Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Revelations means to reveal, and apocalypse means to uncover. I recently put together a collection of folktales, subtitled, “Paradise Apocalypse,” meaning “Paradise Uncovered,” because I believe we have the power to remember the garden that grows beneath our feet.
A green economy is an economy that imitates green plants as far as possible. Plants use scarce terrestrial materials to capture abundant solar energy, and are careful to recycle the materials for reuse. Although humans are not able to photosynthesize, we can imitate the strategy of maximizing use of the sun while economizing on terrestrial minerals, fossil fuels, and ecological services. Ever since the industrial revolution our strategy has been the opposite.
An outline with notes for The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins, the foundational text of the Transition Movement.
How should we think about the conundrum of mounting threats to the health of the public with declining resources to meet these threats?
The first step in crafting a new narrative for journalists is to reject technological fundamentalism and deal with a harsh reality: In the future we will have to make due with far less energy, which means less high-technology and a need for more creative ways of coping. Journalists have to tell stories about what that kind of creativity looks like. They have to reject the gee-whizzery of much of the contemporary science and technology reporting and emphasize the activities of those with a deeper ecological worldview.
What does a post-industrial relationship with the land look like? There are emerging clues.
DARK OPTIMISM How do we handle Peak Oil AND climate change? Shaun Chamberlin from UK Transition Towns, energy writer Kurt Cobb, plus Richard Heinberg on renewable hope, with Lester Brown.
-Is this the Birth of a Nation?
-‘Even War Is Good for Economic Growth’
-Is It Time for a Green Tea Party?
-The Broken Society
-Opinion: America in 2050 — Where and How We’ll Live
-Mayor Menino Kicks Off the Largest Public Housing Energy Efficiency Project in Nation’s History
-For green homes, should energy trump everything else?
Can we bridge the divide between the activist and the interior / personal side of ourselves? I think we’ll need to if we’re to deal with the intense challenges we now face. The intense challenges are the steps in the transition to a low-carbon future, steps we must collectively take, willingly or no. The problem isn’t a lack of technology so much as a lack of evolutionary preparedness in us. Integrating the activist and the interior / personal side of ourselves is a challenge we’ve scarcely considered. We’re going to.
I will dispense with the health care issue today. This is the last of my 3 posts on the subject—I promise. There are so many other disasters to cover, so I need to get this one out of the way. Let’s start with Ezra Klein’s How big is the bill, really?
Recently, I received a message from a group called Trees Have Rights Too. They want to create a Meme, a replicating cultural entity, from the word “ecocide”…
