Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I always avoided Detroit. I expected to be depressed by seeing a once-grand place battered by economic disinvestment and all-for-the-auto urban planning. But in visiting the city for the first time, I saw examples of perseverance and creativity that stirred my soul.
“The 4°C scenarios are devastating… The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur—the heat must be turned down. Only early, cooperative, international actions can make that happen.”
I just finished reading a pre-publication copy of Paradise Lot, by Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates (out next year) that makes me wonder exceedingly about the meaning of what we refer to as “space.”
•Imagining Cities That Can Save The Planet: Alex Steffen Talks About Carbon Zero •Wean transport off fossil fuels, or grind to a halt •Build inter-city cooperation to stave off resource fights – experts •Sustainable cities will be more resilient in extreme weather
The United States’ fiscal cliff is very much related to several changes we have been going through recently, and will likely continue to experience: 1. High oil prices (more than triple their level ten years ago).
I think that people who want to stop environmental destruction, the closure of services and other things that are wrong in the world, are in many cases the very people who will also want to create positive change in their own communities.
This weekend…I went to see a performance of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito…And I was uncomfortable. It’s not because I was bored with the opera. I was uncomfortable because of peak oil.
That would have been the title of _Making Home_ except it is way, way too wordy, but that’s the gist of my book – that we don’t have a choice but to change our way of life, so we might as well find the best possible way to do it.
In this essay, which will appear in five installments, I hope to explore some of the social implications of simplification and decentralization. Will wars and revolutions break out with ever-greater frequency?…Or will local food networks and Occupy groups positively transform society from the ground up?
History is full of cases where the people got active on the big problems of their day by forming affinity groups of 10 to 20 individuals. These groups provide energy, organization, and even psychological support.
Most campaign groups have a single focus, but Transition has many (87 Ingredients and tools for starters) – food and economics, inner work and group dynamics. Instead of putting energy into confronting the business-as-usual mindset of the industrialised world, it puts it into building social and practical infrastructures for a future when that mindset begins to lose its grip on reality. Backed by a network of similar initiatives in cities and towns in the UK and elsewhere it can provide a secure base from which to proceed.
Rather than being protest-based, like the mainstream environmental movement (and most of Venice’s heritage groups), bioregionalism promotes an active harmony between human culture and the natural environment. It emphasises solutions that are based on local populations, knowledge, and solutions – not on global markets.
