Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Recently, going through some old papers, I found the design for that long-lost garden. It never got built because in 1980, Ronald Reagan became President and appointed Earl Butz Secretary of Agriculture and that was the end of that. No money for organic research, and especially no “teaching garden” for the National Mall. Heaven forbid people learn that there’s an alternative to big chemical ag.
Reaching back beyond the 1970s: Relocalization
Urban surprise: More bicyclists means fewer accidents
Creating our own neighborhood – Bellingham Cohousing
Love, Schmove – Just tell me how to build community with the guy who mows his lawn in his speedo!
Oil prices, technology, and the cost of ignorance
Meet the greenshifters
It never hurts to be prepared for Armageddon: Be to go-to gal
Is it better to lease, hire or borrow than to buy?
With homeowner in doghouse, bobcats move in
Solar panels are hot for the stealing
Greek “Robin Hoods” steal at the store, give to the poor?
Blackouts force power-free surgery
The Take-Us (self-published book)
[In] much of the alternative/protest movement… we take up a position outside of mainstream culture, use language, dress codes, behaviour and forms of protest which at best bewilder and at worst enrage mainstream society, yet we expect them to see the error of their ways and the validity of ours and embark on a radical decarbonisation. What failed to come through in [these approaches] was any sense of humility, any sense that the answers might be found anywhere other than in their fondly held beliefs.
Celebrate a green future
Carbon: Life & death styles of the rich
Surviving Peak Oil: Obstacles to Relocation
Adaptation: The Ultimate Challenge
Technological fundamentalism in media And culture
The long downsizing of civilization — buy a boat
Hot Japan’s cool green trends
Plan C 5.0: Community Solutions to Climate Change and Peak Oil
Introducing Transition Chat!Planting seeds: Website seeks to liberate diets – and wallets – from supermarket
NY City: On the street – clear sailing(slideshow with audio)
Traffic stoppers: cities closing streets to cars
No traffic on a Saturday? Well, no cars, anyway
This US election year an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete. But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year? Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond voting in Nowtopia, a new book about modern day rebels who, in his words, “aren’t waiting for an institutional change from on-high but are getting on with building the new world in the shell of the old.”
It seems to me that the world is growing steadily ruder. As we grow more and more stressed and less connected to those around us, we increasingly, it seems, have less time for civility. (Review of Talk to the Hand: the utterly bloody rudeness of everyday life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door).)
The Internet writings of John Michael Greer—beyond any doubt the greatest peak oil historian in the English language—have finally made their way into print. Greer’s searingly perceptive blog entries on peak oil, which for the past several years have enjoyed a robust online following, have now been incorporated into a single bound volume from New Society Publishers titled The Long Descent.
