Year: 2012

Design for surviving Vesuvius – Atamai, a permaculture village

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Atamai Village is an attempt to respond intelligently to the risks and opportunities outlined in other chapters of this book. Atamai villagers hope that the evolving responses in their settlement, in whole or in part, will be useful for many others, including those in urban areas. The response needs to take into account the need to mitigate climate change and adapt to low or zero fossil fuel use, the constraints of sea-level rise over the next century, the need to step outside, as much as possible, the mainstream financial system and the importance of a local steady-state economy within the biophysical limits of the region.

 

Guided by Gaia

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When I first heard of the Gaia Hypothesis in the 1990s, as formulated by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis, I was skeptical but respectful of the idea. I didn’t rule it out. But neither did I feel confident that the Earth is a living single organism. Perhaps I was too caught up in scientific reductionism, and needed to have proof — such as to sit down with Gaia herself. So I took note of the notion and kept on trying to save and heal Earth.

America: The Gasoline War

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Like all other human activities, warfare depends on energy sources, and the Second World War was the first major war in history in which victory depended on access to petroleum, and in which the possibilities opened up by petroleum-burning internal combustion engines were exploited to the full. It could as well be called the Gasoline War — and its aftermath saw global power transferred to the United States, at that time the world’s largest producer of petroleum. How that happened, and how it impacted an older empire dependent on other resources, is a crucial part of the story this series of posts is trying to explore.

The long, hot march of climate change

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The Pentagon knows it. The world’s largest insurers know it. Now, governments may be overthrown because of it. It is climate change, and it is real. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the hottest March on record for the United States since 1895, when records were first kept, with average temperatures of 8.6 degrees F above average.

Marx and Engels and “Small Is Beautiful”

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Marx and Engels were acutely aware of the waste and environmental destruction that capitalism brought, as they indicated in numerous passages, though they could not “envisage the [full] ecological catastrophe that a constantly expanding industrial society can ensue.”

It is commonplace for critics of Marx and Engels on ecology to point their finger at the tragedy of the Soviet Union and the damage it inflicted on its environment (in which the Soviet Union, unfortunately, was hardly unique). But the Soviet Union in the 1920s had the most developed ecological science in the world and was extremely advanced in introducing ecological practices. All of this, however, was obliterated in the subsequent purge under Stalin.

Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist

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Some while back, I found myself sitting next to an accomplished economics professor at a dinner event. Shortly after pleasantries, I said to him, “economic growth cannot continue indefinitely,” just to see where things would go. It was a lively and informative conversation. I was somewhat alarmed by the disconnect between economic theory and physical constraints—not for the first time, but here it was up-close and personal. Though my memory is not keen enough to recount our conversation verbatim, I thought I would at least try to capture the key points and convey the essence of the tennis match—with some entertainment value thrown in.