Kjell Aleklett

The Colosseum and energy flows

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First we can state that powerful and wealthy leaders always have – and presumably always will – build monuments to their greatness. Building arenas to provide the populace with entertainment has always been high up on the agenda. These can be an opera house in Oslo, an Olympic stadium in Beijing, an enclosed arena for skiing in Dubai – and today’s edifices are being built higher and higher the world over. Today, the energy required to build these monuments is provided by fossil fuels but 2000 years ago it was provided by slaves and the food that allowed these slaves to do work.

Making nickels squeak: clothing edition

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Due to the weirdly warm weather (which has now departed for a few days of normalish April weather) that we had last week, I saw a spring sight to gladden the heart of almost anyone – a yard sale. It wasn’t at a time I could shop, and it wasn’t like I wanted anything they had – but still, the re-emergence of yard sales is like the return of the redwing blackbirds, a sign of hope.

Eds, meds and a sustainable Pittsburgh

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Forecasts of Pittsburgh’s future cite education and medicine, complemented by entrepreneurial “green energy” and high-tech ventures, as engines of 21st century growth. However, the country is entering its third year of economic contraction and fiscal crisis.

The imperative of reforming U.S. foreign aid to empower women

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Perverse incentives provided by tax codes and government subsidies are an ongoing theme of my articles in The Daly News. These perverse incentives pervade all sectors of the economy and undermine the hope for a prosperous and healthy civilization that lives in harmony with the earth. A paradigm shift away from the present destructive global economic model must entail the elimination of taxes and subsidies that reward pollution and injustice.

Will the post-oil future be bicycle-free?

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U. S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood may soon be nominated for heresy-of-the-year award for an impromptu speech at the 2010 National Bike Summit last month. In that speech he said federal transportation policy will no longer favor automobiles over bicyclists and walkers. As anyone who regularly rides a bicycle knows, this change is big precisely because automobiles and bicycles share much of the same infrastructure. But this very fact may bode ill for the bicycle in a post-oil future.

Robots vs relocalists

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Let’s suppose we have two societies; call them, oh, Relocalista, and Singularitaria. The Relocalistas are a nation of vegetarian gardeners and farmers – they live entirely by the produce from their intensive raised bed gardens and fields, which they carefully double-dig with iron spades which they obtain from their village blacksmiths by bartering some of their garden produce with him or her; I speculate that the Relocalistas would insist on having female blacksmiths too. … Meanwhile, Singularitaria is an entirely automated civilization – there are no people at all.
(Reply to John Michael Greer)

After peak oil, are we heading towards social collapse?

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We cannot expect our government leaders to help society transition off of heavy oil dependence on account of their being controlled by “big business” interests. Therefore, it is up to average citizens to create the reforms that lead into localized economic and social development.

Asia-Pacific: food security, urban migration and women

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This set of news reports from around the Asia-Pacific region discuss some persistent matters: the need for food security systems which also protect smallholder farming communities, stemming the tide of migration to towns and cities, recognising and encouraging womens’ participation in business and local administration, reforming land rights so that the marginalised (and particularly women) can use their ownership to advantage.