Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb Synthetic biology offers grand new possibilities to “process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health” according to Wikipedia. But the supposed benefits cannot sensibly be weighed against the catastrophic systemic risks which are inherent in its use.
Rather than sharing the distractions now capturing the attention of other drivers, we must each retrain ourselves to pay attention to the instrument panel and the road ahead of us. Abandoning old habits and making new ones requires effort. But some habits are so unwise that changing them is a life-or-death affair.
“It has been a disappointment to me that so many people, including all too many environmentalists, thought the spirit of liberation of the 1960s was and is dispensable.” — Jan Lundberg (1952-2018)
Leave/Remain was always a false dichotomy. The real choice is between a corporate economic system that systematically destroys livelihoods and undermines the environment and, on the other hand, a form of economic decentralisation that actively encourages both community and ecological renewal. The British people weren’t offered that choice in the referendum. But it’s on offer out there in the real world.
In 2005, a group of Permaculture students from Kinsale Further Education College set a course for how their town of 7,000 people on the west coast of Ireland could transition to a better quality of life while dramatically reducing fossil fuel consumption. … Their plan was soon adopted by the Town Council of Kinsale, and when it was posted online, it quickly spread around the world as people everywhere embraced it as a groundbreaking tool for cultivating community-level sustainability and resilience.
Major players in the oil industry are still in disagreement as to where oil prices will go in the near future. A few weeks ago, many financial writers were talking about $100 oil, but the sudden surge of volatility and turmoil in global financial markets has caused many to rethink their forecasts.
A volunteer-built church saved the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico, from being used as target practice in 1971. Later, land trusts have helped residents rebuild after hurricanes.
Lifelong friend, mentor, role model and champion of the planet Jan Lundberg passed away at peace during the night in his home and refuge in Greece where he had been laboring to revive sail transport in the Mediterranean Sea. Gate gate paragate parasaṃgate bodhi svaha!
The latest report from the IPCC is the first to abandon the measured tone of its previous ones and foretell what it considers a climate catastrophe for human civilization unless the world makes an abrupt U-turn and begins dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions almost immediately.
And yet, even this forecast is probably too conservative in its pronouncements.
The Center for Ecoliteracy recently released a suite of free digital resources: videos, original animations, interactive pages, photography, and sample activities to help explore the relationships between food and climate change.
In the face of climate breakdown and ecological overshoot, alluring promises of “green growth” are no more than magical thinking. We need to restructure the fundamentals of our global cultural/economic system to cultivate an “ecological civilization.”
The question of whether we will see $100 oil before Christmas continues to dominate analytical comment in the financial press. The Iranian sanctions are the main factor that could drive prices substantially higher in the next year or so; however, there are many other forces at work that could lead to lower oil prices.
