Top 10 songs for the steady state
In the spirit of keeping things light-hearted, I thought it would be interesting to compose a top-ten list of songs with a steady state theme.
Building Community
Beyond drip irrigation to water fields in dry land areas: An interview with David Bainbridge
One of the most vital things is a closer look at traditional systems around the world – traditional knowledge is better suited to local conditions. And because we continue to ignore this, lots of valuable things are being lost.
What studying nature has taught us
Fewer and fewer children get to explore the outdoor world and experience the thrill of watching birds or finding a turtle on the other side of a rotting log. Fewer children know about weeding a garden, let alone the special feeling of coming home a bit scratched up and sunburned after a long afternoon of exploring a local creek. Getting your feet wet and hands dirty is fun. There is something ineffably joyous about interacting with the natural world, but, more and more, that bliss is generationally bound, a gift today’s children won’t receive.
My transcendental Christmas caroling experience
Sometimes I worry about our future without cheap overabundant energy and all the other challenges we face, but I wasn’t worried last night. It was so wonderful to have a heart opening experience right here in my neighborhood with such a diverse rag tag band of merry makers. No electricity or technology required.
By lanternlight in rural Asia
How do ‘developing’ countries prioritise energy goals? How should they in the face of climate change? These countries, with per capita energy consumption and CO2 emissions which average one-sixth those of the ‘industrialised’ world, are not primarily responsible for climate deterioration, but on the other hand they are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because, says the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) they have fewer resources to adapt – socially, technologically and financially.
For the majority of the populations in these countries climate change issue is not a priority concern compared with problems of poverty, natural resource management, energy and livelihood needs.
Energy – Dec 17
– With Peak Oil Looming, Gulf States Consider Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies
– Coal Interests Fueling Gingrich’s Cash-Burning 527
– When energy comes to a Senegalese village, do people get more healthy, wealthy and wise?
– Poor people’s energy outlook 2010
The Great Lakes are a commons
After three days, the group articulated a powerful and unifying mission: “For the Great Lakes watershed to be declared and lived as a commons, public trust and protected bioregion”
Food & agriculture – Dec 17
– The Accidental Orchardists
– Gene Logsdon: Fertilizer prices putting manure in the limelight
– Rosie Boycott: The crucial role cities can play in protecting the honeybee
– Australia: Renewing our focus on food
– Wild Permaculture Forest Gardening on the BBC (Video)
Thinking like a creator – Transition and a pattern language
Christopher Alexander’s masterwork of environmental design, written with several other architects and academics over eight years, lays out a practical and imaginal map for human dwellings and settlements. It’s a peculiarly European response to North America (Alexander is Austrian, educated in England, worked in Berkeley, California). A sudden release from an old cluttered history into a new unexplored world. The feeling you can start all over again with the best of everything you left behind.
An easy first step: community newsletters
Are you planning to “build community” next year to help your community face the problems of economic downturn and energy decline? Here’s a simple, time-efficient, way to start: take advantage of your existing neighborhood newsletter to promote your ideas.
Ireland’s lessons for the real economy
The financial collapse of Ireland, coming as the latest in a string of disasters, hardly shocks global public opinion. For people engaged in the development debate, however, it is resonant with meaning.
Ingredients of Transition: Strategic local infrastructure
The infrastructure required for a more localised and resilient future, the energy systems, the mills, the food systems and the abbatoirs, has been largely ripped out over the past 50 years as oil made it cheaper to work on an ever-increasingly large scale, and their reinstallation will not arise by accident. They will need to be economically viable, supported by their local communities, owned and operated by people with the appropriate skills, and linked together.
