Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Tom Whipple Oil prices currently seem on course to finish out 2017 with a second annual gain after the decision by OPEC to extend its production freeze through 2018. Last week Brent briefly climbed above $65 a barrel for the first time since 2015 due to the closure of the pipeline that brings some 455,000 b/d ashore from the North Sea fields.
Is continued growth and an industrial economy actually desirable and, a separate and different question, is this growth sustainable? Can growth continue? In the 1970s growing uneasiness about the ecologically destructive effects of the growth economy led a few economists and scientists who were sceptical that growth could continue for ever to look into this matter in more depth.
This post was inspired by my participation at the ARABAL 2017 conference in Muscat, Oman to discuss the options for renewable energy integration in the aluminum industry. It addresses a seeming reluctance I encountered during the discussion to adopt RE with some initial considerations on how the industry can be transformed away from utilizing fossil inputs. It provides an overview of the industry’s products, scale and impacts, before discussing transition opportunities.
The exploding craft beer movement is taking on the challenges of a water-constrained world and improving conservation and efficiency in production. Some are even experimenting with using recycled water in their brews.
The solution for both climate and food sovereignty is to dismantle the global industrial agri-food system (which we call the ‘industrial food chain’) and for governments to give more space to the already growing and resilient ‘peasant food web’ – the interlinked network of small-scale farmers, livestock-keepers, pastoralists, hunters and gatherers, fishers and urban producers who, our research shows, already feed most of the world.
Anyway, I have now read Dorling’s book and I want to share a few thoughts about it. They’re not in the form of a comprehensive warts-and-all review – rather, I want to highlight five themes of interest to me that anticipate some future posts, on which I think Dorling has thought-provoking things to say.
What lies in fact between or beyond direct action, prefigurative communities, and meaningful elections? One idea that occurs to me (and has occurred to others, as well – see Micah White’s excellent The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution) is to combine electing some as yet unknown kind of “progressive” government and forging social movements to push it from below and alongside to make good on its promises, and for the new kind of parties that would lead such governments to make links with other movements, nations, and organizations everywhere.
There are more than 300,000 people who are homeless in the United Kingdom. That’s the figure from Shelter, a nonprofit based in London, England, that provides legal and other support services for the homeless. A new organization called Beam, founded by Alex Stephany, is taking a unique approach to assist the homeless population. The platform features profiles of people — recommended by other charities — who are looking for job training assistance.
If we want to eat a sustainable healthy diet, then locally grown, chemical-free vegetables are an essential component. But who is going to grow that healthy, tasty veg? There is a worrying dearth of training opportunities in the UK for people interested in becoming ‘growers’ – and it leaves the reality of sustainable food production with a doubtful future.
Coal generation makes up about a third of the United States’ power supply — a share that has been shrinking thanks to a boom in natural gas, among other factors. As the end of coal looks more and more inevitable, so does the need for “just transitions.” That is, the engineering of fair economic and environmental conditions for communities who have historically relied on fossil fuel extraction.
George Monbiot, a columnist for the British newspaper and website The Guardian, may be the most prominent champion of the commons that I’ve discovered in mainstream journalism today. He has long been a compelling, out-of-the-box thinker on all sorts of economic and environmental issues. Now he is introducing the commons to his large readership and explaining its importance and its historic neglect by economists and politicians. Bravo!
Look out the window, see the air between your eyes and the horizon. This is the Anthropocene – a new geological age characterized by the critical impacts of human activities on the Earth’s systems. Every word you will ever speak will be articulated using this changed air. The Anthropocene can be understood not as an issue but a context: it is the world we do and will, from now on, inhabit…
