Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Øyvind Holmstad This timeless book from Christopher Alexander was released back in the seventies, and it’s just as much a book on philosophy as on architecture. Still, the main purpose of the book is as an introduction to A Pattern Language. Alexander’s architectural writings at the same time develop a philosophy of nature and life. He proposes a more profound connection between nature and the human mind than is presently allowed either in science, or in architecture.
We’re not talking about slamming the brakes on fossil fuels. Even as our contribution to creating Peak Oil awareness begins to see a little light (at least in some circles), I am concerned that we will be so worried about saving our own bacon or appearing to be rational that we will fail to take posterity into account. If we are to save just a little oil for our children, we need to just plain stop using oil (gas, coal).
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Iraq
-The IEA’s reports
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Today, the world we live in might be thought of as one big telegraph system composed of computer chips, telephone lines, fiber optics, cellphone towers, satellites, undersea cables and an electrical grid that supplies energy to the terrestrial parts of that system. An event as severe as the 1859 solar storm–called the Carrington Event after the respected British astronomer Richard Carrington who detected it as it developed–could cripple vast areas of the world, shutting down entire national grids not just for days, but possibly for months or years.
While recently shoveling aged horse manure around the berry vines on my small organic farm to fertilize them, which gives me great pleasure, I thought about what I have learned about the community of the land by farming over the last two decades.
Neither an economist nor a formally trained scholar, Dmitry Orlov is perhaps best described in his own words, as “more of an eyewitness” to the phenomenon on which he writes. He’s a Russian émigré who saw the Soviet Union fall firsthand and has been drawing on this experience in warning of the coming U.S. collapse. He came to fame five years ago with a smash-hit Internet article that won him a loyal following and a subsequent book deal. The book, Reinventing Collapse, is now in its second edition—and regardless of how well it holds up to scholarly scrutiny, it’s admirable in its wit and prodigious street smarts.
The collapse of the Greek government amidst a wave of popular protest and riots sent markets reeling this week. The Greeks reject the austerity measures attached to their bailout by the Eurozone, and there is serious concern that other countries will follow…
As nations compete for currency advantages, they are also eyeing the world’s diminishing resources—fossil fuels, minerals, agricultural land, and water. Resource wars have been fought since the dawn of history, but today the competition is entering a new phase. From Richard Heinberg’s new book ‘The End of Growth’.
A new paper by NASA’s James Hansen suggests that immediate and drastic declines (ca. 6% annual) in industrial CO2 emissions are required to avoid catastrophic climatic destabilization. As no realistic political solution exists for such immediate CO2 reduction, prospects for a livable future have now become dependent on a single back-breaking option: rapid global economic collapse. And in ‘Deus ex machina’ style, we may get it just in time.
The original Boston Tea Party, claims liberal talk radio host Thom Hartmann, wasn’t really a protest against higher taxes and unrepresentative government. Instead, its target was the excessive power of a large corporation — the British East India Company. In Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became “People” — and How You Can Fight Back, Hartmann surveys the 250-year tug-of-war between citizens and corporations in the US, charts the ascendancy of today’s plutocratic rule and calls for a movement to take back American democracy. But is it relevant to fighting climate change and preparing for peak oil? You bet it is.
So let’s ask another question. Why do we need banks – what are they for? This is less about what banks get up to, than about money. How should we think about the institutions that deal with our and other people’s money? What does it mean for you or me to have money?
Arizona is burning. Texas, too. New Mexico is next. If you need a grim reminder that an already arid West is burning up and blowing away, here it is. As I write this, more than 700 square miles of Arizona and more than 4,300 square miles of Texas have been swept by monster wildfires. Consider those massive columns of acrid smoke drifting eastward as a kind of smoke signal warning us that a globally warming world is not a matter of some future worst-case scenario. It’s happening right here, right now.
