Culture & Behavior

Thinking like a creator – Transition and a pattern language

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Christopher Alexander’s masterwork of environmental design, written with several other architects and academics over eight years, lays out a practical and imaginal map for human dwellings and settlements. It’s a peculiarly European response to North America (Alexander is Austrian, educated in England, worked in Berkeley, California). A sudden release from an old cluttered history into a new unexplored world. The feeling you can start all over again with the best of everything you left behind.

Hand powered drilling tools and machines

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Hand-powered devices have been used for millennia, but during the last quarter of the 19th century a radically improved generation of tools appeared, taking advantage of modern mass production machinery and processes (like interchangeable parts) and an increased availability in superior material (metal instead of wood). One of the outcomes included an array of new drilling machines, but their heydays were over fast. These human-powered tools were not only a vast improvement over those that came before them, they also had many advantages in comparison to the power drills that we use today.

Oil supply emergencies: An annotated bibliography

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The literature on Liquid Fuel Emergencies is considerable, dating back to rationing during World War Two. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the USA did some exceptional work for two decades (1975- 1994). Unfortunately, there have been relatively few studies during the past 15 years, with the notable exceptions of the comprehensive analysis by Alan Smart for the Government of Australia and Kathy’s research in the USA.

Two lessons in practical ecology

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Maybe it’s the approach of winter, or maybe it’s the spectacular fiscal irresponsibility at play in Washington DC, but the concept of storing food seems particularly relevant just now. Beyond the undeniable practical value of a full pantry, though, storing food offers two useful lessons in practical ecology — one about ecological limits, and the other about a strategy individuals, families and communities can use to prepare for our species’ impending collision with ecological limits.

Food: Tackling the oldest environmental problem: Agriculture and its impact on soil

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I want to talk about the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture and how it is both necessary and possible to solve it. Were it necessary but not possible this idea would be grandiose, and were it possible but not necessary it would be grandiose. But it has passed the test of grandiosity.

Preparedness for fuel supply disruptions

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This article is in response to last month’s article by Kathy Leotta and her colleagues, Observations on local governments’ preparedness for fuel supply disruptions. First, I congratulate Kathy on her earlier research and thank her for reviving this neglected topic in her most recent paper. The purpose of my submission is to support and supplement various observations made by the Leotta team.

Applying time to energy analysis

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Is a BTU today worth more or less than a BTU ten years from now? It’s seemingly an easy question. A BTU will heat one pound of water one degree whether its 2010, 2020, or 2100. And, in a world of entropy where the easiest and best quality energy sources (generally) get used up first, one unit of energy should increase in value over time, as its ability to accomplish work becomes more valuable to society as time progresses. However this is solely a physical perspective, one that ignores biology of time preference. Once humans with finite lifespans and cultures with sunk costs enter the picture, a BTU today, behaviorally, becomes worth more than one in the future.

Ecosystem services: Pricing to peddle?

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The good news from the Green New Deal is that ecological microeconomics (such as valuing ecosystem services) has risen from the recesses of academia into the realm of international diplomacy. The bad news is that ecological macroeconomics (such as limits to growth) apparently has not. Let’s take a look at the implications.

Transition and solutions – Dec 10

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– Glenn Beck embraces simplicity (for real!)
– 21 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Permaculture and Guerrilla Gardening Activists in Your Life
– NYT: The Beekeeper Next Door
– The UK Crash Course… now online and available free to all UK Transition initiatives…
– Why not eat insects? (video) – new!

Dangerously addicted

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‘Tis the season of giving and Oprah is in a giving mood. For most of the last decade, the TV personality and cultural trendsetter has annually bestowed upon unsuspecting studio audiences a smorgasbord of gifts large and small. The reaction of audiences is almost impossible to believe, let alone describe. I have to admit to watching clips of this year’s “Oprah’s Favorite Things” over and over again, with a mix of fascination and revulsion.