Climate & activism – Sept 26
– What psychology can teach us about our response to climate change
– Facebook – unfriend coal
– Rocky Mountain dust-up: runoff’s dirty secret
– Arctic ice in death spiral
Staff
Peak oil & coal – Sept 26
– Canada helps create an oil sands world (Brace for a global ‘age of tough oil.’)
– South Africa is nearing peak coal, say scientists
– Peak oil interview with Robert Rapier
– Chicken Little updated for the Age of Peak Oil and Climate Change (criticism of Charles Maxwell)
Crash course in resilience
We can strengthen our communities and ourselves to prepare for the uncertain world of failing economies, climate change, and oil depletion.
Twilight in the U.S. – Sept 26
– America is suffering a power outage (and the rest of the world knows it)
– 15 shocking facts show that the middle class is being wiped out
– In New Orleans, kindness trumped chaos
Deep thought – Sept 26
– Localism vs globalism: two world views collide
– MarketWatch: The economy can’t grow forever
– A case for singletasking
A great future is in store for us when we take the power
Richard Heinberg came to Kalamazoo recently and his talk was the first peak oil discussion I’ve heard that didn’t discourage and depress me. Actually, I felt both inspired and energized to help create the next major era in our world’s history.
The Tao of farming
Some of the things we try, in an effort to re-localize our lives, will yield a bumper crop. Some will put on lots of leaves but no fruit. Others will refuse to germinate at all, no matter what we do. That’s why diversity is so bloody important, mono-culturists be damned.
Oil dependence and Cuba
We [in Cuba] have indeed implemented a mass campaign to conserve energy, but I don’t believe that there exists a deep change in our policies or mentality in this same sense.
An open letter to MoveOn
It’s time to transcend issue-oriented politics and build community… “I felt that I was glimpsing the future of community organizing in America—organizing based not on hot-button issues, but on building relationships through deep personal sharing and active listening. “
A nation in decline part 4: Mother Earth, what have we done to you?
At Mt. Hood in Oregon there is a beautiful lodge, The Timberline. It was built during the Great Depression, under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. Not only was it publicly funded, built, and operated, but the workers were trained to perform skilled crafts that they had never done. Form and function are magnificently combined. What a model this could have been for planners and builders.
MAN UP! It’s time to suck the oceans dry
"Mining’s Final Frontier" takes a golly-this-could-be-really-neato look at underwater mining. That’s right…underwater mining. As in smashing the seafloor to pieces, sucking it up, then filtering for precious metals. China and Canada are all over it like monkeys on an overturned trailer full of bananas as they, and many other nations line up to be the first to "smash and suck" their way to their God-given share of the earth’s bounty.
Cooperation law for a sharing economy
What do you call a lawyer who helps people share, cooperate, barter, foster local economies, and build sustainable communities?
