Christopher J. Ryan

New urbanism, landscape urbanism, and the future of settlements

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Buried in yesterday’s Boston Globe online in the City Desk for Cambridge was a little gem of an article that talked about a cat fight between new urbanists, a movement espousing more compact, walkable urban form, and a newcomer called landscape urbanism, who claim to be more ecologically sophisticated and environmentally conscious and suggest that new urbanists have it all wrong…

Voices & visions – Feb 1

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(Problem fixed!)
– Politics and the Pleasure Principle
– Green giants: the eco power list
– Eco power lists: Fatuous, invidious and misrepresentative
– Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Young Green Activists for a Warming World
– Film review: “The Economics of Happiness”
– Beyond the Economic Treadmill and Toward True Well-being

Energy – Feb 1

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(Problem fixed)
– How Egypt spells oil spike (Jeffrey Brown and Peak Export Theory)
– Oil Drops From Two-Year High as Investors Sell After Prices Soar
– Egypt unrest rattles oil markets
– OPEC quotas and crude oil production

From Tahrir Square to Times Square

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The US encourages peaceful protesters in Egypt. With many in the peak oil community mindful of the potential for civil unrest as economic and material conditions continue to slide in some wealthy Western countries, could unrest spread beyond autocratic states, even to US shores? If so, America’s lofty ideals would be put to the test as her own people sought real reforms to overhaul government and help rein in corporate power.

Transition and the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP)

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“Your EDAP should feel more like a holiday brochure, presenting a localized, low-energy world in such an enticing way that anyone reading it will feel their life utterly bereft if they don’t dedicate the rest of their lives towards its realization.” Does the Totnes EDAP meet this criterion? Does it feel like a holiday brochure? Is it an adequate model for the changes needed in a community? Will the “holiday brochure” somehow be developed into a practical action plan? This is still unclear.

Genetic diversity lost with the damage of Egypt’s deserts gene bank

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The effort to maintain the world’s biodiversity has taken another hit. In the chaos surrounding the political unrest and public uprising in Egypt, looters have badly damaged the country’s Desert Research Center in El Sheikh Zowaid in North Sinai. The center houses the Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank (EDGB), and—according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust—equipment has been stolen and the cooling system has been damaged.

Eyes on Egypt – Feb 1

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– Analyst sees little Egypt oil and gas impact
– Q&A: Suez Canal
– U.S. envoy tells Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step aside
– Egypt’s Unrest May Have Roots in Food Prices, US Fed Policy
– Soccer clubs central to ending Egypt’s ‘Dictatorship of Fear’
– The Egyptian people tend to the streets that are now their own (video)

In novel approach to fisheries, fishermen manage the catch

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Prior to Ostrom, many economists believed the commons could be solved only through privatization or top-down state control. In her 1990 book Governing the Commons, Ostrom found examples of a third way: self-organized enterprises — groups of fishers, farmers, or ranchers — who voluntarily organized themselves in order to share the short-term sacrifices and reap the long-term rewards of their sustainable stewardship of common resources.

The great unravelling: Tunisia, Egypt and the protracted collapse of the American empire

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The toppling of dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia in the wake of mass protests and bloody street clashes has been widely recognized as signifying a major transformation in the future of politics and geopolitics for the major countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). There is little doubt that the Tunisian experience triggered the escalation of unprecedented protests in Egypt against the Mubarak regime. The question on every media pundit’s lips is, ‘Will events in Tunisia and Egypt have a domino effect throughout the Arab world?’

The broader palette

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Even if we restrict ourselves to the minority of plants that have become domesticated crops, we typically recognize only a few varieties of each – the ones bred recently for fossil-fuel transport, not for taste, health or your climate. Take the colour, for example – most of us have never seen green oranges, purple carrots, striped beets or blue potatoes.