Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff – Capitalism and the Curse of Energy Efficiency: The Return of the Jevons Paradox (Monthly Review)
– China pulls back from US Treasuries; buys hard assets instead
– The end of the world. That is, the end of the world we’ve known since WWII
– A New Economics for the 21st Century
– Monbiot: We’ve been conned. The deal to save the natural world never happened
– UN report warns of threat to human progress from climate change
– Climate change challenge for computer gamers
– NYT: Global Warming for Gamers (text and video)
– Asher Miller: Muddled up in climate politics
– California exceptionalism or a rising green tide?
– Barack Obama’s Green Agenda Crushed at the Ballot Box
– Alberta’s dirty oil image cleaned by U.S. midterms
– Republicans go climate sceptic
A new German “near fiction” feature film about life in the post-peak world
A system of bicycle routes to connect the nation? It’s happening. If implemented as planned, the U.S. Bicycle Route System will become the largest official cycling network on the planet, encompassing more than 50,000 miles of routes.
People who have caught on to the magnitude of the changes humanity faces in coming years typically describe their process of reaction as “preparation.” That is an adequate word, but incomplete, because it implies only a future focus. Preparation always looks forward, even when it takes appropriate action in the present. The danger in that is it can lead to a life that is forever deferred, waiting for a signal from some external source that it’s time to actually have what you have prepared yourself for.
Having grown tired of the competitiveness of peak oil writers pushing their various grim visions as the most likely to unfold, I am happy to go with this New Age takeover of the geeks’ techno collapsing world simply because it is the more empowering vision.
This time Janaia’s in the hot seat! In this interview by Jim Fritz on Port Townsend Television, she tackles corporate control and a dysfunctional system that profits from increasing unhealthiness and consuming the planet. She points to Peak Moment guests as models for the average family to gain genuine security. They’re withdrawing from the money system, growing food, and joining neighbors to prepare for emergencies.
People have asked me about my impressions of my trip and there is one word I want to communicate: Local. The stops were so varied, the needs so diverse, the problems so different, it is difficult to generalize, but I’ll try anyway.
With large swaths of forest destroyed by wartime defoliants, and even larger areas lost to post-war logging, Vietnam has set an ambitious goal for regenerating its woodlands. But proponents of reintroducing native tree species face resistance from a timber industry that favors fast-growing exotics like acacia.
It is not so important to me that my kids can explain the significance of a locavore diet at their age. But I do want them to know what food is supposed to taste like when it is a product of a healthy ecosystem. I want them to experience what their bodies feel like when they are nourished in a way that is in harmony with the Earth.
Living on an island makes Ireland more vulnerable to a depression, fuel shortage, or food crisis, and yet the Irish seem more prepared to endure it. Agrarian self-sufficiency ran too deep, too recently to be fully abandoned. Many people here grow gardens, and until recently it was common for schools and hospitals to have a garden outside to feed the students and patients. Cities and towns are compact to the point of claustrophobia, so arable land is never far away. Public transportation is widespread and carries no stigma of poverty. Perhaps most importantly, everyone seems willing to help even distant relatives — and if they live on the island, they are never far away.
