foliage looked as healthy as normal, much fewer beans set on. Had to be the weather, as Russ says, very wet and coolish early on, but since the vines were quite robust and there seemed to be only a few leaf hoppers and other infernal creatures of the bean jungle, we were mystified and Carol almost frantic.

Hell and high water stoke Texas blaze: “No one on the face of this Earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions

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Here is irony befitting a Shakespearean tragedy. Gov. Rick Perry finally got what he called on all Texans to pray for — some rain — but it was almost entirely dumped elsewhere and the winds of Tropical Storm Lee merely served to stoke the most brutal wildfires anyone had ever seen. This unprecedented climate impact is, indeed, Hell and High Water. Time’s headline is, “Texas Burns as the Rest of the Country Drowns” But, of course, they have no mention of climate change whatsoever.

Invasion of the space bats

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One of the challenges the peak oil movement faces just now is a lack of visions of the post-peak future that portray our species dealing with the end of industrial civilization, rather than evading it on the one hand or crumpling into fashionable despair on the other. It’s important to recognize the existence of that lack, but even more important just now to begin to fill it — even if that involves confrontations with alien space bats. Clutching an old copy of Analog Science Fiction Magazine in one hand and a can of bat repellent in the other, the Archdruid plunges ahead…

Cassandra and the limits to growth

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Sometimes I wonder how it was that Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess, had so much trouble in convincing her fellow Trojan citizen that it was not such a good idea to demolish the city walls to let in that big, wooden horse. Maybe she spoke in riddles and using obscure language, as fitting for a prophetess. But in our case, facing global warming and resource depletion, I believe that it is fundamental today to arrange our knowledge in ways that can be understood by citizens and decision makers.
(discussion of the Limits to Growth model)

In Berlin, bringing bees

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In Germany’s capital — and in cities as diverse as Hong Kong and Chicago — raising bees on rooftops and in small gardens has become increasingly popular, as urban beekeepers find they can reconnect with nature and maybe even make a profit.

From crushing distance to opening space – a meditation on speed and local consciousness

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We do not really cease being drivers when we step from our vehicles. Like television, automobile travel strengthens some of the more pernicious habits of the egoic mind. Bottom line: motor travel is addictive, and the effects of the addiction are likely to persist even if we can no longer afford to drive.