Terrence McNally

System Failure: We are approaching the end of society as we know it — And that may be a good thing

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Paul Gilding says it’s time to stop worrying about climate change; global crisis is no longer avoidable. He believes the Great Disruption started in 2008, as spiking food and oil prices signaled the end of Economic Growth 1.0 based on consumption and waste. Coming decades will see loss, suffering and conflict, but he believes the crisis offers us both an unmatched business opportunity as old industries collapse to be replaced by new ones, and a chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability.

ODAC Newsletter – June 22

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Oil prices plunged to less than $89/barrel this week, an eighteen-month low, amid deepening economic gloom. Suddenly everyone is in the business of predicting just how far the oil price might fall – Credit Suisse has forecast $50/barrel – and for how long. One particularly interested and anxious observer is likely to be Vladimir Putin. With around 50% of Russia’s revenue coming from oil and gas the Kremlin is worried about the potential for a budget shortfall.

Funding for lending – but who will invest?

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Since the financial crisis began, nef has called for more effective use of Quantitative Easing (QE) to support the real economy and fund investment in low-carbon infrastructure. In common with many other monetary experts, we see this as both eminently desirable and entirely possible. The Bank of England and HM Treasury finally seem to be coming round to this view, according to last week’s announcement of ‘Funding for Lending’. So why am I totally unenthusiastic about this scheme?

Is Barack Obama morphing into Dick Cheney?

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“As shown through his stepped-up drone campaign,” Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six secretaries of state, wrote at Foreign Policy, “Barack Obama has become George W. Bush on steroids.” When it comes to international energy politics, however, it is not Bush but his vice president, Dick Cheney, who has been providing the role model for the president. As recent events have demonstrated, Obama’s energy policies globally bear an eerie likeness to Cheneys, especially in the way he has engaged in the geopolitics of oil as part of an American global struggle for future dominance among the major powers.

The Buffalo Commons: Redefining how we think about place, politics, and policy

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One of my working hypotheses has been that commons discourse has great power because it is able to function as an open platform. It is both general and specific. I frequently compare the commons to DNA because both are under-specified design structures that evolve and adapt in relationship to local circumstances. A certain ambiguity and incompleteness in the language of the commons is precisely what enables people to infuse it with their own specific values, needs and aspirations. And this is what makes the commons both universally appealing and particular in its manifestations.

The Twilight of Investment

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One of the more intriguing features of the current economic debacle is the way that remedies that have often worked in the past have failed so thoroughly this time around. Another is the way that remedies that have failed every time they have been tried in the past have failed this time, too. Behind the inability of central bankers to deal effectively with the crumbling of the global economy, though, stands a major shift in the shape of economic activity — one that promises to leave few aspects of modern economic life untouched.

Peak Oil and Climate Change: a Midsummer Night’s Meditation

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It is becoming increasingly clear that on the individual level at least, there is precisely no reasonable response to peak oil and climate change. This is an improv, a dance with emerging possibilities, and an invitation to get in touch with something that is deeper than reason and capable of reforming it, difficult as that may be to describe in reasonable terms.

How to apply resilience thinking—In Australia and beyond

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Resilience, in the context of the earth’s ecosystems, is defined as the capacity to absorb a shock, reorganize, and continue to function as before. This basic ability is often taken for granted by the global economy, and yet evidence is mounting that crucial ecosystems are in decline. Without a rethinking of how we use the earth’s resources and the development of an approach based on resilience, many of those declines may be irreversible.

Green, Not Growing

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We asked environmental activists if they could imagine a world without growth, and how all this uncertainty made them feel and react. Of the 91% who said they had a moderate or strong understanding of the current economic situation, 74% said a return to economic growth would not resolve the situation…