Biofuels – Aug 11
-Algae-Based Transportation Fuels Comes At A Cost
-Algae Could Solve World’s Fuel Crisis
-Ethanol-loving bacteria accelerate cracking of pipeline steels
-3 things you need to know about biofuels
Staff
Ending the hunger season
What we need are stories about how people are not only avoiding hunger but are living well. Such stories are myriad. Physically joining our own lives to such stories can help us see the abundant way of living we’re each called to embody.
Licking inflation the homestead way
Even when manufacturers purportedly “hold the line” on prices, inflation wins. The hoe you buy today for nearly the same price as the one you bought fifteen years ago will need repair or replacement twice as soon which means that the inflation occurs not only in your wallet but in the increasing height of the landfill. Or, what is very prevalent right now, the manufacturer holds the line on the price, but when you check the package, it holds somewhat less than it did previously.
Salvaging Health
Contemporary American culture has a self-defeating fondness for turning every issue into a conflict between absolute opposites denouncing one another in moral terms, and that’s heavily influenced one of the dimensions of everyday life that all of us have to deal with–the question of health care. The current standoff between the medical industry and alternative healing is subject to an unexpected wild card, though, because the two sides differ drastically in their vulnerability to the effects of peak oil.
How can we solve the crisis in the Eurozone?
The growing tension in the Eurozone is matched by a total failure by the media to give space for alternative views of how our economic lives, and especially our monetary policy, might be determined.
Is our future our past?
Non or low petroleum use farming is gaining traction as many growers and livestock managers look to sustainable farming solutions. Often we think horses will be the draft animals of choice in that scenario, if animals are used in a farm’s production. At least that’s the picture of the frontier in the popular imagination on which we base our notion. But Aussie farmer Steven French argues that it was actually oxen, a harder working, more docile and manageable animal that helped drive farming in the past. Now that peak oil is moving in to full swing, can we ramp up animal production and training in time for animal use once more?
Canadian Government: Greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands may double by 2020
A newly-released report from the Canadian government reinforces the looming environmental impact of tar sands oil: As producers ramp up their activity, due in large part from a projected increase in demand from U.S. refineries, greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta’s tar sands could double by 2020 compared to 2010 levels.
GDP is dead: Will the world be happier without it?
There are signs that more GDP growth may not be in the cards, regardless whose economic remedy is chosen. In fact, the day may have arrived when GDP itself has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had…If the “recovery” was all smoke and mirrors, we’ve just run out of mirrors.
Join the Austerity Party & Vermont enables towns to finance home efficiency, renewables
Frequent guest Sharon Astyk declared a “riot for austerity” in 2007, which isn’t a riot at all. She led people from around the world in a voluntary effort to reduce their resource use by 90%. She is now starting up the “riot” again, and she invites you to join her in saving resources, saving money, and–perhaps surprisingly–having fun.
Peter Adamczyk, Energy Finance and Development Manager at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) talks about how the state’s newly revised PACE program can help towns help their home owners save money through energy efficiency and renewables.
“Nickel & dimed: On (not) getting by in America”: Barbara Ehrenreich on the job crisis & wealth gap
Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. The move by S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies, came just days after Congress approved a $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan. “In some ways, that is in another world from most Americans and their day-to-day struggles. What is it going to mean to you if you have no job now?” says our guest, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has just published the 10th anniversary edition of her book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” In the book, Ehrenreich tells the story of life in low-wage America and tries to earn a living working as a waitress, hotel maid, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart associate. Ten years later, she compares the current situation of low-income U.S. workers to “third-world levels of poverty.”
Communicating the financial crisis in 7 easy steps
Young people in Greece and Spain are worried, angry, and questioning the financial power structure that is causing economic hardship in their countries. The financial system has shown over the last few years that it has the potential to wreak havoc in all of our lives. How do we make sure that we find good ways to talk about this topic, especially as it is so timely and important, so that it becomes part of the Transition message?
Panic on the streets of London
I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight.
