Deep thought – Dec 18
Surviving a reduction in social complexity
Change, but at what price?
David Holmgren on Permaculture, Business, Resilience and Transition
Building Community
Solutions & sustainability – Dec 18
Slow life, better life
Your Money or Your Life: A Conversation with Vicki Robin
Astyk: What Is Your House Worth?
Why dissensus matters
What we think we can know about the future determines how we prepare for it. The speculative bubbles that have left rubble across the economic landscape offer a useful lesson about the difference between knowing what won’t happen, knowing what will happen, and knowing the kind of things that will happen.
Ten practical tips for parenting in tough economic times.
The economic crisis is affecting the pocket book of many a family and as such, I’m starting to get questions as to how people can best cope. Here then are a few tips on parenting in difficult times.
Peak oil – Dec 15
NPR on ‘peak oil theory’
Simmons and Hirch at Energy Roundable
Matt Simmons talk: The three energy amigos
Towns and cities should prepare for the peak oil energy crisis
Local governments face: (1) declining revenues due to declining property values and declining family incomes; (2) increasing costs for gasoline, diesel, and heating oil; (3) inflation in the costs of equipment, materials, products, services, and electric power …
Making a Future for the Disabled: Facing Hard Times With Special Needs Kids
Yesterday morning, Eli put on snowpants and boots before he went outside. This was a big accomplishment for him – for years we’ve been struggling to balance his need to be outside in all sorts of weather with the fact that he really doesn’t like socks, shoes or shirts that much. In June, this is no problem, but as the world gets colder, each year we have to struggle with the “Eli, you have to be dressed before you go out, and yes, you actually have to keep the clothes on.”
On looking ahead – Dec 15
Sharon Astyk’s 2009 Predictions
Kunstler: Change You Won’t Believe
Tom Friedman discusses foreign policy, green, and other ‘stachey matters
Solutions & sustainability – Dec 15
Ecotopia: The Novel That Predicted Portland
A Yankee Model for Sustainability
Green gifts are made locally to last
Bright Neighbor uses online barter system to build community
Peak oil warfare: community security strategy
When talking of security, we must first understand that security does not necessarily equate to military solutions. Community (or National) security includes many different aspects, the most significant of which are economics, diplomacy, information, and military power.
Apeakalypse Now
The culture shock I felt upon my return from Thailand was so severe I was in a stupor for a month not knowing how to direct my life. I did not feel safe sitting in a house with a mortgage. I did not feel safe in America itself. I saw a nation of people carrying massive amounts of credit card debt and few practical skills. They had less of a safety net than a Thai farmer. … Just as the tide going out reveals an awesome array of flora and fauna living in hidden tide pools, so too did the economic crisis reveal an amazing array of creatures I had no idea existed.
Suburbs, cities and sustainability
If we’re going to understand the problems that the modern megapolis will face in the coming decades, we need to look past the usual distinctions, to the design flaws that now lie behind not just suburbia but cities and even “rural” communities (a depressing number of which have been Walmartized).
