Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff This survey offers you an enjoyable way to learn just how well you are doing in the nine domains of happiness identified by researchers around the world. Groups like Transition can use the survey to asses community well-being now and in the long term.
The historical animus that Americans supposedly have toward taxes has been largely manufactured to facilitate the propaganda machine of the modern anti-tax movement. This means that the long hiatus between the Whiskey Rebellion and Proposition 13 must be considered the norm in American history and that some recent change in American circumstances must be responsible for the modern anti-tax movement.
All of the world’s energy needs could be provided cleanly, renewably and economically by 2050, according to a major new study by WWF. Two years in preparation, The Energy Report breaks new ground with its global scope and its consideration of total energy needs including transport, and making adequate and safe energy available to all.
As the rare earth drama continues to unfold, we can expect to see a lot of anticipation on the part of the parties involved. One thing that we should expect is that the price of technological goods will be impacted, at least until the time alternatives can be put in place.
In a report meant to be both inspiring and reassuring, the WWF ambitiously declares that the world can switch to 95% renewable energy sources by 2050. The Scenario depends largely on increased efficiency and regulated flows of energy through a great system of interconnection. People are remarkably absent. The ostensible reason is that the report is focused on what is “technically possible,” which is more about joules and btus than about human behavior.
Let’s not confuse “agriculture” with “agrarianism” says Steven McFadden in his new book, The Call of the Land. Then we might think more deeply about our relationship to the earth.
Watch baker Jen Ownbey whip up a batch of zucchini bread while she talks with Janaia about doing what she loves. Every week, members of her bakery CSA (community supported agriculture) get a handmade, local, mostly organic, and even personalized box of breads and bakery desserts. Jen talks about getting started, selling wholesale and at growers markets, plus the joys, lessons, and challenges of running a solo business.
Nervousness about the mounting political turmoil in Egypt kept Brent blend above $100/barrel this week. There is concern not only about oil deliveries through the Suez Canal and the Sumed pipeline, but also the wider context…
In the classical 1973 BBC production The Ascent of Man, Bronowski lists a number of amazing accomplishments that grew from primitive tools millions of years ago to wonders such as the theory of relativity and understanding DNA as a basis for life. One cannot but be impressed with how little the series has aged in terms of technology, paradigms and scientific understanding. However, the apparent agelessness of the documentary poses a very fundamental challenge to the wide spread assumption that the rate of technological change and scientific understanding is accelerating exponentially.
So ownership matters; but so does control. Why leave the management of the universities in the hands of those who have managed to best compete in the internal bureaucracy? Why not move beyond the trust model towards a fully-fledged multi-stakeholder co-operative? Who is better placed to decide the strategy for the university, and the content of its curriulum? A manager, or the academics and their students?
In an interconnected global world, revolutions in far away countries can cause strategic realignments or economic problems that will affect us all.
Our new Energy Report confirms that all the world’s energy needs could be provided cleanly, sustainably and economically by the year 2050. Renewable energy is the way ahead. Fossil fuels like oil and coal could become relics of the past. And the sooner we start planning for that cleaner, greener world, the sooner it can be a reality. The new Energy Report we’ve launched today shows that turning the world’s energy supplies green is not only possible, it’s absolutely essential.
