Year: 2012

The end of the European dream

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The European debt crisis is making the front page, again. Moody has changed the outlook of Germany to negative and Spain is forced to borrow at more and more unsustainable rates. The fate of the Euro is more and more uncertain and while it is not certain, it is quite possible that Greece, and perhaps other Mediterranean countries, will abandon it at some point of the future. This, of course, would trigger a trust crisis which would in turn further damage the position of a currency which has no need for that.

Carving up Africa’s hunger markets

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In mid-May 2012, the United Nations Development Programme (the UNDP) released its Africa Human Development report for 2012. Entitled ‘Towards a Food Secure Future’, the report is unremarkable for its assessments and language – these have changed but little where Africa is concerned over the last 30 years – and is remarkable for the implications it contains concerning the agriculture and food focus to human development.

Vacuuming the atmosphere

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Scientists grasping at geoengineering straws to maintain a quasihuman technotopia into the post-Anthropocene have proposed a lot of bad ideas but occasionally something pops up that could conceivably work. Those in the latter category need to be put to the proof. We will have a closer look at one of those, but first a quick bit of background.

Anchoring Wealth to Sustain Cities and Population Growth

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There will be at least 100 million more Americans by 2050, and likely 150 million more. Yet the cities that will house them are so spatially and economically unstable that it is impossible to do much beyond superficial sustainability planning. One solution is to anchor and recycle wealth in communities, using locally owned businesses as bulwarks against uncontrolled economic forces that have decimated regions like the U.S. Rust Belt. Cities built to last, as a community wealth building effort in Cleveland suggests, can offer a sustainable home for America’s population boom and point the way to a greener economy.

Europe: another round of failure

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It took perhaps a little longer than usual, but the EU’s latest wheeze to rescue Europe’s struggling economies has again come apart at the seams. Borrowing costs for Spain have pushed back above 7% to their highest level since the single currency was formed. Greece will not meet its EU/IMF/ECB austerity targets. And even Germany has had its pristine triple-A credit rating tarnished by a “negative outlook” from ratings agency Moody’s.

How to start a housing co-op

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Rental or leasehold coops are democratically run organizations of tenants that equitably share costs of renting or leasing a building owned by someone else. Rental coops may share part of the management responsibility and often have more power collectively than single renters leasing from a conventional landlord. Nonprofits can also buy a building and rent it out to lower income folks who might not be able to afford shares. Sharing a house can offer big savings and can help people avoid foreclosure.

Clean Energy Access For All – Grameen’s Solar Success

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In one of the poorest countries on the planet a renewable energy service company is installing one thousand solar home systems – a day. Not in its capital or busy urban centers, but where 80 percent of the population lives – in rural Bangladesh. The company, Grameen Shakti, literally translates as rural energy. By the end of the year it will have installed a total of one million solar systems and now has expansion plans to install five million systems by 2015. Shakti is succeeding where business as usual has failed, and in the year of Sustainable Energy for All, it’s a success story we should all know by heart.

The new energy reality (upcoming webinar)

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Dr. Hall will provide an assessment of global energy trends from his perspective as a systems ecologist and pioneer in the emerging field of biophysical economics. This webinar will examine key concepts regarding energy quality and energy return on investment in the context of current world energy and economic challenges. A critique of neoclassical economics and its divergence from the laws of physics and ecology regarding energy will be implicit in the discussion. Dr. Hall will also provide highlights from his recent book, Energy and the Wealth of Nations, co-authored with Kent Klitgaard.

Learning from the Drought of ’12

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The news outlets love a good disaster, and we’ve all been informed daily of the mega-drought in the Midwest. Three quarters of the US corn crop is under drought. Corn prices are up over 50% in the last month, soybeans are up almost 30%, and the USDA says they are still assessing the damage. No rain in sight yet and when combined with record low carryover stocks, we’re probably looking at another record spike in prices. What I haven’t heard in the news is any discussion over whether we have other options to avoid these increasingly regular crop disasters.