Building Community

Dilemma and denial

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A couple of weeks ago Jerry Mander and I were discussing the best word to use in the heading for the back cover copy of a new short book being co-published by International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, Searching for a Miracle: “Net Energy” and the Fate of Industrial Societies (I wrote the main text, Jerry wrote the Foreword). Jerry liked the word “conundrum,” while I argued for “dilemma.” We were in basic agreement, though, about a word we didn’t want: “problem.”

Sustainable, local, and urban ag just keeps on growing – Oct 8

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-The First Review of ‘Local Food’
-Eat Locally Grown Food All Year
-Rethinking the Front Yard: Cities Make Room For Urban Farms
-Growing a Revolution
-Smaller cities seen leading the way in urban agriculture
-Planting The Seeds For Sustainability

Keep Left!

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Histories of left-wing politics tend to focus on major parties and movements as well as individual leaders and influential theorists. A small number of professional politicians and intellectuals thereby usually dominate the picture. The new book by labour movement historian John Charlton has the considerable virtue of looking at the movement’s rank and file at ground level, in this case, the North-East of England and particularly Tyneside. The Left’s real soul is to be found amongst those many thousands, if not millions, of unsung individuals, inspired by some sort of socialist vision, who, in their workplace or local neighbourhood, have fought against exploitation and oppression.

Urban Right-to-Farm Laws

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One of the things I’ve been saying for a long time is that we’re going to need to address zoning questions early in the process of adaptation. In an increasing number of rural areas, “Right-to-Farm” laws are in effect – that is, there are laws that protect farmers who are engaged in the normal practice of agriculture, when suburbanization or urbanization enters the picture. The assumption is that if it is part of the normal practice of agriculture, the neighbors can’t complain.

Whither The Oil Drum?

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A few short years ago, in 2005 when I started contributing here, it seemed that people could generally be partitioned into 3 main groups regarding their views about Peak Oil. By far the smallest group were those calling for a near term (<2012) peak in global oil production. A larger, and definitively more vocal and deeper pocketed group (including IHS, CERA, most Wall St. firms and energy agencies) were in the “peak oil is not real” or “peak oil is post 2020 at a minimum” camps. But by far the largest % of the population were oblivious to these debates on oils peak, unaware of the possibility and/or importance of a potential peak and decline in our socioeconomic hemoglobin.

Whither Peak Oil?

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There’s a fascinating essay by Nate Hagens over at The Oil Drum about the future of peak oil analysis and the future of The Oil Drum. In it, Hagens argues that an oil peak will almost certainly turn out to be past us, given the lack of incentive for further investment (this is, of course, the same analysis as the IEA’s recent case), and that perhaps our preoccupation with it as a defining factor is a mistake…

Linking the past with the present: resources, land use, and the collapse of civilizations

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The human role in extinction of species and degradation of ecosystems is well documented. Since European settlement in North America, and especially after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have witnessed a substantial decline in biological diversity of native taxa and profound changes in assemblages of the remaining species…We have, to the maximum possible extent allowed by our intellect and never-ending desire, consumed the planet.