Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff – Defending good science: Michael Mann speaks out
– A Second Front in the Climate War (methane, soot and hydrofluorocarbons)
– Scientist denies he is mouthpiece of US climate-sceptic think tank
– Canadian government is ‘muzzling its scientists’
– Where the Colorado Runs Dry
“I’ve been concerned by the extent of ‘burn-out’ I’ve come across – in particular states of exhaustion, the development of cynicism and despair. But also the opposite of these in the form of a kind of ‘pollyanna-ish’ defensiveness where people convince themselves that all is solvable, either through technology or through local community action. “
“Both of these tendencies have increased post-Copenhagen, along with a tendency for campaigners sometimes to blame each other rather than the powerful actors in the political system. This is a common response amongst groups experiencing failure – you begin by minutely examining the reasons for the lack of success and end by attacking each other or alternatively withdrawing altogether.”
-Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France
-The Corn Ethanol Lobby’s Land Grab
-Ohio could get specialized middle, high schools on farming
-Composting For Kids Is More Fun With Wrigglers
“We have no need for “biocentrism,” “anthropocentrism,” or for that matter any “centrism,” nor for any ideology that diverts popular attention from the social sources of the ecological crisis.”
Obviously getting by without fossil fuels (owing to impending shortages of oil, natural gas and coal) will be an incredibly rude shock for all of us. Our current telecommunication, transportation and retail infrastructure, as well as our current system of industrial agriculture, are based on the abundant availability of cheap fossil fuels. On the plus side, Fleeing Vesuvius is full of a number of specific strategies, currently being tried in Ireland and elsewhere, for building resilient communities to withstand this transition to a non-fossil energy society.
Want to grow food and live the sustainable lifestyle but lack the space? Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living, by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume, a glossy bible for self-sufficiency in the city, will have you tearing out your driveway to sow a garden, and diverting gray water to irrigate it. The book’s beautifully presented and amply illustrated projects are all geared toward typical city-sized lots, and interspersed with case studies of actual homesteads and working urban farms, like the two-acre rooftop farm in Brooklyn, where greens grow amid rooftop vents.
Re-localisation is often cited as a primary objective of local currencies. The recently launched Bristol Pound state their key objectives as: to support local independent traders (“keep our High Street diverse and distinct”), and to boost the local economy “spending Bristol Pounds stops money leaking from the area”. These are objectives shared by all local economies (and arguably by any sub-economy with an identifiable identity such as a developing country).
No individual or organization is always going to be right when it comes to projections of future oil production. What we should expect is that in general, an individual or organization should more often than not be within some reasonable range of the actual future production level. Unfortunately, the U.S. DOE/EIA’s projections are too frequently off by a substantial amount.
Last weekend, my wife and I went for a Valentine’s weekend away to the Makanda Inn, a straw-bale/green building B&B in Makanda, southern Illinois. As far as I’ve been able to determine at present, there are only a handful of straw bale hostelries of any kind in the world, and this is the closest to where we live. Here are a few pictures and a few impressions of our stay (with a focus on the themes of this blog).
Oil prices gained this week, touching $120/barrel on Thursday, in response to rising tension over Iran including two key developments. One was Tehran’s announcement that Iranian made nuclear fuel rods had been loaded into a research reactor for the first time…
Video of a spirited debate on peak oil between John Hofmeister (Shell) and Ted Patzek (University of Texas and ASPO-USA).
After all, no one needs to understand why US firms are shedding jobs, or take a sober look at the current financial regime in the light of the 5,000-year history of debt. Students should just put their heads down and do the sorts of degrees that will give them technical jobs. Pay no attention to The Man behind the curtain!
