Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff The US administration ended its moratorium on deepwater drilling this week seven weeks ahead of schedule. The lifting of the ban – put in place in the wake of the BP Macondo oil well explosion – was greeted with muted enthusiasm from the oil industry…
A new book by longtime bioregionalist Stephanie Mills tells the story of one of our forerunners in relocalization’s long history. Bob Swann may be the most important pioneer for a just world whom you’ve never heard of. He worked tirelessly over a long life to bring together practical structures for economic justice, land reform, rural investment and credit, complementary currencies, and education.
For peak oil devotees, When Oil Peaked is a special treat, an eminently welcome update from a heavyweight within the field. For those who are new to peak oil or who just want a general overview, however, it’s a little more of a mixed bag. The sections on logistic versus Gaussian curves and other technical matters get awfully involved and esoteric, and casual readers may lack the fortitude to wade all the way through them. But the less involved parts on solutions, recommendations for policymakers and steps that each of us can take will hold the rapt attention of serious and casual readers alike.
What we’re really talking about is a permaculture redesign, or reassessment of our whole lives. We’re allotting a year to do it – we have several times now done year long projects – once by not buying anything but food and fuel for a whole year, another with the Riot for Austerity, trying to get our resource use down to 10% of the American average, and both were enormously useful and revelatory.
-Urban farming yields small climate gains
-Case study: The Year of Urban Agriculture in Seattle
-How to grow food in strange places – by the experts
We are failing at even the most basic risk management. The real-time convergence of peak oil, peak food, and severe instabilities in the global economy may terminally collapse the systems upon which we depend for our basic welfare. The principal risk management challenge is not about how we introduce the energy infrastructure and conservation measures to maintain those systems, but about how we deal with the consequences of their collapse.
Oil is “the lifeblood of modern civilisation”. This paper provides an overview of the global oil market. In particular, it examines the outlook for oil supply and demand over the next five years, and the economic consequences.
How green are electric cars?
Together, restoring the earth’s tree and grass cover and practicing conservation agriculture protect soil from erosion and reduce flooding. They also sequester carbon, making them powerful tools in the effort to fight global warming.
The witch of Hebron, herself a prostitute, is a beautiful, charming, intelligent caricature, overly-idealized by Kunstler who argues that in a post-collapse world, the rights of women and minorities, so dramatically achieved in the twentieth century, will become virtually extinct in a “world made by hand”.
Political debates and party platforms rarely talk about public transportation, but it’s one of the most basic and important things governments can do to make life better, both in the USA and in any country where officials are cutting back such services.
Summaries of talks by Art Berman, Rick Munroe, Tad Paczek, Ken Zweibel, Ralph Nader, Anthony Perl, Dr. Charles Schlumberger, Sharon Astyk and Brian Czech.
