No return to boom
The worst possible course of action for a government to take, when consumer spending is falling and businesses won’t invest, is precisely the course adopted and doggedly clung to by our own government.
Year: 2012
Spatial emergy concentration and city living
How do cities concentrate energy and materials spatially? What is the relative emergy basis for modern cities, agrarian towns, and rural spaces? Do city dwellers use more or fewer resources than suburban or rural dwellers? Are big cities more sustainable in descent, as some propose, and how do we maximize empower in the future for our cities?
Destroying the Commons: How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta
Down the road only a few generations, the millennium of Magna Carta, one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights, will arrive. Whether it will be celebrated, mourned, or ignored is not at all clear. That should be a matter of serious immediate concern. What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine what kind of world will greet that event. It is not an attractive prospect if present tendencies persist — not least, because the Great Charter is being shredded before our eyes.
Symbiotic urban farming and industrial reuse in Chicago
In many former industrially important cities in the United States and around the world, solid old buildings stand empty — useless. But one green innovator is proving that such structures could instead be off-the-grid, zero emission urban food oases.
Fool me twice, shame on me: The oil industry repackages the fake abundance story (from the late 1990s)
Only the oil industry would now have the audacity once again to peddle a story that it has gotten wrong for more than a decade as if it were brand new. Enlisting the media and its army of paid consultants, the industry is once again telling the public that oil abundance is at hand. And, what is doubly audacious is that it is promoting this tale as oil prices hover at levels more than eight times the 1999 low.
The draft National Food Plan: putting corporate hunger first
The Federal Government released on Tuesday the green paper for Australia’s first-ever National Food Plan. According to Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig, this plan “will ensure Australia has a sustainable, globally competitive, resilient food supply that supports access to nutritious and affordable food”.
Contrary to the Government’s claims, the green paper is a recipe for increasing vulnerability, lack of resilience, and heightened inequality in our food system. A different approach, based on a different set of values and priorities, is required.
Small town Sebastopol – frontline battle against big-time developer
Small town Sebastopol residents in Northern California have been waging a fierce David vs. Goliath struggle against the powerful Chase Bank, CVS Pharmacy, and Armstrong Development for over two years. The implications of this struggle extend beyond this one town, as big business continues to seek to expand its wealth.
Massacres, droughts, and a society unraveling
In the anger phase of societal unraveling, we must not only be aware of its perils but prepare ourselves with great intention to navigate it. One of the first issues we must grapple with is the reality of trauma. Increasing dissolution of the fabric of the culture is by definition traumatic for those who rely on it for basic necessities, identity, lifestyle, distraction, and sense of well being.
Can we talk? In a meaningful way, that is…
Sometimes conversations get competitive and unpleasant. Everyone is trying to prove they’re right — that they’re smarter than everyone else. This drains our spirit, and we lose our energy to work for change. So we need to remember, in any kind of conversation, that it’s not a contest. Think of it as a barn-raising: You’re helping each other build something.
ODAC Newsletter – Jul 20
Oil prices rose this week as geopolitical tensions trumped economic concerns. The Syrian conflict, oil sanctions against Iran, and a suicide bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria, which Israel blamed on Iran, all added to fear of disruption in the region…
Evidence that oil limits are leading to limits to GDP growth
The usual assumption that economists, financial planners, and actuaries make is that future real GDP growth can be expected to be fairly similar to the average past growth rate for some historical time period. This assumption can take a number of forms–how much a portfolio can be expected to yield in a future period, or how high real (that is, net of inflation considerations) interest rates can be expected to be in the future, or what percentage of GDP the government of a country can safely borrow. But what if this assumption is wrong, and expected growth in real GDP is really declining over time?
Factory farming a Communist plot?
When you really look at it, America’s agriculture system, with its preference for big centrally managed factory operations over small locally run family farms, looks kind of, well, Communist.
