Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Banking is not just a market good or service. It is a vital part of societal infrastructure, which properly belongs in the public sector. By taking banking back, local governments could regain control of that very large slice (up to 40 per cent) of every public budget that currently goes to interest charged to finance investment programs through the private sector.
The announcement on Thursday that the government is lifting its moratorium on fracking held all the surprise of turkey on the Christmas menu. The decision, which allows the resumption of test drilling by Cuadrilla in Lancashire and opens the way to fracking across the UK, was inevitable following the government’s gas generation U-turn last week…
As our daily lives are becoming increasingly destabilized by financial recession, climate change and perhaps political marginalization, self-organizing communities are also becoming a steady presence, from co-ops and community gardens to large-scale political movements like Occupy and the Arab Spring.
The more I studied oil depletion, the more I found myself studying climate: the two subjects are so strictly related to each other that you can’t study one and ignore the other. I found that climate science is not just about modern global warming. It is the true scientific revolution of the 21st century. It is nothing less than a radical change of paradigm about everything that takes place on our planet; comparable to the Copernican revolution of centuries ago.
After describing the Dancing Rabbit community as it appeared to us visitors, I offer a few additional observations and musings.
Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation’s drinking water.
•Jeremy Irons talks trash for his new environmental documentary – TRASHED •Sweden turns trash into cash as EU seeks to curb dumping •Suffocating The World
All the metrics looked great. The 2.7-year-old lead acid batteries in my off-grid photovoltaic system appeared to have settled into a consistent mid-life performance. Monthly maintenance (equalizing, adding distilled water) promised to keep the batteries in prime condition for some time to come. Based on cycle depth, I expected another 2.5 years out of the present set of batteries. Life was good. Then, during my absence over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, one of the batteries expired. No forewarning. Just gave up.
If you have a roof, you should be collecting rainwater. It requires no “softener,” uses less soap, and is friendlier to work with than even the best water that has come into contact with the ground. Grandmother loved the softness of rainwater for washing her hair, and the country house always had a barrel — topped with some screening to keep out leaves — standing under eaves near the gutter downspout.
Last week’s post here on The Archdruid Report attempted to raise a question that, as I see it, deserves much more discussion than it gets these days. Most currently popular ways of trying to put pressure on the American political system presuppose that the politicians will pay attention if the people, or the activists who claim to speak in their name, simply make enough noise. The difficulty is that the activists, or for that matter the people, aren’t actually giving the politicians any reason to pay attention; they’re simply making noise, and the politicians have gotten increasingly confident that the noise can be ignored with impunity.
A mid-week update
•Drilling spills reaching Colorado groundwater; state mulls test rules •Shale Shocked: Studies Tie Rise Of Significant Earthquakes In U.S. Midcontinent To Wastewater Injection •Ignore the doom merchants, Britain should get fracking •Shale gas is not a game changer •The fracking dream which is putting Britain’s future at risk
