Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Lee Brain, son of an oil man, receives a standing ovation and brings a crowd to tears after delivering powerful & inspirational testimony in front of the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel in Prince Rupert on February 18, 2012.
Fred Kirschenmann has been involved in sustainable agriculture and food issues for most of his life. He currently serves as both a Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, and as President of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. He is the author of a book of essays which track the development of his thought over the past 30 years; Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays by a Farmer Philosopher, published by the University of Kentucky Press. In this TedX talk given at the Glynwood Institute for Sustainable Food and Farming, he tells us what good soil has to do with producing good food.
The challenge of making sense of empires in general, and thus of the impending decline and fall of America’s empire, is made a good deal more challenging than it has to be by the haze of doubletalk and of simplistic us-vs.-them analyses. One way to clarify the way that empires work is to pay attention to who benefits from them–a matter that turns out to be considerably more complex than a casual glance might suggest.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
How can fossil fuels and uranium be kept in the ground and agrofuels off the land in ways that do not inflict suffering upon millions? Mainstream policy responses to these issues are largely framed in terms of “energy security”.
Fresh, crusty, tasty, perfect artisan bread may seem like an exotic offering that’s beyond the scope of the average person. Let me emphasize that that is simply not true.
-Tighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officials [report]
-Gas-Fracking Ban in Upstate New York Upheld by State Court Judge
-Exxon tempers European shale gas enthusiasm
-Canada revs up for fight over second tar sands oil pipeline
-EU tar sands pollution vote ends in deadlock
-Canada threatens EU over tar sands
-Cut all fossil-fuel use: scientists
In order to survive peak oil, climate change, economic failure, and ecological collapse we must make fundamental shifts in our collective way of life. Individual change is necessary but not enough because our means of survival are embedded in complex social and economic systems. On the other hand, direct change of the massive business and government institutions we now depend upon is unrealistic because the nature of all large institutions is self-perpetuation, not transformation. The practical domain in which we can effectively create a sustainable way of life is our local community.
In the last post of our Sustainable Relationships week (and a half!) we consider perhaps the most challenging relationship of all: with our fellow Transitioners. Here are some reflections posted yesterday on the Social Reporting Project in response to The Transition Companion’s first Ingredient.
Greece is bracing for protests after eurozone finance ministers concluded a deal that will provide a $170 billion bailout in return for another round of deep austerity cuts. We’re joined by Paul Mason, economics editor at BBC Newsnight and author of the new book, “Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions.” He has just returned from Greece. “What makes the headlines are, of course, the riots,” Mason says. “What doesn’t make so many headlines is what is happening to real people… We are living in a time where the world has, in the last couple of years, erupted in a way that many people thought they would never see again since the 1960s… The underpinnings of this new global unrest are that…people are sick of seeing the rich get richer during a crisis.”
El informe explora alguno de los escenarios de transición de energía propuestos actualmente, mostrando por qué, hasta el momento, la mayoría son demasiado optimistas, ya que no tienen en cuenta todos los factores relevantes que limitan la expansión de fuentes energéticas alternativas.This is a Spanish translation of the Post Carbon Institute and International Forum on Globalization and report ‘Searching for a Miracle’.
