Food & agriculture – June 12
– Why our food is making us fat
– Greece’s ‘potato movement’ grows in power
– Australia’s two biggest supermarket chains are reshaping the nation’s agriculture
– Food, Farmers and a Free Trade Agreement (New Zealand)
Staff
An influential global voice warns of runaway emissions
Few international figures have been as consistent in warning about the threat posed by global warming as economist Fatih Birol, of the International Energy Agency. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Birol explains why the situation is worsening and what needs to be done to significantly slow emissions.
Elinor Ostrom (1933 – 2012) – Nobel prize winner reinvigorated the concept of the Commons
– Remembering Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate
– Elinor Ostrom Outlines Best Strategies for Managing the Commons
– 8 Principles for Managing a Commons
Doing something – June 12
– Elinor Ostrom: Green from the Grassroots
– Reflections From Netroots Nation: Seven Years Later
– America’s Love Affair With the Motor Car Is Running on Empty
– IMF chief Christine Lagarde warns world risks triple crisis (falling incomes, environmental damage and social unrest)
Peak oil review – June 11
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
– Oil and the global economy
– Europe at a turning point
– The Iranian nuclear talks
– China faltering?
– Quote of the week
– Briefs
Energy – June 11
– Germany Meets Half Its Energy Demand From Solar, Briefly
– The new new hydropower: Small-scale turbines have big potential
– National Defense: Efficiency and Conservation Not Enough to Achieve Energy Security
– Energy now hitting pop charts (Muse and the 2nd Law of thermodynamics)
Wrong ways – June 11
– North Carolina Ignores Science, Tries To Make Sea Level Rise Illegal
– Jan Lundberg: The 2012/Aliens/Consciousness Movement: a potential New-Age Tea Party?
– The Denialism of Progressive Environmentalists
Renewable Ignorance
A massive transfer of knowledge each generation is an unavoidable necessity. This transfer is not automatic. It requires two decisions. The old must decide what knowledge is worth their effort to teach, and the young must decide what is worth their effort to learn. Some knowledge passes both filters and becomes the basis for guiding the future and for discovering new knowledge. Other knowledge fails to pass one or both filters and is lost. Just as the world is always only one failed harvest away from mass hunger, so it is always only one failed generational transfer away from mass ignorance.
END OF GROWTH UPDATE: Neither a borrower nor a lender be
In The End of Growth, published in September 2011, I made the observation that world economic expansion, which has been barreling along for the past few decades, is now stalling. So: how are we doing just nine months later?
Deep thought – June 11
– Fred Magdoff: Harmony and Ecological Civilization
– Commencement Address: You’re Not Special
– Population and Biodiversity: The Parable of Isle Royale
– Ehrlich et al: Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization
Dear Bank of America, We’re Not Leaving Our Homes
The fight against unjust evictions just got fiercer as the national Occupy movement joins forces with community anti-foreclosure groups.
Transition & solutions – June 11
– World Naked Bike Ride – in pictures
– Not a Fairytale: America’s First Public Food Forest
– Sharon Astyk’s resolutions upon reaching middle age
– Interview with Eva Schonveld – Transition in Scotland.
