Naomi Klein on Divestment, Trump and Saving the Paris Agreement

My position ever since Trump was elected is that because there is such a deranged administration in charge at the federal level in the world’s largest economy, in the world’s largest historical emitter, everywhere Trump does not control, we have to do more.

The Transition from Capitalism to Feudalism

Historians have spilled a lot of ink on the question of how capitalism supplanted feudalism, but what will happen in the future if by design, default or disaster our present capitalist society is supplanted by a lower energy alternative with more people devoting themselves to the agrarian arts?

Today We’ve Consumed More Resources than the Planet can Renew in a Year

August 1 was Earth Overshoot Day, the date when we have taken more from nature than it can renew in an entire year. Unsustainable extraction is occurring on a planetary scale: we are using natural resources 1.7 times faster in 2018 than the Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate this year.

The Future of UK Farming: Measuring and Valuing Sustainability

At The Future of UK Farming conference this April, The Sustainable Food Trust’s Patrick Holden chaired a session on “Measuring and Valuing Sustainability”. The panel discussed how to transform the economic environment for sustainable food production by empowering farmers to deliver measurable public goods.

In Defense of Using ‘The New Normal’ to Describe Climate Change

When people invoke the “new normal,” Stamper says they’re not referring to an unchanging, static condition, but rather “a measure of uncertainty and worsening danger.” In other words, the cliche conveys exactly the message that climate scientists want to convey.

New Thesis Explores the Transition Experiment in Ungersheim

A fascinating new piece of research on Transition has just been published, entitled Transitioning towards Sustainability: What are we waiting for?. The Masters thesis explores Transition in Ungersheim, a fascinating village in the Alsace in France which is home to a remarkable experiment in Transition. 

How the World Elites are Going to Betray us: Lessons from Roman History

The more I study the story of the Roman Empire, the more I see the similarities with our world. Of course, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it is impressive to note how with the start of the collapse of the Western Empire, the Roman elites abandoned the people to build themselves strongholds in safe places.

Peak Oil Review 6 August 2018

Oil prices fell last week mostly on concerns that the looming US-China trade war would stifle demand. There was a short-lived rally on Thursday after the stocks report showed a 3.8 million barrel increase in total crude stocks mostly due to lower exports, but a 1.1 million drop in the inventory at Cushing, Okla.

Two Visitors: Bridging the Divide

Truly, this isn’t much on which to build an optimistic view of the current rural-urban divide. Yet as I mentioned in my piece A Great Divide, the hard work of dialog will be left to us — town and country, middle America and the coasts — to create anew a language of respect and understanding.

A Nearly Infinitely Adaptable Recipe for Ecological Regeneration and Soil Carbon Sequestration

The central, overarching question on which all sides apparently agree is this: To avoid disastrous climate change and environmental destruction, how are we humans to manage our land such that the land regenerates, biodiversity increases, and carbon is sequestered?