Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth and is home to remote Indian tribes. It also sits atop a billion barrels of oil. Now, Ecuador and the United Nations are forging an ambitious plan to walk away from drilling in the park in exchange for payments from the international community.
Community matters when we are looking for responses to peak oil and climate change because of the power that emerges from working together and creating meaningful change through shared action. In a world where social capital and a sense of connection to community are in decline, it is the taking of practical action that enables us to rediscover meaningfulness and community.
My voluminous fan mail has made me aware of a curious fact: many of my readers seem persuaded that the future is either Mad Max or Waterworld. As far as they are concerned, there just aren’t any other options. What’s more, some people have even tried to venture a guess as to which of the two it shall be by watching what I do. I live on a boat, and that is apparently an indication that the future must be Waterworld-like. But I have also been seen rattling around town on a rusty old motorcycle, and that is taken as an indication of a more Mad Max-like future.
This morning, while making my now habitual (how quickly habits can change) breakfast of eggs from my neighbor Tricia, onions, tomatoes, and zukes from my backyard garden, I heard a story on Democracy Now about the food riots in Mozambique. Wheat prices soared due to crashing supplies, and people could no longer cope. Thirteen people died when police apparently ran out of rubber bullets and started using real ones.
I would like to see EcoReality serve as a pool of knowledge and resources that can out-live a long, slow decline as well as a quick, chaotic one. The former is actually much harder to cope with than the latter! Fear is certainly a bigger enemy than anything tangible that may come down the road.
(Group interview with John Steinman, as well as Rachel Kaplan, Catherine Walker, and Pride Wright of Daily Acts )
In yesterday’s post Rearranging The Deck Chairs, I alluded to the surreal quality of the current debate about Obama’s proposed stimulus program to rebuild America’s roads and highways infrastructure. But the debate about letting the Bush tax cuts expire is even more bizarre. The entire discussion is taking place without its proper context—the grotesque wealth and income inequality in the United States. Instead, the arguments center around future deficits, stimulating spending to achieve economic growth, the economic effects of taxes, etc. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!
A front-page story in the Washington Post might have considered other reasons why growth has not led to more employment, besides simply claiming that growth has been “too slow.” First, the jobs that workers would have gone back to have largely been off-shored as employers sought cheap foreign labor. Second, cheap foreign labor by way of illegal immigration seems to have been welcomed by U.S. employers trying to fill the remaining jobs at home. And third, jobs have been “outsourced” to the consumer (the ultimate source of cheap labor), who is now his own checkout clerk, travel agent, baggage handler, bank teller, gas station attendant, etc.
Many of us are discovering the joy of being able to make something ourselves, instead of just buying it. We know how a fruit grown from seed in our own yards tastes different than one purchased at a supermarket. We ascribe meaning to a gift beyond its material value and focus on the nature of the exchange itself.
-Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores
-Dwindling Fossil Fuels and Our Food System
-Students imagine new possibilities in intensive summer agroecology program
-Egg Co-ops Take Community Gardens to a Whole New Level
-UK Bee Industry Abuzz With Mite Resistant Breed
-UN to hold crisis talks on food prices as riots hit Mozambique
-U.N. Raises Concerns as Global Food Prices Jump
-Sowing Seeds of Fear
In the industrialised world today, most of us feel overwhelmed by a seemingly endless series of crises. The climate is changing; conflicts rage around the world; the global economy may be on the verge of collapse. On a more personal level, we are experiencing what appears to be an epidemic of psychological disorders. Few of us are completely untouched by the increasing rates of depression and a pervading sense of isolation and low self-esteem.
The World Banks long-awaited report on land grabs is out. I’ve not had time to study it — I only found out an hour ago — but here are some first impressions.
