Deep thought – Dec 9
-Redefining Prosperity
-Finding Rootedness in the Age of Vulnerability
-Transition: The Sacred, The Scared, and The Scarred
-Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order
-The “Stuff” of the American Energy Footprint
Staff
Applying the lessons of international development back home
“The only preventive and the only remedy is for the people to choose one another, and their place, over the rewards offered them by outside investors.”
It is elegant, but is it feasible?
As Urbanization Week continues, Liz Borkowski put up a great post about feeding cities that includes a nice, rational discussion of the idea of Vertical Farming. I’m glad to see the issue come up, because it has so much power. We have a strong taste for complex and expensive, especially when it looks cool – generally speaking, and in an era of cheap energy and economic stability, there’s at least an argument for doing the complicated fancy thing – first, you can, second, the results are more elegant than what you can generally get without complexity. But in a society with major economic constraints and facing the reality of less, rather than more available energy for consumption, complex and expensive becomes not only a bad idea, but infeasible.
Transition to local food
Five years after the “100 Mile Diet”, authors Mackinnon and Smith tour us through their top ten local food projects. From the Napa Valley to New York. Winter farming in Michigan. In Canada, Toronto out-pacing Vancouver. Great talk, inspiring ideas for your food security.
Video MuseLetter #223
Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg talks about his new book (working title ‘The End of Growth’).
A Transition take on the Big Society (seeking comments and input)
The Big Society is associated with localism, cuts in spending and de-regulation as opposed to community-led re-localisation. While we agree with the need to give more power to local government and local communities, how and why that is done is crucial. What we have done in Transition is to create a powerful story, around resilience and localisation, around unleashing the creative genius of communities to respond brilliantly to times of great challenge. At the end of this paper, we set out what such a story for the Big Society might look like.
WikiLeaks – Dec 8
– Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government” (best explanation for why he’s doing it)
– Something Wiki’ed This Way Comes
– The man who kicked the hornet’s nest
– US embassy leaks: ‘The data deluge is coming …’ (video)
– Assange: The Truth Will Always Win
Cellulosic ethanol reality begins to set in
Personally, I don’t believe large-scale commercialization of cellulosic ethanol will ever be viable due to the aforementioned fundamental issues with biomass conversion and efficiency, and will ultimately be relegated to the role of a niche fuel provider.
Environmentalism and political struggle
“You say things are happening … give me an example. Numerous organizations are doing lots of great work – permaculture, relocalization, etc. This is wonderful, and I’m involved in it. But everything measurable is going the wrong way. So whatever we’re doing is not working. … Unless all this community work is linked with a broader political struggle, we’re not really going to get anywhere.”
Rethinking resilience
The word resilience is going the way of sustainability – becoming so over-imbued with meaning that it becomes meaningless. I recently heard a presentation by somebody who was basing a whole research project around meanings of sustainability. It seems to me the time would have been better spent organising a Potato Day like the one we have coming up in Stroud.
Who can go the longest without feeding hay?
Chickens, which would love to graze that grass, are once again taking their rightful place in the backyards of America, and it is only a matter of time before sheep will join them.
The peak oil crisis: the future of government
A new crowd has descended on Washington vowing to make everything right again by cutting taxes, reducing the size and the role of some parts of the government. Above all the folks are committed to getting government regulation off our backs so that free enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit, merchant capitalism, or what have you can flourish as it did in the past. What all those calling for reduced government fail to grasp, however, is that 200 years of cheap abundant fossil fuel energy has transformed this country into something completely different.
