Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Rob Hopkins describes our fossil-fuelled industrialised lifestyle as an addiction. We’re addicted to oil. And that presents humanity with a major dilemma: we find ourselves stuck inside a destructive self-replicating system with very few ideas of how to get out of it. We can either get together and find ways to liberate ourselves, or face the consequences of a planetary meltdown. Tough call either way.
Reviews of three novels set in the wake of the oil age:
– Player One by Douglas Coupland
– Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
– Afterlight by Alex Scarrow.
Carolyn Baker’s newest book, Navigating the Coming Chaos: A Handbook for Inner Transition offers a rich spectrum of personal (and potentially group) exploration around the issues experienced as we face down the collapse of industrial civilization. But this cannot be hurried. And it cannot be the domain of any one particular spiritual point of view.
The ‘holy grail’ in terms of the construction of new sustainable buildings is homes that reach the highest level of energy efficiency, whilst also using as high a proportion of locally sourced materials as possible, what we might call ‘The Local Passivhaus’. Two buildings, recently completed in Ebbw Vale, known as ‘The Lime House’ and ‘The Larch House’ have moved this concept forward significantly.
Public process as it exists today is not a desirable commons-based, inclusive, creative, bottom-up assertion of ideas by the people—although that is what it pretends to be. It’s actually an expert-driven, one-way dissemination of ideas from the top.
The Heirloom covers a lot of intellectual ground without leaving a small geographic area. In addition to casting a penetrating look at our present and potential future, it serves as a coming-of-age story for young Ben Naiche, who is torn between the rapidly vanishing techno-world and the rapidly vanishing remnants of his native heritage.
We cannot expect to maintain a steady state economy at present levels because present levels are deep into planetary overshoot.
I don’t believe we’ll be able to change our basic economic relationships until we change the ways we get our food and shelter. And I don’t think we’ll be able to change those until we change the stories we tell about our place in the world.
More than a community garden, this sharing garden provides fresh produce for all who’ve contributed to it, with surplus going to the local food bank. Coordinators Chris Burns and Llyn Peabody note that with one large plot rather than separate plots, Alpine Sharing Garden enables more efficient food production — from watering to optimizing for pollinators.
While supporting small-scale farming in the area seems like a win-win situation all around, says Nazeer, both local residents and the city government still need some convincing. As the population of Cape Town continues to grow, the city government is increasingly interested in buying up pieces of the Philippi Horticulture Area for development, threatening the future of the local farmers, the families living in the illegal settlements, and indigenous wildlife.
Let me repeat that: the U.S. imports more oil from Canada than (yes) Mexico, which ranks second, and (believe it or not) Saudi Arabia, which ranks only third. Tar sands are largely responsible for Canada’s new petro-status. Nearly a million barrels of tar sands oil arrive in the U.S. every day. By 2025, Canada is expected to be producing 3.5 million barrels of tar sands oil daily. Most of that, says Ryan Salmon of the National Wildlife Federation, will be imported to the U.S. And believe me, when it comes to energy ugly, tar sands could take the cake.
Contrary to the belief systems espoused by our culture that devours new product; we must remind ourselves that we are a creative culture, and a DIY culture too.
