Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Brian Kaller I’m not an expert beekeeper; My cousin in County Longford is an expert beekeeper, and I’ve learned a lot from him. I’m a guy who had a beehive, and got some honey once a year. I’m just writing about what it was like to get the hive, so you can avoid some of the same mistakes.
Humans could disappear from planet Earth without even a whimper, that is, the whimper of new babies as the human sperm count keeps plummeting.
Steady-state economist Herman Daly died in October. His work created a small corner of sanity in an otherwise insane discipline.
The 2015 Norwegian television series “Occupied” has what will strike viewers today as an upside down premise. In the fictional series Russia invades Norway on behalf of the European Union to restore oil and gas production shut down by Norway’s new environmentally conscious government.
As a military conflict rages in Ukraine between Russia and what the Russian government calls “the West” (apparently meaning NATO allies and particularly the United States), there is a parallel economic battle between “stuff” and “finance.” Both categories are affected by economic sanction regimes imposed by each side. But there is a striking difference in what each side has to sell.
To a poor man, more is better, and all humans throughout history were poor compared to the wealth we enjoy. Now that we have lived in the fossil-fuel window for longer than anyone can remember, we live in comfort our ancestors could not have imagined, yet we keep pursuing more.
French philosopher Bruno Latour died earlier this month at age 75. Of the many insights I absorbed from his work I mention four here:
1. Nature and culture are not two things; they are one.
2. Facts require champions
3. Nature sits in the middle of our politics.
4. There are no “objects” just networks.
Several years ago a study found that up to a third of all food sold was thrown away uneaten … such depressing findings do have a glass-half-full side. .
The world teeters on the brink of economic disaster due to energy shortages caused by war.
The main oil-producing nations are unable and unwilling to increase output, even though prices
are high and threatening to go much higher. The solutions being proposed—electric cars and
renewable energy technologies—are coming on line, but not fast enough. Sound familiar?
The Netherlands is close to closing one of the world’s largest natural gas fields even as Europe faces acute energy shortages. Will the country be able to resist calls for continuing production that will mean sacrificing the homes and businesses of Dutch citizens?
“No battle plan survives the first shot.” This quote describes the predicament in which both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict find themselves.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict saw a major escalation this week. With the world economy on the brink, we’re in for a disquieting autumn.
