Year: 2012

Recovering environmentalists

by

In Extraenvironmentalist #46 we speak first with Paul Kingsnorth on why he’s withdrawn from the mainstream environmental movement and its discussions of sustainability…Then, Michael M’Gonigle joins us to talk about the importance of creating an exit-environmentalism that allows us to leave a global system which is falling apart…Finally, John Michael Greer takes root in a new recurring and irregular segment to talk about denial and his take on the environmental movement…

The return of the enclosed garden

by

The interesting and entertaining reactions to my recent post about destructive wildlife in the garden encouraged me to ponder the situation more closely. Pondering things closely always leads me to weird ideas. I am thinking about the possible return of the walled gardens of Victorian times. How do you know they didn’t become popular in the first place to keep out wild animals including humans?

Postcard from Transition Ibiza and Can Masdeu, Barcelona

by

Last summer I was inspired by the film ‘Paths Through Utopias’ – documenting a road trip around Europe visiting communities who are already living post-Transition futures, to varying degrees – to make my own journey to see some real-life examples of the world we’re trying to create. Having spent the last decade or so with pictures in my head of how I’d like the world to be, and trying to work towards building a new world in the shell of the old with very few tangible reference points, I needed real life visions, sustenance and some confirmation I was on the right path. I was also about to initiate Transition Dartmouth Park and felt like I needed some inspiration.

Indian grid failure offers lesson to us all

by

In the US we may be staring at our own fate in India’s crisis. I’d suggest getting ready for it to come to a neighborhood near you sooner rather than later. Even the recent derecho was a reminder that, in fact, electricity doesn’t come from the switches on our walls, and that even our grid can look like spit balls and duct tape when an angry Mother Nature comes calling.

Home Energy Labels: An “mpg” rating for your home

by

The bad news is that it is very difficult to get the American public to embrace household energy reduction despite the promise of financial savings. Local government and utility programs designed to tap into these savings rarely achieve even a 1–2 percent household sign-up rate. However, in the offing could be a game changer to unlock the latent green premium in our homes: an energy-efficiency label equivalent to a miles-per-gallon rating for vehicles. This could provide homeowners and prospective buyers with a straightforward understanding of household energy efficiency relative to similarly sized homes in the community and region.

Summer Solar Cooking

by

Cooking with a Sun Oven is never easier than in the summer months, when the sun is intense and the days are long. Temperatures inside my Global Sun Oven can easily reach 350 degrees within around fifteen minutes, and so I can cook a wide range of dishes – sometimes several in one day.

Do you have to believe in climate change?

by

Let us begin with the clear statement that asking whether you have to believe in climate change in no way alters the fundamental scientific consensus, or the tens of thousands of peer reviewed papers. I personally think the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is very clear. But that doesn’t change the fact that global warming at this point is viewed as an ideological issue, rather than scientific one, and that many people do not believe that it exists, or that humans cause it. In fact, while recent extreme weather has shifted the culture somewhat, it seems safe to say that a solid majority of Americans don’t take climate change very seriously. So do they have to?

The Degeneration of Politics

by

One of the richest ironies of the crisis of contemporary America is the number of problems it currently faces that are the direct result of much-ballyhooed reforms. As the United States trudges wearily through yet another vacuous presidential election in which substantive issues are the last thing either candidate wants to talk about, it may be worth talking about one of the major examples of that wry reality. Brandishing an old straw hat with a red-white-and-blue Truman in ’48 hatband, the Archdruid explains.