Climate & environment – Oct 24
– Our Last Chance to Save Humanity? (MR reviews James Hansen’s book)
– Climate Watch: The Arctic’s Effect on California
– ‘Key Time’ to Solve Nature Crisis ? (biodiversity conference)
Staff
Uttering the “C” word
Authors from three politically disparate think tanks—American Enterprise Institute, Brookings, and Breakthrough Institute— recently published a report on how to foster deployment of clean energy technology. Most worrying (though least surprising) is the authors’ belief that clean energy innovation breakthroughs can drive continued economic growth. Conservation is not something most environmental think-tanks or NGOs (not to mention the likes of American Enterprise Institute) want to discuss, but I dare say it will have a much bigger role in our energy future than "innovative, small-scale nuclear reactors."
Agriculture, green policy and social justice – Oct 24
– Paraguayan Mennonites hit back at criticism of environmental record
– Food Security as If Women Mattered: A Story from Kerala
– Venezuela: From Agribusiness to Agroecology?
– Britain is growing greener at the expense of the rest of the world
Chicken Little, peak oil and Y2K
The trouble with Chicken Little is that he neither had a practical plan to address the problem of the falling sky nor the sense to discern the intentions of Foxy Loxy who ultimately devoured Chicken Little and his friends before they could reach the king to tell him that the sky is falling. As such, Chicken Little gives us poor guidance about the effect that the efforts of those involved in the peak oil movement will likely have. A better analogy would be the so-called Y2K problem.
French lessons – Oct 24
– France Gets a Foretaste of a World After Peak Oil
– France on strike – dramatic photographs
– Exchange student sees French strikes up close
– Dinner ladies lead the fight against pension cuts
– Marseille close to standstill as worst strikes in 15 years cause French chaos
– Sarkozy’s approval rating hits new low as French strikes drag on
– From my hometown in France : Videos and updates on the strikes
Movements and persuasion – Oct 23
– Movement Building and Deep Change: A Call to Mobilize Strong and Weak Ties
– Shouts Banish Doubts
– The Persuasive Power of Swearing
– Revolutionary politics and social networking
France today, us tomorrow – Oct 23
– Independent coverage of French strikes
– Guardian: a cause is being fought in France which we would do well to watch
– Sarkozy should retire, says France
– French Fury in the EU Cage: “Work Harder to Earn Less”
– French History Strikes Back
“Here Comes Everbody” – review of book on social networking
I’m not sure social networking will put feet on the ground when it counts, but it can change how we think about community and numbers of people it is possible to organize.
Two moving sidewalks
In all likelihood, in the gap between the broken-paradigm moving sidewalk and the saner-future moving sidewalk lies all of the above: a spread-eagle attempt to keep one foot on each sidewalk for a brief time; a mere hop in moments of trust; a broad vault of faith when sometimes we cannot fully make it; and a few decades of twisting, turning, going-back-on-ourselves, and doubting.
Radically honest man tarred, feathered (humor)
Police removed local geologist Matt Price from the Petroleum building where he was hanging for two hours after being tarred and feathered by disgruntled former friends and colleagues. Patrolman Derrick Quinn reported, “We had to wait for the angry mob to disperse. Man, do they hate radical honesty.”
ODAC Newsletter – Oct 22
After weeks of prediction and build up, this was finally the week of the UK government spending review statement. With the government insisting that it will be the greenest ever there was much anticipation of how the Department of Energy and Climate Change would fare in the review…
Reflections on the Transition
But self-sufficiency, I realize, is a misnomer. What I am aiming for is local sufficiency. While I am marginally better at providing for myself, my gradually accumulating “locafficiency” is very much dependent upon people I see day-by-day.
