Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Are there any alternative structures that could allow us to maintain, even dramatically improve our collective quality of life despite an ongoing decline in the quality and availability of energy?
Is global warming caused by too many people? This begins a series of articles in which Climate & Capitalism editor Ian Angus shows that population numbers can conceal far more than they reveal.
As part of his current book tour, author and climate activist Bill McKibben spoke at the First United Methodist Church in Boulder, CO on April 27, co-sponsored by Boulder Book Store and Transition Colorado. The video of his presentation is below, following the introduction that was given by Michael Brownlee, co-founder of Transition Colorado.
Nevada County locals Jim Wray and Loraine Webb demonstrate the how and why of packaging bulk foods with nitrogen. They’re using equipment available for community members to use at minimal cost. Jim demonstrates packaging: make plastic bags using a heat sealer, fill with foodstuffs, suck out the oxygen with a small vacuum, then replace the air with nitrogen and seal.
By now, most of you have probably heard about Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, just signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer this past Friday. Surely this is an unjust law, by any definition. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law” (“Letter from Birmingham Jail”, par. 16).
Financial reform is the Congressional political issue of the month. Democrats say their bill will place essential controls on Wall Street to prevent abuse and a repeat of the financial crash. Republicans say it will encourage further Wall Street risk-taking by giving the big banks a guarantee of a future taxpayer bailout if reckless decisions trigger another financial crash.
-Mainstream Green Groups Cave In on Climate
-Reclaiming Earth Day: With Climate Chaos on the Horizon, the Environmental Movement Needs Traction
-A New Climate Movement in Bolivia
-Earth Day™ — Tastes Great, Less Filling
-The Open Veins of Climate Change
Community may suffer from overuse more sorely than any word in the dictionary. Politicians left and right sprinkle it through their remarks the way a bad Chinese restaurant uses MSG, to mask the lack of wholesome ingredients. But we need to rescue it; we need to make sure that community will become, on this tougher planet, one of the most prosaic terms in the lexicon, like hoe or bicycle or computers. Access to endless amounts of cheap energy made us rich, and wrecked our climate, and it also made us the first people on earth who had no practical need of our neighbors.
-Food Preservation 101: Putting Canning In Perspective
-In Connecticut, Community-Supported Agriculture Gaining In Popularity
-Gardening by community growing in appeal
-A garden on every block
-Cuba’s urban-ag revival offers limited lessons
-The Triangle: The South’s Locavore Gem
-The AKG Sustainable Living Project podcast episode #4 transcript- Rain Water Harvesting
-Ancient orchards restored to save fruit and wildlife
-Community Land Sharing
-Global biofuel drive raises risk of eviction for African farmers
Virginia farmer Joel Salatin has become one of the most well known names in the world of alternative farming…In February 2010, Joel was interviewed by Lauren Berlekamp of the Erie Wire. Joel spoke to Lauren about his unique and seemingly common-sense approach to farming…Also featured on the episode, a great talk delivered by Toronto’s Judy Rebick. Rebick is the Canadian Auto Workers-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University…In November 2008, Rebick spoke at the annual convention of Canada’s National Farmers Union and encouraged farmers there to take advantage of what she referred to as the ‘perfect storm’, whereby the dominant top-down social and economic models are collapsing – clearing the way, as she believes, for a bottom-up and community-centred approach to begin better serving our needs.
The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC, for its Spanish acronym) ended on Thursday in Cochabamba and every airport I’ve stopped in (more than a few now) has been filled with people heading home with new energy, new direction, and excitement to get back to work. But before the movement moves on I want to share some last reflections that we’ll be taking forward.
In my previous post, I observed that I didn’t really have a dog in the hunt of unschooling vs. other homeschooling techniques. I’m starting to feel like I do, however, mostly because I find the language of unschooling advocates to be so troubling.
