Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For a wide range of not-always-consistent reasons, people in Sandpoint decided that Transition could help them build the world they wanted. And now, only because enough people stepped forward and made that decision, Transition actually looked like a good tool for the job. They were picking it up by whatever handle they grasped. They were swinging it as earnestly as they could. (excerpts from an excellent article on the Transition Movement)
1) Don’t invest in something that could become a stranded asset 2) Focus on strategies that reduce emissions and oil constraints 3) Have the highest energy productivity 4) Keep radical options open
TOD: Energy-conscious cuisine
Toronto exhibit highlights city dwellers growing own food
Beauty and the vegetable (insane EU regulations)
Organic White House garden puts some conventional panties in a twist
A shopping mall becomes a city
Australia: Urban sprawl is killing us, but there’s another way
20-minute neighborhoods
Ecocities Emerging newsletter
Future proofing our homes and buildings
Efficient drivers cut emissions, but stir up hot air
Status symbol of The Great Downtown: Dutch bikes
Couple making downtown freight deliveries by bike
$1.7 billion Brisbane airport expansion deferred as tourist numbers fall
Charles Hall in American Scientist: Revisiting the Limits to Growth after peak oil
Matt Simmons video
The “peak oil disruptor” – 4 rules to address the “global energy transition”
North Sea protection: U.K. oil industry seeks aid
There is more to the sustainability problem than just renewable energy, transportation and food – and that is our infrastructure. Large agglomerations of people living under reasonable conditions in the 21st simply cannot continue in a healthy, sustainable state without clean water, sewage, electricity, communications, a source of warmth and a transportation network to move life-sustaining supplies about.
Developer shrugs off recession, plots all-solar Fla. city
Is America’s love affair with the “exburbs” over?
Sustainability a growing movement at colleges, universities across Canada
In the early stages of distress, appeals to the “common good” or “cooperative engagement” may be met warmly and enthusiastically by townspeople. However, there are predictable changes as hardship, deprivation and even violence escalates, which impacts on this spirit of altruism.
The End of the Roads
Go Out and Play With the City: Matt Jones’s Demon-Haunted World
Vacancies at U.S. Retail Centers Hit 10-Year High, Reis Says
Tollway Investment Woes in Brisbane, Australia
Straw + Simplicity = Quake Resistance
Dutch Have Safest Cycling Streets
Distance from grocery store determines weight: Study
James Howard Kunstler: Investing In Infrastructure For An Age Of Scarcity
Mostly conceived by international architects, China’s eco-cities were intended to be models of green urban design. But the planning was done with little awareness of how local people lived, and the much-touted projects have largely been scrapped.
