Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This book takes us in a new direction, moving beyond the analytical stage of defending simplicity and criticising growth-based, consumer-orintated economies, toward the recognition that our primary task now lies in actively promoting alternative ways of living through education, not simply research and analysis. Living simply in a consumer society isn’t easy, but it just got easier. [Free online book]
-Shell Wins U.S. Permit To Prepare For Arctic Drilling
-Gazprom puts giant Shtokman Russian Arctic gas project on ice over costs
-Cold Hands, Determined Hearts
-Peak oil returns: the “unconventional oil” bubble may well pop in Arctic waters
The Runneymede Eco Village has, at the time of writing, continued in being for seven weeks, despite the bad summer weather and the frequent and inevitable attempts by the authorities to move the Diggers on…The published demands of the participants in the venture were simple and direct. Everyone should have the right to live on disused land, to grow food and to build a shelter: ‘no country’, they claimed, ‘can be considered free, until this right is available to all’. As so often in the past, the question of access to land, shelter and livelihood had led people to articulate demands for a radical shift in society’s attitudes, and to engage in constructive and imaginative direct action to advance their cause.
In the past week the Arctic sea ice cover reached an all-time low, several weeks before previous records, and several weeks before the end of the melting season. The long-term decline of Arctic sea ice has been incredibly fast, and at this point a sudden reversal of events doesn’t seem likely. The question no longer seems to be “will we see an ice-free Arctic?” but “how soon will we see it?”.
-The Demise of the Car
-Yep, High Speed Rail Will Slash Emissions
-Citizen Crosswalks in Paris [video]
-California Cyclists Are About to Get Three Feet of Breathing Room
-With Funding Tight, Cities are Turning to Green Infrastructure
Plenty of ink has already been spilled about Mitt Romney’s so-called energy plan, released yesterday, so I will not offer a comprehensive critique of it. But a few additional observations are in order.
-Debunking wind energy myths – At a glance
-Merkel’s Other Crisis Spurs German Quest For Energy Holy Grail
-Dark clouds gather over China’s once-booming solar industry
-US solar PV market more than doubles to topple Europe
-Biofuel fails EU sustainability test, German researchers claim
-Keiser report: Monopolies, Military, Mayhem
-In Drought, Should Corn Be Food Or Fuel?
We live in a world governed by education – a small mean god we worship, even without realising our faith. It schools us in the rational mind and teaches us to look at the earth through the heartless and acquisitive eyes of Empire. Depending on what kind of house we are born into we go to school to be shaped by the requirements of our hierarchical culture: to be turned into obedient factory or cannon fodder, to fill in forms, or to arrogantly rule the world. But no matter what school we attend, all of us are programmed to see life in geometric squares, truth as scientific facts, the earth as property, our nation’s history as the rightful conquest of Western civilisation. We are taught that control of the mind is always more important thanl real-life experience.
As Labor Day nears, a quiet summer seems poised to turn into an autumn to remember. Our concern here, as it has been for many years now, is the price and availability of oil products vital to our civilization. One of the many ways to think about peak oil is the point in time when our gasoline and other petroleum-fueled endeavors, such as air travel, become too expensive for casual use. As the use of petroleum products slows (US consumption is down by 4.4 percent from last year), our economy activity gradually drops to a slower pace.
As a former mayor of Santa Cruz, California, I have had a sustained interest in alternative investment strategies for local communities. Most of the proposals I’ve studied and worked on tend to be either unrealistic about the ability of local communities to function outside of the larger capitalist system, or overly optimistic about the likely economic success and impact of alternative community institutions.
A mid-week update.
“We look forward to a time when we’re really able to harvest all of the fruit trees in the city that aren’t being fully utilized,” envisions Katy Kolker, founder and executive director of Portland Fruit Tree Project. Volunteer groups harvest trees whose fruit would otherwise go to waste. Half of the fruit goes to neighborhood food banks, and the remainder goes home with the volunteers….From harvesting 8000 pounds of fruit in 2008 to three times that in 2010, this growing project is bearing fruit and benefitting thousands.
