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Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– British Government Faces Up To Peak Oil
– Fukushima nuclear plant is leaking like a sieve
– U.S. Suit Sees Manipulation of Oil Trades
– China’s Utilities Cut Energy Production, Defying Beijing
– WikiLeaks Documents Hint of Slick Plans for Arctic Oil
– Danish warship sails into Greenpeace Arctic oil protest
Spain’s people’s movement has finally awoken, la Puerta del Sol in Madrid is now the country’s Tahrir Square, and the ‘Arab Spring’ has been joined by what is now bracing to become a long ‘European Summer’.
The energy descent from peak oil production imposes decades of contraction in the global economy. An orderly contraction, particularly in the US, is not likely for a number of reasons. The decline of the oil civilization is a phenomenon and spectacle of such complexity that understanding it requires a systems perspective. This summary of the case for a disorderly contraction and its core drivers demonstrates the capacity of systems tools to show the interlocking feedback structure that shapes how this momentous change plays out over time.
– Spaniards To Continue Mass Action for at Least a Week
– Tens of thousands defy Spain’s pre-election protest ban
– Spain eyewitness: The people demand to be heard
– Nick Griffin and the fall of the BNP
– Money Troubles Take Personal Toll in Greece
– Athens Plunges Deeper Into Crisis (ethnic strife)
– Danish and German Policies suggest work-sharing or subsidized leave policies might help ease the pain of U.S. recovery
The story of the presidential campaign of former U.S. Representative John B. Anderson is so at odds with anything we see going on in politics today that it almost seems like it happened in a whole other country if not to say on a completely different planet.
John Bellamy Foster’s book focuses on a sustained critique of the mainstream ecological theories, solutions and proposals that do not address the root cause of the dilemma, and that do not deeply investigate why the ecological crisis has reached such dire proportions. A big issue for those concerned with climate change and other environmental ills is to get a better understanding of the capitalist system, who benefits most from it and how it works to undermine stable ecosystems.
So what do you think? Do you think left and right, in some or all variations can work together? To what extent are political ends enough, and to what extent are the means and underlying enlightenment philosophies critical?
– Military thinkers: for a bright American future, look to sustainability and liberalism
– Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study
– Taboo Economics
– ‘The Ecological Rift’: a radical response to capitalism’s war on the planet (book review)
– Poet Wendell Berry on Mankind’s Ecological Imprint
A new youth climate movement lead by Alec Loorz, who is suing the US government on behalf of his generation over lack of action on climate, seeks to raise awareness and move the climate conversation to an actionable tipping point. While his iMatter movement inspires, and shows the best in youth, iMatter hasn’t included climate’s twin issue —peak oil— and it faults their parents and grandparents for causing the problem, rather than recognizing that youth today are the inheritors of the work of energy and environmental giants that came before them.
With the environmental crisis, we’re now in a situation where we can decide whether biologist Ernst Mayr was right or not. If nothing significant is done about it, and pretty quickly, then he will have been correct: human intelligence is indeed a lethal mutation. Maybe some humans will survive, but it will be scattered and nothing like a decent existence, and we’ll take a lot of the rest of the living world along with us.
– Wendell Berry, Tim DeChristopher, and Teri Blanton discuss principled activism
– Bristol burns once more in protests against new Tesco supermarket
– Watch out! You’re leading a movement!
What confidence should we now have in projections about China that assume more of the same? The ruling Communist Party threw the dice definitively for state capitalism and untrammeled growth decades ago and now sits atop a potential volcano. Only one thing may keep the present system safely in place: ever more growth. The minute China’s economy falters, the minute some bubble bursts, whether through an overheating economy or for other reasons, the country’s rulers have a problem on their hands that could potentially make the Arab Spring look mild by comparison.
