Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Heather Rogers Consuming less doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice freedom or walk around in grey smocks and eat gruel, as many free marketeers would have us believe. Capitalism can foster innovation, but as the dearth of truly ecologically sane consumer choices reveals, capitalism also hinders innovation when it’s not profitable enough.
4,000 sq. ft of yard in Pasadena. 6,000 lbs of fruits and vegetables. Chickens, goats and bees. Urban homesteading done right.
In the spirit of keeping things light-hearted, I thought it would be interesting to compose a top-ten list of songs with a steady state theme.
One of the most vital things is a closer look at traditional systems around the world – traditional knowledge is better suited to local conditions. And because we continue to ignore this, lots of valuable things are being lost.
We all remember the oil price run-up (and run back down) of 2008. Now, with prices similar to where they were in the fall of 2007, the question quite naturally arises as to whether we are headed for another similar scenario.
Fewer and fewer children get to explore the outdoor world and experience the thrill of watching birds or finding a turtle on the other side of a rotting log. Fewer children know about weeding a garden, let alone the special feeling of coming home a bit scratched up and sunburned after a long afternoon of exploring a local creek. Getting your feet wet and hands dirty is fun. There is something ineffably joyous about interacting with the natural world, but, more and more, that bliss is generationally bound, a gift today’s children won’t receive.
Now that global peak oil is history perhaps it’s time to work on predicting peak empire instead. If you followed the work of Joseph Tainter, he offered the theory of diminishing and eventually negative marginal return to territorial growth and complexity of societies.
Post-Carbon and Heinberg are telling a critical story – but the actors they need to engage, all the hands they want on deck are not engaged, because they aren’t part of the tale. That needs to change.
The best of EB 2010. We tried to mix it up. You picked some. We picked some. Happy Holidays from EB.
Sometimes I worry about our future without cheap overabundant energy and all the other challenges we face, but I wasn’t worried last night. It was so wonderful to have a heart opening experience right here in my neighborhood with such a diverse rag tag band of merry makers. No electricity or technology required.
We may ultimately find that shale gas is nothing but an energy sink. It will provide net energy for a while to those who are living now while burdening future generations with huge cleanup costs that, in terms of energy, may equal or exceed the energy gain we are currently receiving from this supposedly “clean” energy source.
– The value of a nuclear Iran (Shi’ite oil)
– Green War: “Because the Earth is worth the fight!” (greenwashing)
– S. American mountains hold key to electric car’s future: lithium for batteries
