Peak oil – June 11
– Dmitry Orlov: Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once
– Policy-makers slow to take peak oil action
– Colin Campbell discusses changes in world energy supplies (video)
– Global debt and oil prices
Year: 2012
Deep thought – June 11
– Fred Magdoff: Harmony and Ecological Civilization
– Commencement Address: You’re Not Special
– Population and Biodiversity: The Parable of Isle Royale
– Ehrlich et al: Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization
Wrong ways – June 11
– North Carolina Ignores Science, Tries To Make Sea Level Rise Illegal
– Jan Lundberg: The 2012/Aliens/Consciousness Movement: a potential New-Age Tea Party?
– The Denialism of Progressive Environmentalists
Transition & solutions – June 11
– World Naked Bike Ride – in pictures
– Not a Fairytale: America’s First Public Food Forest
– Sharon Astyk’s resolutions upon reaching middle age
– Interview with Eva Schonveld – Transition in Scotland.
Peak oil review – June 11
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
– Oil and the global economy
– Europe at a turning point
– The Iranian nuclear talks
– China faltering?
– Quote of the week
– Briefs
Book review: “Energy and the Wealth of Nations”
When our society relies on an understanding of economics that did not predict, prevent, or mitigate the current economic crisis, and that, more importantly, does not effectively address climate change or resource depletion, it is time for a new and different approach to understanding the economy. That premise is the foundation of Energy and the Wealth of Nations, an important book by ecologist Charles Hall and economist Kent Klitgaard, who together are pioneering the new discipline of biophysical economics.
The bicycle: a vehicle of Transition?
The bicycle is a perfect example of the permaculture principle that everything should have multiple functions. And as permaculture is one of the key cornerstones of the Transition movement, I think this qualifies bikes as a brilliant thing for a Transition Initiative to get involved in. Let me elaborate.
‘The End of Growth’… and then what? (review of Heinberg and Rubin)
The end of growth seems literally unthinkable to most of us, including our politicians.
How do two recent books with the same title by Richard Heinberg and Jeff Rubin leave us thinking about the topic?
Dear Bank of America, We’re Not Leaving Our Homes
The fight against unjust evictions just got fiercer as the national Occupy movement joins forces with community anti-foreclosure groups.
END OF GROWTH UPDATE: Neither a borrower nor a lender be
In The End of Growth, published in September 2011, I made the observation that world economic expansion, which has been barreling along for the past few decades, is now stalling. So: how are we doing just nine months later?
Renewable Ignorance
A massive transfer of knowledge each generation is an unavoidable necessity. This transfer is not automatic. It requires two decisions. The old must decide what knowledge is worth their effort to teach, and the young must decide what is worth their effort to learn. Some knowledge passes both filters and becomes the basis for guiding the future and for discovering new knowledge. Other knowledge fails to pass one or both filters and is lost. Just as the world is always only one failed harvest away from mass hunger, so it is always only one failed generational transfer away from mass ignorance.
Everything is bullish (in its own way)
My apologies to Ray Stevens, writer of the 1970s hit “Everything Is Beautiful,” the lyrics and title of which I’ve morphed into the title of this piece. But with that I note the perpetual bullishness of the financial industry in the face of what is really an ongoing debt deflation. Every incident, every turn of events is summarized by the industry as a “bullish development.”
