Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff – Why Americans Should Work Less – The Way Germans Do
– AIG Chief Sees Retirement Age as High as 80 After Crisis
– The Lower Ninety Percent – how they’ve fared since 2001
– Derivatives challenge citizenship (and economic survival)
While Tainter’s theory of social complexity has much to commend it, in this paper I wish to examine and ultimately challenge Tainter’s conclusion that voluntary simplification is not a viable path to sustainability. In fact, I will argue that it is by far our best bet, even if the odds do not provide grounds for much optimism. Moreover, should sustainability prove too ambitious a goal for industrial civilisation, I contend that simplification remains the most effective means of building ‘resilience’ (i.e. the ability of an individual or community to withstand societal or ecological shocks)
Several years ago I heard some words that would change the course of my life, both spiritually and in terms of values, ethics and morals. The words were “global crisis”. Being curious, a lover of nature and always in search of wisdom, I realised my inner compass was “guiding me” to something unknown, terrifying and chilling.
For anyone watching peak oil this has been a busy week. The Harvard report by Leonardo Maugeri, covered in last week’s newsletter, has been seized upon by those waiting for a chance to consign peak oil to the dustbin of history. In Britain, columnist George Monbiot fell for it hook line and sinker, presenting the report as conclusive proof that peak oil is bunk – evidently without a moment’s critical appraisal…read on for exclusive analysis…
But the more I learn about plants, and the more I gain practical, first-hand experience of how they can support me in my dietary, nutritional, medicinal and even spiritual needs, the less I find myself caring about the big, worldwide questions or about driving at maximum speed towards 100% pure, personal self-sufficiency. I’m already on my way. I can intensify my efforts if I want to get there quicker, but really, what’s the rush? It’s unrealistic to expect somebody to turn all their inherited culture’s ways upside down in one lifetime. I do what I can in my given circumstances.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been weakening Canada’s environmental regulations and slashing funds for oversight and research — all while promoting aggressive resource development. Critics warn these unprecedented actions pose a major threat to the nation’s vast natural heritage.
Last September, People & Planet — the largest student network in Britain campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment — launched Scoop: a student food co-operative project in partnership with Food Co-ops experts Sustain. Scoops aim to help students and staff gain access to local, organic, sustainable, healthy food at affordable prices.
Brown rice diets, asceticism and vows of silence and/or poverty have much in common with marathons, martial arts, the Aboriginal walkabout, and boot camp. The common theme is ordeal.
Each time we resolve to “never again” punish ourselves with such sacrifice, pain, fatigue and sweat, we wipe all that resolution away in the instant that we reach our goal, when we have our moment of light and love and ecstatic remembrance that this is what life is all about.
Perhaps the pain and disappointment of Rio+20 and all the other conferences that promised so much and delivered so little are mere ordeal, the prelude to the ultimate awakening.
Drought is hard on us out here in Farm Country. But drought in the midst of boiling hot summer is amongst the worst conditions I can imagine. At this point in West Missouri we’re numerous inches behind on rain for the average year…On my farm, we’ve had right at 3 inches of rain since April 1st. April-May-June being a bulwark of the year’s annual precipitation jolt–between 12-15 inches per year on average. Some farmers have gotten more, others less). We normally get around 40 inches of rain per year, but maybe we need to get around to figuring out the “new normal.”
The proponents of basic income claim that we deserve it because our societies are so rich. The problem is that this richness does not come from nowhere. A part of it is the product of a a failing but still vigorous imperial system which transfers wealth and resources from the south to the north under threat of military force. Another part come from the frenetic overexploitation of non-renewable natural resources, which basically means we have stolen it from our descendants. For what is probably the most favored class in the whole human history, past and future, to claim it deserves to divert still more resources so as to be able to live well without contributing anything is pure unadulterated entitlement.
I love my garden tiller and when I was younger I loved it even more. But as I grow older I have to admit that when it comes to controlling weeds, the good old hoe is better than any cultivator. Tillers are good for loosening up the dirt in spring, or to smooth the soil after turning it over with a spade. And of course if you have really large plots to cultivate, the tiller is the better choice. For everything else I vote for the hoe.
The social dimensions of the end of growth are coming into clearer focus with each passing month –from last year’s Occupy uprisings, to the recent NATO demonstrations in Chicago, to mass demonstrations in Spain, and on and on. Also clearer is the desperate strategy of the powerful, which consists primarily of the militarization of the police and the criminalization of dissent.
