Year: 2011

Richard Heinberg on The End of Growth, with State Rep. Bill Botzow

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Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth considers global, national, local, and individual responses to an end to economic growth, but he includes few policy options for state governments. In this radio broadcast, Vermont state representative Bill Botzow, chair of the House Commerce Committee, joins Heinberg and host Carl Etnier to consider what a state can do to promote its residents’ welfare when resource constraints stall economic growth.

Documents reveal industry and gov’t collude on shale gas

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A government of Alberta cabinet briefing note dated Aug. 3, 2011 says, “Shale gas environmental concerns in the media and in the public in other jurisdictions are potentially problematic for energy development and environmental management in Alberta.” The note also reveals that one of Canada’s most powerful lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, has approached the Alberta government about shale gas issues in order “to enhance public communication.”

On settling down

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Most of us are here where we are without substantial ability to change our circumstances, at least in a deep material sense. I think this observation is true, but painful for many people – that is it is possible that we may move about, it is possible that we may change jobs. But we are on a gradual slide away from economic stability, away from a dream that growth could always continue or come back, away from the idea of giving our children better in the sense of material increase, and utimately, towards the realization that we are staying where we are in the largest sense – the possibility of new frontiers has been erased. We can no longer go to the always-already-imaginary unpopulated west. We will not live in space. There is no empty place – and never was.

When technology fails

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We speak with engineer, author and speaker Mat Stein about his books, When Technology Fails and the upcoming, When Disaster Strikes. Mat explains how our illusion of abundance and order can be easily shattered through solar flares, EMP strikes and peak oil.

The new Congressional Debt Panel: An opportunity for an essential economic debate

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Now is the time to put grassroots pressure on the media, especially in the states and districts of the 12 Senators and Representatives on the debt panel. Let’s seize the offensive and move the discussion of tax code changes under the framework of responsibility.

Recipe for climate change in two easy steps

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Today, we’re going to make the world less comfortable, in two easy steps that each of you can do at home. Step 1 shows how easy it is to account for the carbon dioxide excess in the atmosphere based on our cumulative use of fossil fuels. Step 2 bypasses intricacies of thermal radiation to put an approximate scale on the amount of heating we would expect the excess CO2 to produce. Serves 7 billion.

Civil disobedience vs the tar sands – Aug 22

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-Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers
-A Debate: Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline?
-Interview: James Hansen on the Tar Sands Pipeline Protest, the Obama Administration and Intergenerational Justice
-Dozens Arrested in Pipeline Protest
-Tar Sands Pipeline Protests Continue

The turn of the year

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These days feel like a countdown; we are drying herbs for tea and seasonings, pickling vegetables, brewing wine, and checking the miles of hedgerow elderberries inching closer to ripeness. The increasingly rainy weather means time is running out to get peat for fuel from the bog; we have enough, but tractor pull wagons past our front gate laden three metres tall with peat sometimes, the father driving and the rest of the family standing and holding the sides. Even though it is still summer, we all feel the oncoming darkness.