Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Shepherd Bliss Borrowing a phrase from forester Aldo Leopold, changing one word, I invite you “to think like a tree.” Consider this an exercise in critical, creative, innovative, clear thinking about our dwelling here on this one Earth. Allow that which is hidden and concealed to be revealed to you by those of the other-than-human world.
This book continues the presentation of the Lovins perspective, essentially the claim that there is great scope for conservation measures and alternative technologies to solve our problems and enable maintenance of rich world economies and lifestyles. My notes indicate that it would be far too capital costly for the US to run largely on renewable energy.
Growing a garden during the regular summer season here in Oklahoma can be a slog of uncomfortable heat and drought. 114+ temperatures, weeks without rain…painful. Without our reliable perennial fruit trees, some of us would grow little at all. Many Oklahoma farmers and gardeners have even begun muttering about giving up completely on the summer garden. But the fall season? Now, that’s a different story.
There are unprecedented and widely unappreciated dangers posed to public health, nursing, medicine and allied health professions by the ongoing global economic contraction. This is a multilayered and, frankly, emotionally difficult topic to digest. Before discussing how health systems are affected we first lay out the larger social-ecological context of modern society’s predicament. This includes a brief overview of the idea of degrowth.
Energy news was dominated this week by the growing controversy over shale gas in Europe and the UK…
An update is warranted to address comments from friends and followers – comments such as “Gee, I guess Peak Oil has been postponed?”, or “I guess we don’t have to worry about Peak Oil anymore!” Often they have a smile on their face …
The shale oil plays will reduce but not eliminate our reliance on foreign oil. Should a supply disruption occur over the next decade, we will be better off having this production than not. The natural gas and NGL from these plays will provide high-quality, low-carbon heat energy for electricity as well as feedstock for plastics – which could help jumpstart manufacturing.
Overall, these plays don’t solve the much larger issue of Peak Oil, but they do help “buy time.”
One week ago the news spread that Saudi Arabia would be forced to become an importer of oil by 2030. It was an article in Bloomberg’s Businessweek that announced this sensational news and referred to a report titled ”Saudi Petrochemicals – The End of the Magic Porridge Pot?” that was released by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. on 4 September.
Mega-dams and massive government-run irrigation projects are not the key to meeting world’s water needs, a growing number of experts now say. For developing nations, the answer may lie in small-scale measures such as inexpensive water pumps and other readily available equipment.
We do a lot of canning here, especially with tomatoes. We harvest several hundred pounds every year with most of it being preserved. This year I’ve been getting a lot of questions about canning and tomatoes seem to the most popular.
September 19th will see the launch of the UK’s most ambitious and sophisticated community currency scheme – the city-wide Bristol Pound (£B). The project, 2 years in preparation, is a collaboration between the Bristol Pound Community Interest Company, Bristol Credit Union, Bristol Council, the Transition Network, nef and QOIN. The currency, like the Brixton Pound and other UK schemes, aims to create local economic resilience and greater self-determination in the face of globalisation and chain-store dominance. We also hope to change the way Bristol’s citizens relate to money itself.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Mitt Romney’s energy plan is devoted almost exclusively to increasing consumption of fossil fuels — completely ignoring dire warnings from scientists and energy experts that the “door is closing” on our ability to avoid irreversible, catastrophic climate change.
