Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For a real conservative, then whatever’s old gets the benefit of the doubt. Whatever’s new is guilty until proven innocent. For my part, I think that many of the innovations of the fossil-fuel era may ultimately bring more danger than benefit, whether it’s personal cars, coal-fired electricity or the whole chemical industry. This view is making me pretty conservative.
With a population of five million crammed on a landmass of just 715 square kilometres, the tiny republic of Singapore has been forced to expand upwards, building high-rise residential complexes to house the country’s many inhabitants. Now Singapore is applying the vertical model to urban agriculture — experimenting with rooftop gardens and vertical farms in order to feed its many residents.
It can be no accident that the main Sunday session of this year’s conference involved the visioning of a high street, the creation of a bustling hub of the everyday businesses and services we imagined to be central to the Transitioned Town of the future. Our high streets, especially those of medium sized market towns, are often a still functioning centre of local trade and a symbol of hope for the Reconomy strand of Transition.
My ecological journey started in the forests of the Himalaya. My father was a forest conservator, and my mother became a farmer after fleeing the tragic partition of India and Pakistan. It is from the Himalayan forests and ecosystems that I learned most of what I know about ecology. The songs and poems our mother composed for us were about trees, forests, and India’s forest civilizations.
The obvious and important difference between this potential Sixth Great Extinction and all the others is that they had natural, unavoidable causes. There are fewer and fewer deniers now that our fossil-fueled grow-consume-lay waste-deplete global economy is the cause of this one.
When empires crumble, as they always do, the result is often a free-for-all among previous subject nations and potential rivals as they sort out power relations.
If the end is indeed near – say, within the next 50 years — it will quite likely come in the form of extreme drought and/or nuclear contamination. A couple key maps help us flesh out these possibilities. …So is there something we can do about this?
Check out this campaign by Loudsauce.com. They’ve selected PCI’s latest video as a candidate for broad media exposure.
There were some winners here — the coal industry won here, the oil industry won here, the fossil fuel industry won here. This wasn’t an environmental or science-driven discussion, this was a trade fair.
Paul Gilding is calling for a complete reset on the climate debate, saying we will not get a global agreement on climate change and it’s a waste of time to think we ever will.
•Peak Oil Warning From an IMF Expert : Interview with Michael Kumhof •Bosses’ fears over energy and resource costs hit new high •Total CEO: New Peak Oil Production Seen at 98 Million Barrels/Day •AEO2013 Early Release Overview
Food prices are rising due to climate, peak oil and poor economy. Best time to start your city on Victory Gardens. Speech by Lamanda Joy to Great Lakes Bioneers tells how. With intro on food prices in Canada, UK, Australia, USA, clips from WWII garden propaganda.
