Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Today, the reigning policy orientation holds that the path to greater well-being is to grow and expand the economy. Productivity, profits, the stock market, and consumption: all must go continually up. This growth imperative trumps all else. It is widely believed that growth is always worth the price that must be paid for it—even when it undermines families, jobs, communities, the environment, and our sense of place and continuity.
In Follett’s book, you see the hard lives of the Welsh coal miners, the English servants and the Russian peasants. And you see the rulers declaring war, losing millions of lives — usually poor people’s lives. And, of course, as in Victorian novels, the poor people often seem to have more character than the rich.
… It’s not enough to bemoan the decline of democracy or complain about the accumulation of wealth at the top — we need to act. What we learn in Follett’s book is what many of us have learned from experience: There’s nothing so exhilarating or fulfilling as joining with others to fight for what you believe in.
Promoters of electric automobiles and other supposedly green technologies routinely present the energy and carbon savings of their projects as though the only thing that has to be taken into account is the day-by-day costs of operating the technology. The energy cost of manufacture, in particular, tends to be ignored. Factor that in, and what kind of car gives you the lowest carbon footprint? A used one. Setting aside a slice of Fourth of July watermelon, the Archdruid explains.
I work with the assumption that waking up to Peak Oil and preparing for Transition is just a special case of awakening in general, and that this awakening requires really looking at the symbols we’ve created and how we relate to them. Casinos provide an illuminating glimpse into the challenges of waking up within entrenched and often tyrannical systems of signs.
"There’s a new species evolving. Long time ago, Cro Magnon and Homo Sapiens existed side by side. Cro Magnon went extinct. Now we live in a world with a new species called Post Petroleum Man with a completely different consciousness. That’s the only distinction. We don’t have a different number of fingers, the organs are in the same places. But the evolution is a complete change in the state of consciousness. We’re living essentially side by side, and the new species is emerging while Petroleum Man is rapidly going extinct." (video and transcript)
We are 47 people from 22 organizations in 18 countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Central African Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Portugal, USA, France, and Germany). We are farmers and staff representing member organizations of La Via Campesina, along with allies from other farmer organizations and networks, NGOs, academics, researchers, interpreters and others…Our region of Africa is currently facing challenges and threats that together undermine the food security and well-being of our communities, displace small holder farmers and undercut their livelihoods, undermine our collective ability to feed our nations, and cause grave damage to the soil, the environment and the Mother Earth.
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeastern Missouri is one community pushing forward their own micro-scale energy research. Like most small villages, Dancing Rabbit isn’t filled with PhD qualified engineers. They’re ordinary people, some with interests in formal scientific research, some with a focus on organic farming or green building methods, so they decided to launch a renewable energy internship to encourage interested engineers and university-level engineering students into the community for a summer.
I had an amazing fourth of July, a truly outstanding American experience. I feel fortunate to live where I do, in a place where I can retreat from the broader cares of the world and have a happy day. And here’s a dirty little secret: I didn’t burn an ounce of oil while doing it. You could call it a steady state celebration.
The affirmation of the domestic sphere, of the informal economy and of women’s work is itself a radical act in a culture that assumes that one should purchase all goods and services once provided by the informal economy. Any of you who have read _Depletion and Abundance_ will know that I consider the dismantling of the informal economy (which is the larger portion of the world economy, represent 3/4 of total economic activity) in the developed world and the undermining of the Global South’s informal economy to be a disaster in the making, as we run out of the fuel (and the ability to safely burn it, if such a thing can ever be said to have existed) that permitted this.
Within the flourishing enterprise model of strategic change there are three key areas of value-creation; market changes, innovation and capabilities for flourishing. All three are critical and no company can flourish without real effort in each domain, and none can be done by a company on their own. A great deal of innovation is required within companies, much of which needs to be open and collaborative. Aristotle said that no individual could flourish without being an active participant in the flourishing of society and community, no company can succeed without being an active participant in societal and market changes.
I’m frequently being asked for tips on how to get a new local group started. As I sat down this week to write it out yet again, it seemed like the kind of info that might be of interest to other groups (both Transition and not-yet-Transition groups). So, I decided to post it here. If you’re contemplating beginning a Transition group in your local neighborhood …
Lake Village in Pavilion Township (near Kalamazoo, Michigan) began as an experiment in “getting back to the Earth.” Now in its 40th year, it sees no end in sight.
