Joanne Poyourow

Hau to be erotic: going deeper into the gift economy

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Gifts have the function of bonding communities together. … If your entire life is nothing but money transactions, … then you don’t have community because you don’t need anybody. — Charles Eisenstein

My dad just gave me a brand-new sawzall reciprocating saw. Yesterday its maiden voyage helped to repair the rainwater harvesting tanks at the community garden. In the spirit of gifting (in Maori they call it hau), with this “second giving” the sawzall entered into the gift economy.

Real dichotomies are not made “false” by soft science or political pandering

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It’s a good thing, the proliferating discussion about economic growth and environmental protection among ecologists. Such discussion was sorely lacking just ten years ago. Without addressing the subject of economic growth, the ecological professions would be but marginally relevant to society and doomed to extinction. Money is running out for research that appears benign at best and wasteful at worst in the days of fiscal austerity, otherwise known as the 21st century.

Trade Off: Financial system supply-chain cross contagion: a study in global systemic collapse

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This new study explores the implications of a major financial crisis for the supply-chains that feed us, keep production running and maintain our critical infrastructure. It also provides a framework for looking at global complexity, vulnerability risk and collapse dynamics. A broad financial collapse is argued to be likely arisng from credit over-expansion and the emergent effects of peak oil and food. A scenario involving the collapse of the Eurozone to show that increasing socio-economic complexity could rapidly spread irretrievable supply-chain failure across the world.

The Eliott Effect

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The first lesson of this story is that having a mug of tea too close to your computer when your cat is chasing an imaginary mouse is a bad idea. The second lesson is that the so-called immaterial economy is highly dependent upon very material devices and infrastructures and is very likely to crumble when those devices and infrastructures can no longer be built or maintained.

It is possible to build a computer with XVIIIth century technology, even if it will be costly.

Green myths buster

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Concerned citizens who seek to reduce their individual impact on climate change are often misguided in their choices. Transportation? Household energy use? Food? Where can the individual make the greatest impact? Our panel of experts pokes holes in current myths and reveals how we can truly create change.

Economics – June 16

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– The Return of the Demographic Crisis
– Gail Tverberg: Rentier Debt and the Collapse of Debt-Based Finance
– Eating the Seed Corn? Consumption in the American Economy Since 1929
– Former Hedge Funder Presents A Terrifying Vision of the End Game
– Steve Keen & Chris Martenson: Why 2012 is shaping up to be a particularly ugly year

Modifying Hubbert’s model of peak oil to account for a rise in production due to higher prices

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Here I describe some interesting new research on modifying Hubbert’s model of peak oil to take into account the incentives for additional production that higher oil prices would be expected to bring.

The IMF research should help raise awareness of an issue that remains underappreciated by many economists, which is that we will eventually reach a point, and may have already, at which quite significant increases in price and improvements in technology can produce only modest increases in production, or may be insufficient to prevent outright declines in annual crude oil production levels.

Occupy with Aloha

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The people of Hawaii have lived an incredible story of cultural assimilation. Numerous external influences on the island have driven a process of creation and destruction, resulting in innovative musical styles. Now, Hawaii faces difficult challenges with food security and genetically modified seeds as it survives the dying values of a corporate culture. Can we learn from the adaptability of the Hawaiian people to facilitate a process of cultural change in Western society?

What will Rio+20 bring?

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Will the world’s leaders dare to think beyond the growth paradigm that lies at the root of our environmental crises? Will they be bold enough to constrain the overconsumption of natural resources or even acknowledge the problem of stagnating oil supplies? Sadly, history provides little grounds for confidence. What is more likely is that the conference will simply warm the climate further through an exchange of hot air disguised as genuine commitment.